Yes, there are opportunities in the current market, but they are still pretty rare and require a buyer to be very flexible. If I had to put a figure on it, I’d say that roughly 1 out of every 50 listed homes represented a better value than what we’ve seen in the past. A great deal? Something on the order of 1 out of hundreds. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that every house on the market right now represents a good deal, it just isn’t the case.

I still can’t say that this is a good time to buy.  There’s still a lot of air in the asking prices and real home values are probably going to drop at least another ten percent before we hit bottom.

Still, it’s probably a better time to buy than any time in the last five years. If you have to buy, like I do, you have to be smart about it. There are deals to be had if you look for them.

From Bloomberg: Home Sales Fall, Record Drop in Prices

Home resales in the U.S. dropped in October and prices fell by the most on record, signaling a deepening housing recession going into 2009.

Purchases of existing homes slid to an annual rate of 4.98 million, lower than forecast, a National Association of Realtors report showed in Washington. The median price fell 11.3 percent from a year earlier, the most since the group began collecting data in 1968.

More:

“The large number of homes already on the market and the number of those that will appear via foreclosure over the next several months only add to the diminished prospects for existing home sales,” Maxwell Clarke, chief U.S. economist at IDEAglobal in New York, said before the report.

From the NY Times: Home Prices Plunge In October

Sales of previously owned homes fell 3.1 percent for the month, to an annual rate of 4.98 million, according to the National Association of Realtors, a private trade group. Of the homes that did find buyers in October, nearly half were the result of a sale after a foreclosure.

Read that again. Of all the sales of pre-existing home is October, almost half of them were due to a foreclosure.

House-hunters Play Waiting Game

David DeFabiis of Hackensack has been house-hunting for more than a year.

He’s got a good job, a great credit score, a sizable down payment. He’s been prequalified for a mortgage.

But he’s afraid.

“I’m afraid that a house I buy today will not be worth what I paid down the road,” he said. “I am concerned [about whether] I should play the waiting game some more.”

DeFabiis represents a new breed of house-hunter: the fence-sitter. In a National Association of Realtors survey this spring, 20 percent of Realtors said they have potential buyers waiting it out.

“They’re a very big percentage of home buyers now, people waiting for the market to hit bottom,” said Dianna Ivanov of Terrie O’Connor Realtors in Ramsey. “We have a standard Realtor phrase: ‘You don’t know when the market has hit bottom until prices start rising.’ “

I’m on the fence with Dave here. While I’m not saying that I’m waiting for market to hit absolute bottom, I would like to have some idea where the bottom is before I jump.

The idea of buying a house and then having it lose 10% of its value is disturbing, but acceptable. The idea of it losing 30% is frightening. The former mean losing a portion of my investment should things go south early on in the loan. The latter means that, if the house needs to be sold for some emergency reason, I lose my entire investment and then some. Plus, even if that never happenes. It’s unlikely that I’ll ever actually “earn out” on that investment, given inflation and the lost opportunity cost of the downpayment.

Do home prices in a desirable community like Babylon Village really have a 30% drop left in them. I’m sure I don’t know. But the concept is very disturbing.

As much as I’d like a house right now, I think I’m going to hang out on the fence with Dave for a while.

56 The Crescent

• MLS# 1961943 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $618,000 – 8/28/2008
• Prior Sales: None Listed
• 4 bedrooms – 3 bath – Colonial
• Taxes: $14,736 – Village Taxes: $1,712

This is a big, boxy house on a good-sized bit of land south of Montauk, but not on the water. It’s been on the market for a long, long time. We used to run by this house all the time and see the for sale sign.

82 Whalers Cove

• MLS# 2095650 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $299,399 – 8/25/2008
• Prior Sales: None Listed
• 2 bedrooms – 1.5 bath – Condo
• Taxes: $4,747 – Village Taxes: $489

Whaler’s Cove Condo. Not much info about these condos on Zillow and the listing doesn’t even come up on Property Shark. I still haven’t managed to get into an open house for one of these so that I could see inside, but I’ve seen enough pictures to get a good idea of what it looks like.

Seven of these units, including this one, have sold in the last year.

613 Morrison St

• MLS# 2060528 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $265,000 – 8/20/2008
• 06/04/2007 – $411,286
  04/30/2004 – $425,000
  8/27/1996 – $140,000
• 4 bedrooms – 2.5 bath – Splanch
• Taxes: $10,194 – Village Taxes: None?

This house looks abandoned in the listing picture. It’s appearance is noted as as “good”, which likely means rotting drywall and roaches the size of watermelons. It’s out of the village proper, but still in 11702 and the Babylon school district. Zestimate $427,500.

The 2007 sale is marked as “not included in Zestimate”, so that may be a foreclosure. Someone bought the place for a hefty price in 2004 and just let it deteriorate.

113 Portal Ct

• MLS# 2079461 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $495,000 – 8/19/2008
• Prior Sales: None Listed
• 3 bedrooms – 2 bath – Colonial
• Taxes: $9,400 – Village Taxes: none

The house in in 11702, but out of the Village and with North babylon schools. It’s got a big, oddly-shaped lot. For us, anything with North Babylon schools is probably right out.

21 Meade Ave

• MLS# 2002896 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $740,000 – 8/5/2008
• Prior Sales: 06/06/2005 – $349,000
• 5 bedrooms – 3 bath – Colonial
• Taxes: $14,377 – Village Taxes: $1,740

New construction – 2006. The 2005 sold price of $349,000 was probably just for the lot. Not bad for a good-size, if long and skinny, lot south of Montauk in a high-priced area. It’s a big house and it was done with high end stuff, so you have to know that it cost more than $400,000 to build it. Somebody took a big bath on this place.

The missus and I didn’t get to see inside of any of these places. Mostly because none of them were really on our radar for various reason. We were debating about asking to see 71 Mason, given its price and its location in the Presidential Section, but we drove by it a few times to snak a peek and I really didn’t like the look of the place.

Let me know if you like the pictures. I’m inlining them directly from MLSLI, not copying them.

13 Washington St

• MLS# 2080244 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $535,000 – 8/14/2008
• Prior Sales: 02/02/1999 – $185,000
• 3 bedrooms – 1.5 bath – Colonial
• Taxes: $8,570 – Village Taxes: $774

A nice, updated colonial in the Presidential section.

71 Mason Ave

• MLS# 1995941 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $350,000 – 8/14/2008
• Prior Sales: 11/29/2005 – $435,000
• 3 bedrooms – 1 bath – Colonial(?)
• Taxes: $6,636 – Village Taxes: $500

Like they say on Flipper Nation, “The ugliest girl on the block, you make her pretty” and this house certainly qualifies.

We saw this one on MLS last year some time in the spring. I figured out which house it was based on the MLS map and we drove by it a few times. The impression we got from the outside wasn’t a good one. There were never any pictures of the inside of the place. I assumed, based on the 2005 sale and the condition of the house that it was a foreclosure or pre-foreclosure.

The house was bought in 2005 for $435,000 listed at $420,000 and eventually sold for $350,000. That was a lot of money somebody lost in a very short period of time.

54 Paumanake Ave

• MLS# 2034516 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $490,000 – 8/8/2008
• Prior Sales: 11/09/2006 – $460,000
• 3 bedrooms – 1.5 bath – Colonial
• Taxes: $5,733 – Village Taxes: $400

A bit of an anomaly here, selling for $30K more than its 2006 sale price. I’m thinking that there were some extensive upgrades done and that the owners lost some money there, but maybe they just got lucky.

49 Cadman Ave

• MLS# 2078866 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $390,000 – 8/8/2008
• Prior Sales: None Listed
• 3 bedrooms – 2 bath – Split
• Taxes: $10,521 – Village Taxes: $842

The last ask for this was $429,000. Looking at the MLS listing and the odd Zillow page, I’m guessing that this is, or at least was, an illegal two family. A mention of two stoves and two fridges is pretty much a dead givaway.

I’m a little dissapointed that I never got in this one.l I don’t think it was on MLS very long. I don’t even remember seeing it listed.

91 Little East Neck Rd

• MLS# 2075323 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $759,000 – Sold Date: 8/1/2008
• Prior Sales: None Listed
• 4 bedrooms – 3.5 bath – Colonial
• Taxes: $15,228 – Village Taxes: $1,633

I’m including this one just for completeness sake. Obviously this one would never even be on out radar.

The last ask for this was $790,000. This house is south of Montauk Ave, although not waterfront or waterview. It’s nice looking, modest 13 room mansion.

38 Tappan Ave

• MLS# 2066353 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $416,000 – 8/15/2008
• Prior Sales: None Listed
• 4 bedrooms – 2 bath – Exp Ranch/High Ranch
• Taxes: $8,269 – Village Taxes: $634

Babylon Village ammenities but the W. Babylon school district. These houses are usually a good deal, but we’re pretty set on the Babylon School District if we can swing it.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, pre-season tickets have the same face value as regular season tickets. A seat that costs $85 for a chilly December game with serious playoff implications costs te same exact $85 for a meaningless August game with scrub players taking half the snaps. Part of the “tax” paid by Giants season ticket holders is that they must buy tickets to all 10 home games, the 8 regular season games and the 2 meaningless pre-season games.

There are always tons of unwanted pre-season tickets floating around. If you read the threads on the Corner Forum, you can pick up pre-season tix for 20 or 30 dollars or less. That’s the market. There are lots of these things available and very few buyers. As I said, I thought about going, but the prospect of spending Tuesday at work drinking coffee and trying to keep my eyes open because I spent the night at an exhibition game didn’t really appeal to me.

Still, even with the commonly known state of the market, there are still people who post threads looking to get face value or slightly less for their pre-season tickets. They disregard all the available data and price the tickets based on what they paid for them or what they feel their worth. They’re just not paying attention.

Sometimes, when I look at homes on MLS, it’s like the same people who are trying to move their pre-season tickets for face value. They just aren’t paying attention. They haven’t looked at the data. They want to get what they feel their property is worth. But they won’t