First a couple new listings, then some trips down memory lane:
– Remember a few years ago when the market for homes below $200K simply didn’t exist? It is only recently that the under $100K market has been addressed, but now there is a market for SFRs under $50K. Some of them are actually pretty interesting, but others are like 15019 Cuprite which listed today for $49,900 (make sure to view the enlarged pictures!). Purchased in June 2003 for $212,292, HELOCed a couple times and then refinanced by WFB for $184,500 in July 2007 with a 40 year fixed. I’m not sure if the "moisture issue" was the reason for the default, but the last mortgage payment was in August 2009.
– 301 E 4th Street may not register with you until you realize that it is Louis Basque Corner. For $699,000, you get the restaurant space and,either 23 per the listing or 32 per the Assessor, hotel units. This building hasn’t changed ownership control for generations, and I’m not sure if Louis is actually the owner or a tenant. Sure hope they aren’t planning to go anywhere – Louis is a Reno institution.
– Remember the IHOP house? Bought by a contractor for $169K as a short sale, the blue roof is now asphalt shingles, the redwood exterior is now stucco and faux stone with some fake craftsmanish detail, the west wing was demolished and rebuilt with higher ceilings (aesthetics or structural problems?). Here’s how it looks today 1 and 2. Too bad about that 200 foot new sewer line replacement which had to hurt. We will see how this one plays out if it hits the market.
– The log cabin on Erminia is listed as "new" for the third time since January. Ferrari Lund had it for the first month, then Greenstreet took over (worst graphics ever – you can’t read the for sale sign from 20 feet away), and now Ferrari has it back. After consistent reductions, it is now listed at the same $485,100 Greenstreet last showed. An interesting perspective from a neighborhood dog walker – every time the asking price got reduced, showings and interest in this house also fell off. Maybe here’s why: If it sells at $400K, the buyer will have to come up with $80K down and have about $150K in cash reserves to complete the required maintenance (including a complete re-chinking) and to install landscaping. There just aren’t that many buyers with that much cash who want a log cabin overlooking a freeway and the headaches required to bring this house to its maximum potential as a $600K home in this market. What does a cord of firewood go for these days? It could be Erminia’s ultimate fate.
– 1475 Palisade and here has been completed (well, mostly) and appears to be occupied by the new owner. Was it worth it all? 1005 Kit Carson in Verdi is another one of these houses abandoned during construction that I’ll post about when the bank finally gets around to listing it.
Hope there is something here that piques your interest and generates some feedback and discussion that doesn’t make me run back to my Samuelson Econ 1001 textbook. I actually get a lot of entertainment value out of reading the comments on the original posts.
GrandWazoo
Thank you Mike for this post and all the others in the past. Your appetite for legal details and your memory for past Hall of Fame members is without exception.
You didn’t just save Mrs. Wazoo and I a few hundred grand – you and the rest of the crew on this blog saved us from a financial disaster, as we moved here in July of 2005, right at the peak of the bubble. All our co-workers kept asking: “Why don’t you buy? Prices are only going up!”. I am not kidding.
Good luck to you all.
Carleton
$50K houses.
2 years ago, you could buy a trashy condo for $50K. Now you can buy a decent condo for $50K (which is only about $10K below the condo median), and you can buy a trashy house for $50K.
2 years from now?
Reno Ignoramus
Thanks Mike for another fine thread. Every time you put up one of these “look how low prices have dropped now” threads I am reminded that in the summer of 2005 I was told by the owner of a very prominent realty firm here in Reno that “the 300K house in Reno is gone forever.” If one wanted to be able to buy a house for under $300K one would have to go to Fernley according to this highly regarded realtor. Now $300K is close to the demarcation line of the high end in Reno. Astounding really.
To Wazoo, I remember some of your first posts on the blog. As I said the other day, Diane Cohn deserves immense credit for having the guts to put this blog up at the height of the bubble and allow comments that told the truth. This blog no doubt saved at least a few folks like you from financial disaster back then.
MikeZ
re: The Cuprite property in Stead
Wow, that house needs some serious work.
There seem to be quite a few homes for sale that need significant rehabilitation, and they do seem to be selling, but oddly, that doesn’t seem to have helped revive local construction employment.
I wonder why.
inclinejj
RI
If I had a dollar for every time a realtor told me. Now is the time to buy, if people don’t buy now they will be priced out for ever. I would not only balance all the state budgets but pay off all the federal debt.
The realtors have a hell of a good lobby on the state and federal level. The realtors pretty much skated into this mess and are skating right out of it.
Re-Max is running ads on TV once again about now is the time to buy..
Here we go again
Reno Ignoramus
inclinejj,
On the first Sunday of 2006, this very same realty firm took out a full page ad in the RGJ that said there was no housing bubble in Reno and there never would be a housng bubble in Reno, that housing prices for 2006 would increase by about 9%-10% according to their “economists”, that future years would liklely bring similar price increases, and that you ought to strongly consider buying now or get priced out forever.
It was a rather astounding statement for first, how utterly misleading it was, and second that if it had been made by a broker selling stocks, that broker would today applying for a job at WalMart after his release from prison.
bob_c
stock brokers are worse than realtors and never
get nailed on their wrong opinions—only difference is that brokers can claim to be short or long—realtors can only sell if things are perceived as long
cramer yelled buy buy buy of lehman brothers a few
days before they went belly up
thats why each person needs to educate themselves
Sarah
Je n’ai pas l’habitude de laisser des commentaires sur les articles mais cet article est trop intéressant. Bonne continuation !
http://www.pixoneo.com/