More Records In Orlando, Florida
A pair of reports provide an update on the Florida housing bubble. “T-Rex Capital is throwing a party Thursday at its new Eighty Points West luxury condominiums on Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach. It’s all to show brokers how much they’re appreciated. But T-Rex also has another motive. The company that once owned the former IBM complex in Boca Raton needs to generate buzz for its pricey condos, especially now that the housing market has softened.”
“Only about 10 percent of the 173 units have sold so far, although Cliff Preminger said sales are on schedule because T-Rex held back on marketing most of the $170 million project until now. Home sales have slipped across South Florida in recent months, and experts say West Palm’s condo market is overbuilt.”
“But Preminger remains undeterred. ‘Obviously, we don’t expect to sell out overnight, and people are not going to be sleeping in the parking lot, but we expect a good sales velocity,’ he said. Preminger, by the way, wouldn’t say exactly how much money T-Rex is pouring into the event. ‘Let’s just say it’s a six-figure party,’ he said.”
From the Orlando Business Journal. “Existing home sales set a record in January, with 1,831 homes changing hands, an 8 percent increase over January 2005, according to the Orlando Regional Realtor Association.”
” But that wasn’t the only record set for the month: The number of existing homes available for purchase, 12,015, is a whopping 262.22 percent increase above January 2005’s tally of 3,317 homes on the market. In January 2006 alone, ORRA members entered 6,172 newly available homes, compared with 2,970 in January 2005.”
No, the syntax of the sentence is correct, just misleading.
12015/3317=362.22, so the increase is 262.22 percent
hope there is a DJ.
would love to see a national # for inventory increase from super bowl sunday to today = awsome
Yeah! Dj Icey will be spinning this party because sales have been ICE COLD
Let’s just say they hope to pass these costs onto investors, forget buyers.
Well, they didn’t say if those six figures had a decimal point in there somewhere or not.
“It’s all to show brokers how much they’re appreciated.”
Uuhhhh Oohhhh. Does this mean that all those ENDLESS and guaranteed snowbird “babyboomer retirees” need more COAXING to purchase in the redhot market of Florida?
Somehow, I don’t think making brokers feel WARM and COZY is going to do much for this Cluster F.
http://tinyurl.com/ge9af
Errrrrrrr. Hmmm.
Cheers,
prat
Why are people still buying in Florida, when severe Hurricanes is forecasted for the next several years?
That would be like people buying a home on Mt St Helens, when volcanologists predict it will explode.
It just doesn’t make sense!
Let’s just hope this doesn’t spread to the burbs and Winter Garden. I’ve been tracking inventory there since Dec. 27, and there have been about 100 homes added to the market, or more than 2 a day.
It’s a lovely area - you should move there, really!
TXCHIC told you to sell. We can hope, but hope doesn’t do anything. Plan for the worst.
Very interesting Florida Flips….
All I can say is THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW.
These “flips” are impressive, but if you look at the dates they sold, it was back in the heyday (i.e. up until fall ‘05).
DOUBT if anyone there is going to pull off these gains this year!
I congratulate those that did it back then… pity those that try it today!
2006 Hurricane Forecast: More and Bigger
Melody — after evacuating four times in two years, even my beach-loving self got tired of it and sold out. It is a giant pain to pack up everything that is most valuabe to you and leave. Even then, where do you go? Usually, it’s in the same direction as the other couple-hundred thousand cars.
Any idea what the lag time on FAR is for their monthly data? They still haven’t posted Jan. numbers, and I’m wondering if it’s because there is some seriously bad news.
Locally, the GTAR’s numbers for January showed a significant drop-off in sales (YOY decline, Dec.-Jan. decrease of more than 30%), and about a 20% decrease in the median price in one month (steadily increasing for most of 2005, dropped to 2004 levels in one month). And clearly Orlando is in a similar position, despite the YOY increase in units sold. With that kind of inventory, Feb. will be bloody.
And all reports from South Florida are indicating that the market there is tanking too, so I’d be curious to see the statewide numbers.
Yes, I know she told me to sell. I wish i could, really. But for various reasons, I cannot. It is absolutely not an option at this point.
But I have realized I simply will not make nearly as much money as I would have had I sold months ago. It sucks, but oh well, life goes on.
I’ll survive, and learn from the experience.
I’m over it. And saving accordingly should something drastic happen (house value plummets over 100k, or I have to rent at a $200-300 loss per month).
The number of unfinished condos here in S. Fl. is mindboggling. Lenders are pulling out and the resets are starting. The number of listings has doubled in a year.
Good np article on Fla r/e, but the comments from the readers below the article are what’s really great. One guy trying to sell his home actually gets mad at the author saying “now he won’t be able to sell his house thanks to her.”
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2006/feb/19/real_estate_market_flooded_sellers/?local_news
There’s a particular house I’d like to buy, but only if the price is reduced at least 30%. Human nature being what it is, the sellers will probably have to go through a period of anger before they get realistic. Perhaps there wasn’t much anger among the losers in the dot-com bust — at least they were able to sell on the day that they decided to. I think that is the BIG difference in housing. In one market I follow, only about 6% of the listed homes sold (or perhaps were withdrawn) in the past five months, and we’re just getting started. I think there will be a lot of anger out there among those who “missed the boat.”
‘Perhaps there wasn’t much anger among the losers in the dot-com bust — at least they were able to sell on the day that they decided to. I think that is the BIG difference in housing’
Excellent point Chip.
Yep…a lot of my neighbors in San Diego in 1998 at the bottom of the burst housing bubble in SoCal, never referred to the current (marketable) value of their home. They would typically say something like, “Back 1991 can you believe what this home was worth!”. I think there will be plenty of stories like that in the next few years. Once again, “real” home owner residents who didn’t use their homes as ATMs will do just fine and can ride out the wave. The speculators that expected to get rich are the ones that will lose big. Since you can’t predict the future, an interesting side note of human physcology that I observed during the last cycle as prices started to rise again, was the large number of folks that had been underwater with their properties for so long that they sold as soon as things got positive….feeling luckly to have covered their closing costs and walk with a few thousand bucks. Little did they know they would have made $100s of thousands on the same property by holding it a few more years during the bubble upswing. But just as idiots have been assuming that real estate only goes up, those that lose out during the down swing will eventually be convinced that real estate sucks and will want to unload their loser properties as soon as they can.
Comment by waiting_for_the_fall
2006-02-20 12:25:14
Why are people still buying in Florida, when severe Hurricanes is forecasted for the next several years?
That would be like people buying a home on Mt St Helens, when volcanologists predict it will explode.
It just doesn’t make sense!
No kidding. My mother, who grew up in Florida, was looking forward to maybe retiring there (she lives in So Cal right now). But when she heard about the severe hurricane forecasts for the next several years, she said no way would she move back there to retire now. She is simply getting too old to cope with natural disasters like that, both physically and financially. Her advice to me about the hurricanes in Florida was, “No one in my generation with any sense should retire there, just from the hurricane warnings alone. If you are lucky, maybe you and your sister can in the future, after the hurricane cycle runs through its course.”
I wonder how many of the retirees that were supposed to be moving to FLorida in the future are simply going to change their plans and move elsewhere due to the hurricanes and the high insurance premiums that go with them?
Re: Retiring to Fl: ” I wonder how many of the retirees that were supposed to be moving to FLorida in the future are simply going to change their plans and move elsewhere due to the hurricanes and the high insurance premiums that go with them? ”
I think that still hasn’t been addressed by the geniuses at centex et al…. People had planned to move to Fl because it was cheap ! Sell their Long Island home at a tidy profit ,and move down to the beach….Well, prices are comparable now, Insurance has increased 1000%, Hurricanes, crowds etc… No, I think the grand plan by the hypsters is coming to abrupt end…..Better check where your IRA, Pensions are invested. Those MBS’s are about to explode from a category 5.
Not only high property insurance and hurricanes, but my auto policy also doubled moving to the Miami area from San Diego. Utilities also more than doubled as you HAVE to run the Air Conditioning 24/7 from spring through fall. If you get a pool (almost a necessity) that runs up your utility bills also. You also have to pay Florida Power and Light a premium to rebuild their infrastructure from the hurrican damage. Another shocker was that almost all food items cost from 10-20% more here. This is not anecdotal evidence but hard fact. I compared exact items at Costco (food/wine/beer, etc.) when I was visting Orange County during the holidays with the cost in South Florida. Everything is higher, especially produce, but even the 1.5 liter bottle of Chilean wine was 15% higher in South Florida. I could guess why (shipping costs, growing seasons, overhead) but it still puzzles me. Also the weather…forget it. If you are from SOCAL you will HATE it here. And don’t forget about property tax (Broward County is 2.2%) compared to California. Sure this was a good deal before the bubble when housing was cheap and since there is no state income tax, but with the elevated housing costs in Florida, it is almost a wash depending on your individiual financial situation. Also, there is a noticible lack of infrastrurcture (at least the quality you are used to in SoCal) and general obeyance of the law (maybe because law enforcement is underpaid here compared to L.A./Orange/San Diego counties) which is very noticiable if you are from SoCal. You think driving in L.A. is bad? I’m terrified here. People run over kids in cross walks every day, etc. I could go on and on but will stop here. Florida was appealing when it was cheap enough to balance out all the negatives. Also I can’t speak for anybody moving here from someplace else…N.Y., N.J., Haiti, for example. Maybe Florida is a great place for them, but if you are from SoCal and can afford to stay, you should definately rethink living in Florida. At least test it out with an extended stay…say 3 months in the summer, before pulling up your SoCal roots and moving here permantly, (to give it some credit, the weather was great here yesterday, but it is depressing to know things will be heating up and getting humid real soon). Florida is a great place to visit with an intersting mix of cultures and recreation…but I stress a great place to “visit”.