'Foreclosure' Web searches near 3-year peak
Hitwise: Popular queries include 'free foreclosure listings'
By Inman News, Friday, March 13, 2009.Hitwise, a Web metrics company, reported in its corporate blog this week that online search-engine queries including the phrase "foreclosure" have increased considerably in the past weeks.
Searches including the term "foreclosure" peaked during the week ending Feb. 2, 2008, and hit the second-highest and third-highest levels in the weeks ending Feb. 28 and March 7 of this year.
Last year's spike followed media coverage of U.S. cities with the highest rates of foreclosure, with many searches featuring the phrases "what is foreclosure" and "highest foreclosure cities."
For the four-week period ending March 7, 2009, searches for "free foreclosure listings" and "foreclosure listings" topped the list of search phrases containing "foreclosure," Hitwise reported.
The blog references a March 11 Wall Street Journal article, which details the problem homebuilders are facing in trying to sell new homes in the same development areas where foreclosed, bank-owned properties are also for sale at a lower price.
The article provides an example of a new home that builder Pulte Homes Inc. is trying to sell for $214,990 near Las Vegas while a similar house Pulte built two years ago is on the market for $149,999 as a potential short sale.
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Submitted by Richard Stabile Bergen County Real Estate on March 13, 2009 - 8:38am.
It was a money game and it still is a money game. People will buy if they get the financing. The deals are great! The bottom is like the Pulte deal, competitive resale’s must get done and get off the market. Once the homeowner is under water it doesn’t make a different if it sales for 1/2 price. Bank has to make a judgment and get it over with. Real bottoms have the sudden gaps and then clean up the inventory. I think it is trying to happen now. Money is available if Pelosi get derailed. They are getting our international sovereign investors upset with our irresponsibility to the true reason they are buying our treasuries. The U.S. is raising capital at rates that are staggering; we can’t show our disrespect for the help of our investors in our paper by not using the money to solve our crisis!
If this finally is understood, as some moderate Democrat’s in the senate, are now standing up for, we can get this debatable behind us. Spend the money to solve the problem, not on all your pet earmarks! I gave an example a week ago; it is like someone comes to you to borrow money to pay their rent. You feel bad and you lend it to them. The next day they return with a new fur coat they found on sale. That’s us and the countries of the world who are putting up all this money for our debt!
Richard
http://newhomesbyrichard.com