“The Flip Didn’t Work” In Florida
The Miami Herald reports from Florida. “The sale of an aging Dania Beach hotel appears to have fallen through, stalling plans for one of the first major redevelopment projects in the heart of downtown. Now the date for closing on the Pirate’s Inn has come and gone, and the seller, Hollywood Investments Group, is looking for other options.”
“‘The sale is not going through, the contract is terminated,’ said Robert Fileni, who owns Hollywood Investments. The sale had been in the works for about a year.”
The St Petersburg Times. “Here are the latest attempts by builders, in these slow times on the housing front, to persuade buyers to sign a contract now. If you sell at a loss, we’ll make up the difference.”
“If the final selling price is less than the original home price, Hannah Bartoletta Homes will pay the sellers the difference between the two: up to 10 percent of the original price or $100,000, whichever is lower.”
“The offer is good only for owner-occupants who have lived in the house at least 18 months, and there are some other time limits and restrictions. No flippers seeking a quick profit need apply. ‘I’m mad at ‘em,’ Hannah said of get-rich-quick investors.”
“Lennar will include a voucher for a new Ford Mustang coupe with the purchase of certain homes for which a contract is signed by Tuesday and closed by Nov. 20. The promotion is good at South Fork in Hillsborough County; Heritage Pines and The Verandahs in Pasco; and Hernando Oaks and Hampton Hills in Hernando.”
The Herald Tribune. “Joseph Michalak can’t wait to show you his new pad, every luxurious, cavernous square foot of it. There are 3,000 to explore.”
“But more than the amenities in his South Venice home, Michalak likes the price tag: $1,500 a month, or about $1,000 less than what he would pay on a monthly mortgage for the $400,000 home. Southwest Florida’s soft housing market is proving a boon for renters who suddenly can find swank homes with top-of-the-line amenities at slashed prices.”
“The phenomenon is driven by investors who gobbled up homes during Florida’s 2004-05 real estate boom and now are unable to sell at a profit. Many have resorted to renting to help pay mortgages.”
“Many investors are renting $300,000-and-up homes for $1,000 to $1,500 per month, said investor Ellie Vratanina of Baltimore. Vratanina, who manages or owns about a dozen properties in Sarasota, shrugs that ‘you can’t flip ‘em like you used to.’”
“For renters looking to upgrade, now is the time. Michalak learned as much when he moved into his home in deed-restricted Island Walk. His last apartment, one-third the size for only $100 less, doesn’t even compare, he said. ‘With the palm trees, the scenery, the lake right behind me?’ he said. ‘Not even close.’”
“Scott Corbridge, president of the National Association of Residential Property Managers’ Sarasota-Bradenton chapter and the broker for the home Cobb rents, said the home’s owner lowered the rent from $1,510 to $1,395 to find a tenant. Corbridge said he has seen other investors cut rental rates $200 and $300 per month to attract tenants.”
“Kassandra Williams took advantage of price-slashing when she found her Palmer Ranch apartment. When Williams arrived in Sarasota a year ago, she turned the key on a $1,000-a-month, one-bedroom condo in a community that includes a hot tub, two pools, tennis courts and a fitness center.”
“That was nice, but the deal got even sweeter this month when Williams found a two-bedroom for the same price across the parking lot.”
“Investors cite real estate market saturation as an indicator of why they’ve turned to renters. The number of homes for sale in the Sarasota market jumped 150 percent over the past two years. Meanwhile, homes are selling 35 percent slower and 15 percent cheaper than a year ago.”
“The rental market has skewed so far toward tenants that sometimes peddling luxury isn’t enough. Horse and Chaise Rentals and Property Management of Venice has twice as many listings as last year and ‘if we go over $1,500, forget it, they won’t rent,’ said broker associate Sue Horner.”
“Horner said the glut of condos on the market is driving prices down. Island Park, a luxury condo complex a half-mile from the beach on Venice Island, has $400,000 condos renting for $975, Horner said.”
“Most were bought by investors looking for a quick profit. ‘They thought they would buy them and flip them. Well, the flip didn’t work,’ she said. ‘They cry because $1,000 doesn’t begin to cover the mortgage.’”
The price/rent numbers are even more skewed here in northern Arizona. And besides being sort of amusing, it gets to the heart of why rents matter in this housing mania, IMO. These folks will bleed financially until they exhaust their funds, or the rates reset, etc, and capitulate.
Ben, The same thing is happening with luxury homes in the Sacramento area. Catte Verdera, in Lincoln, CA, you can rent a 4200 sf home for $2095/month. Yes, less than $.50/sf/mon! The San Francisco flippers paid $750,000 for it 18 months ago. So you can add $75,000 just to carry it. Now they will be stuck with negative cash flow of around $30,000 a year for 5 more years, if they don’t take the sale loss now. The builder is dumping similar homes for $600,000.
We have seen one Realtor/flipper resort to apparent mortgage and sale fraud. She sold two homes to the same straw buyer. Sold them at $765,000 & $785,000. Her purchase prices were about $625,000, six months ago. She listed them at $840,000 in MLS for a couple of weeks, probably to baffle the lender’s red flags. She must know the DRE and FBI are on to her now. She is hiding out, her cell phone is disconnected and her “broker” won’t answer the phone. She owns 3 more homes on the same street, but recently listed them with an unrelated (and unknowing?) third party broker. The prices? $635,000 to $665,000. Hmmmm, back to only $100,000 over market! She may soon be changing before our very eyes…..from a landlord to tenant. In Folsom. And guess who gets to pay the rent for her there….yes..you!
Rents dropping? It can’t be. Someone on this blog went on and on about how these flippers would get high rents or let the places sit empty.
But a side effect of this is that housing that ought to be on the rental market holding rents down is not. Multifamily construction in recent years has been for condos rather than rental apartments, and many owners of vacant condos won’t accept market rents, so their units will remain empty until foreclosed. Same for single-family homes. And you wouldn’t want their owners to be your landlord anyway.
“Most were bought by investors looking for a quick profit. ‘They thought they would buy them and flip them. Well, the flip didn’t work,’ she said. ‘They cry because $1,000 doesn’t begin to cover the mortgage.’”
Alligator tears no doubt.
‘They cry because $1,000 doesn’t begin to cover the mortgage.’
Why does it cry, Smeagol?
Master tricked us!
Of course he did… told you he was tricksy… told you he was false…
I am probably asking a stupid question, but what typically happens to the renter once the owner goes into foreclosure. Do they get evicted, how much time will they have to leave, will they loose their deposits.
Hurin — this was discussed in dfetail within the past few days. Try reading through the archives. Super-short: eviction will happen, so get in front of the situation.
‘They thought they would buy them and flip them. Well, the flip didn’t work,’ she said. ‘They cry because $1,000 doesn’t begin to cover the mortgage.’”
Cry me a river.
That’s the mortgage. I guess the maintenance, HOA, or condo fee and those pesky Florida property taxes are just icing on the cake!
Don’t forget the damn insurance. A song keeps entering my brain…. “the thrill is gone” by BB King.
The thrill will be back when you drop the soap!
Ben,
Can you commission a Housing Bubble Blog crying towel that we can donate to the Flipper-Landlords?
I am just grinning ear to ear; it’s poetic
I’m grinning, too, mrktmaven. Schadenfreude, I guess. I dearly want to see Florida return to its formerly sort of sleepy, low cost of living status. I don’t much care what people from elsewhere think of it and if they don’t like it, so much the better. Means less traffic, better swimming and fishing. It took 80 years from the Florida land crash of 1926 for people to get interested in Florida property on the massive scale that we have recently seen. I hope it takes another 80 more before it happens again. Fellow Floridians, any thoughts on how we should dispose of all those empty, useless homes and developments that will scar the landscape? Bulldozers? Termites? Acid baths? Overgrown jungle plants? You know, they are still unearthing the remains of abandoned cities in the middle of Mayan jungles and people puzzle over what caused these cities to fall into ruin. I sometimes wonder if perhaps they had their own real estate booms and busts back then. Of course, their building materials were stone and much more durable than today’s particle board and faux stucco.
The Mayan calendar ran for 49-52 years. Every 50 odd years they would burn their cities to the ground sparing the stone buildings. Not unlike the Bible’s Jubilee cycle of 50 years of debt forgiveness. Thomas Jefferson advocated a Constitutional ammendment that the USA live under the Jubilee cycle. The idea was that debt build ups would be periodicaly wiped out and not able to grow to horrible levels…like we have today.
A look at US wholesale price back to 1780 available from the FED shows a cycle of inflation and deflation running 50-60 years. We have gone 10-15 years past the time for a deflation dictated by the cycle. This is one basis of the Kondratieff Wave. Some argue that the lengthening of the cycle is due to longer life expectancies.
Either way a deflation is probably in the cards.
Let’s pile all that debris in Lakeland along with any stray yankees and have a pigroast. Oh and the pigs…we can find them wallowing in red ink.
LOL. Now there’s a cracker. Cheers.
I concluded that Mayan society collapsed for the same reason all other great societies collapse (IMO): overtaxation and overcentralization of power.
These are GREAT comments, I didn’t know some of that history about the Mayan civilization. I wholeheartedly agree about debt forgiveness. It would actually make lenders more cautious. We now have the exact opposite with the BK laws. I also agree that deflation is on its way. It might be painful, but in the long run a good thing, perhaps. I don’t qualify as a cracker (maybe on an honorary basis) but I understand how dimedropped feels. Parts of Lakeland have been turned into a mess, with longtime residents being flooded out of their homes when there’s only a sprinkle of rain, due to the rabid development that has taken place. It wrenches my gut every time I see reports of that on the news. I wish some civic group had the juice to sue the crap out of local officials who permit that sort of thing.
“unearthing the remains of abandoned cities in the middle of Mayan jungles” Did they find any unside down St. Joseph statutes???
Good one, David.
Having been to the Mayan jungles and seen that phenomenon at Tikal (I remember consciously thinking that the inhabitants at that time had no idea what would befall their great temples), I think a lot of these places will be abandoned, quickly will begin to fall apart, and finally will be reclaimed by vegetation. Once the rainy season starts, it’s amazing how fast things grow here.
This state was a swampy backwater once and it will be again, although that might not happen until 2050. I think a decent argument can be made against ever buying property in south and central Florida from here on out, regardless of your thoughts on peak oil and global warming.
Miami homeowners are in DEEP TROUBLE.
The price declines are getting bigger every week, according to an article at http://www.realestatedecline.com - “Miami Home values dip another $3K last week
Now down $49K from last years peak!”
Mr. Bubble — thanks for the link, but that site is pretty tough to navigate (read: not worth it).
- Hannah Bartoletta Homes will pay the sellers the difference between the two: up to 10 percent of the original price or $100,000, whichever is lower.”
- No flippers seeking a quick profit need apply. ‘I’m mad at ‘em,’ Hannah said of get-rich-quick investors.”
- Hannah you are confusing us … when the ‘Boom’ was going strong, you loved the ‘flippers.’ Moron.
They are too late. Instead of slowing the rise they are just speeding the collapse and making it that much worse.
When Hannah goes bankrupt, they will no longer be obligated to live up to that agreement.
Contingent Value Rights are a pain to value. But this is basicly an put option against the house.
Funny that the homebuilder has to offer to transfer the risk of price declines to himself, in order to get buyers. This means that people on both sides know the market is going to go down, and the only question is will it drop 10% or less (The buyers) or more (Mr Hannah).
Get Stucco indeed.
“No flippers seeking a quick profit need apply” How about Don Trump grtaduates who are willing to pay what you ask cause Donald showed them how to make no profit. So, Mr. Builder, if I really wanted to buy at your asking price, would you NOT sell to the next “flipper” school graduate??
Wow, I thought I was getting a good deal renting a 600K place for 2K a month. Looks like I am not doing as well as I had thought:
“Horner said the glut of condos on the market is driving prices down. Island Park, a luxury condo complex a half-mile from the beach on Venice Island, has $400,000 condos renting for $975, Horner said.”
Oh well; you can’t hit a home run every time. I still feel like I am getting a great deal though.
Also, I have noticed the same thing, as your rent goes higher and higher, the price/rent ratio becomes more and more skewed. For example, I have seen 1mil props renting for 3000/mo. 2mil for 3500-4000/mo. It seems that rent really does reflect what people are able/willing to pay. Tell you what; I don’t want to be the poor sap holding a 2 million dollar property that can only generate 4K a month. That would just barely cover the tax on the property. As it is, renting a 600K property for 2K a month, I am probably not going to cover the HOA/Tax/Insurance on the property I am renting, forget about the 450K morgage the owner has on it.
Totally nuts; hopefully more people will wake up to the reality of price/rent ratios sometime soon!
I see brand new $600,000 houses rented for $1,000 to $1,200/month all the time. And the farther up the better the deals get. $1.5 to $2 million houses go for under $2,000. Truth be told, if more renters realized how weak a position the ‘owners’ are in, it could be bargained even lower.
My son and his wife sold their home last year and are renting a $2.5 million home in Saratoga, Ca for $3,500 a month, waiting from prices to fall. 4500 sq ft with a pool and a large lot. The owner paid about $1.8 million 5 years ago. Taxes are about $22,000 per year. Without considering maintainance the owner is making about $16,000 per year or less than 0.5% on asset value or 2.2 % on equity.
Ugh.. And your neglecting the morgage payment, which on 1.8 million, I would guess is about 10,000/mo. That will push the numbers a bit more negative; just a bit.
Interesting. I sold my 1900 sq foot home in Saratoga, CA (Golden Triangle) in Oct ‘05. I’m now renting in the Ozarks, MO for $550/mo. Saratoga is a very sought after neighborhood, especially by Chinese immigrants. If the yen drops, the area is toast.
wonder if BLS uses tight limits ?
rents on close in low end apartments are supposedly climbing- if you’re near the builder line- FREE !
I am from Michigan. Would any condo’s be available for renting at a $1,000 a month in Jan or Feb? A reply would be appreciated, but not required. Thanks
Seasonal, or yearly?
Seasonal, furnished, probalby not. They typically start about 1500/mo. However, unfurnished, annual, absolutely, you will have many, many condos in that price range.
“Horner said the glut of condos on the market is driving prices down. Island Park, a luxury condo complex a half-mile from the beach on Venice Island, has $400,000 condos renting for $975, Horner said.”
Last year I had a rental unit sell for $160k in south FL. The rent was $1100/mo. Glad I sold that unit, I almost top ticked it. I owned it for 10 years though. Truth is, I was just getting tired of being a landlord.
I can’t believe these numbers I’m reading though. People renting for $1,000/mo for a condo like that. This is telling of how weak the market really is and when real investors go looking for cap rates of %10 again, one of two things has to happen. Rents will skyrocket, or prices will fall in dramatic fashion. Those are the only two options, as I see it.
Keep in mind, the condo dues are probably over $400/mo and taxes close to $500 (estimate)
The owner of this place is takin’ it in the shorts.
“The sale is not going through, the contract is terminated…”
***************************************************************************
Is there a web site that collects all the news of developments that have been scuttled? Should be quite a list. It might include the Condo projects that are now rental units as well as projects that auctioned off the unsold units. There could be some fascinating statistics derived from such data.
I just viewed the presentation linked under your handle, and now I am really worried. The potential side-effects of the housing bubble collapse are bad enough, and now this Patrick Byrne is suggesting that trillions of $$$ of toxic crap is buried in the Wall Street clearing system.
What’s next, the automakers join the airlines in BK?
“If the final selling price is less than the original home price, Hannah Bartoletta Homes will pay the sellers the difference between the two: up to 10 percent of the original price or $100,000, whichever is lower.”
What happens to this obligation if Hannah goes BK?
I think we all know the answer to that one. You cant get blood from a turnip.
But, rents only go up…
it looks like us renter cockroaches are beginning to infest the higher end homes with impunity.
oh homedebtor, where art thou orkin man?
Got real?
No. Get real
Crash in progress. 50% coming to a town near you. Buyers are in control. Postive feedback has been established. Price collapse under way. Near boston, there is a town (Andover) that now has 199 properties listed. I think the service I use does not post more than that if you are not registered. Saturation baby. Crash, greedy real estate holders. I ain’t gonna make you lazy a$$es rich.
“It ain’t going to make you lazy a$$es rich”.
The true keyword in that sentence is “lazy”.
So many people speculated in real estate because it was the fast and easy way to riches. When I was in the navy, I referred to officers who became officers to avoid physical labor as goldbricks. I respected the guys who came up through the ranks and who respected the guys with the wrench in their hands.
This nation has lost it’s way. We uplift the Gordon Gekkos and put down the guys like Henry Ford, who started as a mechanic and put the world on wheels.
When I rented my current condo in 2005, prior to selling the home I owned, I was interested in a very nice, new condo with a great view that was listed at $2,650/mo. I was willing to pay that amount, though for more than a year or two. Asked the landlord to paint three rooms the neutral color of his choice, and add one ceiling light fixture and one ceiling fan. Nope, not without a 2-year lease. Bye.
Leased instead a very nice, new condo for $2K/mo. and have been happy in it since. But now I see rents edging lower and lower — no one is getting $2K anymore. Even the original place I wanted, which never did rent, had dropped to $1,800 by the time he gave up and took it off the market recently. But for about $1,000 worth of upgrading, that fella walked away from more than $50K in rent. Amazing.
“though for more than a year or two” =
“though for NOT more than a year or two”
Sounds like he’s a successful RE investor to me.
The poor flippers I feel sorry for them. who would have seen this coming. It is Paradise and all. just hold on the market will change.
The key word is POOR !!!!!!!!!!!!
“Lennar will include a voucher for a new Ford Mustang coupe with the purchase of certain homes for which a contract is signed by Tuesday and closed by Nov. 20. The promotion is good at South Fork in Hillsborough County; Heritage Pines and The Verandahs in Pasco; and Hernando Oaks and Hampton Hills in Hernando.”
How long will it take for the FREE HOME with car purchase sign to go up.
The Palm Beach Post:
‘With the real estate market in flux these days, many properties are on the block. Reasons vary. Some owners figure they might as well get while the getting is good, so they are selling all or parts of their projects. Experts say office buildings and shopping centers can fetch good money early on, when leases are fresh and tenants haven’t fallen out yet. On the other hand, some developers of not-so-successful projects (think condos) are selling just to get the heck out.’
but first we’ll go bankrupt
he St Petersburg Times. “Here are the latest attempts by builders, in these slow times on the housing front, to persuade buyers to sign a contract now. If you sell at a loss, we’ll make up the difference.”
I talked to a friend of mine, a flipper. He said he is still finding good deals out there.
For example, a house that he says appraised for 285, he bought for 206 to keep the family from going into foreclosure, because they could not sell the house nor fix it up to sell it. He would then dump in some money to fix it up, new carpets, paint the walls, fix anything that is broken and landscape. He says he then lists it for 260 and that people from up north keep buying houses. What do you all think? He think this is eventually going to catch up to him and that he’s going to lose his shirt.
Also, he has 6 kids he has to pay child support on so he says he has no choice but to take these risky deals to pay his bills and obligations.
I just shook my head and said, “you’re screwed.”
It is possible to make money flipping in a downtrending market. Competition dries away and it’s possible to buy homes in distress at much larger discount than you could when it was rising. The key, is to sell them off quickly.
Maybe in a flat to slightly downtrending market, but, no, I think that is pretty hard in this market. At best you might find a place to live in while you do some work. It’s very hard to add significant value in under six months - doesn’t seem that way when you have a tailwind, which we’ve had, but now it’s even worse - a headwind. Also in SFHs in the East you really need a year to get the full effects of a season for any work you do to yards, landscaping, trees to look nice.
Guess the snowbirds will keep coming afterall, they’ll just rent for the season.
There are serious risks in renting from a flipper though. As these people get squeezed they are going to either go BK or be forced to unload the home. This could leave a lot of renters in a bad situation short-term.
Something to think about.
Joe, you are right. As a general rule, flippers have no experience as landlords, either, so good luck getting things fixed, etc. Also, there is an undercurrent of resentment toward renters whose rent doesn’t cover the expenses of the property, and that seems to intensify with each insurance rate hike. I have a super low rental now that I like very much, but I have to cut the lawn and pay the water bill and share some costs of repairs with the landlord. It is a tradeoff, but the landlord pretty much leaves me alone and that’s just fine with me.
“This could leave a lot of renters in a bad situation short-term.”
In that case you live like a grad student. Have a futon, and keep most of your stuff packable. Figure that having a personal storage locker isn’t such a bad thing. You can rent them cheap and keep most of your less needed stuff there.
If your landlord seems especially nervious, then make a point of scoping out alternative arangements.
Yeah, what happened to all the stories over the last few months warning everybody that rents would be rising. I remember reading them on CNN and hearing them on MSM news shows.
I guess “nobody” figured there would be this many f’ck owners trying to unload their flips at the same time, and with nobody buying, all those folks are trying to rent those things. Nobody except everybody who reads and contributes to this blog.
This meltdown is only in its earliest stages, and the news is so horribly bad already. I wonder what they’ll be saying 6 months or a year from now when we get a little more exposure on the iceberg.
Boy, this really is the perfect storm. Every time I visit this blog, the evidence of what’s coming — in fact, what’s already well under way — becomes more irrefutable. Many posters here are obviously more familiar with RE than I am, and so perhaps are better able to take all of this in stride. To me, it looks like a once-in-a-generation economic meltdown with devastating consequences. I realize that many mega-greedy, arrogant players are going to get their @$$es handed to them, but so are a lot just plain ordinary folks who got sucked in along the way. Schadenfreude — yes, I can feel that to a degree — but I also cringe when I think about what’s coming.
Greed is a bad thing.
Once-in-a-generation is right. So we have to take advantage of our prescience (or our good luck) as best we can. Sliding dollar sez buy foreign currencies fast.
I use to have schadenfreude. However, over the past few days of commenting on this site, my emotions have switched to anger and sadness.
This morning I woke up out of a dream. Can’t remember the dream, but I was overwhelmed by a heartfelt wish that this whole bubble thing had never happened. The greed and meaness this speculative run-up has planted in the hearts and minds of millions of Americans is to terrible to imagine.
the concept of making money by speculation instead of hard work is a cancer that eats every society it infects.
Great post. A Greed that infects society is a good description of the bubble. Like Casey Serin who doesn’t want to get a real job because he wants to be making $5000/hr for flipping housing. Like why work for $30/hr when I could be making $50,000 for flipping a house.
“This morning I woke up out of a dream” …>> I wish I could wake up from the 5 year nightmare I have had since “Mission Accomplished” Seems the bubble and the bubble head share my same nightmare. Oh well! Only Two More Years
I’m sorry. “I use to” should be “I used to”.
These stories of ridiculow rent multiples are almost as amazing as the price rises.
Heck, I own a rental — it’s just a little 2 BR 1.5 ba starter home with no garage, and I collect $800/mo on it. To think, that in Florida and Arizona there are people renting McMansions for just $200/mo more, is bizarre.
typo: “ridiculous” rent multiple
With rents this low, should not there be a big migration to those areas. I live in Richmond, VA and have not seen any indication that rents are going up very much at all. But they are not even that inexpensive in Richmond.
Insane!
As has been previously pointed out, rents are driven by fundamentals, and areas with cheap rents almost always have low median incomes. Sure, someone working at Outback might be able to afford a bigger place in Florida, but I don’t think that’s going to get someone moving halfway across the country, particularly when no employer is going to pay the moving costs.
I totaly agree - I don’t think that people will move that far. But when rents slide this dramatically there has to be some reveberation throughout the market.
OMG! If a 1 M property rents for only 3-4k per month or less!
I don’t know about you but if I was holding that property it would be crazy not to unload.
I want property values to decline - not rents! I want to buy some more — REAL rental property - however this is looking like things are heading south real real fast. I think I will look at moving my money to some safe places. This does not look good at all.
OK — you sound like a rather recent convert, who probably can still get out without being burned. You might’ve bagged the last seat on the Salvation Train.
Chip - I’ve owned property since 2001 - In a state that has seen only low to moderate appreciation. The rent to buy ratio is still pretty close. Even if my property looses 20% there is enough equity not to worry. I am not gloating - I’m not a flipper I am a long term invetment type land lord- realestate has always been a long term prospect - especially if you live or have lived in an area where prices dont increase much.
I moved to Richmond VA ~ 1 yr ago. Not that housting prices are astronomical here, but they have increased about 60% in the last few years. Most of the locals have been drinking the cool-aid way to long. I was watching college football at a local bar on Sat. There was a young girl and her boy-freind and she was talking about finding another place to rent. Then she mentioned that she was tired of renting and wanted to buy something. I told her to wait!! This girl was in her early twentys- she listend some but who knows- When you come from an area where most of the new homes have two or three car garages to an area such as Richmon where the garages on a new home, if they have one, is not even finished and the big thing out here is vinyl siding vs. brick on a new house in Oklahoma.
I think that people have just been lied too for so long. The new home prices in Richmond are stupid. They seem to act as if they are running out of land in Richmond, seems to me when I driving arround there is still alot of land.
I currently rent and am saving my money so if there is a downturn in the economy or when housing prices drop I can make a well thought out move.
I think that the DC market is pushing Richmond up - sheeple move from DC and comute so they can affort to purchase, problem is they way over pay for houses and when housing prices drop in DC — I will bet my money that they decline in Richmond.
Anyone on here know anything about the Richmond, VA market??
OK — hopefully you planted enough of a bug in that young woman’s ear that she will hold off buying for a while. By late Spring, the MSM will do the rest of the convincing.
All IMO: As for Richmond, anyone who buys there to commute to D.C. is toast, unless Richmond itself morphs into something spectacular. For the dauntless who accept these distances, Corridor H will make a commute from West Virginia to Washington vastly more attractive than a commute from Richmond. Not even considering Pennsylvania and future highways to its interior.
Hi all, just a report from a renter in east Boca Raton…my landlord is being being foreclosed on. Me and my roommate are paying my current landlord $1300 per month. We could stay on for when the new owner takes over deed, but they would have to lower the rent to $1150, as that is what the going rent has dropped to in my complex. BTW, an identical unit just sold next door to me last month to a not-so-bright New Yorker who told me he’s going to flip the condo in a couple of years…payed $230K for it. Where’s the positive rental cash flow after taxes and community fees of $200 per month, Einstein?, or before taxes and community fees, for that matter?!? Another FB….
EF — IMO, your thinking points out a bugaboo for FBs. Landlords are in very poor position re rents in the near future, in big-bubble areas like Florida, AZ, LV — so much rental inventory is coming online that, for the maximum cost of an inconvenient move (as in, bunk-buddy doesn’t want to pack/unpack), tenants can pick and choose among a huge variety of ever-cheaper fruit. Won’t last forever, of course, but responsible renters with good credit and references can enjoy sweet living on the cheap for quite a while to come.
people are still buying condos in south florida? it must be crack, because no weed can get you that kind of high. has the idiot seen the inventory. there are a whole 500+ condo complex with prices below 200,000 and that is just one. every time i go by boynton beach on congress, (the old motorola plant) i just shake my head. i bet prices will be at 150,000 by next june. if not, an hurricane season gets started again, forget. what idiot will by any place during hurricane season and get blasted by a storm the next week.
My life sucks - here in Stamford, CT I rent a 660 sq. ft 1 BR for $1,100 a month + about $40-50 in electricity. No covered parking, no pool, no concierge. I’m within bike range of the office and walking distance to the commuter train, which counts for something… but when I see these rent deals I wish I could telecommute from Sarasota. I met an old woman from Sarasota in the Donut Delite and we commisserated over the terrible lack of manners here in the New York suburbs.
Before reading about these rent deals I actually considered myself lucky to some extent - my colleagues and compatriots who live in Manhattan pay $1,000 minimum to share a crappy apartment where it doesn’t matter if you have a parking spot because your car will be stolen.
I know what you mean. I’m in the suburbs near DC. Prior to the bubble I would have been able to buy a starter home with 3 bdrm and 1.5 bath for 180K in a decent neighborhood, as recently as 2002. Forward to 2005/2006, that same house has gone to $400,000.00. It sickens me. No reason to stay here, I really should move out west.
“No reason to stay here, I really should move out west.”
And the reason I don’t is…. ??????
No concierge! - man you do have it rough. I live in a house in Florida, and we have a concierge for each one of us.
Hey, I’m just kiddin’ - we don’t even allow French people in Florida.
“we don’t even allow French people in Florida.”
LOL. OK, I’ll pile on. “And what state does?”
“we don’t even allow French people in Florida.”
Oh yeah, what about all the quebecer snowbirds down there.
How much do you expect DC area market to decline, do you think the prices will drop to 2003? 2002? levels?
2001 at the highest, 1997 at the lowest and assuming a sea change in Congress next month.
Yes, when Dems take over in November, things will change!
Which is why Diebold, Sequoia & Co will ensure that they don’t take over.
“Horner said the glut of condos on the market is driving prices down. Island Park, a luxury condo complex a half-mile from the beach on Venice Island, has $400,000 condos renting for $975, Horner said.”
Hmm, if we get back to go the old adage of 100x rent. . . anyone else smell a 75% decline?