A nation hunkered down...

In today’s Bloomberg News there is a story about homebuyers “hunkering down” in today’s economy instead of buying homes. The story used the definition of hunkering down as hiding in fear. The reporter sited instances where buyers even pulled back offers, based upon the turmoil in the stock market and the resulting uncertainty overall with the economy. People are hunkering rather than buying.


I guess the news is bad. NAR reported that July sales fell to the lowest point this year and Karl Case of the Case-Shiller report even was quoted in the Bloomberg article as stating that another recession may happen if the housing segment continues its swoon.

Indications of the malaise included the fact that applications for mortgages to buy homes dropped to a 13-month low in the week ended Aug. 12, even with rates at historic low levels, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The article reported that Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index sank to the lowest since the official recession. In addition the stock market has been down for 4-5 weeks, so many people have seen their down payment nest eggs disappear. Even with low mortgage rates there has also been a huge increase in cancelled deals due to low appraisals according to the story.

The result of all of this gloomy news is a nation hunkered down, doing nothing until this all blows over. However, this is one of those chicken or egg situations. In the past, the economy has always been led out of recessions by the housing industry. Improvements n home buying led to increases in building which led to better employment and on and on. This time no one is buying, so few builders are building and the whole mess is feeding upon itself.

Even attempts by the government to encourage home buying by keeping rates low and promoting program after program to encourage lenders to loosen up have not worked. The encouraging news that foreclosures were down the last couple of months was driven as much as anything by the lenders’ reaction to the various robo-signing investigations into foreclosure irregularities, not by shifts in the fundamentals of the housing market.

So, what’s a Realtor to do in this hunkered down world? In my area at least, there are still sales happening – they are just low-end sales to investors and first time buyers. So I focus upon them. There are few move-up buyers (those in the move-up sweet spot in this market of $200-400K) out looking, but I do get an occasional one or two. They are usually very finicky and are really looking to steal a move-in ready house at “destroyed foreclosure” prices. It’s just the nature of the market.

Many of the buyers in the move-up price range in this area aren’t the classic move-up buyer with a house to sell or who just sold; they are the people who lost their own homes to foreclosure 3-4 years ago and now have repaired their credit enough to start looking top buy a home again. They have to be vetted carefully with a good mortgage person, so that I don’t waste a lot of time with wishful thinkers instead of real buyers. More than once my mortgage person has had to tell them that they still have work to do on their credit before they should be out looking.

I guess that Realtors need to use the other definition of “hunkered down” that I found on-line in the Urban Dictionary – “to get to work, to focus on the job at hand.” We have to hunker down to the basics and work harder at sales that return less in order to get through this mess. If there is any good news to come out of all of this it’s the exit from the real estate business of the marginal, would-be Realtors and part-timers. That has concentrated what little business there is out there to the Realtors who have hunkered down to ride this thing out. So, hunker down fellow Realtors and let’s work our way through this recession. And for all of you would be home buyers, I'd say, "Get out there and do the patriotic thing - buy a house and help America get out of this recession."