July 31, 2007

Forbes picks "Top 10 Riskiest Housing Markets". They almost got it right.

Here's their Top 10:

1) Miami
2) Orlando
3) Sacramento
4) San Fran
5) San Diego
6) Phoenix
7) KC
8) Cincy
9) Chicago
10) Denver

Here's HP's:

1) Miami
2) Phoenix
3) Las Vegas
4) Tampa
5) San Diego
6) Tucson
7) Boston
8) DC
9) Detroit
10) Naples

What are yours?

Riskiest U.S. Housing Markets

Those looking to spin the real estate roulette wheel might want to steer clear of Miami. It ranks first on our list of the nation's riskiest real estate markets.

There, a high share of adjustable-rate mortgages, high vacancy rates and slumping prices still too elevated for the local populous means should long-term bond yields climb, interest rates jump or the housing crisis linger much longer, things could go from bad to worse.

Our ranking of the country's riskiest markets measures which of the 40 largest metros are most vulnerable to future shocks. We've done this by assessing which have the most strained lending conditions, and which markets are the most overvalued and likely to face downward price pressures.

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

Los Angeles has to be on that list. When the median price is 5 or 600,000 in a place your scared to walk down the street the values will tumble. masive liar loans to to juan and mohamed not to mention the white guy suburb who sucked out all the equity to buy the SUV and vacations.

Anonymous said...

KC in the top 10? WTF

to the first poster...LA is holding up amazingly well.

Anonymous said...

Compton
Miami
Phoenix
Palm Beach
Sactown
Salt Lake City
LV
Oakland
Boston
Portland

az_mtb said...

Tucson definitely belongs on the watch list. Median household incomes here are obscenely low and, contrary to what many bullish residents here believe, a bunch of retired baby boomer snowbirds can't support an entire local economy!

Anonymous said...

"Risky" implies there is a chance (albiet a small one) of things working out. Housing in Miami,Phoenix,Las Vegas is as risky as jumping out of an airplane without a parachute...certain doom

Anonymous said...

EEEEE GADDS this is bizarre!!

Yahoo runs a story today, declaring that consumer sentiment for the Economy is at a "6-year high"....All the while, the headlines of the day include massive losses at AHM, Foreclosures rocketing, Write-downs, missed margin calls and more losses!!
Mannn--Talk about putting your head in the proverbial sand. I guess no one wants to see this meteor hurtling towards earth, but our ECONOMY is in for some serious deep sh#$ people, and even the media seem all but oblivious!!
WTF?!!!!!

Anonymous said...

The media isn't allowed to say anthing that the corporate run government doesn't want them to say...I mean, isn't it obvious?

Anonymous said...

Or, if the story does slip out, Brian Williams just sits there and reports it, with a kind of WTF look his face.
I mean, like yesterday, the diabetes drug Avandia, which has been reported to increase the heart attack rate by 40% in it's users 'will not be withdrawn from the market because the Pfizer thinks the risk is insufficient'. WTF!!!!!!!!! ie. they just want to keep selling it regardless who they kill. Ugh.

Anonymous said...

Miami
Phoenix (all of AZ)
Sacramento
Inland Empire
Las Vegas
LA/OC
San Diego
DC
Seattle
Portland

Anonymous said...

Bakersfield for sure. this place is in Ca but wages are low and it stinks like a dairy farm. prices tripled over the last 5 yrs. my guess 50+% drop in the next 3 yrs..

Unknown said...

ATLANTA - This will be the biggest suprise....and a later developing one. The high end homes have been tremendously overbuilt all over metro atlanta - with tons still in progress. There are also numerous high end high rise condo's currently in progress as well. This town is filled with young and financially dumb professionals who max their credit and have no understanding of risk. In 2004, 5, 6 - Atlanta was at the top of the list for ARM's and Neg Am's, approaching over 50% of all loans underwritten.

Many believe Atlanta will not fall b/c the property values didn't appreciate like Cali and Zona, and b/c of strong employment. Couldn't be more wrong.....watch as this one unfolds over the next year and a half or so.

Only thing that can save this town is massive foreign dollars flooding the market and buying property. They may spend tourist dollars....but they won't be buying properties. Bank it.

Anonymous said...

Was just wondering..if you move to Canada or Europe, do you give up your social security?

Unknown said...

Toss San Jose (and surrounding area) into that mix.

Median salary in San Jose: $70,243 (individual); median for family: $74,813.

Median house price: $650,000.

Incidentally, based on the calculations I have done (since I live here) it costs almost twice as much on a per monthly basis to buy here than it does to rent.
One of my friends bought his house almost 5 years ago, even before the really ridiculous price increases started. His mortgage is around $2500 a month plus $400 a month in property taxes. To rent an equivalent house in his neighborhood that is of roughly equal size costs $1800 a month.

And they claim no bubble here. Riiiiight.

Anonymous said...

You forgot LA county.

Anonymous said...

Anywhere in the English speaking world.... US - UK - AU - NZ

stuckinthecity said...

Yaaaa, Chicago made it! I think Chicago is worse off beacause 98% of us just have no clue. The media is bought and paid for my el Presidente por viva, King Richard II. No bad news gets out. By the time the average Chicagoan figures out that the rug has been pulled out from under him it will be WAAAAY too late. GL!!

Second City Bubble

Anonymous said...

I hope Miami is not number one. I am looking forward to dropping $900k on an ocean front 70th floor one bedroom granite birdsnest next to four highways.

Anonymous said...

Miami
Phoenix
Ft. Meyers/ Coral Springs
Palm Beach
Orlando
Tampa
Port St. Lucie
All of California
All of Ohio
Everywhere in the entire US

Anonymous said...

Miami
Phoenix
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
Washington DC
San Francisco
Seattle
San Diego
Boston
Portland

I wouldn't put Chicago or NYC on the list. Both are overdeveloped, but I do see heavy foreign interest. Also, these are two of the only places left in America with good paying jobs.

Anonymous said...

len,

I live in the Atlanta area and have been following things closely. Prices are starting to come down. Oh you will never read about it in the AJC, but it's happening. There is one home in Indian Hills I've been watching. Listed at $450K in March, now down to $389K. Might make an offer for $320K and see how it goes.

Check out metrobrokers.com This is the website which has the houses for sale numbers which are on interstate billboards around town. Last I checked it was 110,750...it was what, 80,000 at the start of the year.

But of course IT IS DIFFERENT HERE lol

Anonymous said...

http://www.conference-board.org/economics/consumerConfidence.cfm
Consumer confidence is based on only 5000 households.
Yes, this is definately an in depth, and certainly a most substantial study to supoort the corporate line and gov. BS.
I'm so relieved.

Anonymous said...

Sales in my store are the worst they've been since 911.

Anonymous said...

1. Miami
2. Port St Lucie, FL
3. Fort Myers, FL
4. Naples, FL
5. Orange County, CA
6. Arizona
7. Compton
8. London
9. Madrid
10. Vancouver, BC

Unknown said...

How LA and OC are not on either list is outrageous, this is going to be ground zero for the proverbial monkey wrenching of the economy.

SoCalCars.com said...

SLC will move up the ranks very fast. Like the city, but the prices are way out of whack and it will be a very ugly situation by Dec 07 at the latest. SLC/Orem/Provo is the land of overpriced sub quality homes.
Big correction on the way.

Anonymous said...

What's the outlook for Maryland and DC suburbs?

Uncle Sam keeps spending money like a drunken congressman. Jobs are still to be had. Homes are on market longer but the center is still holding.

Anonymous said...

I think the average wage numbers are skeewed, what with the irs and the local yahoos not wanting to get ripped off /and/or diddled diddled, me as a corporate bigwigger think no one nut the theiving ceos and board of director theives are worth that much...........not

Anonymous said...

Dakota Fanning said...
What's the outlook for Maryland and DC suburbs?


Md house I was considering just got reduced to 550K from 600K - owner owes 620K and origionally listed for 700K.

Prices are down from the peak for comparable properties but still very high compared to 5 years ago.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Miami is screwed beyond belief. The biggest building boom anywhere in the US ever in the middle of the biggest real estate bust since the great depression.
Looking out of my office window I counted 45 construction cranes in downtown Miami alone.
Funny thing is that those 2/2 1200 sqft condos have asking/fanatsy prices of $600+K. I guess if you mix greed and borrowed money you get interesting results. Enjoy the show.

Anonymous said...

That building look like a giant vibrator. It sure put a big smile on her face thinking about it...

Anonymous said...

"...LA is holding up amazingly well..."

-----------------

Oh really? Got Case-Shiller? Got price per square foot?

I'd reckon the higher end homes are selling, while the lower end of the market is dead, distorting the median upward.

Anonymous said...

Ron said...
How LA and OC are not on either list is outrageous, this is going to be ground zero for the proverbial monkey wrenching of the economy.

July 31, 2007 9:07 PM

----------------------

Agreed, actually most all parts of Mexifornia should be on the "extremely high risk" list. Insanely outrageous prices, relative to both rents and incomes. Extremely heavy use of creative financing. Millions of illegals and getting worse by the day.

In a couple of decades, it'll be the same as TJ or the slums of Rio or Mexico City.

Anonymous said...

Tucson isn't just risky for FB's. It's risky for tenants. I'm seeing CA based landlords walking away from their upside down stucco boxes. They continue to collect rent, without paying the mortgage. It's called milking the property. The bank forecloses (extinguishing the tenant's lease) and kicks the tenant out. One guy walked away from five houses.

Sometimes the bank goes out to change the locks before they even get title. Locksmith arrived at one place and the tenant was home to chase him away.

All you gloating renters beware: How do you know your landlord is really using your rent payment to service the mortgage?

Anonymous said...

NYC

First the credit dries up, then the high paying M&A jobs follow.

There are 25,000 luxury apartments going up in NYC -- perfect timing for the recession.

pwnd

Anonymous said...

All you gloating renters beware: How do you know your landlord is really using your rent payment to service the mortgage?

----------------

Isn't there a way to check if the property is in default, foreclosure, etc.?

Anonymous said...

Isn't there a way to check if the property is in default, foreclosure, etc.?

----------------------------------

There are various ways to keep tabs. Most jurisdictions will have a local newspaper that publishes daily court filings and recordings of trustees sales. You can subscribe and review the notices every day. Tedious. A non-judicial foreclosure will normally involve posting the property with notice at some time in the process, but it may be only 30 days before sale. Late in the game.

I have also known it to happen that the guy who goes out to post the property posts the wrong address and the resident of the target property never gets notice.

In AZ you can record a request for notice and hope it is honored. This may be true in other deed of trust states also, don't know for sure.

Anonymous said...

Living in KC it's surprising it would be on the list, there is a bit of a condo bubble in the downtown area, but that is a pretty small piece of the overall housing market here. The article lays out why it is on the list:

"For that reason, Kansas City is particularly vulnerable. It has a 39% share of mortgages with LTV ratios above 90%. The median rate for cities on our list was 11%, according to the National Association of Realtors."

The real problem is that their LTV is totally screwed, there is no way the average LTV in the rest of the country is really 11%, in fact what's happened is the values in the rest of the country are still overstated making the LTV in those markets appear less than it really is. Here in KC the values have not unrealistically skyrockted as they have in some other parts of the country.

Anonymous said...

I also live in Kansas City, and my first reaction is to agree with Tom.

The economy is pretty good here and the median asking price of a house is 175k, so I can't imagine this is one of the riskier areas.

It sounds like they were trying to come up with novel ways of determining which markets are shaky, when you probably don't have to look much past the % increase in area prices in the last 5 years.