“Speculators Are Looking Foolish” In Florida
Bloomberg reports on Florida. “Brian Tuttle owns so much land that he paid $3.6 million to get rid of 125 acres ready for development in the middle of Florida’s Palm Beach County. ‘In 2005, I was a brain surgeon, and in 2006, I was a moron,’ said Tuttle, who walked away from his deposit on the land rather than lose even more money buying it and building homes on it. ‘The only good news is that I’m not alone.’”
“If he chose to buy the land, he would pay $310,000 an acre, almost 10 times more than the $33,000 an acre he paid for his first parcel there in 2000. Two years later, land values have fallen by as much as 40 percent. Tuttle said it was impossible for him to make enough on the deal, so he chose to give up the deposit rather than buy the land.”
“‘I’m just this humble guy and I didn’t see prices going this low,’ Tuttle said. ‘The big guys didn’t see it either.’”
“These days, the speculators are looking foolish. In Florida, where they helped inflate land values as much as 10-fold from 2000 to 2005, prices have dropped by as much as 50 percent.”
“‘The land market has dried up,’ said analyst Alex Barron. ‘Most builders are on the sidelines because they expect prices to go down another 30 percent.’”
“St. Joe Co., Florida’s biggest private landowner, said yesterday the average price per acre of land it sold in the fourth quarter dropped to $1,900 from $4,100 in the third quarter.”
“Jack McCabe, a real estate consultant in Deerfield Beach, Florida, said land prices in his region will keep falling. He said investors are waiting for prices to hit bottom, probably in the second half of this year. ‘It’s going to be pretty ugly,’ McCabe said. ‘Lots of people will lose money and a lot of paper wealth will be going away.’”
“Margie Bushnell is one land speculator who said she’s willing to wait to get the price she desires. The 77-year-old widow from Flagler County, Florida, owns a half-acre parcel on Highway A1A in the coastal town of Hammock. The carrying costs are killing her, she said. She’s paying property taxes of $4,500, triple what she paid when she made the purchase three years ago.”
“‘It’s an extremely lot of money,’ Bushnell said. ‘I’m retired and it’s hard for me to come up with that.’”
“Bushnell is offering the land on a free on- line advertising site. A year ago, her price was $699,000. Now she’s asking $650,000. She said in a half-whisper that the land, zoned mixed commercial and residential, could be had for $595,000. She’s ready to wait another year for a buyer at that price.”
“How much did Bushnell pay for the half-acre in 2004? $80,000.”
The News Press. “A meltdown in the Southwest Florida housing market has forced a hiring freeze of building inspectors and permitting staff in Lee County and Cape Coral.”
“‘We’re hearing that things could be slow possibly for another year, so I don’t think we’ll be filling (openings) any time soon,’ said Mary Gibbs, director of Lee County’s Department of Community Development.”
“‘When we had the boom, we had tons of overtime. So we cut out the overtime. We had some temporary help. We cut out the temporary help,’ Gibbs said.”
The Orlando Sentinel. “Bob Bach Sr., vice president of research nationally for Grubb & Ellis Co., and another expert, though speaking to a crowd of commercial real estate brokers, spent a lot of time talking about the state of residential real estate, given the nationwide slowdown in existing-home sales and the slump in new-home construction.”
“Mark Vitner, chief economist for Wachovia Corp., the nation’s fourth-largest bank, said a recent uptick in home sales doesn’t mean the residential market’s troubles are over. ‘I don’t think so,’ Vitner said. ‘There’s evidence the market still hasn’t hit bottom.’”
“Vitner said recent sales spikes were due to the holding power of relatively low mortgage rates and to home-builder incentives. The market’s weakness is reflected in order cancellations, which are still running high, he said. For example, Orlando’s new-home market is experiencing a 50 percent cancellation rate, while the nationwide average is 35 percent, Vitner said.”
The Tampa Tribune. “With a premier address and waterfront views, ParkCrest Harbour Island was irresistible to many investors, who repeatedly bought and sold units since it opened two years ago. Now, dozens of owners want out, and there are signs some can’t pay their bills.”
“Sixteen of the 336 units are in some stage of foreclosure, and 67 of the condos are for sale. An additional 41 units are listed in the database as leased or for rent. ‘This is excellent anecdotal evidence of what’s happening in the Florida housing boom and the bust we’re now in,’ said consultant Jack McCabe.”
“Of the 16 foreclosures in ParkCrest, five are a result of owners not paying condo association fees. The rest are being foreclosed on by the financial institutions holding the mortgages. It is not clear how many of them are investors, but three own two units each.”
“‘I tend to think the overall trouble in the condo market is because investors are overextended,’ said Jim Pyburn, president of the ParkCrest Harbour Island Condo Association. Pyburn said other condo owners are on the verge of foreclosure for not paying monthly fees. The fees vary depending on unit size, but a 1,300-square-foot condo runs $573 a month in maintenance fees, he said.”
“ParkCrest Harbour Island, along the Garrison Channel in downtown, opened in March 2005. The building was originally planned as an apartment complex, but the developer decided during construction in 2004 to convert the project into condominiums. Within six weeks, the building was nearly sold out, the company said at the time.”
“Investors have converged on the building since the beginning. There are 397 total sales in the building listed in the MLS. Some of the units have sold multiple times.”
“Developers typically sell units themselves and don’t use the listing service, so many of the sales listed in the database are resales, said Emmy Purcell Reynolds, vice president of Tampa real estate company Henry Purcell Inc.”
“Reynolds said she has taken clients to see units in ParkCrest three times and isn’t surprised by the amount of foreclosures. ‘The apartment-condo idea may have been good in its infancy, but developers oversaturated the market,’ Reynolds said. ‘The units themselves [in ParkCrest] don’t feel like condos; they feel like apartments.’”
“Of the 67 units on the market, 15 have been for sale less than a month; 10 have been on the market for more than 200 days and two have been waiting for a buyer for more than a year, according to listing data.”
“There are so many units on the market that the ParkCrest condo association has decided not to allow lockboxes to hang on the doors. Instead, the lockboxes, used by agents to gain access to units, go in a cabinet. ‘If you walked in a building as a buyer and saw 67 lockboxes, you might be a little intimidated,’ Pyburn said.”
“Michael Brudny, a lawyer in Oldsmar, is representing the condo association at ParkCrest. Brudny said the firm represents 400 condo associations in the Tampa Bay area and that foreclosures on behalf of associations are on the rise.”
“‘It’s the only remedy associations have when people don’t pay,’ Brudny said, noting that some condo owners face losing their property over as little as $2,000 in assessment fees. For some condo investors, the foreclosure process is a way to buy time to come up with the money, he said. But if they can’t, others are watching and waiting to buy units at a discount.”
“McCabe said he is advising these investors to wait for better deals. ‘In my opinion, it’s still a little early. After the current snowbird season is over, I think we’ll see lenders take back properties from developers and foreclosures will go up dramatically.’”
He shouldn’t feel too badly — I know many neurosurgeons and a good number of them lost money in this market because and I quote “real estate is a good investment.” They live in Phoenix and work at Barrow.
‘The only good news is that I’m not alone.’
In my attempt to ease his pain that’s what I keep telling my buddy Bob. Honestly, however, what I really want to say is, ‘you are not the only jacka$$ that bought at the top with a suicide loan.’
Well — they at least make so much money that I’m not too worried about them (unless Clinton wins — then they might be screwed but I see our health system going toward mandatory insurance so he should be fine).
The sad thing is that they’re still in denial. I’ve been out to their home and the development they live in isn’t finished, there are unbuilt lots, they’re in the middle of freaking no where. It’s crazy.
‘The only good news is that I’m not alone.’
Isn’t it interesting that he is happy everyone else is losing money.
Misery loves company.
PoodlePoodle
My wife used to have several doctor clients when she had her CPA practise. She says doctors are notorious for making bad investments. Not all obviously but the majority seem to have a talent for investing in losing propositions. She said, “I wished I had a dollar for everytime I’ve steered a doctor away from investing in something which had “future financial horror story” written all over it.”
Yeah, but Tuttle has enough money that a $3.6 million loss is just an accounting issue, with over 10,000 acres of Florida land there is still plenty of capital stored in the older land that the forfeited deposit is just another business decision. At least he was smart enough to swallow his pride and know when to walk away. There is a 77 year-old widow out there who is going to drive herself to her death-bed trying to afford her $80k “investment”. Would it be cruel to start a Death Pool on her?
Yes, tempting though.
Her story jumped out at me, too. Like a scary monster from the closet jumps out at me. Now the IDIOT WIND is blowing harder every day…
‘Willing to wait’ for (right now, anyway) 595k??? When she’s seventy-freakin’-seven? When she paid 80k in 2004? Please let that be some kind of typo.
‘The carrying costs are killing her’….maybe she wants in your pool, huh?
and my favorite:
‘It’s an extremely lot of money,’ Bushnell said.
Methinks an extremely lot of Sheeple are going to be an extremely lot of screwed.
Neil! Pass that popcorn!
LMAO
Dear Ms Bushnell,
Please declare bankruptcy soon, because I don’t think anyone is going to bite at your price anytime before the actuary tables predict your death.
In the meantime, I suggest you change your shopping habits as soon as possible. It is not for feeding the aligator, it is for feed you.
http://tinyurl.com/yp95wx
Good luck funding your retirement, because I sure ain’t. $595,000 is an extremely amount of money for your parcel of swampland.
Yeah you gotta lov that thar 77 yr old wider. She paid $80K and pays $4500 year in taxes, a 5.6% loss on her monies while hoping to hit the lotto. Maybe the green people will get down there and stop all development before she sells, now that’d be a hoot.
No it wouldn’t be wrong. I remember when we moved into the Philadelphia area a few years ago. We considered buying but didn’t know the area well enough to buy in a good place and we felt the prices were pretty high because this is Philadelphia not NYC or Boston. Anyway, getting to the point.
One of the houses we looked at recently (I enjoy open houses) was owned by an old woman, she had her home for sale for 500,000. She bought it in 1970 for 21,000 (assuming 5% appreciation a year for all that time that home should be no better than 300,000 — there has never been any work done to it). This place has no land, no air conditioning, no garage (this is in Narberth, PA a small town on the Main Line) she originally listed the home for the mid 5’s in the fall, it didn’t sell because the house is too expensive. It still isn’t selling.
I say let the greedy little whore drown in her bad business decision (the one in Florida). Just because they’re old doesn’t mean they’re your grandparents (mine were pretty bitchy anyway). They’re not angelic creatures with cookies baking in the oven for you. They’re old codgers who are bankrupting the system and no different than a young family that made the mistake of buying in the last few years.
I say let the greedy little whore drown in her bad business decision (the one in Florida). Just because they’re old doesn’t mean they’re your grandparents (mine were pretty bitchy anyway). They’re not angelic creatures with cookies baking in the oven for you.
Ouch! (and touché!)
Yea that was mean but I really don’t understand putting the kid gloves on when we’re dealing with old people. Unless they’re demented they knew exactly what they were doing. No pity.
What a greedy B*tch!!!!
She say’s the fee’s are killing her….. as she drives her Caddy, with fingers full of diamond rings and a buttload of cash under her mattress….
My husband is a doctor and I say this with love, doctors are really stupid sometimes. They know what they know — they don’t know that they don’t know. Like a GP trying to read a head CT they think they know stuff that is outside of their scope of practice.
We almost got caught up in the whole “OMG WE NEED TO BUY SOMETHING!!!!!!!” and we’d honestly like to buy we hate renting. We strongly dislike our LL, we don’t like the building we’re living in. But we also know the “Time value of money” and there is no way we can justify buying at these prices.
Now we’re just looking for a smallish home in a nice town that doesn’t cost too much. Homes aren’t the pathway to wealth, they’re money sinks. The best you can hope for is that it is a nice place (in my opinion) and you’re far better off making investments in other areas (gold, emerging markets, banks etc.).
Sounds like he is lucky to be with you.
I think HIC and a few other posters are MDs. They seem to have reasoned heads from their comments.
In the general avaition business doctors have a reputation for getting themselves killed. In fact one plane was nicknamed the “doctor killer”.
I think you’re referring to the “V” tail Bonanza. In my days wrenching in Tulsa I often heard them called that.
That’s a Beech Bonanza, no? I’ve heard that. Twins are generally refered to ask widow makers because if you loose and engine on take-off you’re pretty screwed unless you’re quick on the draw.
Yes the v-tail. As for twin engine planes, they were promoted early on as being safer - if one failed you had another to get you to the ground - but in reality all they did is relocate the crash, as instead of immediately getting to safety, pilots would attempt to continue their flight and end up crashinf further along their flightpath.
“How far can we go on one engine???….”
“All the way to the scene of the crash….which is pretty handy, cuz that’s where were are heading…….” (thanks, Ron White)
My old man (UAL pilot) used to say the same thing about the Bonanza. An excellent plane, though, it’s just that MDs tend to have too much money (thus the fancy plane), too little time (don’t stay “current” on the rather complex aircraft) and–last but not least–let their “I am a doctor. I am God”-brainwashing go to their heads–causing them to pull a JFK, Jr. and get themselves killed. Gravity doesn’t care.
The phrase as I heard it was, “If you lose one engine on a light twin, the other engine will take you directly to your crash site.”
I love that comment, Bill in Carolina!
Cracked me up! First thing I thought of was the “doctor killer”, called such by my flight instructor….. Yes, it was the V-tailed Beech. Bravo, group..
PoodlePoodle,
Sorry to hear that you are not happy with your current rental situation. Hopefully you are not in a long term lease because I forsee a “buyers market” so to speak comming soon even for rentals.
Poodle…
I must say I agree with you about the doctor comment…I know many and boy, I have to say, they have about the same amount of common sense as my little finger. They’re good at what they do…but they have about zero street smarts and zero peripheral book smarts.
I’ve heard this too. Nice bellwether for what not to invest in. Just create a MSNBC investment shows tht track what doctors invest in and then do the opposite. LOL. It’s probably because in general they’re so insanely PC and therefor plugged into the mainstream (you have to be a formal education cog robot to be a doctor in the first place) that that’s why they wind up investing in the tail end of bull markets.
i heard before that a lot of doctors invest in in a losing re venture deliberately for tax shelter purposes. i have ot idea how that works.
Because if you pour money into an investment you get to write off the loss against your income and pay no (or very little taxes), isn’t that GREAT!?!?!?
Sarcasm off.
Instead of paying a high marginal tax rate of 35%, they pay a marginal tax rate of 100%…
Seriously though, there are still some tax benefits to RE. Namely depreciation, which may or may not truly reflect the reduction in capital value over time. You can depreciate a building to $0 over ~40 years, is the building worthless at that point? Unlikely. If you invest in RE well, you can receive cash flow from the investment (a positive return on your investment), and have most of your cash flow from that investment tax sheltered by the depreciation deduction.
To invest in a project with negative cash flow (where you keep feeding it) to get the depreciation deduction, you’re an idiot.
“The market’s weakness is reflected in order cancellations, which are still running high, he said. For example, Orlando’s new-home market is experiencing a 50 percent cancellation rate, while the nationwide average is 35 percent, Vitner said.”
**********************************************************************
50%? Is that a lot?
I’m sure he bought because they weren’t making any more land. I guess that theory went to hell when he was hit with a cold dose of reality, i.e. money flow.
“He shouldn’t feel too badly — I know many neurosurgeons”
I took the comment to mean that before, he was a genius…as in “it’s not brain surgery”, or “it’s not rocket science”.
I didn’t think he was an actual neurosurgeon. I just wanted to add I know many “brain surgeons” and they did stupid stuff too in the last 5 years.
“‘I’m just this humble guy and I didn’t see prices going this low,’ Tuttle said. ‘The big guys didn’t see it either.’”
Right, the big guys didn’t see it either… that’s why they sold YOU the land, brain surgeon.
Would Robert Toll qualify as a “Big Guy”? He certainly saw it, you idiot bagholder.
Tootle: “Who is Robert Toll?”
Since when does humility = greed?
$300K per acre…IN THE MIDDLE OF PALM BEACH COUNTY? By middle I sure hope he meant western Boynton Beach or Lake Worth and not sugar cane swamplands. Somehow I think he means sugar cane swamplands. This guy’s a real brain surgeon!
It goes to show that we were never going to run out of land. I knew this, everyone on this board knew this…so why did this mantra drive the bubble? Come on! Palm Beach County has 10’s of thousands of developable acres. With zero lot line McMansions, that’s room for hundreds of thousands of new residents.
I would change that to “Palm Beach County has 10’s of thousands of developable acres WITHIN 2 miles of the intracostal waterway”. If you’re willing to go out by the TPKE, there is so much land it’s just staggering. We are not out of land by any stretch of the imagination here. There are still crack houses that are direct intracostal front (Riveria). It’s nuts to even argue “we are out of land”.
Hey Mike,
What kind of rental housing can you get in your neck of the woods at the following monthly prices: a) 1,500 b) 2,000 c) 2,500?
I’m not Mike, BUT $1500 will get you 2BR 2BA condo in a very desireable area. It will get you 1BR direct oceanfront. $2,000 will get you a 5BR McMansion or something VERY desirable on the ocean. $2,500 will get you just about anything you’re looking for.
Well — why the F is my buddy Bob paying 2,500 a month excluding repairs and maintenance to be called owner of a 2 bdrm house in a senior community?
Because Bob likes paying $1,200 more than he should so he can put nails in the wall.
oh oh oh… I neglected to add that’s before resets. In September, the primary resets and his monthly pmt jumps to 2,900 then in 2010 it resets again to beyond 3,000.
Where and when did he buy? 30 year fixed on $225K is $1800 or so.
He bought Jul/Aug 2005 near Boca. I added his taxes, insurance, and hoa, to his primary and secondary mortgages to arrive at the 2,500 monthly pmt. He paid 250k. Unsure of any downpayment.
$250K for a 2/2 in 55 and over was peak bubble price in Boca/W Boca/WPB. Aug ‘05 fits that. Taxes are high, but not crushing at least compared to many states in the northeast. You can buy 2/2 all day and night in 55+ for $200K in the newer developments or $150K-$175K in the older ones. Either way we’re talking about a very poor investment.
when you fly in the builder line is so clear at 8 miles ?
then swamp ,from which they can make tons of land
That’s another big difference between Europe and the US. Available land and the number of people. The UK, for instance, is the size of California (roughly) with 3 times the population and is waaaay overcrowded and flooded with illegal immigrants just like California so it’s hard to come up with real population numbers but the infra structure is strained to the limits. The US however, can double or triple in population and still have elbow room. California can absorb another 30 million alone. I think California is projecting another 10 to 15 million in the next 20 years. I wouldn’t like to see it happen but I’ve actually heard that this is another reason for the massive building boom. Future immigration. These properties are not going to stand empty as many think despite the buy gold and a riot gun mantra to protect your gold because the world of paper money is ending.
Schiller has proven these booms and busts, in both directions, turn on a dime. We’ve boomed on a dime. The bust turned on a dime following the usual cycle. Boom, bust, recession, bottom then basically stagnate until the next boom.
The surplus property will get soaked up when the prices are right. It’s that simple.
Of course, the prices are nowhere near the right price yet and it’s going to take longer than usual to get thru this inventory but the right price will get there. Be it a slow drip-drip water torture, a war, massive bankruptcies or a recession or a combination of those things.
Meanwhile, immigration (via amnesty or legal) will continue adding to the house hungry growing population. Then the, boom, bust, recession, bottom, stagnate clock starts all over again.
too logical for this forum. I get excellent info here, so don’t get me wrong. But yes, this is the “get sufficient ammo for the shotguns, canned goods in the cellar” and, I quote, “hire young men” forum.
But just because an immigrant wants to buy a house doesn’t mean that he or she will be able to buy a house. The overwhelming number of illegal immigrants come from Mexico. They are, as a rule, relatively uneducated, unskilled laborers. The jobs they have been filling in recent years have primarily been housing directed either in outright construction of the homes or in maintaining existing homes or in the service/leisure industries catering to people who are cashing in on the housing boom. Take away the housing boom and the demand for illegal immigrant falls in many ways. True, they may still come for awhile but there won’t be sufficient jobs and even in today’s ultra-loose credit world unemployed illegal immigrants are going to have a hard time buying a home.
The idea that immigration will continue at its current trend forever goes against a basic law of nature - that no tree grows to the sky. Everything in nature is cyclical, there is an ebb and flow. 100 years ago if you projected then current immigration trends you would have predicted that by 2100 we’d all be speaking Italian.
I agree. in 25-30 years, US population will be 400MM. 100MM more than today. They will need to live somewhere.
If you add up replacement of old structures, and new structures to house the new people, 50%+ of the current building stock (commercial and residential) will need to be built in the next 25-30 years.
To believe (as some do) that it will be a decade before there is significant building again is delusional.
The prices of those houses/buildings is another story altogether however. Incomes, interest rates and prices need to come in line. Interest rates aren’t going lower, and there isn’t a lot of upward pressure on wages, only one way to solve the equation…
Actually, assuming I researched the right Brian Tuttle, he purchased a little over an acre in Banyan Lakes, which is basically behind the Palm Beach Central High School off Forest Hill Blvd west of the turnpike (Wellington).
According to the PB County Prop appraiser site, he paid appx.$2.6 mill in 2005, the prior owner paid $262,500 in 2003. And the owner before that paid $35K in 2003
check it out http://snipurl.com/19ku0
He is a total idiot.
Sales Information
Sales Date Book/Page Price Sale Type Owner
Dec-2005 19731/1225 $2,600,000 TUTTLE BRIAN &
Apr-2003 15172/0404 $262,500 TLHC 2 INC
Feb-2003 15172/0403 $35,000 KENT DONNA J
So how does one distinguish this from fraud? Unless he paid cash.
“So how does one distinguish this from fraud?”
That’s exactly what came to my mind. Might be interesting to know who is involved with TLHC2 Inc.
Another possibility is that he knew or thought he knew of someone who wanted to build a big project there and was using this inside information and the deal collapsed. So from what I figure it smells like either fraud or insider dealing.
“So from what I figure it smells like either fraud or insider dealing.”
I hope you’re not implying that acting on non-public information with respect to real estate is illegal… It is not.
“I hope you’re not implying that acting on non-public information with respect to real estate is illegal… It is not. “
It depends on the deal and what your relationship is to the deal. If you are an officer of a corporation and you feed information to someone to make money off of your insider deal then you are liable. The same with a public employee who gives out that the city for example wants the land for a new school.
Absolutely right. That land is OK at best. Would require a LOT of prep work. All of this is public record. Why would you pay 10 times what the last guy paid just 2 years earlier?
Lots better than the sugar cane swampland I envisioned.
Man oh man. I hate jumping to conclusions, but this sure has the stink of fraud all over it (on a huge scale). It would be interesting to see the connection that he had with the seller, cash back, & also who the hell would have legitimently lent that much money. Why bother with measly 100K ripoffs with fraudulent residential home purchases, when you can score a quick $2,000,000 on a single trumpted up land purchase. I have tracked this bubble extremely closely over the last 4 years and have never seen a piece of land go up 10x in price in just two years! I bet this guy has a cool milliion in an offshore bank account that he will have once he defaults on the land loan (his half of the $2M overpayment that he split with the seller, appraiser, and mortgage broker). His excuse when he stops paying on the loan, ““‘I’m just this humble guy…” FBI, if you are out there, you should do a quick check on this case.
WE DO NOT HAVE EASY ACCESS TO OFFSHORE BANK ACCOUNTS IN S FLORIDA! IT’S AT LEAST 80 MILES TO GRAND BAHAMA ISLAND!
Yeah, and then sold their stock options last year. It’s a just a total coincidence. As long as this guy and the rest of the country never catches on to this, the developers selling over priced assets scam can go of forever. Another 25 years and the developer’s son will be able to make a handsome living off the same scam his father pulled. Rinse, repeat.
“Margie Bushnell is one land speculator who said she’s willing to wait to get the price she desires. The 77-year-old widow from Flagler County, Florida, owns a half-acre parcel on Highway A1A in the coastal town of Hammock. The carrying costs are killing her, she said. She’s paying property taxes of $4,500, triple what she paid when she made the purchase three years ago.”
“‘It’s an extremely lot of money,’ Bushnell said. ‘I’m retired and it’s hard for me to come up with that.’”
“Bushnell is offering the land on a free on- line advertising site. A year ago, her price was $699,000. Now she’s asking $650,000. She said in a half-whisper that the land, zoned mixed commercial and residential, could be had for $595,000. She’s ready to wait another year for a buyer at that price.”
“How much did Bushnell pay for the half-acre in 2004? $80,000.”
———–
This should get a number of harsh comments from people with opinions here…
Yes, you’re right, there will and should be harsh comments. For me, I hope she dies owning it. Perhaps she could use it in the afterlife.
Yeah, most likely another case of someone wanting an instant nest egg. This behavior will likely reach epidemic proportions (in RE, stocks, you name it) with the projected surge of retirements coming. Is there anything hucksters love more than seniors desperate for a quick buck? Can you just imagine the scams and cheats we have yet to see?
Edgewater you make an excellent point. As the coming retirees realize that their life savings is zilch, the company pension has been raided to nothingness, and SS is paying a grand a month, these people are going to get spooked. They are truly afraid that they will be eating dog food. What this woman should do, if she had any sense, is list it at 400K. She wil still make 320K profit before any fees. Not bad for 3 years of nothing but holding the property. Heck, at 320K, she could make a cool 15K a year on that at 5% interest. Move somewhere cheap and let that pay your rent. SS could cover utilities and food. If she wants anything else, like nice vacations, save whatever is left and go get a greeter job at Wal-Mart. Geesh, the entitlement these people have is ridiculous.
Like I say, if you want to live to be a hundred, you better be able to afford it. The problem is that so many people in this country want a pension at 50 so they can retire and then live forever. Well, that’s all nice and well in utopia, but unfortunately, someone has got to pay the freight. You may want to live for 50 years after retiring, but life is still costly.
Hey, dog food is expensive. The food I buy my dog costs $45 for an 18 pound bag. Better to buy Ramen. You can get a 24 pack at Costco for $6.
FB Public Service Announcement: dog food contains road kill, diseased animal parts and dead pets from your neighborhood vet clinic. Yuummmmmy!!
Look it up; the pet food business is a laissez-faire monstrosity from out of the 19th century. Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” comes to mind.
I could eat for a week on $5 worth of lentils, rice and spices (low fat, good protein) in my Starvin’ Marvin days.
Ramen is zero-food-value crap that just keeps you feeling full.
No need to thank me . . . I’m just here to be of service.
Gadfly and Mrs. Bushnell,
dog food quality reviewed at Whole Dog Journal–consumer reports for dog owners (and FBs) 3-4 brands use only human grade ingredients and better than human grade manufacturing standards. Otherwise, Gadfly’s remarks are accurate. Unfortunately, Mrs. Bushnell, a can of quality dog food is much more expensive than Campbell’s soup.
Mrs. B, at 77 is a living example of greed is its’ own punishment. That 80k could make her older years more pleasant. Instead, she’d got herself in a hair shirt to keep up with the 4.5k in prop. taxes.
WTF! Has she gone mad/senile? Some people are dumber than dog$hit!
1/2 an acre for $650K? I don’t care if it’s direct oceanfront. This lady has gone mad! $80K would be reasonable considering the location. You could hold for a while and sell to a developer when things turn around. $100K would be a nice long-term investment for your home and an office below if that’s what you were planning. $650K would involve complete madness.
If she is struggling to use her fixed income to pay the $4,500 tax bill, what did she use to buy the land? I am guessing that she is getting bad advice from a child/grandchild who owns a dozen condos.
I haven’t driven through Hammock for about two years. The area has been growing steadily, along both the ocean and the Intracoastal. If she paid only $80K in 2004, it is very unlikely that the property is direct oceanfront with decent footage relative to setbacks. In much of that area, AIA is in front of all buildable land, so that your view is obstructed by traffic. I’d guess that in any event, her land is on the west side of A1A. If she had a lot that size, directly on the beach and buildable with regard to the coastal control line, then it easily could be worth over a half-mil, but she wouldn’t have been able to buy it for 80 grand except from a generous or stupid family member. Too many sellers of direct-ocean land have crappy old houses on them and assume the houses are worth anything more than tearing down, which is why they don’t sell.
There is no fool like an old fool. As someone said, this half-acre would make a good burial plot. Holding out for top dollar when you are pushing 80 years old?
She might be waiting all eternity for her price.
Ok, I couldn’t resist.
I don’t mind those holding out for their price. Why? It just adds more for sale signs for buyers to see.
Got popcorn?
Neil
Hey Neil, found a quick delivery home in Terracina for $329K. So much for “starting from the mid 400’s.”
$329 from mid 400’s… That’s a 40% haircut! Wow.
And yet, we’re really still in denial (outside of Florida, there they are in fear).
This is going to take a long time.
Got popcorn?
Neil
I still wouldn’t give you $329K to be in the flight path of PBIA. Talk to me when we’re in the low 200’s. It might be worth it at that price. Noise vs. really nice home. I might be able to live with it. Flights don’t land much after 11.
Maybe she could turn it into a pet cemetery with monthly upkeep fees to pay carrying costs.
They can bury the greedy old bag on it.
There, is that what you were looking for ;)?
I like the part where she “half-whispers” that maybe it could be had for $595K, like this was a big secret, and is doing the buyer some kind of favor.
Someone should offer $5.95, give her six crisp George Washingtons and half-whisper that she can keep the change. I don’t usually wish ill-will on anyone, let alone old widows, but in this case I may make an exception.
That extremely greedy old bit*h is advertising it on a free site, that’s how cheap and greedy she is! For crying out loud, at least print some flyers or buy a small ad in the local classifieds. This lady does deserve to be buried there, deed still in hand.
Margie Bushnell sound like the female version of a guy I knew in Los Angeles who was 67 years old back in 1990 and dreamed of retiring to Las Vegas BUT was waiting to get the right price for his house in the Fairfax district which he had bought in 1960 and which had a very large equity.
In 2000 he was all smiles, now 77 years old, because property prices were starting to move up reasonably fast and he said it wouldn’t be long before he put his house on the market, cashed in his chips and made his retirement dreams come true by moving to Las Vegas.
In 2003 he cashed in his chips sure enough. He had a heart attack and dropped dead. His only relative was a nephew he hardly knew and I expect he got to enjoy himself - maybe in Las Vegas. This stupid woman, Margie Bushnell, seems like she’s suffering from the same disease as my departed friend. Greed.
Anyone know happened to that old guy off the strip in Vegas that was holding out for a couple of million for his old broken down house? Wanted to sell to a condo developer.
Well, we could all call the listing agent and offer 550k-615K during the next 2 days.
I wish they would stop calling these fools “investors”. Investors don’t use 100% leverage to buy an illiquid asset.
“investors”
That’s why they are “investers” — don’t read, can’t spell, can’t add.
They are speculators at best, and idiots at worst. Investing requires strategy and knowledge, not listening to water-cooler banter.
Good point - GetStucco’s “investers” is pretty good as an inside term for us Bubbleheads, but my guess is, most newspaper readers probably wouldn’t notice the misspelling. “Specutard” is cruder, but gets the point across.
100% leverage is good, nothing to lose.
A real estate “investor” is a speculator/flipper who can’t unload his property.
‘Bob Bach Sr., vice president of research nationally for Grubb & Ellis Co., and another expert, though speaking to a crowd of commercial real estate brokers, spent a lot of time talking about the state of residential real estate, given the nationwide slowdown in existing-home sales and the slump in new-home construction.’
So have we quietly shifted away from the ‘there is no national housing market’ routine?
Amended version:
There is no national market for end-user housing, but the market for speculative investments (and the credit binge that fueled it) knows no boundaries.
“If he chose to buy the land, he would pay $310,000 an acre, almost 10 times more than the $33,000 an acre he paid for his first parcel there in 2000. Two years later, land values have fallen by as much as 40 percent. Tuttle said it was impossible for him to make enough on the deal, so he chose to give up the deposit rather than buy the land.
‘I’m just this humble guy and I didn’t see prices going this low,’ Tuttle said. ‘The big guys didn’t see it either.’”
You need to have your tinfoil hat firmly in place in order to anticipate these sort of developments before they occur.
‘In 2005, I was a brain surgeon, and in 2006, I was a moron,’
This quote has just risen to the top of my bubble-era quotes. It so very succinctly captures the fundamental psychology of a speculative bubble. All I can say is, well said Mr. Tuttle, well said indeed.
And yes, Mr. Tuttle, you are definitely not alone. Thank your lucky stars you had the good fortune to be able to walk on your deposit. There are countless who cannot, and they are otherwise, and not endearingly, known as “FB”.
Yes, a lesson learned, but what a painful lesson. That’s $28,800/acre just for the option to buy! Still, better for him that actually buying and trying to develop it.
Similar deals like that are falling apart in the open spaces around DC, with farmers out in the Land of Lost Commuters collecting (hopefully hefty) option payments, but the builders aren’t concluding the sale.
There was a local newspaper article I saw some months ago describing farmers bemoaning the loss of farmland in this process (funny thing, they don’t HAVE to sell), but as it turns out, they’ll keep the option money AND still keep the farm. Only thing I can’t find out, and the article didn’t mention it, is what any of these options were selling for per acre in this area.
NO! In 2005 you were a moron and you seem even more like a moron in 2006. Now it’s 2007…what would you like to describe yourself as now?
You have to give the guy credit for at least calling himself an idiot. He may be an idiot in his own words, but he isn’t so dumb that he doesn’t realize it. The worst are always those people who never see the flaws in themselves. At least this guy called himself on it.
Well said. He drunk the Kool-Aid, but at least has the balls to go on record and be honest about it –and he’s not suing anyone else for HIS mistakes.
“The worst housing slump in 16 years made a lot of smart money vanish. D.R. Horton Inc., Pulte Homes Inc., Lennar Corp., Centex Corp. and Toll Brothers Inc., the five biggest U.S. homebuilders, said plummeting land prices cost them a combined $1.47 billion in the fourth quarter.”
This is only one of the first shoes to drop, IMO. I base this in part on the fact that I have been tracking the median list price of SFRs in a six-zip-code area in North SD County. There is something like $1.5b in wishing price valuation spread over 950 or so homes, and many of them have been on the market for over a year (especially at the high end of the range). And, as many of us are aware, ziprealty’s coverage of the market is incomplete (no FSBO, e-bay, Craig’s listings, etc.). That is a hefty weight of high-end inventory hanging over the market ahead of the red hot spring sales season, IMO…
According to McCabe, “…I think we’ll see lenders take back properties from developers and foreclosures will go up dramatically.”
It is inevitable. All it takes is a higher than anticipated tax bill, insurance bill, hoa special assesment, OR a toxic mortgage reset to bring the house down.
As been stated here before, some banks are letting people pay the bare minimum until the owner can sell. Once the banks and the homeowner associations realize that the spring selling season in Florida didn’t happen they will move forward with the foreclosure. By June (the start of hurricane season) Florida RE will be in a full blown bust. Add in the drop in tourism (which is already happening) and you have an economy that truly is in trouble. This doesn’t factor in hurricanes, tornados, wildfires, taxes and insurance (the new state law will do almost nothing for people).
I know someone who bought in ParkCrest in July 2005. He willingly gave a $60,000 profit to a flipper and made sure everyone knew that he had prevailed in a “bidding war.” If you read the rest of the Tampa Tribune article, those statistics are remarkable–the $573 monthly condo association fees there are more than 50% of my monthly rent.
The Tribune reporter, Shannon Behnken, has been doing a good job on bubble stories. I can only imagine the hate mail she’s receiving.
I’m not sure if it’s the same place (it’s in HI, on the water with 60K boat docks, parking garage) , but my brother in law’s wife bought at close to the same time, giving a flipper a cool 100K for her 2 bd/1bth. The brother-in-law himself gave about 20K to a flipper in Westchase for a one bedroom. He couldn’t sell it (at least not at the price he wanted 215-220) and now is renting it to his little brother.
That’s why I’ve never understood the allure of condos - the perpetual association fees. If you own your house outright and lose your job, you can defer maintenance on it until you are back on your fee. If you own a condo outright and lose your job you’d better darn well pay the association fees or they’ll foreclose on you. You never really own a condo.
Those high fees are there to pay for all the goodies most people never use; pool, hot tub, common room, etc…
I like it when someone admits to being a moron and doesn’t make excuses or blame someone else…
“‘It’s an extremely lot of money,’ Bushnell said. ‘I’m retired and it’s hard for me to come up with that.’”
kinda flusteratin’, ain’t it?
Oh my oh my oh my. The Bloomberg piece includes this:
“Louis Genuario Jr., a regional builder in Alexandria, Virginia, said speculators may have made up about 40 percent of housing customers. In some new condominium complexes in suburban Washington, every buyer was a speculator, Genuario said.
“When land came on the market, you competed against national homebuilders who were flush with money and speculators who were jumping into the market and trying to resell it immediately,” Genuario said.
40% speculation? Entire projects sold to speculators? No way local rents can come anywhere close to carrying costs in this area.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - even I am shocked at the unraveling news. Worse than I ever suspected and getting worse.
Dc-too, I keep posting this link you sent originally…a must read for anyone wanting to see the probable outcome for RE in Fl…
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/Allen/ch11.html
Good job - I love that link - it is amazes me that so much information is available to save people from the madness but they don’t even bother to look….
It amazes me how much the history described by that article roughly has repeated itself, right down to the comparisons with Venice that I bitched about yesterday.
I think 40% is low…especially in S. Florida. 50%…60%…65% maybe? My well established neighborhood has changed to about 35% renters and 65% owners. Since at least half of the original owners are around that would put people who bought in the last 2 or 4 years at 75% speculators and 25% owner occupied. Just an opinion from my little slice of paradise.
another pop ?
commercial high water mark ?
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070207/equity_office_blackstone.html?.v=5
The Greed, it blinds.
So she thinks $500,000 is a reasonable profit, yet she also says that her tax bill of $4,500 is an extremely lot of money, I’m retired and it’s hard for me to come up with that.
Yes, astounding greed. Honeybuns, if that property is really worth $595k, then you’re being undertaxed!
For once, McCabe is wrong. It will take a lot longer than the second half of this year for prices to right-size. And we’re not even talking the H-word in there (hurrrrriiicccaaaaanne).
Think about this . . . with the 500MM that Bob Toll cleared selling his shares, when the company eventually tanks completely, he can return and take the company private for a song and a dance. Toll shareholders may take a serious beating, but Bob Toll will be a very rich man no matter what happens to Toll Brothers.
The “smart money” didn’t vanish . . . it ended up in the smart guy’s pockets.
remeber when peewee cramer was saying it’s ok to buy when coes sell ?
Cramer is one of the greatest shills of all. Sometimes I wonder if he didn’t pair up with Larry Kudlow just so he could look at him and say, “Well, I may be a scumbag but hey - I’m not Kudlow.” That way he could still sleep at night, on his extra thick bed stuffed with Ben Franklins and the broken dreams of individual “investors”.
here-dedicated to the second half of Pudblow and Creamer:
http://www.cramerwatch.org/
I think that it IS OK to buy when CEO’s are selling, especially in cases where option grants, etc. are generally considered part of compensation. HOWEVER, if the CEO of a business that is CLEARLY CYCLICAL, you should take great care to be buying when they are selling.
Time will tell if Blackstone took such care. I’m not sure I’d want to be buying when Sam Zell is selling.
“For example, Orlando’s new-home market is experiencing a 50 percent cancellation rate, while the nationwide average is 35 percent, Vitner said.”
We may be getting to the point where cancellation rates are dominated not so much by buyers getting skittish about the market, but by buyers failing to qualify for loans in a tightening lending environment.
I was thinking the same thing. I drive by a new Troll Bros. community every day with almost nothing in it and wonder who can still afford a $350k house that doesn’t have one already? I’ve been told by an adjuster friend that most homebuilders have added additional contract clauses/penalties to discourage speculator cancellations, so I would assume that increasing cancellations have to be coming from somewhere else.
Family friend used to work for the Toll Brothers. He’s a good craftsman, and has done quite a bit of handyman work for my parents. But a lot of his Toll coworkers weren’t so quality-oriented. So, he devised a new slogan to describe the life of Toll houses:
Guaranteed for five years. Then they fall apart.
Also, “You can get better quality but you can’t pay more.”
After reviewing the property records, I’m inclined to believe that the guy isn’t a moron.
He HAD to know what was going on.
Looks like a cash-back/flipping scam.
That said, either the lender or the holder of the associated MBS paper, is probably going to feel a bit foolish in the coming years.
“There are so many units on the market that the ParkCrest condo association has decided not to allow lockboxes to hang on the doors. Instead, the lockboxes, used by agents to gain access to units, go in a cabinet. ‘If you walked in a building as a buyer and saw 67 lockboxes, you might be a little intimidated,’ Pyburn said.”
Uh–no. Perhaps as a realtor taking a potential client into a building with 67 lockboxes would be intimidating because if I was a buyer, I would be thinking “it’s time to negotiate…”;-)
I’d be thinking WTF is wrong with this place?
If I found out the Realtors were hiding 67 lock boxes I would be wondering “what else are they hiding?”
You wouldn’t wonder for long. The place is a dump, with crappy construction and hideous floor plans. Of course it was bought up by speculators, nobody else would waste a cent on it.
With that many units for sale, I’d be plenty worried about owner defaults on association dues that must, short-term, be made up by the other owners.
The realtor’s dilemma: which one of these 67 lockboxes is the right one? We don’t want to look stupid here.
I try to have respect for my elders and widows, but I can feel nothing but loathing for this 77 year old widow in Florida. Her greed is astounding.
One of my neighbors has their house for sale at $255k, they bought it in December of 2002 for $195k. There has been virtually no appreciation in my neighborhood during this time. Maybe this year will be different.
I can go you one better, Climber. Neighbors bought nearby house in spring ‘04 for $135k.
Then, last summer, they decided that this ‘hood wasn’t for them. So they bought another house nearby for $250k.
Their now-vacant house in this ‘hood has been on the market for, oh, five months now. I heard that they’ve gotten one offer, which was below their $240k asking (read: wishing) price.
Dude, some of these snippy old bags down here would step over your dead body to get to a slot machine.
Speaking of foolish people in Flooreeduh. Check this sad sack out:
“Bradenton, Florida — A man who gave a psychic $32,000 to bless… telling her his construction business was not making money… returned the next day to find she and the money have disappeared…”
http://tinyurl.com/3casor
And these are the guys building the $600k boxes. Yea Flooreeduh!
“These days, the speculators are looking foolish. In Florida, where they helped inflate land values as much as 10-fold from 2000 to 2005, prices have dropped by as much as 50 percent.”
“‘The land market has dried up,’ said analyst Alex Barron. ‘Most builders are on the sidelines because they expect prices to go down another 30 percent.’”
And that would still make land 3.5 times overpriced (100 x 50% = 50, 30% off of 50 leaves 35 = 3.5 times 10 the starting value.) More like another 80% haircut from here.
“‘It’s an extremely lot of money,’ Bushnell said. ‘I’m retired and it’s hard for me to come up with that.’”
Nice english. But, to the point, it just shows greed knows no age boundaries. I always love how the retirees complain about living on a “fixed” income, then they do stupid things like this. Hey, we all pretty much live on a fixed income. I can’t go up to my boss and demand double my salary just because I’m productive. I can’t wait until all these people get hosed. Coming soon to a 1040 near you: Deductible capital losses on primary and tertiary homes…
“Coming soon to a 1040 near you: Deductible capital losses on primary and tertiary homes…”
You might be right about that, unfortunately. A slimy way to slide speculators’ losses onto other taxpayers. I believe that a Democrat-led bill very likely would have means-testing involved, so there would be a cap on the write-off amount.
You mean means-testing (specifically income-testing) like what is already in place for a lot of the deductions? I’m not subject to any of those (bummer, too low income!), but it seems like someone’s getting the sharp end of the “progressive” stick there. And in this area, it’s often hard-working dual-income familes.
If South Florida is the A$$ of America, Miami is the A$$hole, and the Keys aka “paradise” are the dingleberries.
It needs a high-colonic and a good wipe. Sounds like the enema is well in progress.
Apologies in advance to the Floridians on this board, but South Florida is disgusting.
St Augustine? Lovely. Unfortunately, greed has spread like a cancer all over the US and world for that matter.
St. Augustine is beautiful. I was there in October, 1986 and was very impressed by the history of the place (there’s and old Spanish fort there, can’t remember the name). The only thing was the people who lived there were from New Jersey. What would I pay for a home there? Maybe $150/square foot.
“‘I tend to think the overall trouble in the condo market is because investors are overextended,’ said Jim Pyburn, president of the ParkCrest Harbour Island Condo Association. Pyburn said other condo owners are on the verge of foreclosure for not paying monthly fees. The fees vary depending on unit size, but a 1,300-square-foot condo runs $573 a month in maintenance fees, he said.”
How on earth can you justify $573/ month for “maintenance” on a small condo? I have lived in some pretty nice apartments that had a total rent bill less than that. This guy is a big part of the problem. No doubt the investers are overextended; with a cost structure like that everyone in the complex is in for some hard lessons in finance.
Mine was $220 in the middle of West Hollywood with a $90,000 reserve.
“How on earth can you justify $573/ month for “maintenance” on a small condo? “
I wonder how much of that $573 is for paying condo fees on condos whose owners won’t pay up? That the problem with condos, you are totally tied to the financial dealings of the other condo owners. If they don’t pay, you end up with the bill.
(from above)
“I think HIC and a few other posters are MDs. They seem to have reasoned heads from their comments. ”
yep. I’m a doc.
The reason we stand out as such investing losers IMO is because
1) we have money to invest.
2) we have little time to do good research
3) many docs are overly sure of their decisions, because throughout our lives we’ve always done “the best” on tests, and investing is just a test, right?
4) the investment “advisors” are drawn to us like a plague. they often do seminars at our medical schools, and snag us then. We don’t know any better, so we think “hey these guys are gonna help us, just like they help all the rich people!” (ROFL)
5) we’re talked about more when we fail, because it’s good to see the “big guy” take a fall. (kinda like rejoicing when Martha Stewart went to jail).
The most important wisdom I’ve ever heard is “know when you don’t know something”. many docs fail in this.
when I finished med school/residency, I suddenly had more money than I’d ever had (that said, I grew up in the hood with nothing). I trusted “advisors” who screwed me big time. yeah, I know, caveat emptor. but I knew that I knew nothing about finance, so I THOUGHT I found an expert to help me. He screwed me. (this is probably why I’m so sensitive to the caveat emptor argument)
so I started learning about finance and economics and investing. now I invest quite well (I think) but I still make a blunder here and there. so I still learn (learned a LOT right here, as well as other blogs)
The biggest disappointment for me: learning how much of investing and economics is NOT scientific, rather psychologic. (thus, I’m not assured of getting an A+)
Many here (docs and non docs) forget THAT aspect of investing: the “unknowable”
which is why I started harping last summer about why to stay IN the equities markets (despite the very solid economic “fundamentals” that wre eloquently said by Getstucco and others) and why I decided NOT to short the HBs (lord how I wanted to) and why I decide to just stay diversified (because in the end all great forecasting can stay at the whim of mass psychology, and politics, and the Fed, etc)
anyway, have pity on us docs!
Doc, kudos for your humility. I disagree with you on the equity market. I think this economy goes into the toilet this year and brings down the stock market. Don’t see where the growth will come from?
Consumer tapped out. Government spending decreasing. Exports not doing much ( this could change).
bubbleRefuge:
I even disagree with MYSELF on the equity markets!
it is a fact that the US economy looks like garbage, and prospects for the future of equities are indeed grim (unless you listen to the shills at CNBC). The prospects for a “goldilocks” economy are about as good as the the real Goldilocks (who was eaten by the bears).
The problem, as always, is TIMING. The markets can stay irrational far longer than we can stay solvent.
This is a lesson that many learned over the last 6-10 months, when most on this blog were sure of themselves that Q42006 would be a disaster in the equities markets. My investments went UP 16-20% in that quarter.
was it genius on my part? Hardly. I simply stayed in, because you never really know what the future holds. There can be twists and surprises that foil even the best research.
Thus, I try to stay diversified. I’m in:
domestic stocks
international stocks (both emerging markets and trad’l markets)
gold
silver
oil trusts
T Bills
Cash (high yield savings acct like Emigrantdirect/HSBCdirect)
My oil stocks and also gold/silver took a hit recently, but they were up big before then. This last quarter my stocks went way up. My TBills stagnated.
this next quarter I THINK that my stocks will seesaw, my TBills I’m uncertain, I think oil will go UP, and gold/silver go up.
the next few quarters I think equities will tank. But they might not tank until next year. Or the year after. Although the fundamentals look like crap, the sentiment on wall street is VERY strong right now. And sentiment can move markets (witness the recent switch in sentiment of housing…)
But who knows. i might be wrong.
thus, I diversify.
If I had to make a bet and put all my money “in” something, I would probably choose:
1) pay off all debt. (most important) and build cash reserve for possible coming credit crunch.
once that’s done:
1) gold/silver (good in inflation or currency crisis)
2) Oil trusts (canadian and/or US… now that the Canadians are meddling with their tax law).
3) Treasuries. (good if deflation occurs, and because they’re relatively liquid)
But since I am probably wrong, I’ll hedge my bet with multiple plays. This way i’ll do ok so long as ONE of the asset classes improves.
Don’t forget, the world is awash in liquidity right now (or at least credit). Almost every asset class you can think of is UP. Why is that? Credit bubble. Until the excesses are squeezed out of the system, this masquerade that we call the US economy can continue to surprise and act irrationally.
ABOVE = not investment advice, but my personal opinion. Do your own homework!
You should also base your investments on your age (less risk as you get older, as you have less time to recover) and your ability to handle risk. Most people can’t handle risk; that’s why they are always looking for a “sure thing”. That’s also why we have bubbles, shiny bubbles.
“St. Joe Co., Florida’s biggest private landowner, said yesterday the average price per acre of land it sold in the fourth quarter dropped to $1,900 from $4,100 in the third quarter.”
Hmm, a 46% drop in 3 mos. I wonder how they’ll get the paper mill going again. They dumped all of the equipment and machines. Of course, their sales pitch was “If you believe in demographics, then you have to invest in St. Joe Co.” What they didn’t count on was high prices speculators, over-priced properties to begin with, and Florida’s natural hurricane cycles. Evacuation at 65 yrs old is much different than at 85 years old.
Saw that one coming.
Roidy
‘The only good news is that I’m not alone.’”
Being herd lemmings is what go them into trouble in the first place.
Cowboys like to ride alone.
To make real money in this world I always suggest to my friends to be a little more cowboy and a little less herd lemming.