Housing News
Housing recovery more difficult than throwing money at it – Nevada builder sued
Many communities remain unfinished. Photo above by Todd Petit (not of the community mentioned below).
It all starts in 1996
In 1996, a Reno lawyer paid $15 million for 40,000 acres and planed 160,000 houses to be built. Coyote Springs was to be a master-planned community an hour north of Las Vegas complete with a golf course.
Homebuilder partner Pardee Homes was to open the first model home in 2008 but when the housing crisis hit, the builder pushed back the opening date.
The Vegas lawyer who bought the land and brought Pardee Homes on to build the 160,000 houses is suing, alleging that Pardee stalled the project and is in breach of its agreement to develop out the finished residential lots, have stopped work on the golf clubhouse and sewage treatment plant.
Pardee claims they are still on site developing infrastructure.
How this scales nationally
Although no one lives in Coyote Springs yet, this tale is not completely unique. There are unfinished communities across America– some already have residents living in a ghost town incomplete subdivision while other communities have nothing more than basic infrastructure.
The new home sector has hit historic lows recently and is so bad that some analysts claim they may never recover. Recovery is more difficult than developers suing builders, homeowners suing developers, cities suing developers, homeowners suing builders, even when many of the claims are legitimate- contracts are contracts.
That said, an overall housing recovery is more difficult than simply suing for chunks of cash. We’ve got a real problem here in America and lawsuits are capturing headline attention at an escalating pace, helping some entities to recover, but it will take much more than recouping losses on individual contracts breached to solve this nation’s ills.
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Housing News
Average age of houses on the rise, so is it now better or worse to buy new?
With aging housing in America, are first-time buyers better off buying new or existing homes? The average age of a home is rising, as is the price of new housing, so a shift could be upon us.
The average home age is higher than ever
(REALUOSO.COM) – In a survey from the Department of Housing and Urban Development American Housing Survey (AHS), the median age of homes in the United States was 35 years old. In Texas, homes are a bit younger with the median age between 19 – 29 years. The northeast has the oldest homes, with the median age between 50 – 61 years. In 1985, the median age of a home was only 23 years.
With more houses around 40 years old, the National Association of Realtors asserts that homeowners will have to undertake remodeling and renovation projects before selling unless the home is sold as-is, in which case the buyer will be responsible to update their new residence. Even homeowners who aren’t selling will need to consider remodeling for structural and aesthetic reasons.
Prices of new homes on the rise
Newer homes cost more than they used to. The price differential between new homes and older homes has increased from 10 percent traditionally to around 37 percent in 2014. This is due to rising construction costs, scarcity of lots, and a low inventory of new homes that doesn’t meet the demand.
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Housing News
Are Realtors the real loser in the fight between Zillow Group and Move, Inc.?
The last year has been one of dramatic and rapid change in the real estate tech sector, but Realtors are vulnerable, and we’re worried.
Why Realtors are vulnerable to these rapid changes
(REALUOSO.COM) – Corporate warfare demands headlines in every industry, but in the real estate tech sector, a storm has been brewing for years, which in the last year has come to a head. Zillow Group and Move, Inc. (which is owned by News Corp. and operates ListHub, Realtor.com, TopProducer, and other brands) have been competing for a decade now, and the race has appeared to be an aggressive yet polite boxing match. Last year, the gloves came off, and now, they’ve drawn swords and appear to want blood.
Note: We’ll let you decide which company plays which role in the image above.
So how then, does any of this make Realtors the victims of this sword fight? Let’s get everyone up to speed, and then we’ll discuss.
1. Zillow poaches top talent, Move/NAR sues
It all started last year when the gloves came off – Move’s Chief Strategy Officer (who was also Realtor.com’s President), Errol Samuelson jumped ship and joined Zillow on the same day he phoned in his resignation without notice. He left under questionable circumstances, which has led to a lengthy legal battle (wherein Move and NAR have sued Zillow and Samuelson over allegations of breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and misappropriation of trade secrets), with the most recent motion being for contempt, which a judge granted to Move/NAR after the mysterious “Samuelson Memo” surfaced.
Salt was added to the wound when Move awarded Samuelson’s job to Move veteran, Curt Beardsley, who days after Samuelson left, also defected to Zillow. This too led to a lawsuit, with allegations including breach of contract, violation of corporations code, illegal dumping of stocks, and Move has sought restitution. These charges are extremely serious, but demanded slightly less attention than the ongoing lawsuit against Samuelson.
2. Two major media brands emerge
Last fall, the News Corp. acquisition of Move, Inc. was given the green light by the feds, and this month, Zillow finalized their acquisition of Trulia.
…Click here to continue reading this story…
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Joe Manausa
March 28, 2011 at 12:35 pm
“We’ve got a real problem here in America and lawsuits are capturing headline attention at an escalating pace, helping some entities to recover, but it will take much more than recouping losses on individual contracts breached to solve this nation’s ills.”
Amen Tara. I just completed a case study for my local market which shows an optimistic return to equilibrium by 2018. These lawsuits are a mere stone in the pond.