New Market Touchstones Part 4

While I spent lots of time fielding questions about architecture and details of the Carey/McDonald house during last weekend's West Adams holiday house tour, a few wanted to discuss the local-local real estate market.

"Transaction volume is up, considerably," I reported, "even as prices ease lower".
"But I thought people couldn't get loans," responded a bewildered few.
"Not only are people getting loans," I gushed, "they're getting the best loans I've ever seen, interest rates are in the low fives!"
Clearly flummoxed by Paulson's persuasions, a couple tour takers blinked, nodded dismissively and moved away. Another looked to his feet before adding, "you know, Paulson is a kind of poker chip." Turns out, one of the big poker chip manufacturers is named Paulson.

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According to an escrow source, in 2008 nearly one residential purchase escrow in five failed. A marked increase over previous campaigns. The reasons? Financing for starters, which is why some bank owned properties accept only pre-approval lenders from designated brokers.

Plenty of properties get tripped up at the inspection stage too. Sellers are often less inclined to make repairs or grant credits, even of a reasonable amount, after accepting a lower than anticipated asking price. Simultaneously, despite supreme discounts, some buyers still feel entitled to a rash of repairs.

So contentious have these negotiations become, I even urged one buyer to conduct investigations outside of escrow. We then made an AS-IS offer, that was accepted despite its deep discounting, by a seller who preferred the AS-IS conceit.