Turkey Real estate: -35/40%, next up is Spain, UK, Russia

Turkish Daily News - Summer house prices upside down

Real estate prices in Turkey's major tourist areas have dropped by 15 percent to 40 percent, an industry executive said Saturday.

Spurred on by a 1-point reduction in mortgage rates, Antalya's real estate sector experienced a boom toward the end of 2004 and at the beginning of 2005, Sağlam said. The effect was strongly felt in such cameo tourist communities as Antalya, Alanya, Mersin, Muğla, Bodrum, Fethiye and Marmaris.

Many civil servants were able to buy houses at that time, Sağlam added, noting that a subsequent 1.9-point jump in interest rates put a damper on the buying spree, causing the construction and real estate sectors to grind to a halt.

“This increase gave rise to stagnation in the Antalyan real estate sector,” he said. “Sales suddenly stopped and began to decline, leading to a 35 to 40 percent drop in prices today.

Lisa passed her Mathematics EXAM (for the State)

GREAT JOB!

We saw "Sicko" (Michael Moore's new movie)

Incredible, but oh so true. We lived in Europe so we KNOW!





And of course, the Bush administration sues him. This administration hasn't done ANYTHING worth mentioning. It is so sad.

And now it is all falling apart, Europe here we go for the rollercoaster ride

Actual cover 2005 edition

Bulgaria loses its allure for UK buyers

British home buyers have disappeared from Bansko, a leading Bulgarian ski resort and until recently a “hot-spot” for people seeking moderately priced holiday properties.

Mihail Chobanov, chief executive of Bulgarian Properties, one of the country’s biggest estate agencies, believes that about 50 per cent of UK investors who took a punt on the Bulgarian market four years ago are now trying to sell their properties. “Speculative buyers want to cash out and move on,” he said.

Rapid development at Bansko and Sunny Beach resulted in an over-supply of lower-priced apartments, putting a severe strain on local infrastructure. An estimated 85 per cent of UK investors bought properties off-plan without having visited Bulgaria.

Actual cover 2006 edition (not "photshopped", this is an existing book)

Apparently they couldn't do "this"

Studio M visit

A normal appointment at Studio M (design studio builder) takes about 2 to 4 hours. We were not able to make our decision in that time period. So we had to schedule a new appointment.

We didn't take a lot of options and I can assure you there are a gazillion options ...

We took standard cabinets, standard light fixtures, standard appliances, standard sinks, standard blablabla

Out of a 500 page book we took these options:

--> $150 grey door knobs instead of chrome

Options we are still discussing:

--> Tile the first floor completely

--> Special shelves for kitchen cabinets

--> Special side wall next to fridge

When you have a big home, everything becomes expensive. (first floor 2000 sq ft /200 m2, 80 sq ft /8m2 countertops)

We want granite countertops but the option price was outragious. We'll buy that later on the "open" market. This is one we really loved.(lowest / black one)

We thought most of the options were probably a hype in the 30's so this made the decision process a lot easier. Standard, next, standard, next, ...

These are the countertops (white, oh my so ugly but hey standard), cabinets (cheapest, standard, we'll have to paint that) and tile (Porcelain) we are going to take.

After teaching here for 7 months, this doesn't surprise me at all

Post on a forum from a mortgage broker:

I’m just ordering the last item on a purchase loan . . .P and S date is about 10 days away. The borrower calls me and says she got a call from XXXXX bank’s retail call center on the other side of the country, and they are offering her a better deal. Now, this was in a rising rate environment a year or two back, and she had been locked with me for almost a month, so I was pretty skeptical and I tell her to bring in the papers.

She hems and haws . . .and finally brings the papers in.

I am getting her 6.625% on a one loan 3-fam purchase, some hairy exceptions, tough deal.

XXXXX retail’s GFE says 7.5%, paying nearly 2 points.

I point out to her that that doesn’t look like a better deal to me. We go through the exact payments (mine was way lower), what a "point" is, etc. Basically, this was no contest.

After an hour of going through all this, she says . . ."Yeah, I hear what you are saying, but I think you are making a mistake. Your rate is ’six-six-two-five’, and hers is only ’seven-five’. Yours has four numbers and hers has only two. I really like you, and I’m sorry that you have gone to all this trouble, but I’m going to go with her, because her rate is lower." (?????????)

I tried for another hour to explain a decimal point. I asked her if there was anyone in her family that might want to give her a second opinion. Nope.

I thought she was hiding something, but I checked it later. She really did close with the "seven-five".

The realtor tried to get her to go back to me . . .I kept calling, had the attorney call, nothing. The retail lender delayed her closing and got everyone all kinds of ticked off.

I was kicking myself for not thinking fast enough. I should have told her I could give her "seven".

She sends me an Christmas card every year,though, "for my trouble". hahaha.

2071

My new tabletennis rating, number 4 in Arizona. This exceeds my expectations big time.

LINK

I am very sorry

to start the Bush bashing again, but this is just too funny, sorry.

Shame on who?

Naomi in the pool (video file)

Home

We received the plot plan which shows the position of the house on the lot. It is exactly what we asked for. We are extremely happy about that!

Yesterday we camped on our lot and it is really incredible. I think the lake will amaze us time after time. There is no way you can get used to that. This is definitely what we ever dreamed of.

Mortgage interest rates shot up the last 2 weeks from 5.5 to 6.0. We can "lock" interest rates only 90 before we close. This is bad new for us and for the housingmarket in general.

Only 5 homes were really sold until now. The Thurmond that is being build next to ours, was cancelled by the "buyers". There is no way they are going to sell the community at these prices. Meritage has to lower prices. We don't have to pay anything (except 7500 earnest money) until we close. We also have a price pledge from the builder in the contract, they will lower our price when they drop prices of the community.

That was not possible 2 years ago when people bought houses "sight unseen".(those people are now collecting foodstamps)

Tomorrow we'll have our appointment with the design center Studi M. We'll have to decide on countertops, flooring, cabinets, and so on... 10% of the options has to be paid in advance.

Weather Arizona (pics)

Naomi took another swim in our pool with her friend Ashley.

UFC Fight of the year is coming up

This is IT, the FIGHT OF THE YEAR 2008.

Anderson Silva - Dan Henderson

If we disregard Fedor (undefeated) who is unhuman and Godlike, these are probably the best pound-for-pound fighters of the world.
HL Fedor (especially 3:14 is incredible)

I am so excited, I can hardly wait.



LINK

And after a long wait, it is finally here. The smartes question ever proposed on US soil. Did terrorists cause the housing mess?

I have been waiting some time, until someone in the Us media posted a simliar article like that. Just blame all the mess on the so called "terrorists".

Did terrorists cause the housing mess?

Irresponsible FED, 17 consecutive rate drops, Greenspan the ultimate bubble creator, people cheating on mortgage applications, mortgage people selling mortgages people couldn't afford, homeprices always go up, realtor agents receive upto 10% in commission, cash back schemes, NAR manipulating numbers, ...

But the other ones (aka terrorists) caused it. Way to go.

FYI there are no terrorists, there is no war. A war has to be fought with two parties. There is no other party. It is all Bush / media propaganda to finance the "oil interests" of the Arabic countries where Bush and his family is related to. But that is nothing new for all ears that are not on US soil of course.

Who would have thought the oil price would go up when you invade / attack the country with one of the biggest oil supplies in the world. Who would have thought that, surprise, surprise.

Bush invades Iraq oil price $27.

Last year (thank you God) of Bush's presidency oil price $100.

When this is all over, Abdullah of Saudi Arabia will tell Bush: Good job.

FBI Will Not Go After Borrowers Who Lied on Mortgage Applications

Borrowers who defrauded lenders by lying on their mortgage application could be thrown in prison for up to 30 years and forced to pay a $1 million fine under the current federal law. But the FBI says there is no intention to pursue borrowers at this time.

Although lying on a mortgage application is a federal crime, borrowers who committed mortgage fraud are low on the FBI's list of priorities. Joseph Schadler, an FBI spokesman, said investigators will be focusing on organized property flipping rings and bogus foreclosure rescue schemes instead of lying buyers.

LINK

Geroge W Bush's approval rate drops to 19%. So the question is Who the HELL are those 19%?

a) People with IQ's in the single digits

b) SadoMasochists

c) People that like to spend what they don't have

d) ALL of the above

LINK

Welcome to the club, welcome to Gotham Dreamcars

Most of us are familiar with the "timeshare" method. Now we have this in the car business too. For a meager $9000 you can drive upto 20 days in Lamborghini's, ferrari's, betnley's, aston martins,...
For a small increase of as little as $9000, you can use those cars upto 45 driving days. For 27000 Benjamins you can have upto 90 driving days.

If you are still looking for my birthday present: Gotham Dreamcars

Meet the country with a 100 000 % inflation rate

Welcome to Zimbabwe!

Inflation reached 100 000 % year over year and 120% month over month.

This means that products in general have risen by a factor of 1000.

And we thought the US economy was in trouble...

Link article (Dutch)

Inflation fears --> long term mortgage rates go Kaboem

PTTC

Results online.

Pictures online.

And NO, not all hairdressers in Arizona are dead!
Total setcount for the week-end: 55 (Saturday W42-L13) + 29 (Sunday W16-L13) = 84
Won 6: 7 setters (belles) :-)

Naomi is sick

So I stayed home.

What kind of people re-elected Bush? What kind of people were vulnerable for the Bush "war" propaganda?

Let's take a look:

The war among opticial devices with high definition is finally over. and the winner is ...

Blue Ray

The High definition format HD-DVD is the BETAMAX of HD DVD players. The standard will be BLUE RAY discs that can be found in Playstation gaming consoles.

LINK

After being an early adopter for Philips Digital video cassetes... I won't be buying myself anything but the DE FACTO standard.

2008 Arizona OPEN table tennis tournament (updated)

Saturday:
I won the Arizona OPEN (biggest tournament in Arizona) table tennis tournament in both series: -2000 and -1900. Won 12 consecutive matches, lost none, played 55 sets and won 43. I was totally exhausted. What a day.

Sunday:
I played semi-finals in the OPEN series of the Arizona Open. I beat a 2045 (number 4 in Arizona) and 2 1900's (one of them was number 7 in Arizona) players. Won my round robin (poules) and won the quarter final. Lost the semi-final to number 2 in Arizona Hu, Xiaozhou(2216) I didn't have a chance, he blew me away. Godlike! B0 or better for Belgian standards.

Won 16 this week-end and lost 1. Record until now: 23-4. Next rating will be higher, possibly between 1950-2000. Won 2 awards on Saturday and $25 for my fourth place in the open event.

Semi-finals were played by a Korean (female 2231 she is new to Arizona and is now number 1), a Russian (former youth coach of Samsonov 2081), a Chinese (2216) and a Belgian (1853). No americans.
Excerpts from the final (Korean female 2231 pimps out,switches sides all the time, incredible / Hu, Xiaozhou 2216 normal rubbers, out of the ordinary backhand)

Incompetent

Bernanke, the son of a pharmacist, was raised in the hamlet of Dillon. Explaining the bookishness which saw him achieve the top SAT score in the state at high school - 1,590 out of 1,600, he said: "We lived in a small town that didn't have a movie theatre."

Harvard beckoned, where he graduated with the highest honours. A PhD followed at MIT, where he was diverted from research into the Great Depression by another story of ill-fortune: the ability of his team, the Boston Red Sox, to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

He has 1590/1600 for his SAT score but doesn't know basic economics...only in A...... That gives you some idea how "difficult" the SAT's really are.

October 2005: There's No Housing Bubble to Go Bust

February 14, 2008 "To date, the largest economic effects of the financial turmoil appear to have been on the housing market, which, as you know, has deteriorated significantly over the past two years or so."


And of course, he had something to do with it: "Bernanke was nominated by President Bush and is expected to win easy Senate confirmation next month."(2006)

Top Commercials SUPERBOWL

FBI 10 most wanted list

Usama Bin Laden is the funniest one, this is a LINK to "his" description.

If he doesn't want to be caught when he wants to stay in one of the hotels in Afghanistan, he uses these "aliases: Usama Bin Muhammad Bin Ladin, Shaykh Usama Bin Ladin, the Prince, the Emir, Abu Abdallah, Mujahid Shaykh, Hajj, the Director"

It is very difficult to catch him, reason: "Bin Laden is the leader of a terrorist organization known as Al-Qaeda, "The Base". He is left-handed and walks with a cane (=wandelstok). "

Whoehaha

In you are wondering, where are the arms that the US gave him to fight the Russians ... "CONSIDERED ARMED AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS". And if he doesn't use the US weapons he will kick your ass with his kane LOL.

Looks like the FBI thinks that 9/11 was an inside job too, they don't mention 9/11 explicitely anymore: "USAMA BIN LADEN IS WANTED IN CONNECTION WITH THE AUGUST 7, 1998, BOMBINGS OF THE UNITED STATES EMBASSIES IN DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA, AND NAIROBI, KENYA. THESE ATTACKS KILLED OVER 200 PEOPLE. IN ADDITION, BIN LADEN IS A SUSPECT IN OTHER TERRORIST ATTACKS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.

Where is the plane that flew into the Pentagon? Where is it? Where are the engines that are made from the strongest product known to men (titanium)?

First buildings in the world that collapse due to fire. Looks like a controlled demolition to me. Probably Bin Laden who took a plane to NY and installed some demolition stuff in the WTC...

Flight 93, where are the bodies? Where are the engines, heck where is the plane?

Question of the day

After the Dotcon/m bubble, the real estate bubble, what will be the next bubble?
a) The lawsuit bubble

b) The gold bubble

c) The euro bubble

d) The foreclosure bubble

Picture of the day

Obama has more "votes" than Clinton

It looks like people are really tired of the Bush/Clinton/Bush/... dynasty. A new black president would just be great for this country. George W Bush destroyed the country in 8 years, I am sure Obama can build it back up in 8.

$ome Number$

$1.75: lunch/meal at our school

$600: beanbag: lovesac

$33000: starting salary teacher (Bachelor/0 years) Maricopa High School

$14: full (living) lobster at our local supermarket store

$75: "Economics" book High School

$0.09: To print a digital picture online

$100000: Bentley Arnage T 2002 (20 000 miles)

$13: per trade to buy stocks at schwab

$0: per trade to buy mutual funds at schwab

$80: you have to pay this for car mechanic (per hour)

$3.5: average price for 12 cans of Coke / Pepsi

$120: per tire Michelin Symmetry 225

$43400: Porsche Cayenne

$45000: Median (50% + and 50%-) income for a family in Arizona

$175000: Median homeprice Maricopa January 2008

$5500: Standard deduction on income per person (11k for a family of 2 "workers")

35%: Highest tax bracket US income tax

10%: Lowest tax bracket US income tax

$10: To register a domain name of a website for a year

$285000: Rolls Royce Phantom 2006 (3 300 miles)

$1270: Cheapest airplane ticket Phx-Bru and back in June 08

$0.79: Hamburger at McDonalds

$1.50: 1 Red Bull Energy drink

$1200: High end LCD 40 inch or more TV

$1: Maricopa property tax per square foot of house (3000 sq ft house = +/-$3000 PT per year)

$3: Per highly efficient light bulb (15W equals 60W)

$50: (most) Clark shoes

$28600: BMW 1 series (2800 engine)

$0.41: US Postal Service stamp

$1000: Value of Google stock in 2010

Quotes of the day

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." —Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2000

"I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace." —Washington, D.C. June 18, 2002

"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him." —Washington, D.C., Sept. 13, 2001

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." —Washington, D.C., March 13, 2002

and this is the best:

"My plan reduces the national debt, and fast. So fast, in fact, that economists worry that we're going to run out of debt to retire." —radio address, Feb. 24, 2001

George W Bush

aka the best president of any country EVER

Misc. / Varia

I have tried to reduce the upload time of this blog by shortening the first page.

Last week our car was in a car repairshop because our air conditioning was broken. They charge 80$ / hour for the work of a mechanic .. auch. The real car dealer of Cadillac charges $140 /hour. Oh my.

This Saturday, Naomi and her friend Ashley used the pool for the first time. Monday it was freezing, Saturday the weather was great. The Arizona desert climate ...

I video taped it but youtube wouldn't accept the movie file.

At school everything is going extremely well. Our class sizes have been reduced from 35 to about 25 students.

They start "breaking ground" in the next 3 weeks. Meritage has to get their permits approved by the city. Home will be finished near the end of July or end of August.

We will be visiting a pool builder real soon, but first we need to know the position of the house on the lot. This will help the pool builder to create a virtual pool / patio picture and quote.

Our next holiday will be this Monday the 18th: President's day. I won't comment any further :-)

Introducing Netflix

This week we took a subscription on the Netflix DVD service. For a 9 dollar subscription you can rent unlimited DVD's by the mail. When you want a new DVD, you send your rented dvd back and you'll receive a new one.

The main reason I took that subscription was the change last week in their policy. From now on, you can use their download service without any time constrains (it was limited to 9 hours a month). Tv series (heroes 2, lost, sopranos, house md,...) , documentaries(history channel, BBS, ...), and movies are HERE and NOW available for instant viewing. That's an incredible deal. A wise man once said "moving yourself towards the content doesn't make any sense, the content has to be transported to you".

since we don't have a cable connection, watching Heroes and all those other series directly from our computer is WaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaW, just incredible.

The Builders...

When buying a home from a builder they make a profit in 4 areas.
1. The basic home
2. The structural options
3. Non structural options
4. The mortgage

Builders try to lure buyers in by building a "model"home near the sales office that has hundreds of thousands of dollars in options. When I asked a salesperson (not at Meritage) if he could point out what the options were, his reply was:"Everything you see is option..."

1. The basic home is sold with a very low margin. But when you buy that home, you are in the net of the builder's monopoly.

2. Most builders don't give you an option price sheet when you are considering to buy a home. They don't want you to see the out of the ordinary expensive options. But as a customer and if you are budgetting your home, you definitely NEED that option list. We got it from Meritage, no option list in advance meant no budgetting which implies no homebuying for us. Structural options include, lot premium, extra garages, gate, deck, fireplace, sliding doors, and so on...

3. When you have bought your home you have to make an appointment with the "Design Center". As you would expect: no prices are given in advance... The design studio of Meritage homes: Studio M is only open during the week from 9-5pm. Go figure, you have to take a half day off to visit the design studio. Most people spend a lot of money on upgrades for flooring, blinds, countertops, and appliances.
You have to make your decisions AT the design center, so we went to Lowe's (the local Gamma lol) to check out prices on their tile/countertops/flooring/appliances collection. We took pictures from their price sheets. We'll have something to compare the builder's prices and that will give us some bargaining power. You have to pay 10% of the options in advance. We have an appointment on Monday the 25th of February.

4. If you take you mortgage with the "preferred" mortgage company you receive a discount on the house (+/-3%). Normally they give you a rate that is significantly higher than the rate on the market. Somebody has to pay for the 3% discount AND they want to make a profit too. Negotiating with the mortgage "arm" of Meritage we were able to get the lowest rate on the market 5.5% + 3% off the base price. Boom Shakalaka!
Weird "regulated" industry...

As of yesterday morning 9 homes were sold at the lakes. 7 lake lots(lotpremium at least 35000), 2 inland lots(no lakeview, no lotpremium)

Quote of the day

"It's sort of a little poetic justice in that the people that brewed this toxic Kool-Aid found themselves drinking a lot of it in the end"

- Warren Buffett, February 2008

Hilarious

If second 44 doesn't make you laugh, nothing will.

That's what I would call a real old fashioned video clip. (no naked women nor pimps)

Best Music piece EVER made by man?

When the angels play for God, they play Bach, but when they play for themselves, they play
Mozart -- and God listens secretly.

Expensive home

We always thought we would pay the highest price in the community (for now) because of the expensive lotpremium. Well, when we stopped by Sunday I saw a contract on the desk of the salesperson, a whooping 60 000 more than our price. Boom shakalaka.

Mortgage rates

We qualify for a 30y fixed of 5.6% (APY) which would make: 574$/ month for 30 years for every $100 000 borrowed. Bankrate is an excellent website to check rates.

I have an Excel file with all mortgage rates for a fixed 30 y since 1971. Here are the lowest and highest mortgage rates for the last 10 years.

YEAR / Lowest 30y fixed / Highest 30y fixed

2007: 6.10 - 6.70

2006: 6.14 - 6.76

2005: 5.58 - 6.33

2004: 5.45 - 6.29

2003: 5.23 - 6.26

2002: 6.05 - 7.01

2001: 6.62 - 7.16

2000: 7.38 - 8.33

1999: 6.79 - 7.94

1998: 6.71 - 7.14

1997: 7.10 - 8.14

What a week-end

We came to an agreement this Saturday with the builder, but we didn't sign a contract yet. I told the builder in advance that we wanted to have a few days to check out the contract. They understood (they understand everything in this market :-) that, Tuesday we'll sign the contract. It will be a SUPER Tuesday indeed.

STRESS, stress and stress. After our deal with the builder we went to lunch with grandpa and grandma. Lisa was so full of stress she threw up afterwards... We didn't get a lot of sleep the last few days / weeks. We felt really bad that Saturday and Sunday. That is probably a normal reaction when you buy your first home / take such a risk.

At this time we were wondering if we could have been more agressive with our offer. An extra $5000 off maybe but when you run the numbers we bought a nice home, at a decent almost cheap price, on our dreamlot that we are able to afford and while interest rates are low.

Will the housingmarket drop? Most certainly it will, but in any event the price per sq ft, the location of the community, the lot, Naomi's school is close, tax deductions, are all positive facts that helped us to make this well thought decision.

In a short time frame we made a bad decision (1-4 years), but in the longer term I think we bought when no one else was buying and were able to get a lot of discounts from the builder. We're at least covered for the next drop in price of the housingmarket :-)

The average home sold in Maricopa is about $175000, a lot of people are able to afford that. If you would put 10% down, you would have a monthly payment (30y fixed) of $880. Rents start at 800, so in my opinion prices are within 20% of a bottom.

I always use this quote if I want to buy something (example this house or Agfa-Gevaert) when no one wants to buy:

"You can't buy what is popular and do well."

Warren Buffett.

Quotes of the day

I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war.

We're not going to baby sit a civil war.

My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or blessed, believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success.

Barrack Obama

That's what I would call a COOL RENTAL CAR

Our visitors rented this car for their trip. WaaaaaaaaaaaaaW.

Pics Model Home Thurmond

This is the home we bought, however the elevation (facade) differs from this one. Ours has 2 (fake) chimneys and looks more contemporary/modern.

The entrance with portico.

The deck on the street side with two lovely ladies.

The four car garage, that will do :-)

Kitchen, family room, nook, and study are all connected.
Lots of windows to enjoy the view.Covered patio, windows and slide doors galore.

Deck at the back of the house facing the water, covered patio and the windows of the "outdoor" room.

The master bedroom is (too) HUGE, too big for us. We would rather have that space somewhere else in the house. But it is not a custom home where you can add or delete rooms, that's why it is so "cheap" (cheap is relative)

This is the neatest feature of this house. A double sided fireplace, incredible. We really liked it but $5600 was a bit too much. We want our house to be sleek and modern, this makes it too decadent.

Second deck/balcony with slide doors and an incredible view. Jammie.

This picture was taken in the sales office of the builder. We bought the 6th lot/house combination. On Friday 1st of February, 5 lot/homes were sold, when we visited the community this Sunday with our Belgian company 8 lot/homes were sold. We bought number 6 on Saturday.

The Belgian choco paste and mice droppings have arrived!!!

Pics

Lot with our 2 neighbour-homes, left and right.

That is the South East view of our lot.

View on the palmtrees of the entry.

Our neighbour also builds a Thurmond model. Side 1

Lakefront view. Front