‘Buyers Waiting For Prices To Fall’ In Florida
The Orlando Sentinel reports from Florida. “The cooling of the region’s red-hot housing market has turned the supply-and-demand equation on its head. Buyers, once frantic to find homes in the face of skyrocketing prices, now can shop at a leisurely pace, picking through thousands of homes while waiting for prices to fall.”
“Evidence of the shift can be seen in the growing use of the Multiple Listing Service, the Realtors’ giant database commonly referred to as the MLS. During the second half of last year, only 59.4 percent of homes sold in the area were listed on the MLS. During the first six months of this year, that number increased to 84.9 percent.”
“‘We are seeing more and more of that,’ said Alan Bloom, a Realtor in Longwood. ‘Those sellers are starting to get discouraged about how long it’s taking.’”
“Karen Cowie knows all about the changing market. Now that she and her husband want to move back to The Villages, they have run into a problem. Their three-bedroom Port Orange home, listed at just under $300,000, has been on the market for two months. They have had a couple of open houses and a few inquiries but nothing resembling an offer.”
“‘It almost makes you want to take the sign down and say forget it,’ Cowie said. ‘I’m not going to give my house away and sacrifice everything I’ve worked for.’”
“Homeowners, spoiled by several years of record gains, are loath to surrender their winnings. But there is a simple reality working against every seller, whether they are represented by a Realtor or not: There are many more homes than there are buyers.”
“In August, there were enough homes on the market, 21,000, to last more than 10 months at the current sales pace. A year ago, the inventory of 5,500 available homes was enough to last about seven weeks. That means there’s nothing to push prices higher or perhaps even maintain their current levels. Many sellers, however, refuse to accept that.”
“‘They are still holding out for 2005 prices in the 2006 market,’ said Beverly Pindling, president of the Orlando Regional Realtor Association. ‘We have to do a lot of educating,’ she said. ‘Unless you price it below the market, it is not going to sell.’”
“Alicia Wolfe has been trying to sell her Lake County home since April, when she first put a ‘For sale by owner’ sign in her front yard. With nearly a dozen neighborhood homes on the market, Wolfe has steadily lowered her asking price to compete: $229,000; $216,000; $209,000; and now $205,000.”
“‘Ours is the cheapest and the newest in the neighborhood. So I figured it would have sold by now,’ she said. ‘Nobody’s even made me an offer.’”
“There are many like Mitesh Gandhi, a self-employed consultant in New Jersey, who saw opportunity to make money in Florida’s red-hot housing market. He purchased a tract of land and had a house built. It was completed in April.”
“But with the market wobbling, he wants out. Gandhi is trying to sell a new four-bedroom home in Palm Bay, initially purchased as a rental property. He tried the Realtor route for six months before growing frustrated and deciding to go it alone. It’s now listed at $269,000, $40,000 below its starting point. And he’s offering a $5,000 bonus at closing.”
“If there is no sale by year’s end, he faces a decision: pay a little extra for a no-frills listing on the Realtors’ Multiple Listing Service or seek the full-service help of another Realtor. ‘I’m crossing my fingers that we won’t have to think about those options,’ Gandhi said.”
The Sun Sentinel. “South Floridians are stuck in a cash crunch that arrived just as the value of their homes began to drop. That drop in prices is happening at a faster rate than in the rest of the nation. While good news for buyers, that makes people feel less wealthy and can affect spending.”
“‘What I’m hearing is major exasperation,’ says real estate agent V. Elaine Stevens of Lauderhill. ‘People are being impacted. One of the really big ones is the FPL bill.’”
“Stevens says houses and condos may continue to be hard to sell even as prices drop because of other costs. ‘The whole thing is people can’t afford the insurance and they can’t afford the taxes,’ she said.’”
The Palm Beach Post. “When Jacquie Cofer launched her real estate career in June, she entertained visions of a six-figure income and plenty of time for her two children. The once-sizzling, now-fizzling housing market has jolted her back to reality. The Jupiter woman gave up a six-figure salary to chase real estate riches, but she hasn’t made a penny as an agent.”
“‘I thought real estate would be a perfect match for me,’ Cofer said last week. ‘But there’s just no buyers. Even if you can get a good deal on the house, the taxes just kill you.’”
“The number of home sales in Palm Beach County has fallen since 2001, according to the Florida Association of Realtors. Today, there are some 11,000 Realtors in a county that’s on pace to sell less than 10,000 existing single-family homes for the year. The Treasure Coast has seen a similar trend. ‘Some agents are starving,’ said Jerry Mabus, president of the Realtors Association of St. Lucie.”
‘ Old-time swamp peddling has gone high-tech, thanks to Internet auction sites such as eBay.The pitch — speculation on near-worthless Florida real estate — is decades old. But today, a new generation eyeing property for investment or retirement is buying land that’s miles from civilization, has no roads or utilities and sometimes is underwater.
‘Known as ‘paper subdivisions,’ these undeveloped tracts are the remnants of developers’ unfulfilled dreams — if not outright schemes. Buyers are paying thousands of dollars over assessed value for a lot that can’t be built on in a subdivision that does not officially exist. Florida officials estimate there are millions of these unbuildable lots in every part of the state.’
I’m old enough to remember when the phrases “Florida real estate” and “swamp land” were punch lines used by late-night comedians. I suppose if you live long enough, you’ll see just about everything come back in another cycle.
Not only are taxes and insurance going up, the “special assessment” letters are being sent for the gross overspending by the HOAs. My landlorg just got a bill for another $1100. I guess with a negative monthly carry of $3200 already, another $1100 is no biggie. Looks like another month of the minimum payment on the POA…”Tack it on to the balance, Mr. Banker!”
St. Pete Times had an article a few months ago about New Yorkers who bought land for “retirement heaven” in the Green Swamp around Lakeland, only to find no property access, unbuildable lots, and locals toting guns and trying to shoo them away from their property. I can’t help but laugh because it shows how stupid some people are…..
‘I’m not going to give my house away and sacrifice everything I’ve worked for.’”
It’s only worth what somebody is willing to pay for it. It’s like saying I bought a beany baby at the height of that nonsensical frenzy for $500, and now nobody is willing to pay me more than a dollar for it. Okay, if you still think it’s worth $500, but nobody else does, don’t “give it away”, keep it if it makes you feel better. I guess that euphoric feeling that comes with delusion makes it worth the the extra $499.
‘I’m not going to give my house away and sacrifice everything I’ve worked for.’
I can’t even count how many times I have read this type of quote recently in all of these stories. It is the swan song of true FB’s, at least when stocks burst you had buyers, albeit foolish ones, all the way down, the real estate massacre will be much worse in my opinion.
Agreed, and for a very simple reason. You can just go buy stock, a few grand; and there you go, your a stockholder. To buy a home, almost every needs to use leverage. As home prices drop, and more and more defaults mount, lenders are going to be less and less willing to give money to people; the leverage decreases, and people can afford less and less.
Any leveraged asset, no matter what the class, has much more ability to move very quickly and violently; the leverage amplifies buying power, but also amplifies losses! Something that “how-much-a-month Harry” should have realized. Yes, you can carry a 400K loan for 1000 a month. But the leverage is absolute, you have nothing but leverage! If that home price drops $1, your under the lever. Trust me, people are about to find out why extremly high levels of leverage are not a good thing; more like putting money on black at the craps table!
And in the 1920s you could by stock with only 10% margin. The result was a market that went down 90% in just 3 years. Leverage can be nasty.
I wonder what would have happened to 1920s stock prices if you could have bought with 0% or negative margin — like some of the home loans these days (the kind with downpayment and closing cost assistance)?
More Kool-Aid please. It’s so refreshing. It’s going to make me strong, wealthy, and wise.
But doesn’t liquidity dry up first, making drops in prices (which are calculated against closed deals, of which there are fewer), take longer to show up?
“Sacrifice all I’ve worked for”. Oh yeah, it must have been really tough “work” sitting on your ass waiting to be paid for doing nothing.
That’s the part that drives me bonkers. The sense of entitlement .
And the contempt for the potential buyers (and the market in general) that just too dumb to realize how wonderful my home is.
That’s probably the most work this lazy pig has done in her entire lifetime. I love visiting my folks in SW FL and seeing all the glutens of the planet going out of their minds now that the get rich quick real estate house of cards is collapsing around them. It must be real tough snapping back into reality and realizing you’re not a real estate tycoon.
I know, this is starting to get like one of those drinking games where you take a shot every time a phrase is uttered on some show. We’d all be plastered by now if this was the drinking phrase.
Sadly, I don’t think this is the swan song.
We have only begun to hear the FBs crying. After which we will get to hear them whine that the mean old lenders are making them accept the risk part of the risk/reward tradoff and pleading for shelter from the government.
I wonder what mantra they will chant for that, as we’ve used up “it’s different here”, “real estate doesn’t decline”, “real estate doesn’t decline nationally”, and “I’m not giving it away”.
“I was tricked”? “I’m ruined”?
You don’t have to sacrifice everything you worked for because the market has already taken away from you everything you worked for. Sorry.
‘I’m not going to give my house away and sacrifice everything I’ve worked for.’”
Another seller said, ” If someone doesn’t buy my house soon, I am just going to give it away, and let someone else deal with the high cost of taxes, insurance, and utility bills.”
‘I’m not going to give my house away and sacrifice everything I’ve worked for.’”
It’s only worth what somebody is willing to pay for it. It’s like saying I bought a beany baby at the height of that nonsensical frenzy for $500, and now nobody is willing to pay me more than a dollar for it. Okay, if you still think it’s worth $500, but nobody else does, don’t “give it away”, keep it if it makes you feel better. I guess that euphoric feeling that comes with delusion makes it worth the extra $499.
“everything I’ve worked for.”
Where do you start with this one? All of that work that she did. She went to a closing and signed her name 100 times. Wow, that should be worth $100,000 in instant appreciation. I have grown to loathe these idiots. Let her keep the house. Then she won’t have to give it away. Dreams really can come true down in Florida.
Bingo.
I second that “bingo”. It would be one thing if these people said “Well, I tried to get in on the pyramid scheme before it was too late, and missed. Oops!”
But instead, they think they’re investment experts, big-shot real estate developers, or hard-working capitalists.
The part that upsets me is that these sellers think they can live in a house for 2 years , get the tax-free gain ,and than they are entitled to 100k-300k in profit . After I bought my last house in the 80’s I had to go through several down cycles before after 23 years the house finally sold at a profit .It wasn’t fun making those payments every month in spite of the values going down for years .
“everthing I’ve worked for????
That Cowie lady in Port Orange…..I checked the Volousia County tax assessor, and she & hubby bought the house she is trying to sell for “just under” $300,000….she bought it 2 years ago for $190,000….
Let’s see here once…she wants to work for a 50% profit in 2 years????…..
>>>IF THAT’S WORK…COUNT ME IN!!!!
‘I’m not going to give my house away .
Somewhere there must be a running count of these future losers and their famous quote.
“I’m not going to give my house away..”
My house? It is not yours until you paid off. And even then just try to skip an installment on the propoerty taxes and you’ll see whose house is.
Double Bingo!!!
“When Jacquie Cofer launched her real estate career in June, she entertained visions of a six-figure income and plenty of time for her two children. The once-sizzling, now-fizzling housing market has jolted her back to reality. The Jupiter woman gave up a six-figure salary to chase real estate riches, but she hasn’t made a penny as an agent.”
And my nominee for Boob of the Year is……………………..Jacquie Cofer. Good job Jacquie. Who pays people six figure salaries when they can’t even recognize a housing cycle? Jacquie should have a lot more time for the kids, now that there are no buyers out there to waste her time.
Looks like Jacquie is a little too old to pick up a second job dancing the pole at Pure Platinum. Here’s her website and pic:
http://www.jacquiecofer.com/bin/web/real_estate/AR210351/HOME/Jupiter/1153856247.html
Just what in the he11 did she do before that netted her six figures anyway ? She looks like a sheeple idiot.
Find my Eden…, she says on her website, …but she only shows her face on the picture.
hahahaha. John, you are one dirty bird. Someone please help me get this disturbing image out of my head.
This was my thought exactly – can you imagine the look on her co-workers faces when she announced her departure, threw the saddle bags over her donkey and headed out in search of gold in 2006 …..
“Man, I thought Jacquie was pretty sharp and researched her ideas ….. thank god we unloaded that dolt before we gave her any real responsibility”.
(Then, on the other hand, Jacquie’s six figure career could have been selling crap from her house on e-bay, and that was drying up too ….)
I say that and thought “Please, let her be someone who worked in HR somewhere… not somebody with actual skills they needed.”
(I know, nasty.)
not nasty so much, as sad but true
I worked for a successuful large company during the dot-com boom. We had people leaving left and right to join dot-coms….we were in no rush to hire them back when they came knocking a few years later.
‘Some agents are starving,’ said Jerry Mabus, president of the Realtors Association of St. Lucie.
Well, we can’t have that. It’s time for some rock star to put together a “Feed the Realtors” benefit concert.
That gave me a good morning chuckle, thanks.
they’re still doing farm aid - and getting subsidies to boot
commie farmers unite !
It is getting bad. Last week I drove by a real estate office on A1A in Boca Raton, and there were 2 Camry’s and an Avalon in the employee parking lot. They weren’t even new ones. Not a Mercedes, Lexus or Range Rover in sight.
I’m making an appeal to everyone who can hear the sound of my voice. The Realtors of Central Florida are starving and you CAN make a difference. For only the price of a suicide loan and the almost certainty of destroying your credit score, you can keep a Central Florida Realtor from starving. I’m talking about a real flesh-and-blood Realtor, just like little Jacquie Cofer here… After signing on the dotted line and taking up residence in your overpriced, poorly constructed McMansion you’ll receive occasional e-mails from little Jacquie, offering you a small bonus if you refer another buyer to her. Each e-mail will contain an actual glamour shot of little Jacquie, which you can print out and keep as a reminder of the Realtor that you helped save. Many people have the opportunity to do this, but all too few actually pick up the phone. Will YOU be one of those special people who picks up the phone? Will YOU be the person who saves little Jacquie’s a$$ by buying a home (or several) today? If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for the Realtors. If it saves the life of even ONE Realtor- isn’t it worth it? Please pick up the phone and make that call today. Tell Jacquie that Beer and Cigar Guy sent you. Thank you.
lmao!!
Pledge today!! Don’t wait. Support our Realtors.
“For only the price of a suicide loan and the almost certainty of destroying your credit score, you can keep a Central Florida Realtor from starving.”
OT, but Speaking of credit score, perhaps the credit analysts at Fair Isaac should start contemplating giving anyone now buying in the bubble markets an instant 200 point ding in their score.
“Feed the Realtors”?
to the alligators.
We are the WORLD!
Will
Offload
Real
Leveraged
Debt
she entertained visions of a six-figure income and plenty of time for her two children.
“‘I thought real estate would be a perfect match for me,’
No Shit, Jacquie? You mean staying home and collecting a 6 figure income seems like it might fit in with your lifestyle? Wow. I can’t believe you don’t want to sit in traffic several hours a day commuting to a job where you get to sit in a cubicle and actually have to think for eight hours a day? I find it hard to believe that there are actually many folks that feel like you do. Wow, what a revelation. (sarcasm off).
8 hours a day?!? For a six figure job? Where? I figured 10 hours minimum for many days for these type of jobs.
Hey, the President pulls down $400,000 a year and he even has time for two-hour mid-day workouts.
Right about now most FB are receiving their tax bills and their home insurance premium renewals. Add to that shock, many are having their ARM’s reset to much higher rates.
The painful squeezing of the noose around their necks is getting much tighter. IMHO by year end we will start to see capitulation.
Gandhi is trying to sell a new four-bedroom home in Palm Bay, initially purchased as a rental property.
Now who on earth would build a NEW single family house to make into a rental property? Boy was that stooopid. That type of deal almost never works, much less in an overbuilt and overpriced market like Florida was when he started.
There is no doubt in my mind that he envisioned renting it out at a loss but anticipated offsetting that with a massive capital gain as prices continued to soar. There’ s no chance that he could have been cash-flow-positive on that place from the beginning. He’s not an investor; he’s just a dumb speculator.
Haven’t you heard: What you lose in rental income you’ll make up in appreciation. I believe that was actually the standard San Diego mantra in 2004. Most everyone was able to say it with a very serious and knowing mien.
“…who on earth would build a NEW single family house to make into a rental property?”
A lot more people than you think; some even bought 3 and 4 homes with similar intent. It’s all written in David ‘RE is the best retirement invesment vehicle’ Leareah’s how to manual.
One thing that comes to mind is the RE industry could take a page from the brokerage industry’s playbook. Why not have all of the FB’s go out and buy another property and dollar cost average down. 1st house @ $400k, 2nd house now at $300k. If you buy the 2nd house, the market only has to go up $50k and you’ll break even, otherwise you’ll have to wait for the market to go up $100k to break even.
Sign me up.
This cracks me up, the title of this article “Buyers Waiting For Prices To Fall In Florida.” Really, how many buyers are left waiting on the sidelines? Now that most of the flippers have exited the market, and the greater fools have bought, who is left? The RE vultures?
OT - I looked at a new home in N. CA by Sacramento, the builder lowered the price $360K from $1,050,00 to $690,000.
Wow , goes to show you the kind of real estate dreams people had .
This weekend on Flip That House they had aflipper put over 200k into a older 50’s house looking to make around 150k on the dog that was listed for around 900k . Note to investors : Stupid risk
That’s the thing that baffles me about flippers - that they think they can spend X amount of dollars for an upgrade and then charge the next buyer 2X for that same upgrade. How stupid do they think buyers are? If you are a buyer would you (A) pay for an upgrade you wanted yourself maintaining control over how the upgrade was done or (B) pay twice as much for having someone else do the upgrade where you have to take what was done (colors, materials, etc.)
“…the builder lowered the price $360K from $1,050,00 to $690,000.”
That 35% cut shows how much profit the builders have had in their homes these past few years. It also shows how much they can cut the price on a house you want built in the next couple of years. In a down cycle, they will build at almost zero net profit, in order to retain their best subs. And their land-purchase costs are dropping as well. FB used-home sellers cannot comprehend how badly this will screw them. A new subdivision of virtually identical homes might spring up nearby in 2008/2009 at prices more than 25% less than they paid.
test
“‘It almost makes you want to take the sign down and say forget it,’ Cowie said. ‘I’m not going to give my house away and sacrifice everything I’ve worked for.’”
TYPICAL SOUTH FLORIDA MIDSET
and this idea of rents going up will take more buyers out of the market. if they cant afford to pay rent, they are moving and less people are buying. i went to sawgrass yesterday and it was deals everywhere and i parked within 5 minutes of one of the doors after looking for 5 minutes. unheard of over a year ago.
i go by my favorite pizza joint and the lady said that she would give me money and a free pizza to work for a few hours. only a sick little daughter kept me from making some dough. jobs are everywhere and no one to hire. pricing out everyone, priceless….
We have plenty of cheap real estate here in Atlanta….just south and southwest of downtown, in fact. Or if you prefer, you can live 30 miles out… And there are MANY Florida plates here. Along with Northeast and Michigan.
Off the topic but facsinating just the same, I saw something this weekend that was mind boggling: Real Estate being sold at the flea market. There are 2 flea markets out here in Oakland, one near the collisium, and one near a small community college. Of the vast majority of the shopper that go there, around 75% are hispanic.
In the last few months I’ve noticed a weird pheonomina. Brightly colored tents with reams of printed listings hang from ropes running back and forth accompanied by “open house” signs began showing up at both flea markets. At first there was maybe one two. This last weekend I counted around 15 at one, and 5 or 6 at the other. Almost every company was represented: Century 21, Caldwell banker, etc etc.
All the houses listed were in prime ghetto country; West Oakland, Richmond, as well as listings 50-60 miles out of town in places like Manteca. The prices were all in the 350-500k range, which for bubbly California sounds ” cheap” compared to the median, but not when you consider that most of the people looking at these houses were likely burger flippers, janitors, and leaf blowers who had just come across the border.
I wish I had brought my camera. It is astonishing. I couldn’t help myself when I walked into one booth and said: ” it must be a sign of how well RE is doing when houses start showing up for sale at flea markets.” -needless to say the agent wasn’t amused…
Illegal immigrants are the last frontier when it comes to the real estate bubble, and the desperate marketing of houses to them will probably extend the life of the CA bubble for a few months. Let’s face it, most of them probably have an elementary school level education in Spanish and here is this nicely dressed person offering them a house for no money down. And if you think about it from the illegal’s point of view, why not? They have no credit score to ruin and are probably putting no money down on house. They may be able to live in it for 1-2 years before the payment resets. As long as the secondary loan market and pension funds are stupid enough to buy these loans, the practice will continue.
I think the more likely story for these folks is that they’ll simply pile 5,6,7 or more people into one house. It makes a lot of sense. In their native country, father, mother, brother, sister, their husbands and wives, and sometimes even kids ALL live in one house. Fast-forward to California, and wall-lah. They buy a house and with 8 people paying on it, even if we’re talking a 20k a year salary each, they can easily afford a little crappy house in the ghetto, which is actually probably a lot better than the house they moved out of in their native country. So I can see it going both ways.
I see this every day as I drive through Oakland- cars filling up every other driveway and spilling out into the streets.
There are immigrants piling into houses in Oakland? Wow, I thought that was just an LA thing, I didn’t realize this phenomenon has moved up north. Well, they’re basically good people, but they do change a neighborhood, that’s for sure.
“…but they do change a neighborhood…”
Now that’s a coffee-on-the-keyboard-spewer! Understatement of the month, I think. Hmm…wonder if that pushes prices up.
These people can live for free for years like this. If you have 10 people in a house, you take illegal number one, have him sign the papers, pay basically nothing, two years later he defaults, the next illegal signs up, they all live for a few more years, rinse repeat. With Neg Am mortgages they could keep this up indefinitely and never get hammered because they have no credit to ruin.
A very old family friend lives in a Florida neighborhood that has been in this type of “transition” for years. Fortunately, she has no heirs, so she has no real interest in the residual value of her home. Her neighbor on the left — their driveways adjoin — runs an large, illegal to-go kitchen in their garage. We took her home one night — the garage door is halfway up, they are cooking stuff out the wazoo (smelled great, but that could get old in a hurry), and people are pulling into their driveway, paying for their dinner-in-a-bag and leaving. Now, I suppose there are people out there who think this kind of cultural soup is just the niftiest thing in the world, but how many of those people have the value of their largest asset riding on the hope that someone else will share their joy and buy it at a great price?
LA spanish radio has more ads for no money down houses than anything else. And many are 30 to 60 minute infommercials. The other consideration the immigrants think about is, rents have gotten so high, they might as well pay even more per month for a mortgage but at least own the place, and then just rent out some rooms or garage to make up the difference. As for their credit scores, I know Mexicans that watch that score very carefully, because they use credit to buy many things, besides housing. Go into La Curacao, it’s a department store chain here in LA that has more people walking around with clipboards selling credit than they have people at the cash register.
I have Mexican neighbors. Can’t help thinking that they have their house HELOC-ed to the moon, and that they pay their everyday expenses with credit cards. And it’s all to keep feeding the Living Beyond Their Means machine.
From their point of view, it’s free money. What the hell do they care if they go bankrupt. Worse case, move back to Mexico. It’s nothing but a win-win situation for them.
Well, Oakland does have the ‘Raider Nation’. I am willing to bet that our ‘Raider Nation’ California rowdys can open a can of ‘Whup ass’ on any other bubble area.
Seeing as how the Raider Nation is 0-5 and looking at an 0-16 season, I doubt very much that any other bubble areas are quaking in their boots at the thought of Raider Nation Whup-ass
LOL.
Cold!
The Raiders lost to the lowly ineffectual Cleveland Browns.
Bill, I saw it first hand last year in Oakland. I know two guys that sell there and each had 2 houses.They both said they took the equity out and bought houses in Mexico,and will ride the gravy train until the party ends ,then go home and retire….As said above the last few bucks are being sqeezed from sub-prime illegals. I just saw a big article with BofA, citibank actively pursuing anyone with tax# which illegals can get. Think Ross Perot “giant sucking sound”..first our jobs, then our money going south…Thanks gringo for the easy money….
Whether it be through easily avaialble credit or even plain income, this is what happens when people have “too much money” lying around.
Penny wise, pound foolish.
Check out the graph on the left-side of the Palm Beach Post story about Cofer, the one that shows the growth in agents and decrease in listings over the past several years. Just Beautiful.
This is OT for the Florida story, but those of you tracking the Seattle “real estate investor” blog, http://seattlerei.blogspot.com/, should check out his latest post. You can feel the panic building.
Someone should tell that guy to call Dr. Laura.
“If I felt that our market was going to free fall, I’d cut the prices more drastically simply to move the inventory before it becomes unmoveable. It’s disheartening, to be sure, but I knew the timing absolutely sucked.”
Interpretation: He does think the market is going to free fall. He won’t cut the price - in a sense, he doesn’t know how, since humans are mysteriously unable to take “first” losses. The inventory will become unmoveable as he slowly chases the market down. He will kick himself for not having been able/willing to avoid a huge loss, when deep down, after all, he knew the market was going to free fall.
Hey guys, these stories are very familiar. The six figure income lady with the 2 kids is a relative of mine who is eager to do the same thing. The rental income Palm Bay guy from NJ is a Phd buddy of mine from NY who was here last Summer looking for homes in the exact same area.
Can you tell us just what work she was doing that pays 6 figures? I’m very curious. (You don’t have to answer.)
I think he meant that he has a relative who wants to emulate the woman’s transition into real estate sales.
Who cares about Florida. Who cares about Phoenix, Modesto, or Sacramento. I’m looking for price declines in LA and so far, they are almost non-existent.
You want some cheese with that whine?
tx, anyone ever tell you to quit while your ahead? Your schtick has gotten stale…
Hey, every blog needs a resident b$tch, right?
There ARE price declines in LA. Sell prices are coming down, allbeit slowly. I’m seeing it more and more. Just wait until the beginning of the year investorgirl…it’ll be more obvious then. We are just turning the corner here. Westside $ flooded the Valley…now it’s petering out and prices are being reduced. After that HUGE AMAZING article in the Times RE section yesterday…expect panic to set in shortly.
You could ‘Slide’ out to the Inland Empire…huge price declines.
And as for Texas, that one’s really off my map.
And as for Texas, that state is really off my map.
Could you even find it on a map?
Isn’t it that big, totally flat, hot, area bordering Mexico, that’s fairly devoid of culture, where the most intelligent national figure it produced is Goerge Bush?
Bush is from Connecticut.
Texas has produced Eisenhower & Lyndon Johnson.
Now, now. Don’t rap Texas too hard. While I’m not even remotely Texan, the true Texan ideals of self-reliance and independence don’t sound that bad.
It’s just that they have been bastardized over the years. It was probably the oil that did it. I’m overgeneralizing, but I think that being able to make lots of money just by digging holes in the ground creates a certain fatdumbandhappiness that sticks around for quite a long while, even after it gets harder to pump oil. You know, like flipping houses.
Whatever their modern superficial imitators, if you believe the Western legend cowboys were lean, efficient, self-reliant dudes. Belated props, then.
But what I’m really waiting for, is a good property I can pick up in Texas. Not.
Please stay in Cali. Please.
“Today, there are some 11,000 Realtors in a county that’s on pace to sell less than 10,000 existing single-family homes for the year.”
Let’s see: 6% X $500K X 10,000 / 11,000 = $27,273 per Realtor (TM) — not quite enough dough to pay off a $500K home…
good point getstucco - but consider also that typically the 6% is split in half (leaving $13,636 commission per realtor) and then the realtor has to pay a percentage of that (say 30%) to the brokerage office, leaving only $9,545, BEFORE TAXES. But at least they’ll probably have a good mortgage deduction on their taxes.
I think it’s more accurate to say that, there are some agents making six figures, and others who are eating Alpo for dinner.
As Hopeful pointed out here last week, Realtors (TM) tend to often have more than one way to make a living. For example, I suspect lots more happy customers are enjoying discounted services at NV brothels these days…
“Let’s see: 6% X $500K X 10,000 / 11,000 = $27,273 per Realtor ™ ”
It’s worse than that. In the typical transaction, the selling agent would get 1/4 of that; her broker would get 1/4; and the listing agent and her broker each would get 1/4. Also, there are many properties down there that sell for way less than $500K — realtor.com shows more than 1/3 of the listings for Jupiter are less than $500K. Plenty of mobile homes down there.
I stand corrected, sort of — each agent should get about half of that $27K, rather than 1/4, because the number of transactions per agent would be doubled if each was listed and sold by a different office.
As seen on http://www.prudentbear.com, our favorite South Florida market quote of all time.
Quotable
“South Florida,” he said, ”is working off of a totally new economic model than any of us have ever experienced in the past” according to a realtor who predicted that a land shortage will support higher prices indefinitely.”
- New York Times, Trading Places: Real Estate Instead of Dot-Coms, 3/25/05
This is one of my favorites too!
Could someone, please, please, tell me what land shortage. Go west of the TPKE, tell me how we have a land shortage. There is TONS of land in S. FL, some of it totally vacant, some with shacks on them that need to be torn down ASAP as they pose an alligator crossing hazard!
Land shortage in S. FL is ONLY for beachfront/deep water. Otherwise, there is tons, and tons, and tons of land to be had.
That’s just my pet peeve, I live in a condo downtown in West Palm Beach; and have walked through some developments with realators showing me homes; talking about the land shortage, and that’s why the prices are so high. I just didn’t have the heart to point out that across the street from the 300/sq ft POS I was in was an entire city block….of grass!
The one thing that really stands out to me in the Orl Sentinal article is that last year only 59.4% of all sales were on the MLS, while this year is 84.9%. Meanwhile, FAR data shows Orlando sales being down 23% ytd thru Aug, and this is based solely upon MLS based sales. That would mean that REAL sales for the Orlando based market are down 46% ytd from 61k to 33k thru Aug, if you include non-MLS sales. That is a HUGE haircut! Another example of the realtors data not showing the whole picture.
DC — good catch.
That is a good catch DC.
“‘It almost makes you want to take the sign down and say forget it,’ Cowie said. ‘I’m not going to give my house away and sacrifice everything I’ve worked for.’”
How did all their hard work create the biggest housing run-up in history?
Drove to Daytona FL yesterday, I saw a lot of, “For Sale”, signs along Atlantic Ave. Didn’t have time to investigate prices as it is a 2.5 hour drive each way for me and I wanted to maximize my potential.
But what was striking was the huge wall of condo towers being built between Atlanic Ave and the beach. It was a huge wall of monolithic and colorless columns packed closely together, casting a shadow on the city. They must also be casting huge shadows on the beach side also. Really poor planning, very ugly. Where will they all park? On the beach?
There’s a property ladder marathon on TLC today & the current episode is a realtor who wants to be Donald Trump. Found website http://tinyurl.com/klw8e where she updates what happened after the show. “I could not afford to wait for the house to sell in today’s market so I kept the house and rented it out” “the other realtors were dead wrong on their values of $275,000″ classic
How bad is it in the Keys if it’s this bad in Dade, Broward, etc?
I keep hoping that Castro’s death will make people realize that there is a whole lot of undeveloped beach front 50 miles south of Miami.
Also from the Palm Beach Post article:
“But Minns isn’t lamenting the departure of agents. Experienced brokers agree that far too many newcomers crowded the industry in recent years.
“When you’ve got that many people jumping into the business to make money, it’s like the dot-coms,” Minns said. “But now, all of a sudden, you’ve got more buyers for the 80 percent (of agents) who stayed. For the people who are still here, they’re going to say, ‘2006 was really tough, but 2007 is looking good.’ ”
Did you just say 2007 is LOOKING GOOD? How exactly did you come to that conclusion, Mr. Minns? Because I would proffer that clearing out the ocean of dross from the “real estate agent” pool, although pleasant, will not — I repeat, NOT — make one whit of difference re: the surreally skewed fundamentals that have brought about the largest single bubble in world history.
Dumping those mirror-foggers won’t make the $10 trillion real, sir. Nothing will.
So actually, I guess 2007 IS looking good — FOR RENTERS.
He needs to talk to his Congressman.