“The Other Shoe Hasn’t Dropped Yet” In Florida
The Herald Tribune reports from Florida. “Conceived in the halcyon real estate days of 2003, The Azure was aimed at capitalizing on Sarasota’s rising status as the new Gulf Coast haven for the cultured and wealthy. Only now, the one acre of Lido Key that was to become The Azure sits empty, and for sale for $11.5 million.”
“‘It came down to there were too many units on the market, and nothing was moving very quickly,’ said Kevin Daves, the founder behind the Azure.”
“As the rush that was Southwest Florida’s real estate market slows to a crawl, The Azure isn’t the only condominium project either in jeopardy, for sale or just plain shelved. At least a dozen other high-profile local residential projects are either being revamped, delayed or scrapped.”
“The problem is one of ‘threshold,’ the number of units a developer must sell before accessing bank loans and beginning construction. ‘You’d better have a pretty strong market if you’re planning to start a large building,’ said (developer) Tom Brown.”
“The typical threshold for new condo projects is 50 percent. For a building with 100 condo units, that means 50 contracts.”
“‘With most lenders today, you not only have to have pre-sales, you have to prove your pre-sales,’ said N.J. Olivieri, president of Sarasota-based Horizon Mortgage Corp. ‘They’re now looking at who the buyer is, do they have the financial wherewithal, are they going to be an investor only. In that respect, the market has dramatically changed.’”
“Murray Klauber pulled the plug. He opted out of a ground lease at the Tampa port on Thursday, the same day he was expected to sign the deal. He had entered an operating agreement with a five-star hotel.”
“Yet after working with his lender and others, he realized the project was going to cost too much, and that the condo market is too soft.”
The News Journal. “Flagler County has gone from the fastest-growing county in the nation to the county with the state’s third-highest unemployment rate.”
“Layoffs in the construction industry continue to plague Volusia and Flagler. The slump in the housing market has hit not only Realtors and home builders, but has had a trickle-down effect to other businesses.”
“Colleen Kuhn with the staffing service Robert Half International Inc. blamed Flagler’s high unemployment on the drop in new home sales. ‘They were really hit,’ said Kuhn. ‘Home builders were stuck with a lot of inventory.’”
“‘The effect rolls down. We’ve gotten calls from employees in everything from air conditioning to the financial and clerical sectors,’ she said.”
The Tampa Tribune. “The meltdown in the nation’s subprime mortgage industry hit the Tampa Bay area hard Friday, as two subprime lenders announced nearly 400 layoffs in Tampa.”
“A third mortgage lender, H&R Block Mortgage Corp., also announced 141 job cuts, but a spokesman said they were not tied to the subprime industry troubles. All told, the three companies announced 534 layoffs Friday.”
“First NLC Financial Services, a Deerfield Beach-based company, offered no explanation for its layoffs Friday. According to a recent regulatory filing, First NLC suffered an operating loss of $18 million last year. It attributed the loss to the increased frequency of early loan defaults and an increase in the severity of the defaults, regulatory documents show.”
The St Petersburg Times. “Option One Mortgage said it will close its Tampa facility and lay off all 141 workers there by June 2, including 76 loan officers. Parent company H&R Block of Kansas City, Mo., said Friday that plans to sell the money-losing unit by today had been buffeted by ‘recent events in the subprime mortgage industry.’”
“News of the impending closures came just two weeks after Fremont Investment & Loan announced it would shutter its two Tampa offices, lay off 301 workers there by May 18 and seek a buyer.”
“In letters to Fremont customers, Advantage One Mortgage Corp. warns that Fremont’s problems ‘could affect how or to whom you make your payments.’ ‘As (Fremont’s) value is tumbling,’ Advantage writes, ‘the future seems quite uncertain.’”
The News Press. “Homebuilder Centex filed notice with the state Friday that it has eliminated 141 jobs, effective immediately, from Naples to Sarasota.”
“That amounts to half of the company’s work force in the region; the cuts are across the board, from construction crews to office staff, said Ken Smalling, a corporate spokesman.”
“‘We had to decrease volume to match the declining demand,’ Smalling said. ‘We had to adjust to the market.’”
“Projects where Centex is building include TwinEagles, a 1,115-acre community in North Naples; The Quarry, a 1,700-acre development in North Naples; Hawthorne, a community in Bonita Springs; and Lely Resort & Country Club in south Naples.”
“Centex isn’t alone in laying off workers. Last year, Bonita Springs-based WCI Communities Inc. eliminated almost 600 workers and First Home Builders, Lee County’s largest builder of single-family homes, laid off about 75 workers.”
“Michael Reitmann, executive vice president of the Lee Building Industry Association, said the recent wave of layoffs by homebuilders is a result of a slowdown in the construction industry. ‘It’s a delayed reaction to what the market actually is.’”
The Naples News. “‘It’s a reduction in force due to the significant market slow down,’ said Tim Ruemler, Centex division president for Southwest Florida.”
“‘I just know a lot of people have been laid off in our business,’ Ruemler said.”
“It’s happening statewide. In December, Divosta Building Corp. announced it was letting go 218 employees at its Palm Beach Gardens headquarters. That was after it laid off 135 employees in its Sarasota office.”
“Ross McIntosh, a Naples real estate broker, said the layoffs are much greater than what people realize because they’ve been done quietly. ‘It is very widespread and it’s very deep,’ he said.”
“Some companies have halted projects indefinitely, McIntosh said. ‘This is a very, very bad time to be starting projects,’ he said. ‘We have so many existing projects that are already having a tough time.’”
“Builders pulled nearly 30 percent fewer permits for single-family and multifamily residences in Collier County in 2006, compared to 2005. Lee County saw a more than 36 percent decline last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.”
“‘There have been no significant signs of improvement,’ Ruemler said. ‘It’s still a depressed market.’”
“The layoffs didn’t surprise Brenda Talbert, executive vice president of the Collier Building Industry Association. ‘Startling, no,’ she said. ‘Unfortunate, yes. Every builder company I’ve been talking to has been saying they are tightening their belts,’ Talbert said.”
“The cutbacks will have a long-term ripple effect, she said. ‘Housing and construction is one of the largest industries in Florida and this is harsh,’ Talbert said. ‘It’s going to have a roll-down effect on everything else in the economy. It’s going to affect the guy who sells furniture, carpet and window treatments.’”
“In other words, she said, the other shoe hasn’t dropped yet.”
“The good news is that now is a good time to buy a home, Talbert said. With the busy season nearing an end, builders are eager to make a deal. They’re offering a variety of incentives and discounts. Come Easter, most of the winter residents are heading home. ‘We don’t have a lot of time,’ McIntosh said. ‘The push is on.’”
‘When Stacie Lykins and Misti Mohrenne bought their home last summer, they thought they were on their way to the American dream. But in a short time, the Eustis, Fla., couple hit some bumps in the road. A property reassessment sent their monthly home payments way above their projections, and a cooling real estate market along with a no-money-down loan means they could take a small loss on the house if they sold now.’
‘The tension really mounted when they bought their home. The couple had been renting for $1,100 a month, and they expected their new house payment to be about $1,200 a month. But that was based on taxes paid by the previous owner, who was elderly and qualified for significant tax breaks on the home. When the property was reassessed, their payment shot up to $1,500 a month.’
‘Customers of Nationwide Insurance Co. of Florida got the classic bad news/good news Friday — their property insurance bills are going up, but not as much as they could have. An arbitration panel awarded Nationwide a 54 percent statewide average rate hike.’
‘The impact on Nationwide’s 23,200 customers in Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte counties has not been calculated. In its original filing, the insurer asked to raise rates by 116.2 percent in Charlotte, 80.2 percent in Manatee and 51.1 percent in Sarasota. ‘We are still assessing what the next steps will be,’ said company spokesman Eric Hardgrove. The company, with about 250,000 policies, must submit a new rate filing incorporating both the approved rate increase and the state-ordered decrease. The company also is continuing its plan to dump 50,000 of its Florida customers, including more than 8,000 in this area.’
They went from $1,200 to $1,500 and they’re stressed out? Are people really running on those margins?
As usual the reporter didn’t bother to mention taxes, insurance, etc.
It’s hard to tell… it looks like the adjustment number does include taxes.
What I’m saying is: yes, $300/mo. is a lot of money, but if $300/mo. is the difference between make/break you need to either A. Get a second job B. adjust your lifestyle C. not buy D. any combination of the previous.
Again, this bubble has not only reaffirmed my housing choices, but many of my financial/lifestyle choices as well.
What I find shocking is that these new borrower did not get a quote on the new tax rates in the estimate of cost of home ownership . Did the industry sell homes and make loans based on the old owners tax rates ? Leaving out the new projected tax payment is as bad as qualifying on teaser interest rates . Did the insurance companies give a low quote to a new owner only to raise it in a short time ? Talk about trying to sucker buyers in by not disclosing the real cost of ownership .
Sales people do this all the time. You would think EVERYONE in California would know that Prop 13 taxes are going to cost you at least 1% of purchase price (actually more like 1.3% in most cases), and yet my friend who was paying $450K for a house was told the taxes were “about $2000 a year” - which was what the old owner was paying. Caveat emptor.
But, please don’t tell me the lenders were not putting the expected tax increase into figuring the debt ratios for the new loan . If the lenders did not figure in the new property tax its just one more questionable sub-prime underwriting practice that they should be called on . This lending mess just gets more bizarre by the day .
It gets even worse if you buy a new home.
In Texas, the taxes are figured on the condition of the property at Jan 1 of the taxable year. Say it is still a vacant lot then. By the next January it is an improved property with a house sitting on it. If the FBs had been paying into an escrow account the amount assessed on the vacant lot they seriously short come tax time.
The lender of course will pay the new tax amount, divide that by 12 and add that to the monthly mortgage payment. Not only that, they will add on 1/12 again to have the taxes on hand to pay for the next year. The payments will increase accordingly.
I worked for a tax-assessor outfit during the 80s. And got many calls from new homeowners clueless why their payments had increased so much.
Of course the builders arent going to explain anything that could raise that monthly payment and kill the sale.
As Oscar Wilde said, “It would require the proverbial heart of stone not to laugh at [their
situation]“.
“‘It’s going to have a roll-down effect on everything else in the economy. It’s going to affect the guy who sells furniture, carpet and window treatments.’”
“In other words, she said, the other shoe hasn’t dropped yet.”
“The good news is that now is a good time to buy a home, Talbert said. With the busy season nearing an end, builders are eager to make a deal.”
It is a great time to buy, just as the other shoe of ripple effects from the housing recession is about to strike the Florida economy like an early hurricane. Why would anyone want to buy now, when higher inventories and lower prices are likely to be available in the foreseeable future?
‘Time to buy’ is a trained REIC Pavlovian response. Bombs could be falling from the sky, Tsunamis coming ashore, cat 5 Hurricane brewing along the coast, but in the presence of a mark, the trained response is — It’s a great time to buy!
Good Doggie.
Let’s all go buy houses in Baghdad, Darfur, southern Lebanon, and (?) New Orleans.
Darfur? Hmmm- low taxes, no gun control, no HOAs, no coddled ‘welfare moms’ (they all get sold into slavery), no ‘wasteful’ spending on infrastructure or social security. No risk socialization… sounds like paradise for the right-wing folk. Maybe we should build a retirement village there.
“The good news is that now is a good time to buy a home.”
How can it be a good time to buy when house prices are still more than 3 times median incomes and affordability is low? I will start believing him if he offers to subsidise FB mortgages for the next 5 years and gives guarantees against any loss in value over the same period. There, you’ve got the solution to the housing slump. All it takes is money.
Remember the guarantee is only as good as the person/company that is writing the guarantee. Once they are in Bankruptcy, your guarantee is about as valuable as salt water at the beach.
It is very easy for companies to promise you the world tomorrow at a wonderful price, if they have no intentions of being there tomorrow to honor that promise.
The stupidity coming out of the mouths of housing bulls is astonishing. I’m losing count of how many times I hear, “I think now is a great time to buy because there is so much to choose from.”
To hell with Econ Rule #1: When supply goes up, price goes down. Let these fools buy and end up like Steve Buscemi in the movie Fargo. “I guess that would be your buddy in the wood chipper.”
‘It’s going to have a roll-down effect on everything else in the economy. It’s going to affect the guy who sells furniture, carpet and window treatments.’”
“In other words, she said, the other shoe hasn’t dropped yet.”
No it hasn’t. Just wait for this to play out in all the other U.S. markets that became dependent on housing for job & income growth over the past few years.
“In other words, she said, the other shoe hasn’t dropped yet.”
Why would anyone buy until the other shoe fell off the carcass!
So the realtors, developers, mortgage brokers etc can make a living. Thats all I can think of.
And that other shoe is a size 18 DDD, extra wide, that will end up wedged directly in your butt if you buy now. If that’s what you are into then now is “a great time to buy”.
Taking it in the Azure?
1 acre - does it have an oil rig on it ?
Thats the first thing that struck me, every ones been talking about greed during this bubble, this about tkaes the cake. Trying to shoehorn 50-100 people on 1 acre, damn!
It has a gold tree.
Used to be a money tree~
Once upon a time.
Who wants a tree that produces more worthless dollars?
A government is the only entity that can render useful paper worthless, by the act of printing something on it.
Lay-offs in real estate are no problem. Circuit City is hiring.
It would be constructive if the press would pick up on how predictable this all was. Building an economy on houses was a mistake, and that point should be made every time the news about RE layoffs hits.
The Anna Nichole crisis seems to have wound down, perhaps one of those reporters could look into it.
Was @ a party a couple weeks ago and we all spent exactly one second remembering her.
If you watch CNBC thats all they are talking about now. Of course they are saying it will not be that bad and will only affect the subprimes. I cant wait till this really blows up(I dont think the pain has even started yet) the whole gang Cramer, Bartoromo, Erin, all the rest of the gang will jump on OUR band wagon-bet on it!
” I can’t wait till this really blows up.”
Becareful of what you wish for.
I read of a guy who smugly sat back and watched the 1929 stock market crash. Six months after telling all his friends “I told you so” he lost his job.
This meltdown is gonna touch us all.
he was justified in being smug…he kept his job 6 months longer than his friends
And I bet he had money in the bank.
A stock market crash is great if you are shorting the market.
After a certain age, you should try very hard not to be dependent on a “job”. If you have a (paid-off) farm, that’s fine. Otherwise, although financial instruments are very tricky, you must try to figure out which ones are safest and act accordingly. In the current situation, while dollars may be weak, houses are weaker.
Good post, az. But what is that certain age? I’m job dependent and I hate that fact.
NYCityBoy,
I get the sense that you’re a tech guy in the finance world. The old saying on Wall St. is that if you haven’t made it by 45, you’ll never make it.
Cheers! (and bitterness doesn’t help. It got my dad nowhere.)
” If you watch CNBC thats all they are talking about now”
We have discussed that..The talking heads just report wayyyyy after the fact. I suppose so it’s not construed as moving the market, and like the REIC it is not in their interest to report bad news… blah, blah crashed today ,but everything’s OOKKK!
“Come Easter, most of the winter residents are heading home. ‘We don’t have a lot of time,’ McIntosh said. ‘The push is on.’”
Hurry up and scam Granny Snowbird into buying a Florida vacation home before the spring thaw up north, or the onset of the subprime ice age down south!
I hope the speculators are enjoying those Florida alligators!
—————————————————————————-
Flipped in Florida — Selling in a Housing Bust: John F. Wasik
By John F. Wasik
March 26 (Bloomberg) — There’s something about Florida residential real estate that attracts speculators like an alligator to an easy meal.
Abundant sunshine has been known to distort investors’ perception of the laws of economics from the 1890s to the present. With tens of thousands of properties languishing on the market, the quick profits seem to have evaporated.
The experience of Beth and Fabrizio Faieta, who have bought five homes in the Fort Myers-Naples area over the past few years, provides a tale of what happens when home prices sour.
The Faietas aren’t your typical Florida “flippers” who had hoped to buy and sell properties within six months of purchase, though. They said their holdings were intended to be long-term investments. Yet as the market stalled, buyers were scarce and expenses rose, and they were forced to sell.
Homes are plentiful in southwest Florida. There are for-sale signs on almost every other property on the most desirable road that embraces the graceful, white-sand beaches of the Gulf of Mexico. Local newspapers carry four or more sections of real- estate advertising.
When the Faietas arrived in the Fort Myers area from Massachusetts 2 1/2 years ago, homes were in high demand in the Sunshine State. “We had to put in offers the same day we saw them or they were gone,” says Beth, who was a part-time real- estate agent in Massachusetts.
Lower Asking Price
One of their investments, a three-bedroom home in Bonita Springs, was bought from an owner who had to sell. With 4.62 percent financing in September 2004, they bought it for $260,000. The house originally listed for $395,000.
Although they have had no problem renting the Bonita home — my family and I leased it — with the slack market, they have had trouble selling it on their own. They recently signed on with a local real-estate agent and have reduced the asking price of almost $400,000 to $359,900.
Like so many formerly torrid markets, southwest Florida home prices are in retreat. Prices fell 2 percent in the fourth quarter of last year in the Naples area and more than 1 percent in Fort Myers after more than doubling in value over a five-year period, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, the watchdog agency for the mortgage companies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_wasik&sid=aRj2GOnC1Z0k
“The Faietas aren’t your typical Florida “flippers’’ who had hoped to buy and sell properties within six months of purchase, though. They said their holdings were intended to be long-term investments. Yet as the market stalled, buyers were scarce and expenses rose, and they were forced to sell.”
What IS it about the MSM that they can’t even spot an obvious contradiction? Longterm investors should have the cash flow to ride out an investment. If they have to sell after a couple of years then they are speculators. End of Story.
Note to journalists: Objectivity is not the same thing as blindly parroting obvious stupidities from your sources.
Good points diemos . You have the 3 month flippers , the 6 month flippers , and you have the 1 year flippers and the 2 year flippers .Than you have the borrowers who took equity out for second homes that planned to sell in 5 years to help fund their retirement or they bought their retirement home way ahead of time thinking the prices would skyrocket .Anyway you look at it these home purchases shot up the demand in most cities and now that demand is crashing .
The story doesn’t say, but their cash flow must’ve been negative.
“Hurry up and scam Granny Snowbird into buying a Florida vacation home before the spring thaw up north…”
April is still a good month for selling to snowbirds, but if you don’t have a contract by April 30th, it’s not good. We put our house on the market in early April of 2005 and it took until early May to get a contract. Given how things had been selling immediately with multiple offers, we were really sweating it.
Come May, most snowbirds are gone. Also, the “H” word starts appearing again in the Florida MSM, which is another damper on sales.
It was 70 and sunny yesterday here in New York City. They better fleece those pigeons quickly before they come back home.
“‘With most lenders today, you not only have to have pre-sales, you have to prove your pre-sales,’ said N.J. Olivieri, president of Sarasota-based Horizon Mortgage Corp. ‘They’re now looking at who the buyer is, do they have the financial wherewithal, are they going to be an investor only.
More credit tightening, no?
That’s the first time I’ve heard that too. Imagine what could have been prevented had that policy been in place all along.
Great Depression part deux?
The lenders are only looking at project the way they use to in prior lending cycles ,(as they should of all along ). Marketing projects to unqualified flippers and speculators has proven to be unstable . I would not be surprised if alot of those projects got shill buyers investors to beef up the count during the sub-prime hayday just to get the construction loans . Look at how many of those flippers planned to double escrow before close of escrow .The developers aren’t going to be able to find enough end-user qualified buyers to meet the requirements to fund construction loans . With high cancellation rates with builders ,how can Lenders even trust pre-construction sales ?
Well, Eustis, finally, my neck of the woods. Yep. And here’s interesting news that portends the future of Fl. Impact fees in the county, Lake County, to go to $31,000. Yep, 31K. The counties are really feeling the squeeze. The county passed a change freezing prepayments of impact fees (currently at 10K) two weeks ago on a Tuesday (giving themselves time to make the required changes for the increase to 31K.) I was at the courthouse 4 days earlier (Friday) with my $10,026 check to prepay for the lot I own. Some local builders were there also with their checkbooks. The word had leaked out that the county commisioners were about to do that. Funny part of the story is that the big builders were not there, they don’t read the local newspapers.
Hi, JB, imagine if the county commissioners all over Florida had done that during the bubble years. This is what makes my blood boil. If they had done that, there would have been a lot less building and more money for infrastructure and maybe less of a need to jack up property taxes. All counties should have done this years ago. But, many were backed down by the pressure brought to bear by the builders and developers. Now that the bust is on, NOW come the increases in impact fees. What good is that going to do? Can’t squeeze blood from a stone, but they are sure going to try.
All I can do is express my deep disgust.
Yeap, agree Palmetto. Had same thoughts.
Can only add: And, wouldn’t Fl look nicer now also!
I was talking to my friend who lives in Florida last week. He was a real estate investor until a few months ago, now he went back to his old career(restaurant business) and he thinks alot of home in SE Florida have gone down 100K since the peak of 2005. He bought his current home for 483,000 and says he would be lucky to get 400 for it if he could sell it at all, he might try a short sale or a deed in leau. Its happening people.
hope the goof-ball bites it big
Maybe the jumping woman in the Option One at the end of the column is just happy to still have a job…
“In other words, she said, the other shoe hasn’t dropped yet.”
Does anyone have real figures which accurately reflect the total percentage of our economy Real Estate represents at present? Not only in terms of direct emplyment, but in terms of HELOC money, and other indirect monies? In other words, say 50% of all the money related to real estate vanished tomorrow - just how bad would things be in general? Seems to me we need a manned Mars mission, and fast.
the good ole US of A needs to take one up the rectal sluice in a big way
Canadian, eh?
stereotypes
must get rid of them.
coming from someone who parrots them constantly on here…
Got an example?
Fortune ran a story late last year where they reported that 100% of all job creation since 2001 recession was REIC or healthcare related.
I think REIC was half. This should be a soft landing!?!?!?
Wait until the March and April #’s come out. I am reading and hearing from REIC members of significant (20-25%) of escrows falling out due to tightening lending standards.
Remember how in 2005-06, the bulls all said ‘no problem, the Fed will cut rates’? Some here tried to point out that if the Fed did that, it would be because the economy is headed into recession, which is hardly good for the housing market.
At this point, what good would a rate cut do anyway?
The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing and vice versa, and both appendages are flailing madly, not aware of each other’s actions.
Stick a fork in it.
Probably send long term interest rates much higher. Greenspan’s conundrum in reverse. For someone who was in charge of the monetary policy to ensure the long term viability of a capitalist economy in a democratic republic, his decisions seemed to lack a basic understanding of macroeconomics that would ensure his task.
On the other hand, his decisions will potentially (depending on the reaction of the electorate in the upcoming contraction) deteriorate a capitalist economy and lean towards a socialist one. Would he still keep his knighthood?
Hey Al,
Might as well ask you now…
Why’d you abandon your principles?
That’s all I want to know.
Maybe he is playing the Francisco D’Anconia role from Atlas Shrugged - substitute overpriced McMansions for phony silver mines.
Anybody else up for comparisons?
It is The Golden Anniversary of Publication…
Remarkably easy to change the charlatans around, mix & match.
Whadya got?
Connect the dots.
p.s.: just can’t see Weird Al as Francisco.
Maybe he is playing the Francisco D’Anconia role from Atlas Shrugged - substitute overpriced McMansions for phony [copper] mines.
Yep, I’ve been thinking (and saying) exactly that for years.
“At this point, what good would a rate cut do anyway?”
Help guys like Bill Gross who bangs his drum every month for a rate cut figuring it will make him and his bond fund some serious $$$,$$$,$$$,$$$.00
I keep hearing this crap at work too, Ben. Oh, the Fed will cut. I say, “I don’t think so. The Fed has lost control of the situation.” I get the same glazed looks when I kept telling everybody to watch for a disaster in subprime.
And the people at work are mostly CPAs, MBAs and lending “professionals”. They are clueless when it comes to seeing anything they don’t want to see.
If the Fed caves and lowers short term rates, long term rates will go up. Other central banks are raising rates, not lowering them. BB is screwed whether he raises, pauses or lowers.
FED rate cut won’t really work IMO, not for ARM victims. Damage has already been done. ARMs are mostly tied to LIBOR anyway, which is a much better indicator of global supply/demand of short-term money.
Prime rate reductions will slightly help homebuilders with specs, land holders, etc. Drops in HELOC rates will be nominal, so no real benefit there either.
The spread between short and long-term rates is so small right now that refinancers don’t get much benefit from an ARM, so no great help there either.
I think the housing market has to correct itself over the next several years and the FED knows it. They need to be in damage control over the rest of the economy.
A .25 rate cut would create a dead-cat bounce, but it isn’t going to do anything for resetting ARMs nor would it significantly mitigate constricting credit standards. Failure’s already baked in.
OH THE HORROR…of driving a paid off old clunker to school and having your co-workers laugh at you!!!
===============================
Their other car is a 2004 Chrysler Pacifica. Both cars are fairly fuel inefficient and represent a huge overall cost relative to income, Laferriere said, but if they sold them, the vehicles wouldn’t bring in enough to pay off the debt. So the planner suggested that Lykins and Mohrenne keep them in top condition and plan to drive them well past the time the loans are paid off.
“Conceived in the halcyon real estate days of 2003, The Azure was aimed at capitalizing on Sarasota’s rising status as the new Gulf Coast haven for the cultured and wealthy.”
This is funny. I remember when Sarasota was considered carny-town, the place where John Ringling lived, and generally regarded as trashy, boring, and depressing. Then New Yorkers, who didn’t know any better, began showing up and bragging about living there. Now, they actually think it’s a cultural hub? I was there two weeks ago, and it’s still the most boring town in Florida.
Carny folk are the best folk there are.
Since I’ve lived in Florida–15 years–I’ve always known Sarasota to be popular with Midwestern retirees with money, kind of like a Palm Beach for people from Chicago and Cincinnati.
Speaking of areas that used to fall under the label of trashy, boring, and depressing, have you seen the development going on in Port Tampa? I had not been out that way for a while, but yesterday I saw large areas being cleared for subdivisions and townhouses. Gee, that’s just what we need more of. Of course, about every fifth house also was for sale.
Port Tampa is revolting, but developers are asking fortunes for the junk they build there. However, you will notice that “New Port [Tampa]” at Gandy and Westshore is obviously not getting built, despite the appallingly pretentious PR. The developer brags that he spent over a million dollars per acre for industrial wasteland! What a genius. That whole area down to and including Port Tampa is so filthy and polluted, and the ground is probably so loaded with heavy metals, it boggles the mind to think politicians would allow such development, and stupid people would actually move there because it’s near water. I guess the risk of producing children with three eyes each isn’t a drawback.
The New Port Web site shows shots of downtown, instead of the part of town where the place is supposed to be built. I wonder why . . .
http://www.newporttampa.com/home.html. The New Port land isn’t actually on Tampa Bay at all; it’s inland behind a huge, dirty ship repair plant with a little inlet of water at its south tip. If you’re high enough, however, you can see the bay and the waste water treatment plant across the bay in St. Petersburg. Can’t wait!
I did notice the lack of activity at the NewPort site. The one thing that seems to be near completion is an enormous and almost comically inappropriate condo tower. They took away Jimmy Mac’s restaurant for that!
I know this to probably be wholly unscientific a bellwether it is, but did anyone note any changes in traffic patterns?
I got laid off last Oct. 2006 and my usual commute was on Kendall Dr. in South Florida. Just recently, I got my old job back (albeit temporarily), and began work. This time, I’ve noticed the commute on Kendall Dr. to be quicker than what I went through the last time.
I wonder if there’s a connection between rising unemployment among the REIC industry and loosening traffic demand on our nation’s commuting grid? Obviously, I would enjoy the quicker commute, but it doesn’t look good for the economy if high unemployment levels are sustained in our local REIC industry.
Traffic is pretty seasonal in LA. And the recent daylight savings change relieved some traffic. People suck driving at sunrise (heading east) and sunset (heading west). The time change helped that a lot.
“The typical threshold for new condo projects is 50 percent. For a building with 100 condo units, that means 50 contracts.”
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for your typical buyer these days, this is high level math
LOL,
I was at Vons (supermarket) the other day and asked for 3/4 lbs of shrimp. The woman helping me asked if that was “Like point 75 or something?”
I said yes, whatever is close.
Paul
“The good news is that now is a good time to buy a home, Talbert said.
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tell that to those who have been laid off
Any news from N Florida? Especially around Tallahassee? I went to school there. My wife and I really liked it. I was appalled at the St Joe Co. They kicked all of the plant workers out in Port St Joe after they decided that the cardboard and paper business wasn’t sexy enough.
Roidy
From a FL realtor’s blog….he’s a pretty straight shooter. One of the few I read because he seems to be a stand up guy.
“Ken, Let me ask you this. These folks got 100% financing on a no doc loan on a house in another state when they didn’t even have jobs there. Does that sound legally doable? I’m not blaming anyone. But I can assure you that loan fraud was rampant in my market in 2004 and 2005. And frankly it pisses me off. My market is currently paying big time for all the greed of LOs, Realtors, builders and the stupidity of disillusioned buyers and so called “investors” that spent too much time watching late night info commercials. Mix all these together in a booming market and chaos results.
I agree with you 100% that these stories are getting tiresome. I hear them everyday. Tiresome or not it’s reality. I’m not placing blame, I’m presenting fact. The ones who are guilty know who they are and they don’t need me to point it out to them.
Actually I don’t feel sorry for Sally or John in any way. But I do feel sorry for my 80 year old sellers who can’t sell their house, that they have owned for 10 years, right now, because the market is satiated with flips that flopped and foreclosures that are have brought the values crashing down. Out of the 1700 homes on the market in Poinciana, 700 are less than 2 years old. I feel sorry when an 80 year old man has to go to work every night to try and stay on top his mortgage payment because his house won’t sell. Not because it’s over priced but because you can’t sell a 10 year old house in my market. Too many brand new foreclosures on the market. So really it doesn’t matter who’s to blame. It is what it is. And it still pisses me off. “