Hat tip to clearfund for sending this from cnbc -it mentions the TERI house in Bressi Ranch:
They’ve been called McMansions, Starter Castles, Garage Mahals and Faux Chateaus but here’s the latest thing you can call them — History.
In the past few years, there have been an increasing number of references made to the “McMansion glut” and the “McMansion backlash,”as more towns pass ordinances against garishly large homes, which are generally over 3,000 square feet and built very close together.
What sets a McMansion apart from a regular mansion, according to Wikipedia, are a few characteristics: They’re tacky, they lack a definitive style and they have a “displeasingly jumbled appearance.” (Wiki says the word McMansion first appeared in the SD Union-Tribune in 1990)
Well, count 2010 as the year the last nail was hammered into the McCoffin: In its latest report on home-buying trends, real-estate site Trulia declares: “The McMansion Era Is Over.”
Just 9 percent of the people surveyed by Trulia said their ideal home size was over 3,200 square feet. Meanwhile, more than one-third said their ideal size was under 2,000 feet.
“That’s something that would’ve been unbelievable just a few years back,” said Pete Flint, CEO and co-founder of Trulia. “Americans are moving away from McMansions.”
Hat tip to the Blur for sending along this cnbc.com article about a Trulia report:
More than a quarter of Americans currently renting houses and apartments have no intention to ever buy a home, according to a survey published on Wednesday.
The survey, by real estate search site Trulia.com, found 27 percent of renters do not plan to ever buy a home. Although 72 percent still expect to buy eventually, that proportion is down from 77 percent six months ago.
Of those who do hope to become homeowners, two-thirds say they will wait two years or more.
This reluctance to buy could drag out the real estate market’s slump longer than many have predicted, Trulia said.
When you link to the report, you’ll see in the fine print at the bottom:
This July 2010 survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive via its QuickQuery(SM) online omnibus service on behalf of Trulia between July 22-26, 2010 among 2,055 U.S. adults aged 18 years and older. The sample included 1,345 homeowners and 663 renters. Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.
EDIT: They found 179 out of 663 renters to say that they’ll never buy a home in an on-line survey. But cnbc.com leads with the line, “More than a quarter of Americans currently renting houses and apartments have no intention to ever buy a home”.
I guess that is polling, but the media sure tries to sensationalize every datapoint.
This video isn’t real estate-related, but one I’ll never forget. I’m not sure what happened, but I haven’t found anything reported in the news, which is probably good for the people involved:
EDIT: The Fannie/Freddie overhaul got rolling yesterday, and hopefully they’ll get the answer right – leave loan guarantees in the hands of the private mortgage insurance industry. The new FHA model, where they are ranking the risk based on the borrower’s credit score and amount of down payment (the more security, the lower the mortgage insurance premium) is what PMI companies do – just let them insure the loans, and pass along the risk premium to the borrowers, not the taxpayers.
From Bloomberg – they didn’t allow embedding of their video, here is link to Berman’s interview, who says the overhaul is gaining “traction”:
The Obama administration, looking to overhaul the U.S. mortgage-finance system, gathered support from lenders and the real estate industry for reducing, without ending, the government’s role in insuring loans. A limited government backstop “has a lot of traction,” said Michael Berman, chairman-elect of the Mortgage Bankers Association, in a Bloomberg Television interview after a Treasury Department conference in Washington to discuss proposals.
The Obama administration is seeking advice on how to rebuild a system at the center of the 2008 credit crisis. Some Republicans have sought to abolish Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the main sources of U.S. mortgage financing. Yesterday, Bill Gross, who runs the world’s biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., said the U.S. should consider “full nationalization” of the system.
“To suggest that there’s a large place for private financing in the future of housing finance is unrealistic,” Gross said at the meeting. “Government is part of our future. We need a government balance sheet. To suggest that the private market come back in is simply impractical. It won’t work.”
Fannie Mae, based in Washington, and Freddie Mac of McLean, Virginia, have drawn almost $150 billion in Treasury aid since September 2008, when they were seized by the government amid soaring losses on mortgage investments. The U.S. has promised unlimited support for the two companies. Including Ginnie Mae, the government insured almost 97 percent of U.S. mortgages in 2009, according to Inside Mortgage Finance.
“There is a strong case to be made for a carefully designed guarantee in a reformed system,” aimed at providing access to mortgages, even during economic slumps, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said. “The challenge is to make sure that any government guarantee is priced to cover the risk of losses and structured to minimize taxpayer exposure.”
The former Barratt project called Nantucket in Leucadia that was foreclosed by Bank of America, has been resold. Not sure if that means it’s over, or just beginning, but here’s a video review:
Located on a busy section of South Santa Fe Avenue in Vista, Aguilera’s Bookkeeping & Income Tax isn’t the kind of business that draws much attention. It sits next to a hair salon and supply business, and across from an auto shop. The red paint on the three steps leading to the small office is chipped and flaking.
But federal prosecutors say the business was the center of a mortgage fraud scheme that churned out scores of bogus W-2 forms, fake pay stubs and false tax records for a network of almost two dozen real estate agents and loan officers.
The documents helped secure about $55 million in fraudulent loans from banks and mortgage companies between 2002 and 2008 to purchase homes in San Diego County and the San Francisco Bay Area, court records show.
This kind of fraud was rampant during the real estate boom days of a few years ago and peaked in San Diego County in 2006. But new government regulations and greater vigilance by burned lenders are helping to ease mortgage fraud schemes.
“In 2011 and 2012, we expect to see reports of fraud come down because a lot of the policies lenders have put in place are starting to work,” said Frank McKenna, vice president for fraud strategy at CoreLogic, a Santa Ana-based research firm that tracks fraud reported by lenders.
They’ve been called McMansions, Starter Castles, Garage Mahals and Faux Chateaus but here’s the latest thing you can call them — History.
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