[chuckinca]

Year to year home prices in our area, Lake County CA, down 18% from same time last year! State of California was up about 2%; Florida down 10%, Orlando down 30%, US down 4%


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[cybermuda]

I agree that there will almost certainly be a double dip, but I am a little more pessimistic about the size of the drop - 20-30% from current levels - and the rate of recovery - bumping along the bottom for up to five years

On a brighter note, prices will eventually attain and exceed their previous highs, and we'll be looking back at the next few years as a fine buying opportunity

Not sure where we'll be looking from, though :-)

[2 Oldcrabs]

We first visited TV in 2005. The houses were selling so fast you were put on a waiting list. Everyone told us to buy now, because it was only going higher! Since I was not retired yet, I said no thank you. The houses we were looking at, are now 20-50k less today. Because of an elderly parent who refuses to move, we can not move to TV. TV may not be perfect, but is the best we have found! We will get there some day, but we will sell our home in De first and buy what we can afford in TV, without a mortage. IMHO, buy when you are ready to move. No one knows where the real estate market is going.

[Boomer]

I want to get in this discussion so bad. I love real estate talk. But for now, I can't stay around long.

One comment though -- I do not think we are at the bottom. The next wave of foreclosures, or needing to sell fast, is going to happen to people who had made good decisions and have fixed rate mortgages, but now they have lost their jobs. Tragic things are happening out there and some of them to people in their 50's who thought they were doing things right.

("BOOMER! GET UP OFF YOUR BEHIND! THERE'S COMPANY 'ROUND THE BEND!")

So anyway, this real estate thing is still a vile mess that continues to grow arms and legs. If you browse through the Investment Forum here, you will see other threads with this discussion, some a couple of years old, and yet, here we are...second verse same as the first......

("BOOMER! SHUT UP! AND STEP AWAY FROM THAT COMPUTER! NOW!")

So anyway, TTYL.

Boomer (Oh, btw, that was not Mr. Boomer yelling at me. He does not yell at me. That was me yelling at me.)

[NJblue]

Originally Posted by batman911

Something to consider. With the large drops in home prices all over Florida (except TV of course) the taxable base is ever shrinking for the local governments. That will mean increases in the RPT rates to maintain the income for the tax users. If that happens, the tax you pay on your Villages property is sure to go up based on a higher tax rate. I believe local prices outside the bubble have also dropped significantly. What do you think?

Not necessarily. Unlike other communities, TV is unique in the sense that its residents put virtually no burden on the largest component of taxes - the school system. Hence for every new home purchased in TV the tax base grows, but the cost burden is only modestly increased. The effect of this can be seen in this year's taxes. Even though property values have decreased in Sumter County as a whole, the continued growth of TV and its size relative to that of the entire county has resulted in the tax rate for the whole county to actually go down. This trend should continue as TV continues to grow.

[batman911]

NJBlue,

Agree with you on most points. The effect on RPT rates would depend on the percentage TV is of the county tax base of the three counties involved. Sumter County would be the least affected.

[inda50]

There is not as much new news about the housing market in the papers as before. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing. The focus of those selling newspaper has shifted - they pretty much played the housing crisis to death! Now they are on to the next news story to sell papers. But to stay on topic,

I think the housing market has stabilized for the moment. Having read through and contributed to this post, I see there are a lot of differing opinions, valid on both sides (up vs down), but on the whole, the posts seem to point to most posters favoring housing will continue to trend lower. The few real estate people I have talked to say the inventory of unsold homes is decreasing indicating the trend will start to point up. I have also been told there are fewer foreclosures on the market and the general sense of "urgency" has passed, especially for foreclosures in The Villages. Perhaps we are just bouncing along the bottom or are we in for more bad news? The final test, are prices of sold homes higher or lower than last year at this time or are we seeing a turn around?? That is the tough one. The 64,000 dollar question. Does anyone have recent stats??

So what do you think Boomer or l2ridehd??

[2 Oldcrabs]

Truli.com shows 38 foreclosures in TV. ( 1 in Bridgeport @ LS ). We have friends that have had their house on the market for 6 months. They have many lookers but no offers. They just lowered the price again. The house is very nice, but a couple of realtors have told them the houses north of CR466 are not selling very well.

[inda50]

I was only able to find three recent in The Villages.Truli probably has old data. There were several that were sold. It remains to be seen what happens this spring. The developer is still selling new homes at an impressive clip.

[l2ridehd]

The real estate market is very much a function of pockets. And the pockets of good and bad seem to be small. I still reside in Northern VA and see some areas where homes sell in days and others take many months. TV is certainly a pocket with it's local impacts. Lots of homes being sold as baby boomers reach the magic retirement age. A lot has to do with how easy it is for them to sell the home where they live if that is part of the plan. And even more with their willingness to accept the current home value vs a false expectation based on 2005 values.

One thing that seems to be having a major impact on selling is reality pricing. A year or so ago, people were still pricing their home at the higher end and not accepting the fact there had been a significant correction to the housing bubble. Then they would chase the market down until they were able to sell. One to two years on the market has now become 6 to 12 months. Or they could never sell because they were upside down on the value. More and more homes are being listed and sold with a price that reflects the market today. People realize they cannot get the price they could have got just a few years past. More and more sellers are placing their home on the market at a market reality price. This is a very good indication that the market has reached the bottom. Yes there are still a lot more foreclosures to impact the available inventory so the backlog will take longer to dissipate. However it is less likely to have a negative impact on pricing then the first wave did because of the more realistic pricing of the non foreclosure homes.

TV market is a pocket of it's own making and home pricing is more a reflection of the margin the developer is willing to accept then any other factor. My bet is they will take as much margin as possible and therefor the market has already reached any bottom that will happen. They control that with build volume more then anything. And with the rest of the country being more acceptable of the reality of a depressed market, TV volume will increase, not drop. Remember one really key ingredient to TV market. The first of the baby boomers are reaching 65 this year at a rate of 10,000 plus every month. This is a somewhat new factor that will drive TV prices up, not down. Many of those people who had a plan to retire at 60 or 62 made a decision to wait until 65 to retire with the hope of an improvement in the market and an ability to further re-build there retirement nest egg. That "wait to retire" window is now reaching a point of reality just as the willingness to accept the lower home pricing reality coincide. This will have a positive impact on TV market. Less on the rest of the country, but will impact TV.

[paulandjean]

old news

[Ohiogirl]

those of you who live elsewhere (in the Northeast especially) with higher housing costs and living costs, and who are waiting until the market springs back to sell might be making a mistake, at least IMHO (for what that's worth). We retired 2 years earlier than planned (at 60 instead of 62), knowing we would have a little less income than if we had waited.

BUT - we feel it is worth the tradeoff - 2 more years of living in TV while we are relatively young and hopefully in good health - that is just about priceless.

We also did our financial homework, or at least we hope we did. We didn't even move from a high cost area compared to many of you, but we are still finding it much cheaper to live in Florida than in Ohio.

Guess I don't quite understand the comments about needing to find "comparable" housing when you are retired and no longer raising a family. There is nothing wrong with downsizing, and much right about it if you have thought about your needs and done the math. It's not like you need to be in the best school district or something. As many posters have said, there is no bad neighborhood in TV - buy what you can afford and get on with it.

[2 Oldcrabs]

http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/22/real...ices/index.htm

ANOTHER possible 25% drop in home prices? I'll never get my house sold in the "frozen tundra" ! Can not move to TV until we we sell up north.

[Mark1130]

Originally Posted by NJblue

Not necessarily. Unlike other communities, TV is unique in the sense that its residents put virtually no burden on the largest component of taxes - the school system. Hence for every new home purchased in TV the tax base grows, but the cost burden is only modestly increased. The effect of this can be seen in this year's taxes. Even though property values have decreased in Sumter County as a whole, the continued growth of TV and its size relative to that of the entire county has resulted in the tax rate for the whole county to actually go down. This trend should continue as TV continues to grow.

Correct me if I am wrong but does not the homestead act protect us tax payers from any major increase yearly? I think the max is 3% a year that our property taxes can increase.

[JimJoe]

Originally Posted by Mark1130

Correct me if I am wrong but does not the homestead act protect us tax payers from any major increase yearly? I think the max is 3% a year that our property taxes can increase.

1. How is it fair to put a cap on current residents and expect new residents to pay more? Let me guess..it works just like social security.. what happens when there are no more new buys to pay for increased costs?
2. That homestead act will not be worth the paper it is written on if housing values continue to drop. They have to get the money to pay their costs one way or another.
jj