‘There Are Real Estate Issues Everywhere’
The Boston Globe reports from Massachusetts. “The new home and condo market may be hit hardest by the softening of the Massachusetts real estate market. There’s a glut of new construction on the market, and would-be buyers are struggling to unload their own current homes. And that slowdown is pinching developers.”
“When Beth Shelburne and her husband moved to Boston from San Diego earlier this year, they (were) pleasantly surprised to find developers desperate to fill empty buildings practically fawning over them. The Shelburnes put in a low-ball offer on a penthouse condominium in Jamaica Plain priced far above their price range. Not only did they get it for $34,000 less than the $500,000-plus asking price, but the developer agreed to pay six months of condo fees worth more than $2,000.”
“For good measure, he threw in a sleek plasma television. ‘You’ve got these six beautiful condos going to be ready in August and none of them had sold,’ Shelburne recalled. ‘We felt like we were able to call the shots. We looked at so many places that were sitting there empty.’”
“Home shoppers leery of getting stuck with two mortgages or expensive bridge loans also have been a problem for Sharon agent Dave Wluka, president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. He said he’s struggling to find buyers for a new subdivision in Plainville consisting of 81 single-family homes in the mid-$500,000 range. ‘The reluctance I’m getting is, `I’m afraid I won’t sell my house,’ Wluka said. ‘People are afraid, and rightly so.’”
“The Toll Brothers Inc., builders of suburban McMansions, recently laid off workers at its Estates at Walpole, a large development of homes priced in the mid-$600,000 range. A Toll Brothers development of a dozen luxury Wellesley homes priced around $1.3 million has finally sold most of the units after the company aggressively slashed prices, (broker) Elaine Bannigan said.”
“‘Those prices tumbled,’ Bannigan said, noting one property sold after 495 days on the market at $578,500 less than the original $1.7 million asking price.”
“In Worcester, formerly optional features such as hardwood floors are becoming standard, said Guy Webb of the Builders Association of Central Massachusetts. ‘I haven’t heard of anybody in the desperation phase yet, but it certainly has slowed down, and it’s taking longer for them to sell something,’ Webb said.”
The Providence Journal from Rhode Island. “The foreclosure auction was scheduled for 9 on a Thursday morning at the small, Cape-style house on a country road near Putnam Pike in Chepachet. The house appeared to be vacant. A for-sale sign was on the front lawn, surrounded by tall weeds.”
“Jeff Craig, of Commonwealth Auctions, in Newton, Mass., was waiting for a call from Wells Fargo Bank, which held the mortgage that was in default. Ken Robertson, of Glocester, was waiting to see whether he could pick up a bargain.”
“The two men had met a few times before, in similar circumstances. There has been ‘an enormous amount’ of foreclosure auctions in Rhode Island in recent months, Robertson said.”
“Robertson said many defaulted mortgages issued in 2005 are higher than the market value of the property in question. Many people were mortgaged to the hilt in the past few years, and it didn’t take much to push them ‘over the edge’ into financial distress, he said. The foreclosure rate in Rhode Island for ’subprime’ mortgages appears to have increased 150 percent since last year, more than any other state in the country.”
“‘We’ve been busy,’ said Sal Corio, owner a Warwick auctioneer. Corio is handling the auction of 19 condominiums in Pawtucket on Sept. 30. The units, formerly apartments, were recently renovated in a conversion project. The minimum bid will be $87,500 per unit.”
“Joseph DeAngelis, a lawyer representing the condo owners, a group of investors, said the renovation was completed four or five months ago and the units went on the market for $99,900. ‘It’s surprising to everyone that they’re not selling,’ he said.”
“Corio said many of the 100-percent-financed house loans of 2004 and 2005 are the ‘upside-down mortgages’ of today, meaning the outstanding loan exceeds the market value. ‘These mortgages written in 2004, 2005, 2006, they haven’t even made a payment yet, or they made one or two payments. There’s no equity,’ Corio said.”
“‘In the late ’80s, we were doing a lot of real estate. Foreclosures were quite plentiful, which we’re seeing again today,’ he said.”
“Jerome Manning CEO of JJ Manning Auctioneers of Yarmouth Port, Mass., on Cape Cod, said he was headed to Naples, Fla., to sell real estate; this time, a large group of properties. Things are tough in Florida, he said, but ‘there are real estate issues everywhere.’”
The Boston Globe reports from Massachusetts. “The new home and condo market may be hit hardest by the softening of the Massachusetts real estate market. There’s a glut of new construction on the market, and would-be buyers are struggling to unload their own current homes. And that slowdown is pinching developers.”
The developers will move prices down first because they can. With sizable margins on new construction and a weakening market you can be sure developers will start with “incentives” and follow with price cuts to move the properties and retain whatever profit they can. Individual owners/sellers may or may not have the wiggle room between the price they are asking and the amount they owe. In addition, IMHO, individual sellers may be slow to grasp the changes in the market and still believe the paper profit they saw on ZIllow is what they will be able to sell for. So the developers rush to the exits while the sellers dance to the echo of the koolaid band. The music has stopped playing, they just don’t quite get it yet.
Exactly! Moreover, builders will lower prices simultaneously out of fear that their competitor beats them to the next sale. It’s looking like a budding price war and it’s going to get messy. Perhaps we will see the day when margins get so hammered builders simply try to minimize unit losses.
Front page of today’s Union-Tribune (San Diego):
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060924/
Enjoy. I did.
That was a link worth reading We Rent. Thank you. In the sublink in the article there was an interesting bit of info,
“We’ve had conversations with our banks,” said Paul Kerr of Davlyn Property Management, which is developing the 200-unit Adagio at Lake Murray. “They’ve told us in no uncertain terms that they don’t want us to dump the price to pump sales up to 20 a month.”
It looks like even the lenders are thinking this will blow over. I guess if they were caught up enough in the mania to lend the money it is no surprise that they also believe the downturn will be short lived. I just do not see how that position can be supported with the market turning on a dime like it is and all of the negative potential in terms of resets and un-affordability coupled with job loss in RE. Another feeble attempt to prop up stratospheric prices.
“This predicament stems in part from some converters having overpaid for apartment complexes during the housing boom.”
To read between the lines the developer probably went to the banker and said look I can’t make my payments unless I can reduce the prices to move these things, will you give me a short sale, otherwise I toss you the keys. Then the banker squirming said no don’t dump the price, lets just give it some more time. If they could dump the price and the banker could get his money now why would he say to wait?
It is not an attempt to prop up prices in this case, it is that they just have no choice but to wait.
That makes more sense, I’ll go with that. We here in SoCal have the “pleasure” to have a local RE mouthpiece that is calling for collusive steps by brokers to prop up prices and deceive buyers regarding reductions and signs. It was a stretch, but I was just thinking that the banks may be jumping on that bandwagon too.
Of course he’s the one who said that 15% appreciation was “in the bag” for OC for 2006.
I don’t believe that for a second. The banks want their loans cov ered. Period. If developer can lower the price and still cover the loan, the banks will take it. The banks don’t care about the borrowers’ profits.
My guess is that the developer is saying the banks will play nice with him so that potential buyers think he has all the time in the world to wait for his price. He doesn’t.
They can’t hear the music over the cash register sounds that are still ringing in their ears.
LOL, You got that right NYCityBoy!!
That’s good. No. That’s really…really…good.
“When Beth Shelburne and her husband moved to Boston from San Diego earlier this year, they (were) pleasantly surprised to find developers desperate to fill empty buildings practically fawning over them. The Shelburnes put in a low-ball offer on a penthouse condominium in Jamaica Plain priced far above their price range. Not only did they get it for $34,000 less than the $500,000-plus asking price, but the developer agreed to pay six months of condo fees worth more than $2,000.”
When they find out that they bought a very overpriced property in one of the worst, if not the worst, areas of suburban Boston, where you literally need to have gun coverage between your house and the car, they will not be as thrilled. I wonder if these dolts even did some research before plunking down half a million dollars for a third story apartment in the ghetto!
They’re from San Diego……….bubble capital of the world.
To them, this place is a steal.
You can’t fault them. How could they know any better?
If I move to a new location, I rent for about a year to find out what is going on around town, and learn what is a good place to live, and what passes for all intents and purposes as a ghetto. I do fault them for being idiots, and not being patient. For that price, I could have bought a nice colonial 20 minutes south of there with train access…. Think Walpole, Wrentham, or even Wlukas’ Plainville.
This story makes me think of my sister-in-law. She and her husband moved from near the LA area to Sacramento in the early 90’s, not realizing that the housing prices there had boomed and were already dropping. They bought a house right away at what seemed a good price compared to the prices they were used to. A year later they wanted to move back and were surprised to find that they couldn’t sell their house for enough to break even. They kept the house on the market for a year and then lowered the price and brought 10k to the table for closing and lost their down payment, too. This doesn’t sound like much now, but I think they lost between 10-20% altogether. After that they had to move in with our in-laws, in their 1200 sq ft house, with their two young children. They lived there for 2 years while they saved enough money to buy another house. This is another reason why I expect prices to fall dramatically; there will be a lot of people who are living in their own houses now who will sell and leave both the house buying and the rental market for a time, increasing the number of vacancies in both markets.
That’s what we are doing here in Reno. But now we don’t tell anyone where we live because they don’t like it when we say we rent and we are proud of it! Hate to ruin their day!
JP is not a ghetto - many of the condos pondside are quite beautiful. And transportation to the Medical area which is a huge employer is very easy. There are a lot of trendy restaurants, and its a fun place to live. In my opinion the only problem with JP is that it is part of the Boston public school system where your kids get sent to schools based on a series of racial quotas. So, your darling 5 year old gets to sit on the bus for 45 minutes being sent to the ghetto to go to school.
hehehe…How about the comments from the broker bitch in Wellsley…”the market softness in HER town has been limited to homes priced under $1,000,000 (sniff, sniff)…meanwhile the market for LUXUARY homes over $2.5 million is strong (sniff, sniff)
So, why not let them eat cake…
they’ll probably go back to san diego one day and tell everyone how much they hated boston!
They “saved” 36k on a 500k closet in a ghetto? That is only a 7.2% discount from peak pricing! How could Beth Shelburne and her kind be so stupid! Now she is a FB from day one at the clsoing! Now she is going to watch adjoining closets with similar floorplans selling for less than 100k in the next few years!
Some places in Jamaica Plain truly are close to ghetto areas - other parts are close to Brookline, MA - a very exclusive area. Everyone was trying to get my husband and me to buy in JP - only 500,000 for a 2 bedroom! - and I knew that if we could not afford it, neither could many other people. It was the first time I thought something was very, very wrong. As we were apartment hunting I asked the real estate agent - who is buying these apartments?
He just shrugged.
FYI - it is hard to rent 2 bedroom apartments over $1500 in this area
Inventory in my Massachusetts city heading into October is exactly what it was in early June. Yes, a few homes have sold and a few have taken their place on the MLS, but I can say pretty confidently that we’ve reached hardcore stalemate and things have ground to a halt. Price reductions are starting to happen, but sellers so far are only knocking dollars off of the “wishing price”. I have heard about reasonable (think 2001) lowballs being rejected so we still have a long ways to go. Once we start seeing trades at pre-2003 prices then we’ll be making some progress. But as I’ve said here before, seller entitlement in the Boston area is very strong. With very few large tracts of speculative building like out west and down south, most sellers are people who actually have lived in their house for a few years and have emotional baggage. Their house is “different”.
I think that MA is different because we are so far ahead of the curve. We are the frist ones that have seen YOY declines in the median price, now for the third month. We are also one of the few states that have a declining population, coupled with a change in demographics. We have gone from yuppies in the dot con days, to day laborers in the RE bubble.
I have seen that Troll brothers development that is mentioned, and it is empty. Lots of lots, and some spec houses, but very few actually built houses. This is in a town where the average income is 58K a year for a household. Most people that can afford these houses work in Boston, and have to take the train from Attleboro, and that takes around 45-50 minutes each way, if you are lucky that the train runs. Last time I took it, it was way overcrowded because the previous train had broken down, and everybody in that train was late!
Massachusetts has actually be experiencing year over year declines ever month since September 2005 if you adjust for inflation. Check out the second graph from the top on this page: http://www.bostonbubble.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=119 Year over year price changes have been decelerating since November 2004 and continue to fall rapidly.
Hey Craven,
I don’t think you have been mostly very much.
Out looking at properties, are ya?
Anyway, any predictions for the next six months on the North Shore?
RE: NorthShore…
Essex County noted by Forbes Magazine as the Most Expensive Place to Live in the Country. High RE, no job creation, crap infrastructure.
Most of the towns are filled with GreatestGen agers and offspring too chickenshite to move West who bought for peanuts in the 60’s & 70’s.
NIMBY’s and anti-school/ retired crowd, crush development.
Lots of land locked up by old money trusts.
Kids of boomer’s don’t stand a chance, unless they inherit something.
Entire place is suffering from ossification.
Inordinate amount of cops with nothing better to do shut down night life with constant illegal fishing for OUI offenders.
People are terrified to go out. Crowds go home at 10PM to avoid the Gestapo.
Just try and get a flat tire fixed anywhere. Any menial type labor has to be imported.
Legions of doctor’s and lawyer’s wife’s toolin’ around in their gagantuan SUV’s livin’ in their gagantuan McMansions, though.
Liberals hate the war-but luv that gaz & fuel oil to fill the monsters.
You can literally smell the arrogance and hypocracy.
For all the hoity-toity crowing the place reeks, IHMO.
I don’t think an offer based on 2001 prices is “reasonable”. I think it’s insane. If you were selling a house (god forbid), due to a job transfer or some situation you couldn’t control, would you entertain an offer based on 2001 price levels?
On a relative basis, prices are almost unchanged from 2005 peak levels compared to 2001 prices.
i’m sure there are more recent articles, but here’s one
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2006/08/16/state_home_condo_sales_slip_in_key_quarter/
This is why there is a stalemate right now. Is it any more sane for buyers to pay stratospheric prices that are the result of one of the largest bubbles in history? Real estate prices have reverted to where they were just five years earlier plenty of times in the past, so expecting that now is not unprecedented. Ultimately, the buyers have the upper hand because nobody needs to buy, but as you pointed out, some people do need to sell.
Could you clarify how you are comparing things here?
I think he means asking prices are closer to the bubble peak than 2001, and even sales prices of those properties that do sell are probably closer to 2005 than 2001. Of course, this is all irrelevant, plus ignores the fact that we really do not know where the market price of real estate is given the seller standoff. Buyers are free to offer a very low bid, and sellers are free to refuse. Nothing “insane” about it.
“‘Those prices tumbled,’ Bannigan said, noting one property sold after 495 days on the market at $578,500 less than the original $1.7 million asking price.”
Imagine how the last buyer feels for paying $578.5k more than the most recent buyer.
nasty.
HHmmm….Well this is gonna make WalMart converts out of the millionaire house owners who have yet to submit…
Use Zillow to trace the raise of home price. Here is one area I track. The slope of the graph is very similar if you choose another home of similar characteritics.
http://www.zillow.com/search/Search.htm?addrstrthood=17913+Martha+place&citystatezip=cerritos%2Cca&mode=search
I’m OK with Jan 2003 price+ 5% annual raise from there
This particular house is on the market , I think for 649K (”reduced from 675K).
Need a 250 K hair cut.
-
1997 price + 3.5% annual compounded will be my offers regardless of asking price.
Bravo Gekko, me too.
I’m slightly more generous - 1999 prices + 5% compound p.a - but then I’m in L.A and expect to pay and ’sunshine and clebrity’ premium.
-
Offer 3.5%. Pay 5% max.
I lived in such a house in the late 1980s in Austin, TX. Was worth $45K in 1990. Seems like this needs a $400K+ haricut.
The more “absolute” auctions we see, the more we’ll get a true sense of where the market is. These reserve auctions are a joke sometimes because even the minimum bid is above the market. I saw a real estate ad for two condos being auctioned down here in Palm Beach County, FL. But the minimums were easily too high, and by a decent margin. Headed in the right direction though.
These reserve auctions are a joke
Couldn’t agree more. Reserve auctions are nothing more than a glorified advertisement campaign, since the reserve numbers are still in the stratosphere.
and “no reserve” is just a code word for: “we have a shill in the audience to bid the price up”.
I find it so interesting how so many people sell after just a few years of ownership. Anyway , I think in all the major cities you had a number of developers that were the market makers. These people were trying to create markets .
Rather than building what the people needed ,or what end-users would be interested in ,the “market makers “catered to the speculator dreams of a quick flip in the new “hyped” area.
A good developer/builder would team up with a seminar group targeting investors with a lists of “hot areas” that were sure to skyrocket with a list of new projects coming up. The market makers would say , “just think ,you can get in now on pre-construction contracts and secure the lowest price .” The developers got enough pre-construction sales at that point for the lender to say they would finance the construction . Flippers than sold to flippers and we have vacant building with about 30% actually living there in alot of cases .
Than came the time to sell to end-users at the inflated prices and they were nowhere to be found .Other developers saw the game and put in for their permits to build because the speculators were abundant ,(but where gone by the time they wanted to get in on the sure bet sell out) .Market makers started getting 50% cancellation rates and they found that the end-users weren’t interested in paying 700k for a 800 sq foot condo in the bad side of town .
Dear Mr. “Flipper”, aka entrepreneur (self-envisioned ha!), investor, speculator, shill, dumbass,etc, etc……..
I have a news flash: YOU are the “end-user”.
You forgot risk-takers. Where the only skill set required was being able to think positive. I blame the entrepreneurs, risk-takers and those who encouraged them for much of this mess.
yeah, we still have advertisements on investment websites in NL from US REIT etc. funds promising 20-40% yoy returns if you invest NOW in US real estate. Hurry, you can still get in near the top
Interesting , I was just reading about Florida builders having problems with their pre-construction contract with flippers that have not closed escrow yet effecting these builders from selling to end users .
Apparently the builders now want to try to help these pre-construction flippers pre-sell their contract ,(prior to closing ),because they feel that the flippers will prevent the builders from being able to market the completed project .
The Florida builders claim that their costs have gone up and the flippers will drag the prices down . ( Sorry, I forgot what article I saw this in ).
This kindas reminds me of the “Market Makers” in fraudulent penny stocks. They “make the market” because they are the only dealers in this stock and control the inventory. They will be more than happy to sell more stocks at higher prices, but if abnybody tries to dump their shares then they do everything they can to convince the seller otherwise. If they can not convince the seller not to sell then they finally refuse to do so because “there is not enough volume to sell this much stock,” while they continue to unload their remaining invetory of stock. Eventually, these boiler rooms disapear and the investors are left holding worthless inventory of stock that has no market.
HW, you nailed it; that’s exactly how things played out in my neck of the woods. It was a very appealing scheme. Only problem was you did’nt know exactly what you were buying, when it would be finished, at what rate your mortgage would be set, and you had to decide on the spot, no time to run numbers or consult w/spouse. Too much pressure; boiler room like pressure. of course, I balked!
Smart person for walking . This urgency factor with sales to get people to not think is just so insulting ,especially on a high priced item .
>“The new home and condo market may be hit hardest by the softening of the Massachusetts real estate market. There’s a glut of new construction on the market, and would-be buyers are struggling to unload their own current homes. And that slowdown is pinching developers.”
So you have two schools of thought out there:
1. Developers will get hurt more because of all the existing homes.
2. Existing Home Sellers will get hurt more because Developers can slash prices and still make a profit or at least breakeven.
I’m inclined to believe #2.
I guess there’s plenty of hurt to go around for everybody!
I agree..
The existing home market might get really beat, if the new stuff come down enough to attract the few real buyers that are out there. These buyers will almost always perceive “new” as “better”, which may or not be true, but I think the perception that it is is valid.
Agree with #2, because developers are business people and know full well that if they don’t sell NOW they are going to have to sell for a lot less later.
FB’s are just going to wait for their ship to come in.
I was just thinking that I haven’t heard or read ANYTHING about the ever increasing demand for real estate. How all the imigration, etc, is raising the number of housing units the country needs. I guess there isn’t a shortage of housing after all? Quite the change from early 2006, wouldn’t you say?
now…a shortage of AFFORDABLE housing..yes, there is that! I still think eventually we will see McMansions being split into 3 or 4 separate living units and resold as ‘condos’.
in the Netherlands you could immediately propose a new law that subsidizes at least 100% of the conversion cost from McMansion to McMiniMansion, for the benefit of the people (especially poor people, of course!!). And probably some semi-government entity would buy half of the units right away and rent them out for 50% of the cost to ‘disadvantaged people’ as well (with the other part of the cost subsidized again, of course).
In the US, well - I guess they can easily think of a less obvious way of subsidizing Real Estate speculators, so who knows?
yep - that and all the cocktail party chatter about how great RE is has sure died down. The silence is deafening.
“I was just thinking that I haven’t heard or read ANYTHING about the ever increasing demand for real estate”
Kind of funny, but this article illustrates how desperate the media is to find a buyer to talk about and then to paint them as savy.
News editor to reporter: “Hey I just got a hot lead some couple just bought a condo in Jamaica Plain”.
Reporter: “No way”.
Editor: “Way, get out there right away, I want a full page story on this”.
Reporter: “I dunno, usually the financing falls through or they come to their senses”, before I can get there”.
Editor: “They are from San Diego”.
Reporter: “I’m there boss, just promise me you won’t put this in the, ‘News of the weird section’, section.”
Editor: “You do a good job and you will get a byline in the Finance section, buddy boy.”
I made a similar point a while back…I’m actually willing to accept the idea that there’s a shortage of housing…but the housing we need to accomodate all of these new arrivals is affordable housing, mainly rentals. This bubble is just exacerbating this problem by motivating developers to tear down or convert existing rentals, many of which are below market rate. Here in West Hollywood, at last count almost 300 residents (1% of the total population of the city) who were renters at below-market, rent-controlled rates, had been displaced in the past two years to make way for more $800,000, granite-countertopped, two bedroom condos. I like to believe that, in turn, these new developments attract a lot of idiots with more money than sense which ultimately lowers the cummulative IQ of the entire neighborhood.
Sigh.
These condos are now staying on the market longer and longer, of course, even as more of them are built. This piece in today’s L.A. Times about buyer incentives illustrates just how hard they are becoming to unload, I suppose:
http://tinyurl.com/qjfah
My favorite quote is actually sensible, and from a realtor:
Agent Mac Donald considers it just one piece of her overall marketing pie. She’s been selling real estate for 22 years and says she personally would never advise clients to offer cars or trips when they list their homes.
“It’s silly,” she said. “This is a price-driven market; it’s that simple. If it’s priced right, it will move.”
Having been in the game for 22 years, this agent undoubtedly has been through at least one, if not two, of these bubble cycles and knows that, to paraphrase a favorite line from Spinal Tap, “Money walks and bullshit talks”.
Or something like that.
Well if the McMansions get chopped up then it’s gonna look but ugly with all of these cars parked in front of ‘em!
And who would want to PAY for a place where all the interior walls are 3/8 inch compressed plasterboard? I mean you can hear your neighbor’s baby sneeze through these interior walls!
Such is the plight of housing in America: Lots of housing but of very poor quality.
- The Shelburnes put in a low-ball offer on a penthouse condominium in Jamaica Plain priced far above their price range. Not only did they get it for $34,000 less than the $500,000-plus asking price, but the developer agreed to pay six months of condo fees worth more than $2,000.”
- How sad. The Shelburnes think that they ‘drove’ a great deal. In about 9 more months those units will be at $350k. Dumbass’s.
The Shelburnes put in a low-ball offer on a penthouse condominium in Jamaica Plain priced far above their price range. Not only did they get it for $34,000 less than the $500,000-plus asking price, but the developer agreed to pay six months of condo fees worth more than $2,000.”
to the tune of that old “come to Jamaica” commercial,
..come to Jamacia Plain,
but don’t come alone,
cause if you do,
we’ll take what you own…
I just love it when people talk of “gentrification”. Yes, there are some decent little blocks, but mostly these neighborhoods are more like “the hood” than anything else.
While it might be true that there are some very nice old homes, there will never be a time, when the entire neighborhood is fully whole. Neon store signs, graffitti, trash, noise, etc….no thanks…
I thought in So Cal it was pretty standard to bid 10% or more over list, so maybe these 2 yokels thought offering 6% under list was a low ball. I think they used pretty bad judgement. It’s not too hard to go on the web and look up crime rate, education level, median income, etc for any area.
Stupidity is free but its consequences are expensive.
Yeah, I love how the newspaper slants the article to sound like $34K is a low-ball offer. A low-ball offer on that dump would have been 50% of the asking price. It’s just another example of the MSM attempting to influence what is perceived as a low-ball offer and try to prop up the dumping market.
Here in Dallas the business section of the Morning News was filled with doom and gloom articles about the local condo market a couple of days ago, but the same author of those articles peppered them with all sorts of positive spin and then had two more articles right next to the others that screamed about how a real estate downturn wouldn’t affect the Dallas area and how much of a bargain Dallas is compared to the rest of the country.
There is absolutely no neutrality with the MSM. With few exceptions, they are committed to trying to keep the the ponzi scheme going until their rich developer and realtor friends can squeeze the last bit of blood out the brain dead inhabitants of this country.
AAAAhhhhh….nothng like the local MSM showering us with all of their crafty professionalism. Who says journalism in America is not exquisitively informative? Just look in you local paper for factual accounts of how the local area is different.
MOVING TO NAPLES. CAN WE SAY “HANGMAN”
now that developers and realtors are going to county commissioner meetings in south florida begging for a tax break, can you believe that broward county is talking about closing a library branch and greatly reducing hours at their 10 busiest libraries. all this tax windfall and now they close libraries rather than learn to balance a budget. this happens when you put taxes in the wrong people hands. the taxes breaks given to developers and now they crying, because no one wants to buy their garbage. (THEY ARE WAITING FOR NEW ENGLANDERS TO BUY THEIR PROPERTIES) dont realize that the housing bubble is everywhere!
“‘We’ve been busy,’ said Sal Corio, owner a Warwick auctioneer. Corio is handling the auction of 19 condominiums in Pawtucket on Sept. 30. The units, formerly apartments, were recently renovated in a conversion project. The minimum bid will be $87,500 per unit.”
“Joseph DeAngelis, a lawyer representing the condo owners, a group of investors, said the renovation was completed four or five months ago and the units went on the market for $99,900. ‘It’s surprising to everyone that they’re not selling,’ he said.”
So let’s see here, they were going to sell for 99K (presumably at a profit) and now they are being auctioned with a minimum bid of 87.5K? Can someone tell me why this is any different than a “heloc’d” homeowner refusing to lower his price because he “needs” to get the asking price to service his debt load? These auction minimums do not reflect the market. They need to drop the minimum to 50K or get rid of it altogether.
The marketing costs will be lower on a auction if you look at the mim. bid . This is what you have to watch out for with the auctions . I have seen people bid up prices in auctions higher than they would of gone for in the normal market .
hBay?
It just tells me that the developers still don’t “get it” and are still in the “profit mode” instead of the “avoid more pain” mode. They can’t be taken seriously until they convert.
I have heard of the local auctioners in my county even having some of their own people helping to bid up prices. I have also seen people go crazy bidding up the price of garbage on hBay.
“The Toll Brothers Inc., builders of suburban McMansions, recently laid off workers at its Estates at Walpole, a large development of homes priced in the mid-$600,000 range.”
laying off workers? wasn’t the industry almost welcoming a slowdown so they could grab market share? full speed ahead mr. sell brothers. buy more land, hire more workers and build more homes.
“But Casapulla, the Toll Brothers executive, said he remains optimistic the market will recover as the surplus of new homes built on speculation is slowly absorbed.
“That’s just a function of the market place and the economy. Once we can get rid of that inventory, it’ll spike back up. There’s still a demand,” Casapulla said.”
everyone is waiting for the bounce these days. some flippers on tv yesterday said they might wait for a bounce. we need term.
wishing bounce?
““The Toll Brothers Inc., builders of suburban McMansions, recently laid off workers at its Estates at Walpole, a large development of homes priced in the mid-$600,000 range. A Toll Brothers development of a dozen luxury Wellesley homes priced around $1.3 million has finally sold most of the units after the company aggressively slashed prices, (broker) Elaine Bannigan said.”
“‘Those prices tumbled,’ Bannigan said, noting one property sold after 495 days on the market at $578,500 less than the original $1.7 million asking price.”
****************************************************************************
Again, I ask, “How long before Toll Brothers goes bankrupt?”
IMHO, it will occur before the end of 2007.
How about a ‘toilet bounce’? Ever seen anything bounce out of a toilet? I would say that what these flippers are waiting for is similar to what is usually flung into a toilet. Yup, keep staring at it, FB, I’m sure it’ll bounce aaaaany minute.
How about a ‘toilet bounce’? Ever seen anything bounce out of a toilet? I would say that what these flippers are waiting for is similar to what is usually flung into a toilet. Yup, keep staring at it, FB, I’m sure it’ll bounce aaaaany minute.
The patient has temporarilly stopped breathing but the prognosis is positive. He just was breathing a little too much recently and this is normal.
Well said. Robert is consistently one of the funniest posters here.
“When Beth Shelburne and her husband moved to Boston from San Diego earlier this year, they (were) pleasantly surprised to find developers desperate to fill empty buildings practically fawning over them.”
Rule No. 1 for buying or investing in almost anything, anywhere, anytime:
“If it sounds too good to be true, there is a pretty good chance that it *is* too good to be true.”