Realtors Say It’s Not Time To Panic
CBS 46 reports from Georgia. “Atlanta home prices are the highest in recent memory. According to the Atlanta REALTORS Association, Atlanta’s median home price jumped from $105,000 in 2012 to $250,000 today. With some properties seeing such quick gains in pricing, however, some real estate agents say Atlanta’s market can’t handle it. ‘In 12 to 18 months I think that we will see a correction in prices,’ Said Kris Kolarich of Atlanta Intown Real Estate Services. Kolarich believes Atlanta’s housing bubble is about to burst. ‘I don’t see how you can sell houses in certain zip codes for $250,000 and $275,000 without commerce still, in heavy crime areas and without good schools,’ he said.”
The Miami Herald in Florida. “Close your eyes if you don’t like bad news. The volume of existing home sales in Miami-Dade County fell 20.8 percent in July compared to July 2015, according to a monthly report released Wednesday by the Miami Association of Realtors. Three main factors are conspiring to slow down Miami’s real estate market: Not enough affordable housing for locals. A lack of foreclosure inventory available for investors to snap up. And a major drop-off in the number of foreign buyers, who’ve been burned by the strong dollar.”
“‘When you see a 20 percent drop, you start thinking not just housing recession but housing depression,’ said Jack McCabe, a South Florida real estate analyst.”
“Realtors say it’s not time to panic. The pace of sales set in 2013, 2014 and 2015 simply wasn’t sustainable, said Ron Shuffield, president and CEO of EWM Realty International. ‘A lot of the decline we’re seeing is in the million-dollar market and in foreclosures,’ Shuffield said. ‘The middle of the market is still strong.’”
“The new report shows Miami-Dade’s condo market suffering more than single-family homes. Condo resales dipped to 1,104 in July, down 24.7 percent year over year, the Realtors’ group found. Existing condos are competing with a glut of luxury offerings, making older units a tougher sell. Single-family resales fell to 1,128 in July, a 16.4 percent decline from last year.”
Realtor.com on Texas. “This enormous hunk of partly built real estate outside of Houston, which is on the market for $3.6 million, has been called ‘haunted,’ a ‘disaster,’ and a ‘mystery.’ But here’s what this unfinished, sprawling Texas property really is: a multimillion-dollar fixer-upper.”
“The massive home, abandoned and incomplete, has attracted media attention over the years. Located in the small town of Manvel, TX, the structure started in the early 2000s as a custom build for the original owners, a doctor and his wife, recounts Jim Youngblood, the current homeowner. ‘They got 70% done, and for some reason his wife thought the house was too big.’”
“Her rationale isn’t too hard to understand. According to Youngblood, the home was planned as a 63,890-square-foot facility on 10 acres and would include living quarters, the doctor’s medical practice, and a setting for housing foster children. Youngblood, an investor, decided to go in on the place with family members in 2008. He now owns it through foreclosure. Since then, he has tried to sell it unsuccessfully.”
“‘I’ve had it under contract dozens of times. For some reason, these people can’t get financing.’ He’s not the first person to have big dreams for the half-built home. Other potential buyers have appreciated the enormous 30,000-square-foot room in the back for an event center with a bed-and-breakfast. Or as an assisted-living facility with space for 70 rooms. Despite interest regularly rolling in, no one’s closed on it yet. ‘Everybody has these grand ideas, but they don’t have any money,’ Youngblood laments.”
