Thomas McGiveron

Due to the increased demands of foreclosures throughout Long Island and my increased inventory of foreclosured properties, I have officially launched ISLANDFORECLOSURES.ORG

Properties like this one:

This property is priced at $274,900 in Miller Place, New York.

We are facing a changing market. REO's and short sales are dictating market value more and more each month!

I'm hoping the site serves a need. We're under construction right now, but hopefully, we'll serve a purpose.

Thanks for your feedback in advance!

The ever-increasing number of short sales on Long Island doesn't really surprise me anymore. In fact, nothing really does. With major banks like Citi trading at under $5.00 (as of this day) and as low as .97 in the last 3 months, what's there to be surprised about?

Well, in order to achieve some shock value (because that's what good writing is all about), I'm going to focus on what we know about the local Long Island real estate market and how short sales are shaping up to be a great challenge. Below is a chart of short sales on Long Island. The chart is split into each respective zone, showing how many short sales there are as of April, 2009 (note: this is all from the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island - if a short sale is marked, as it should be with a Y for Yes in the listing, that's what these numbers represent. What these numbers may not represent is real estate agents who don't know their listing is a short sale or they don't correctly upload the listing and check of Y for short sale). Another words, figure these numbers are larger.

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If you do not know which zone your town is located, feel free to call me at 631.587.1700, ext. 51.

What we see in this chart is clear, with over 3700 short sales on Long Island and only 262 sales in the previous 90 days (that's only 87 short sales sold per month), sales are lagging. So I'll use the stats from this chart and divide the short sales available with the short sales sold over a time period of 90 days, and the scary thing is, there is over a 43 month supply of short sales on Long Island.

That means, at the current rate of sales, it would take...

Finish the article here

I am conducting buyer and seller seminars throughout Long Island and I am continually hearing people tell me what they think about the Long Island real estate market. I hear things like, "Oh, the market's going to pick back up soon." I also hear things like, "The market is crashing and all prices are going to go down another 50%..."
It's usually sellers saying the first thing and buyers saying more of the latter. Obviously.
Now my website is directed entirely towards educating sellers and buyers on the Long Island real estate market. I do not dress up the information and I pull no punches when it comes to taking a good hard look at what's going on. At least in my opinion, my information is transparent in as much as the information presented is as accurate as I can make it.
To specifically address what has happened to the Long Island real estate market, I decided to take a look at all the zones of Long Island, which includes in this article: Queens, Nassau and Suffolk. I took a look at the most current data available via the Multiple Listing Service Of Long Island. I measured April 2008 and April 2009 respectively. What I found was shocking, even to me.

Long Island is comprised of zones, which cover multiple hamlets. If you have a question about what zone you are in, please call me at 1.877.765.3123, ext. 51 and I'd be glad to review this with you.
These statistics do not lie. When a seller tries to tell me that the market isn't "as bad" as what I say - I refer to this chart.
I was recently at a friend's party and his father-in-law was trying to tell me that the average home in Suffolk is selling for $415,000. I promptly told him that information was inaccurate and proceeded to tell him that prices have dropped 17.5% in the last twelve months and the average selling price in Suffolk County is currently around $370,000.
Well, I was the party-pooper. Hey, there's a first time for everything!
So if you're buying or selling, please refer to this chart. I will do my best to update it every month, so keep checking back in monthly to see where we're at. To me, this is a great way to stay on top of where the market is.

So where is the market going? Well, the above slide is pretty clear on that. With over 33,000 listings for sale (inventory) and less than 1500 sales, we have a long way to go toward leveling the supply of homes on the market. This point is irrefutable. These numbers do not lie.
Are there signs that things are improving? Absolutely, but the improvements are slow and small (which is a lot better than nonexistent). Now what does this mean for buyers? It means, for the time being, that home prices will not be increasing anytime soon. However, as I always say, interest rates are at historic lows so getting in now is an incredible time.
If you would like to learn more about one of our seminars or would like to sit and review more market information, please do not hesitate to contact me at 631.831.9048.

(c) Copyright 2009
By Thomas McGiveron, Licensed Real Estate Salesperson
www.tommcgiveron.com

I recently sat with a homeowner to discuss the fair market value of their home and to talk with them about the Long Island real estate market. We sat to talk and started talking about the market. She had lived in her home for 35 years and was curious about selling.

As we talked, I showed her all the information that I normally review. This information contains the latest insights from experts in the real estate industry as well as my expert analysis of the Long Island market.
Halfway through our discussion, she said, "Oh, so prices are dropping?"

This interaction helped me realize that I, and my colleagues in the real estate business, have our work cut out for us. There are a number of homeowners out there that just do not pay any attention to what's happening. And there are some that do listen and know a little, but still think Spring will bring higher prices.

With nearly a 28% drop in prices since 2006, Long Island real estate [NEWSFLASH] prices are dropping. This graph shows just how different the Long Island real estate market is today as opposed to the 1990's. I recently had a discussion with an investor in Babylon who told me, "We've been through this before in the 90's. We'll ‘bounce' back." Well this graph breaks down both the 90's and now and what you see is that long line going down...we're over 200% worse off now than we ever were in terms of lost equity/value. The depreciative numbers are staggering.

The current inventory, as of February, 2009, for homes available for sale on Long Island was 32,746 homes for sale. As for demand (buyers), 2486 closings ocurred in February, with Suffolk county seeing the most sales at 905 units sold according to the Multiple Listing Service. And remember, those closings are homes that went into contract most likely in November/December, 2008 and some in January of 2009.

Click here for more information on Inventory and how it's affecting price.

For the past 3 years, we've heard about mortgage defaults and lots of people talking about the "subprime loan crisis" but Option ARM mortgage defaults will shortly become the unfortunate talk of the town. Option Adjustable Rate Mortgages are mortgages that reset after a specific time to a capped mortgage rate and they adjust with market pricing. Watch the video to get a better insight into these and similiar loans.

Now if you watched the video, you'll get a sense of doomsday. Others that I've talked to about the next wave of mortgage defaults and foreclosures say the government will solve the "problem" by mandating massive loan modifications and just buying more banks. Let's take a look at some information first before we say the government can solve the problem.
If you look closely, you'll see that the subprime mortgage crisis is "behind us", although we're still feeling the pinch from this because many of those borrowers have their homes on the market as a short sale or have already foreclosed. However, looking forward, you'll notice a gigantic increase beginning halfway through 2009 and through 2011, that Option ARM loans and Alt A loans will see their resets begin to occur. This means those homes (many are already behind on their mortgages) will see an increase of their mortgage payments (that they can't afford now).
The amount of these loans that were written are astounding as well. Option ARM's make up nearly 18% of every mortgage in America (that's nearly 2 out of every 10 household). If that doesn't make you scratch your head and say, "Hmm", you're either brain dead, simply really don't understand (call me), or you don't care. And to get to the point of the title of this article, while I don't have statistical data as of yet, it's a very well-known fact that "a ton" of these types of loans were written here on Long Island. That's where a lot of people, made a lot of money.
When you think about 50% of these loans being unable to be paid, that's alot of loans in default. And to touch on the point about the government "saving the 'victimized' people from losing their homes", who's to say that after the government "saves" them, that they'll continue to pay the mortgage or maybe people who are paying their mortgage will scratch their head and say, "Why am I paying my mortgage...

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