Sustainability Is Not Rocket Science, But It Is Hard
The Rocky Mountain News reports from Colorado. “The price of homes in the Denver metro area fell 9.4 percent in June from June 2007, according to a report from a New York firm that tracks the 25 largest housing markets in the U.S. Some local experts are critical of the report. ‘It’s garbage in, garbage out,’ said Lou Barnes, principal of Boulder West Financial. ‘The problem with price analysis is that it is over-weighted with distressed properties. The sales data is as accurate as far as it goes. But the question is: How is the market that is not for sale doing?’”
“Chris Mygatt, president of Coldwell Banker Residential in Colorado, said while the data is interesting, it does not reflect what is going on in popular neighborhoods.”
“‘I would suggest that this information is heavily skewed by all of the properties in places like Aurora and Adams County,’ Mygatt said. ‘If you would take out all of the REOs (real estate owned homes sold by lenders), you would have a much different picture. Homes aren’t losing value in the popular neighborhoods where people want to live. Anyone who thinks they will wait to buy a home in Washington Park, will be paying more a year from now.’”
The Arizona Daily Star. “At the peak of his success, developer Michael F. Teufel had acclaimed projects all over Tucson, earning praise for innovative designs and community accolades for business growth. Then things went bad.”
“Now, Pathway projects across Tucson sit unfinished or with residents complaining of poor workmanship. While Teufel blames the downturn in the housing market, others blame him.”
“In cases where homes are unfinished, buyers say they lost from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars in upfront payments. Other buyers whose homes were completed have laundry lists of repairs, including leaking windows, ceiling fans with no switches and hot tubs that don’t heat up.”
“‘I think they bit off more than they could chew,’ said Sky Ranch buyer Lucia Zegarski, who is dealing with stucco cracks.”
“Meanwhile, people who bought homes from Teufel are finding they have limited recourse. Buyers who filed lawsuits are giving up, assuming Pathway has no money to cover any judgment they might win against the company.”
“One buyer, Preston Schrader, paid $38,000 in deposits to Pathway in 2005 for a home and waited for more than a year without seeing construction begin. He ended up losing in arbitration because the contract did not specify when work would start, Schrader said.”
“Judy Westin filed a complaint about her unfinished Aldea del Rey town home after trying numerous times to contact Pathway. The property is partially built and ‘growing tumbleweeds all around it,’ said Westin, who lives in Tennessee.”
“‘Of course, we would just like to have the money back that we put down,’ Westin said. ‘It’s very sad.’”
“A real estate agent who represented Pathway, Scott Niles, said the developer fell behind in the boom, then hit the brunt of the slowdown. ‘The market was so quick,’ he said. Then ‘everything kind of fell off a cliff.’”
The Arizona Republic. “Metropolitan Phoenix was the home-builder capital of the country a few years ago. But the industry has shrunk with the housing market’s downturn. A few home builders, some Valley-based, have filed for bankruptcy. Some smaller home builders have closed their doors. And other builders, including a few large ones, have walked away from empty lots, model homes and entire subdivisions.”
“Several Valley subdivisions have been foreclosed upon. ‘Rumors abound about this builder and that builder,’ said real-estate analyst RL Brown. ‘Subs aren’t paid by a handful of builders. Contracts are renegotiated, layoffs occur. Divisions are consolidated. Management changed. Mortgage brokers close and a bank or two fail. Investigations into unlawful practices grow by the day.’”
“Mortgages Ltd. has gone in less than two years from being Arizona’s largest private commercial real-estate lender to a company plunged into bankruptcy following the suicide of its CEO, Scott Coles.”
“Along with questions raised by the suicide, Mortgages Ltd.’s dramatic fall raises the business question of why a firm holding $900 million in high-interest commercial loans suddenly had to borrow money to stay afloat.”
“‘I can’t figure out how Mortgages Ltd. decided to fund the condo projects it did when it did,’ said Eric Brown, founder of the Artisan Lofts in Phoenix and an analyst with national real-estate consultants Robert Charles Lesser & Co. ‘The timing was bad for most new housing developments.’”
“‘In the end, Coles was probably trying to stem the bleeding,’ said analyst Eric Brown. ‘It’s a very sad and tough situation for many people. Projects were going to him because it was too tough to get money from banks. Coles was aggressive, and it appears he felt he couldn’t lose.’”
“Developers of Downtown condominium project 44 East Broadway are putting the partially finished building on the market, hoping to find a buyer or investor with deep enough pockets to finish the job.”
“‘It’s not a panicky situation,’ said James LeBeau, managing partner in the project. But ‘we can’t let it limp along anymore.’”
“He said, the business partners simply want to find someone with ‘a lot of cash’ to expedite the process. ‘All the hard work is done,’ said LeBeau. ‘All they have to do is put in a lot of money.’”
“‘There is still money for investment nationally,’ said Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup. ‘Your credit has got to be good and your risk has got to be low. Downtown Tucson is a low-risk investment.’”
“In addition to the penthouses, the building would have 30 condominiums priced from about $350,000 to $650,000, LeBeau said. If no big investor or buyer materializes, LeBeau said he plans to finish the building but will probably rent the units out as apartments. ‘That would be plan B,’ he said.”
The Review Journal from Nevada. “New York-based Related Cos. has been hired by Wall Street investment house Deutsche Bank to finish development of the $3.9 billion Cosmopolitan project on the Strip, an affiliate of the bank announced Wednesday.”
“‘The good news from a market perspective is that the project goes forward as opposed to sitting there idle and leaving a big question mark on the Strip,’ said John Knott, executive VP of the Global Gaming Group for CB Richard Ellis.”
“Knott said he assumes Deutsche Bank will continue to evaluate possible partners and investors. The investment bank did not say if the project’s opening will be pushed back from its current late 2009 date.”
“Deutsche Bank has taken over full ownership of the project under an affiliate. A call to the bank’s New York offices asking if the company still plans to sell the project after the credit markets loosen were not returned by press time.”
“This is Related’s third attempt to move into the Las Vegas resort market. Related was a joint-venture partner with Centra Properties on the canceled Las Ramblas project. Slated for 4,000 hotel-condominium units, the project involved actor George Clooney.”
“Related’s Icon luxury condominium project was canceled in November because of rising construction costs. Related also once held a development agreement for the 61-acre Union Park, but it expired when talks with the city collapsed.”
The Las Vegas Business Press from Nevada. “The Meridian, a luxury condo property just east of the Strip, is in turmoil as multiple investors try to evict the company that was renting out their units — in many cases, for illegal overnight stays.”
“Unit owners, many of them absentee landlords, are trying to regain control of their units in order to generate their own tenants. Their rental incomes stopped in July when the county shut down an informal hotel operation at the Meridian. Many owners counted on an onsite rental company to generate funds to cover the cost of their condo mortgages.”
“‘They don’t have use of their property. And they’re not getting rent,’ said lawyer Edward Kania, who is representing 12 Meridian owners.”
“About 400 of the Meridian’s estimated 450 owners are in some degree of financial distress ‘now or soon,’ according to Scott Oelke, a real-estate agent who owns two units at the Meridian.”
In Business Las Vegas. “Some elected officials and business leaders met over two days last week to give their insights on how local governments and community leaders can create a sustainable environment in Southern Nevada.”
“Mike Dwyer, a UNLV professor of environmental studies who participated in one of the sessions as a moderator, says sustainability is a complex concept to implement. ‘It is not rocket science, but it is hard,’ Dwyer says. ‘We have rocket science figured out.’”
“In other news: The number of listings by Realtors continues to be primarily composed of nonowner-occupied units. Vacant units represent 54 percent of the 22,095 homes for sale, according to Applied Analysis. There are 7,279 homes under contract, with 4,259 contingent and 3,020 pending. Forty-eight percent of the contingent units are short sales.”
The Las Vegas Sun. “A Green Valley home with a front courtyard and a bubbling fountain is advertised in the newspaper with 100 percent financing. The ‘Nehemiah’ program is popular because ‘there’s little to no money out of pocket and it’s easier to qualify (than under other programs) in terms of credit,’ said local loan processor Shani Fazzi of First United Mortgage.”
“Despite its attraction to buyers, this seller-funded down payment assistance program will expire Oct. 1. ‘We noticed as time went on that these loans were failing at two or three times the (overall) frequency,’ HUD spokesman Brian Sullivan said. ‘It’s not enough to put people into homes. You’ve got to keep them there.’”
“Local real estate agents say the program has enabled families to buy homes they may not have been able to afford otherwise.”
“‘When we get rid of this program, a lot of people will have to rent,’ said agent Teresa McCormick, who with husband Paul posted the advertisement for that home in Green Valley.”
“That screeching sound heard throughout Las Vegas Valley is the brakes being applied not only to large-scale Strip projects, but to many of the residential and mixed-use projects planned for the outskirts of town and outlying rural areas.”
“Expansive master-planned communities such as Coyote Springs 50 miles northeast of Las Vegas and White Hills in northern Arizona advertised the lifestyle and amenities associated with Summerlin and Anthem — poster neighborhoods in Las Vegas — at a significant discount in home prices.”
“Focus Property Group, which snapped up thousands of acres at public land auctions, sunk more than $1 billion into the development of the Mountain’s Edge, Providence and Inspirada communities. The company also made a play in Pahrump with about 1,000 acres.”
“Whether Las Vegas is on the verge of a boom or bust is a matter of opinion.”
“‘The projects that were marketed to come on line and haven’t … am I going to suggest that those projects won’t get built? No way,’ housing analyst Dennis Smith said. ‘Do you think Las Vegas will stop growing? Does anybody really think Las Vegas will stop growing?’”
“Builders at Inspirada are in trouble. Utah-based Woodside Homes may be near involuntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and Kimball Hill Homes filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. Toll Brothers, Meritage Homes and Beazer Homes are also partners in Inspirada.”
“Home building at Coyote Springs has been delayed 18 months and prices have yet to be determined, said Klif Andrews, Nevada division president of Pardee Homes.”
“The golf course is finished and open for play and some of the basic infrastructure is in place, including 21,000 feet of sewer lines and 11,000 feet of water lines, A water treatment plant is finished and a separate wastewater and sewer plant is near completion.”
“‘You’ve got to spend $30 million on wastewater treatment before you can hook up one toilet,’ Andrews said. ‘That’s why houses will always appreciate because it’s difficult and expensive to build in outlying areas.’”
‘Focus Property Group, which snapped up thousands of acres at public land auctions, sunk more than $1 billion into the development of the Mountain’s Edge, Providence and Inspirada communities. The company also made a play in Pahrump with about 1,000 acres.’
‘Saturday, March 26, 2005: The Washington Post found some speculation going on in the desert town outside Las Vegas.
“It’s mainly a lot of hills and flats and Joshua trees, punctuated by a couple hundred widely spaced homes, most of them modulars or trailers..a single convenience store, operating off someone’s back porch; and no post office..By the time the bypass is completed, Rhodes plans to be..building more than 20,000 dwellings on the 2,000 acres it now owns here, along with an “urban center”. If the homes were already in place today, they would probably be priced in the mid $100,000s.”
Local innkeeper John McNeely likes the idea, “This area is so depressed, it will help the tax base.” But the expected boom does have a downside. “I used to go out in the yard in my underwear,” said Tom Lusk, longtime resident,”I can’t anymore. I got neighbors.”
“For her part Pat Kwast, a cook at Rosie’s is positively Zen, “Sweetheart, it’s progress,” she said with a sigh, taking a break at the counter. “Things change — that’s the energy of everything. Everybody knows you can’t stop progress.”
“Vance delivered mail in Las Vegas for 18 years before fleeing to a more wholesome place to raise her young grandsons. In White Hills, their household is off the grid — they get their electricity from a propane generator and have their water trucked in. Her husband visits on the weekends from his job in the city, and her little boys have the freedom to run and hike and ride their ATVs with six-foot flags on the back so she can spot them over the cactuses. She can’t bear the idea that it’s all about to change.”
“I’m selling out,” she grumbled. “It’s going to be another Pahrump.”
“It’s mainly a lot of hills and flats and Joshua trees,…”
Sounds like those may soon prove useful.
LOL! Sadly I had high hopes for this development until I read their “affordable” home was going to ’start’ at 275k. At the rate that is unfolding it has another NV Ghost Town written all over it. Gas prices will only make the situation worse.
Hey, yesterday I saw an ad for “affordable homes starting at $660K”.
So comparatively, those $275K are looking a lot better, aren’t they?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
“It’s mainly a lot of hills and flats and Joshua trees,…”
My… it is mighty convenient…
Got Popcorn?
Neil
“It’s mainly a lot of hills and flats and Joshua trees, punctuated by a couple hundred widely spaced homes, most of them modulars or trailers..a single convenience store, operating off someone’s back porch; and no post office..By the time the bypass is completed, Rhodes plans to be..building more than 20,000 dwellings on the 2,000 acres it now owns here, along with an “urban center”. If the homes were already in place today, they would probably be priced in the mid $100,000s
Got plenty of clean, cool H2O out there Rhodes???
I’m not exactly sure where the water table is out there, but 20,000 homes with a few community fast pumping, large case, deep wells should definitlely drive it “TWO LEVELS BELOW the DEVIL” in one Hell of a hurry
“Vance delivered mail in Las Vegas for 18 years before fleeing to a more wholesome place to raise her young grandsons”
Ah, a grandma at 35ish (by vegas math). And want’s to raise her grandsons… I guess it was too late for her kids, but a working mom’s gotta strip to keep bread on the table. But with time showing it’s mark for all to see, and being banned from the prime
locations, it’s time to move to a more wholesome place.
Just heard imbecile Pisani on CNBC interviewing someone say “so if you’re your average Joe with half a million to invest, what do you do at this point?”
It’s amazing how out of touch some people are.
‘The problem with price analysis is that it is over-weighted with distressed properties. The sales data is as accurate as far as it goes. But the question is: How is the market that is not for sale doing?’
My house is doing great. I’m not selling it for $100 million, up 100-fold in the last year. Next year, I plan to not sell it for $1 billion.
Of course, there are those who would say the decline in sales is a sign that the market is not clearing, and that therefore the market-clearing prices is lower than that provided by recorded sales.
“……this information is heavily skewed…….”
So to “fix” it, these chuckleheads want to “skew” the data to only include the “popular neighborhoods”
This is why I don’t like statistics. You can make them show anything you want, depending on how you “skew” the data.
‘If you would take out all of the REOs (real estate owned homes sold by lenders), you would have a much different picture.”
“If you take all the water out of the ocean, you would have a much different picture.”
As someone who recently bought in the Denver Metro area, I think he’s got a point. I moved from an exurban neighborhood in Douglas County, where prices for two-year-old houses are down 20% and foreclosures are rampant, into an older & very desirable Arapahoe County suburban neighborhood with a top-rated elementary school, easy access to light rail, and a short walk from the southern end of the Denver Tech Center. It took over a year for us to find a house to purchase because they just aren’t widely available. We were able to negotiate the price down a bit (~5%) because we were non-contingent cash buyers, but it was hardly what I would call a screamin’ deal.
That’s why houses will always appreciate because it’s difficult and expensive to build in outlying areas.’”
One of the most idiotic statements I have seen in some time…..
Concur!
Give that genius Realtor ™ a Joshua tree!
Got Popcorn?
Neil
Here’s another idiotic statement:
“‘In the end, Coles was probably trying to stem the bleeding,’ said analyst Eric Brown.
Coles shot himself.
‘The problem with price analysis is that it is over-weighted with distressed properties. The sales data is as accurate as far as it goes. But the question is: How is the market that is not for sale doing?’
God these people say the dumbest things…
BTW…had a friend here in PHX remind me yesterday that I had tried to talk her out of buying two years ago when she moved here. But the deal was so great, they included a flat screen t.v., that she couldn’t pass it up. “I should have listened, I’m down about $100k.” At least she isn’t in a toxic loan and she can afford the payment…I’m grasping at straws for her.
‘That’s why houses will always appreciate because it’s difficult and expensive to build in outlying areas.’
A supply curve alone does not a market equilibrium make. One also needs to have demand in order for prices to appreciate or even equilibrate at levels above $0.
Gone off the meds, professor?
But I know what you want to say. “Build it and they will come” never works out.
Okay, I admit, the stats and figures in the below article lost me. I don’t pretend to be numbers smart, so I leave the verification of the facts to those of you more qualified - BUT, what’s fascinating are the comments below the article - the TROLLS are fightin’ mad! Great entertainment. Of course, they don’t seem to have the huevos to post their thoughts here…
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/52640/House-Prices-Still-Too-High-Despite-Collapse?tickers=fre,fnm
I like the guy that basically says “I’ve put X-dollars into it, so it can’t be worth less than that”…….sorta like the guy selling a used car, that says “I’ve spent $2000 bucks to keep this thing running, so that means the car is worth $2500…”
Wrong, ratchet-jaw…….if the best offer you get on the car is a thousand bucks, then that is what it is worth. I don’t know why people seem to have a problem understanding this.
Of course, they don’t seem to have the huevos to post their thoughts here…
They’re alive and well anywhere that doesn’t run them off. I get a few on my 3rd string blog… Cest la vie.
“Now is the bottom” (Love this one as we EXIT the seller’s season and enter the buyer’s season…)
“Its different here” (Yea, you don’t admit there is a JT out of your posterior.)
Buy now or…. (Gee… we haven’t heard that before…)
I’m starting to become numb to some of the stupid comments. We’re about to enter the 18 months of the greatest price drops. Maybe we’ve already entered that time in the last few weeks… Bend over sellers, a real credit crunch is about to start.
Now what type of wine goes with schadenfreude? I’m thinking a red Zin… Maybe a Claret…
Got Popcorn?
Neil
Was zum Teufel…?
The devil is always in the lack of detail~
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“At the peak of his success, developer Michael F. Teufel had acclaimed projects all over Tucson, earning praise for innovative designs and community accolades for business growth. Then things went bad.”
“Now, Pathway projects across Tucson sit unfinished or with residents complaining of poor workmanship. While Teufel blames the downturn in the housing market, others blame him.”
“In cases where homes are unfinished, buyers say they lost from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars in upfront payments. Other buyers whose homes were completed have laundry lists of repairs, including leaking windows, ceiling fans with no switches and hot tubs that don’t heat up.”
There ‘are’ instances where I do feel bad for some of these people. We always belly ache about all the people that “didn’t have any skin in the game” but fer’ chrissakes… look at the ones that DID!
Again, can there be any stronger case for not buying a bubble-era home than fans that won’t cool and hot tubs that can’t rise above ambient temperature? I guess when you’re a bigshot builder you don’t have time for those… ‘details’.
Peeps, whatever you do, please do NOT feel sorry for the Teufels. In addition to the foibles detailed in the Arizona Daily Star story, they are also responsible for the construction of numerous min-dorms around the University of Arizona.
Now, you may be asking, what is a mini-dorm? Slim’s not-so-happy answer is, it’s a single family one-story house that gets a second story addition on the back. Which looks like a middle finger.
Then, it’s given this crap-o stucco job and painted some yucky color. Like dog poop brown or baby urine yellow. Those are two popular choices among the mini-dorm conversion crowd.
What’s next? How about nine to 12 students renting rooms in it? And each student has his or her own car, which gets parked in the yard, out in the street, or in the alley.
Needless to say, homeowners near the University of Arizona (and that includes Yours Truly) do NOT like mini-dorms or their developers.
RE: “In cases where homes are unfinished, buyers say they lost from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars in upfront payments. Other buyers whose homes were completed have laundry lists of repairs, including leaking windows, ceiling fans with no switches and hot tubs that don’t heat up.”
Purchaser’s of shoddily constructed residences will be doubled screwed when the Federal government makes appraisal fraud a felony charge, thereby forcing the remnant of practioners to acknowledge in the future that thousands upon thousands of these junkers have REMAINING ECONOMIC LIFES (the tenured ability of the improvement to acommodate it’s highest and best use) of only 10 to 15, if not 5 to 10(!) years, thereby negating the ability of a buyer to secure a 30 year term mortgage.
Suicide is paneless if one jumps out a open window of closed opportunity…
You’ve got to defenestrate your right, to party.
=======================================
“Mortgages Ltd. has gone in less than two years from being Arizona’s largest private commercial real-estate lender to a company plunged into bankruptcy following the suicide of its CEO, Scott Coles.”
“Along with questions raised by the suicide, Mortgages Ltd.’s dramatic fall raises the business question of why a firm holding $900 million in high-interest commercial loans suddenly had to borrow money to stay afloat.”
From the same article:
“Elliott Pollack, an Arizona economist and real-estate investor, was one of those who had taken his money out of Mortgages Ltd. when the housing market turned in 2006. But he decided to give the value-to-loan fund a try and became one of 44 investors who put a total of $7.7 million in the fund.”
Elliott was an economist ? He deserved to lose money.
Note to Elliot, go learn from Chris Thornberg.
The sales data is as accurate as far as it goes. But the question is: How is the market that is not for sale doing?’”
Oh man, thanks for the laugh. Now I need a tissue.
This whole thing repeatedly makes me wonder: How do these people get hired into the position they are in and how the heck do they manage to survive? You’d think they’d forget to breathe too often.
A little help for Mr. Barnes. Sir, if the question doesn’t sound valid in a rising market, then it isn’t valid in a falling one.
has denver had more down years than up since 1985 ?
hope they drink allot of beer there
The Denver article had this gem in it:
“The problem with price analysis is that it is over-weighted with distressed properties,” Barnes said “The sales data is as accurate as far as it goes. But the question is: How is the market that is not for sale doing?”
I didn’t know you could have a “not for sale” market. Wouldn’t that be a museum for “priceless” artifacts that aren’t for sale?
Well, if you are going to do a refi or a HELOC, you need a market value for a house that isn’t actually for sale, but I think the lenders would have an issue if you told them they couldn’t use recent sales to figure it out. Now that they are actually checking. Oh, and assuming they haven’t just designated you area a declining market and said no HELOC for you.
“Deutsche Bank has taken over full ownership of the project under an affiliate. A call to the bank’s New York offices asking if the company still plans to sell the project after the credit markets loosen were not returned by press time.”
========================================
Captain Renault: I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Ugarte: Heh, you know, watching you just now with the Deutsche Bank, one would think you’ve been doing this all your life.
OT
suddenly they’re making allot more gold
everything is wonderful now, no worries
Maybe this is just coincidence, but I went to Lowe’s yesterday to buy some bolts for one of my projects today, and, as far as I could tell, I was the ONLY customer in the store!
Appreciate the Lowe down.
Two years ago, I started to notice this very thing in Tucson. And it was quite the change from the year before, when the store was so full of customers that you had to send out a search party to find an employee to help you.
I was in one of those boxy stores over the weekened. Yes, the plague of the broken refrigerators hit here as well. I perused. The salesman, who was not busy, looked at me examining the “lower-end” models and said, “Are you looking for a refrigerator for the garage?”
It hasn’t sunk in with them yet that, and there is no witty, erudite or even pithy way to put it: “Times have changed.”
I did fenagle a non-digital floor model (white) and they waived delivery fee.
Never had a need for a refrigerator in the garage.
milkcrate,
I empathize in full. You have no idea how many times I’ve had to endure snide comments just like that! Oh… I’m f@cking sorry, I wasn’t in the market for a fridge that had a TV built into the freakin’ door! ( Although I know just how disappointed you must be!? )
Bubble-wealth fever had reached a point where no matter what I was looking for, I had to call ahead, be extremely polite, extremely patient and insist on being put on hold! No really! It’s no big deal, I’ll hold while you “check in the back” to see if the ad you were running actually was in stock? Really it’s no big deal!
NO MORE! Now is the time when we should come out swinging! “Yeah it’s for the f@cking garage! Since I made parole mom won’t let me back in the house so I’ve gotten tired of living out of a cooler!” ( Just give me the f@cking fridge you d!ckhead ) Enough!
And to think that my brand-new, waist-high refrigerator (from Lowes) is living happily in my kitchen.
Arizona Slim,
How…ever do you get by..?
If you want to see a bubble run amok go no further than Appliance Dept. at any Big Box store. The stackable washer/dryer combos with 38 knobs and dials will reside forever right next to the Escalade in the Museum of Worthless Cr@p.
Sure, they’ll sell you the bare-bones “entry-level” washer or whatever but boy are they out to make you feel like cr@p about it. MEW or no, I am NOT paying $3,300 to wash clothes.
Tell ya the truth, I haven’t even filled this new fridge. (Like my moniker implies, I don’t eat a lot.)
I hear ya on the over priced, over gadget appliances. I agree, paying $3,300 for status level laundry machines is a waste of money. My SIL is a status queen, and paid $4K for her front load w & d.
We also own a waist-high refrigerator. We sold our home with a built in refrigerator, and are in transition. The fun is stacking all the veggies, so they don’t fall out upon opening the door.
The things I have learned to live without, has brought me back down to earth. My appreciation level was high, but now I truly have gratitude.
converse to low end refrigerators…
When the hell did fridges hit the $2500 mark. I admit I bought a 25 cubic ft for about $1100 8 years ago, and that was top end.
Now the units do everything but keep your food cold. So what if the freezer is on the bottom for effenciency. Hey clueless, this is how they used to be, before they moved it to the top for convenience. It’s still a damn box that blows cold air.
I guess much like any action movie series, when they run out of ideas they add asians doing martial arts (Lethal Weapon, Star Wars, Matrix, Die Hard, The Mummy). They have run out of ideas and are now adding electronics. I’m still waiting for the fridge I can plug my Ipod into.
cvca,
You know, I never minded their offering a $2,500 fridge to whomever thought they ‘needed’ one or ‘thought’ they could afford? Really didn’t.
It’s when they no l-o-n-g-e-r offer basic models that irks the hell out of me! Or… you have to special order and wait and wouldn’t it just be easier on everyone if you quit being such a damn cheapskate and buckled under like everyone else?, that gets me.
To some this may sound awfully distant to the HB but ( just like the unending proliferation of “fest’s” ) what aspects of our lives *haven’t been affected by the bubble? Everyone and their brother saw those MEW $’s and by God they were gonna’ get their share. Look for designs ( and prices ) to get more modest in the brave new ‘no credito’ world! It isn’t hard for me to imagine we’ll go back to the 50’s and it’s “90 Days Same As Cash!”
Consumer Report’s annual review on refrigerators, was an eye opener. Some of the pricey ones, had the lowest ratings on temperature and repairs.
Too bad they aren’t making them to last 20 years anymore.
Seriously? Sad. Just fricken sad.
I agree, it’s so hard to just find basic stuff anymore. And that fancy-schmancy washer and dryer I bought (simply because it had the biggest load capacity and seemed the most “solid” of the bunch) has broken down so many times in the 2 years I’ve owned it that I’m starting to think about selling them and going back to basics. Not to mention, where we live now, Sears will only do service calls on Tuesdays… so now I have to take a day off work to have someone come out (used to be able to have them come out on Hubby’s off Friday’s) - because of course, their scheduled delivery window is between 8am and 5pm. No joke!
“Consumer Report’s annual review on refrigerators, was an eye opener. Some of the pricey ones, had the lowest ratings on temperature and repairs.”
Stands to reason, the more useless crap features you design into them, the more parts and systems there are to potentially fail.
And they probably cut corners on the basics as well to keep the prices from getting even further into the stratosphere.
Why do I need a digital refrigerator, again?
So you can use it download songs onto your IPod!
No seriously I have no idea. I was looking for a link to Robert McMath’s Museum of Junk but I’m told it’s actually more like a marketing service “for a fee”. Mfr’s pay good money to see why different prdts. never flew.
Count these monstrosities among them.
Sweet! Still crowded in the Raleigh area, though.
“He said, the business partners simply want to find someone with ‘a lot of cash’ to expedite the process. ‘All the hard work is done,’ said LeBeau. ‘All they have to do is put in a lot of money.’”
Want to make a small fortune? Invest a large one into this mess. Good luck, LeBeau, enjoy living in your soon to be apartment project.
“‘There is still money for investment nationally,’ said Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup. ‘Your credit has got to be good and your risk has got to be low. Downtown Tucson is a low-risk investment.’”
“In addition to the penthouses, the building would have 30 condominiums priced from about $350,000 to $650,000, LeBeau said. If no big investor or buyer materializes, LeBeau said he plans to finish the building but will probably rent the units out as apartments. ‘That would be plan B,’ he said.”
How is it a “low-risk investment” to put lots of money in a product that won’t sell at a price that is profitable? Walkup and lose big?
Don’t get me started on Walkup. He’s a very nice fellow, which is quite appropriate for ribbon cuttings and other public events. But for tough stuff like leading the city forward? Forget it.
What’s worse, in the last mayoral election, the Democrats didn’t run anyone to oppose him. There was a Green candidate, but big deal. I’ve never been convinced that the Greens are good for anything more than pontificating about some utopian future than ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.
But that’s another rant.
Oh but DO go on!
“That screeching sound heard throughout Las Vegas Valley is the brakes being applied not only to large-scale Strip projects…’
No, likely that sound is me, cackling loudly enough to be heard several states away.
I love the desert. I can’t live in it as an adult, since I’ve only got the three melanin cells and am basically translucent, but I love it. I was born in and grew up in the Four Corners Area. It has been sickening to watch the sere, quiet, and elegant beauty of so many desert lands replaced with utterly wretched McCraptastic subdivisions, slobbered out across the landscape, all the bizarre monstrous houses, these horrible things squandering such water as there is, utterly ruinous to the wildlife and the delicate ecological system.
I can’t WAIT to see any or all of the developers who’ve done this do a Scott Coles. Shoots, I’ll loan ‘em the bullets to help ‘em out, if they’ve got nothing else handy.
I mean, Jeebus, look at…think of Moab…think of…!
Okay I’m going to go calm down now. Veins in my forehead are starting to pulse. I know they are, because I can see them all, since I’m translucent.
Olympiagal,
I have to agree and it may strike some odd that I happen to consider NV one of the purdiest states in the Union? I think though the hope for that new development was to get NV from being solely dependent on gaming for revenue.
Where there “sustainability model” came off the tracks was when they built homes instead of mfr. plants etc.
Sustainability=Jobs First ( then homes)
OT…. Looks like IKE may be heading to Fla. loaded with a can of wup-azz.
http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/at200809_5day.html#a_topad
This is rich, a tug-of-war using toilet paper in lieu of rope
As if there was anybody paying stupid money to stay in vegas, let alone go there anymore…
========================================
“The Meridian, a luxury condo property just east of the Strip, is in turmoil as multiple investors try to evict the company that was renting out their units — in many cases, for illegal overnight stays.”
“Unit owners, many of them absentee landlords, are trying to regain control of their units in order to generate their own tenants. Their rental incomes stopped in July when the county shut down an informal hotel operation at the Meridian. Many owners counted on an onsite rental company to generate funds to cover the cost of their condo mortgages.”
The average American seems not to have thought through the next four years.
That is probably good as and it should be.
But LV realty is headed to ZERO
I was in Vegas for the NAB convention this spring. They have a new trolley that takes you from the hotels to the convention center. All along the way you have to listen to inane drivel about how the population is growing 2x every ?? years and that by 2030 they will house the whole planet or some such. There’s other dumb stuff about how blasted you can get at happy hour and such as well. They must think everyone is stupid.
“Chris Mygatt, president of Coldwell Banker Residential in Colorado, said while the data is interesting, it does not reflect what is going on in popular neighborhoods.”
Oh really? Check out this house.
Mls#579513
http://www.coloproperty.com/index.cfm?&Action=ShowFrameSet&GotoApp=Listings&GotoAction=MLSSearch
If you go to the county records you’ll see it sold in 2000 for $305k and in 2005 for $365k, now they’re asking $328. This house in in a really nice neighborhood.
http://www.co.larimer.co.us/assessor/query/Detail.cfm?PropertyTypeVar=Residential&BuildingIDVar=001&NumVar=R1435744&direct=1
I haven’t spit coffee out on my screen in a while. Now I have to go mop up my new 30″ Cinema Display because of this one:
‘The problem with price analysis is that it is over-weighted with distressed properties. The sales data is as accurate as far as it goes. But the question is: How is the market that is not for sale doing?’”
I never realized it! While the “distressed” houses that are on the market are worth $50,000, the ones that aren’t for sale are still $1,000,000!
Unfortunately, I’m no economist, so I never knew this is how it works.
Just a hunch, but i’d bet the houses that aren’t for sale are selling even slower than the ones that are.
Our house wasn’t for sale for 7 1/2 years and we didn’t sell it even once during that time.
climber,
I’ll make it even simpler, why don’t we just make a list of the homes that *aren’t For Sale? Wouldn’t that just make things so much easier?
And that’s been my fear all along. Unless you have some ROCK SOLID and well compensated job with the state/fed etc. and are ASSURED of your pension ( regardless of what happens in the market ) why wouldn’t you want to get out from under your house if given even HALF a chance!?
Who wouldn’t like to get out from under their debt trap, downsize, pay off bills and bail on the whole failed consumption driven BS if they were shown the door? The sheer amount of pent up sellling demand out there has GOT to be massive!
“You’ve got to spend $30 million on wastewater treatment before you can hook up one toilet,’ Andrews said. ‘That’s why houses will always appreciate because it’s difficult and expensive to build in outlying areas.’”
Toilets are vastly overrated. Basically, we spend a ton of money to clean water, then deliver the clean water to households. The people in the houses then crap and pee in the clean water and flush. The crap- and pee-filled water is then delivered to a wastewater treatment plane, where it is cleaned and delivered to households. All of this takes place at enormous cost.
Human manure, composted properly, is what we should be spreading on our soil to help develop the top soil we will need to survive in coming years as fossil-fuel based fertilizers become more expensive.
My water comes out a well, 200 feet down…
Could any city dwellers trace the origin of the water that comes out of their tap?
Well 200 feet down; now that’s a deep subject.
Could any city dwellers trace the origin of the water that comes out of their tap?
Yes.
Mine comes out of one of the largest repositories of fresh water on the planet, just a hop, skip and a jump away.
Mine comes from the historic Deleware & Ratarian Canal completed in 1834 and used for transporting goods till 1933. Yep, till 1933.
Approx. 120 million gallons a day flow in it. Just used as an open air aquaduct today.
Actually, yes. Two sources, sometimes three when the other two are low.
Personally,though, mine comes from a 120′ well. However, in Wilsonville, a neighboring town, the water comes from a river that would not meet Federal minimum streamflow standards were it not for upstream effluent.
deeper subject, my well is at 600 feet. Love the desert!
Soil yent Green?
Oy Vey
la kosher nostra?
I’m not sure that’s entierly accurate? I saw an hour long special on LV and ‘my’ understanding is that if you flushed it down the tubes yesterday ( you’re golfing on it for your 8:00am tee time )
Even they still get their water from Lake Meade. They test the water at different depths on different days continuously. NOW… I have heard that drought plagued areas in Eastern Australia are contemplating exactly that and may well be forced to do so?
My water comes from the town lake. Waste water treatment plants release into rivers around here.
When my dad grew up on the Mississippi he said all the little towns had their water intake upstream and the sewage flow out downstream.
“‘When we get rid of this program, a lot of people will have to rent,’ said agent Teresa McCormick, who with husband Paul posted the advertisement for that home in Green Valley.”
THE HORROR, THE HORROR!
It is amazing the pathetic drivel spewed out these days isn’t it?
I bet fully 3 billion of the worlds population would be ecstatic to be able to afford a typical American rental.
Whenever my kids get an attitude I always point out we could be living in a cardboard box under a bridge somewhere.
Our natural state does not include electricity, hot water, running water or A/C. The whole rent vs own thing is a big crock. If you can get a decent place to live who cares who owns it. Nearly everyone “rents” their electric power source - is that such a big problem?
History of the Denver (Front Range) Housing Market:
1983-1990 Oil and Gas Bust (Peak of Foreclosures 1987)
1991-2001 Boom, Boom, Boom
2001-2005 Stagnation and increasing foreclosures
2005-2007 Increasing Foreclosures and steepening price declines in Adams County, Longmont, Weld County, Commerce City, West Denver.
2007-2008 Declining prices and market stagnation in popular areas such as Washington Park, Bonnie Braie, Hilltop, Belcaro.
Typical statements of the past from Real Estate agents:
1. We never had a boom from 2001 onward so we will not have a bust. (2005)
2. Foreclosures statistics are a lagging indicator. They are just about bottoming out now (2005).
3. The real estate problem is limited to overbuilding in Weld and Adams County. (2006-2007)
4. Bonnie Brae, Washington Park…. etc., are special and prices will not decline there.
As far as I can see in tracking the market here in Denver, price declines and foreclosures keep spreading to more and more affluent neighborhoods. There is a lot of homes for sale and very little is selling.
“‘Anyone who thinks they will wait to buy a home in Washington Park, will be paying more a year from now.’”
I wonder how much money this fortune teller is willing to put up for this forecast. Wash park is a neighborhood with old houses with alley access detached garages. The bedrooms are small and have small closets. Mostly people buying there are DINKS because they’re too small and too expensive for families.
It’s a hugely over-valued part of town loaded with yuppies whose main goal each day to try to impress one another. See and be seen at all costs. That’s what Washington Park is all about.
It’s VERY akin to the Butthead neighborhood of Atlanta.
“A real estate agent who represented Pathway, Scott Niles, said the developer fell behind in the boom, then hit the brunt of the slowdown. ‘The market was so quick,’ he said. Then ‘everything kind of fell off a cliff.’”
Buy now or be forever priced out of the market! I bet those words are ringing in the ears of Pathway everytime he thinks about his failed investment.
It wasn’t just falling behind during the boom. Back in 2005, he had another one of those minidorm conversion plans up his sleeve. In my neighborhood.
And wouldn’t ya know it, I got one of those wonderfully confusing letters referencing the fact that I was within 500 feet of a proposed rezoning. I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it, so I trotted it over to a nearby neighbor, who was a retired attorney.
She translated the City of Tucson’s letter into English for me, and for that, I thank her. I’m also thankful to all those many neighbors who got their dander up and collectively said, “No more mini-dorms in our neighborhood. We have enough of the damn things already.”
There was a rezoning hearing Downtown, and me -n- the other boyz and girlz from the ‘hood were there in force. At one point, an elderly neighbor stood up and said, “We may be common people, but we’re not simple people. We know when a profit is being made at our expense.”
The Teufel (that’s pronounced “Toy-ful”) people were represented by an attorney from Lewis and Roca. That’s Tucsonese for “big law firm that charges and arm and a leg.”
This gal launched into a convoluted legal argument that would but a labyrinth to shame. None of us neighbors could follow what she was saying. Even the aforementioned retired attorney was trying her hardest to hang on to the thread.
The city zoning people ruled against the Toy-fuls. So, they took the case to Pima County Superior Court. And lost there too.
After that, we noticed that the mini-dorms started going up for sale. Probably in response to that pile of legal bills from Lewis and Roca.
As for the rezoned property that wasn’t. It was sold too. The property is supposedly being renovated, but the work is moving at a snail’s pace.
There’s equipment from a local landscape materials company that’s being stored on the site, and I need to report that to the Department of Neighborhood Resources. This particular company has quite a big storage yard at its retail location, so there’s no reason why their equipment needs to be ugly-ing up our area.
How is the market that is not for sale doing?
That is a good one.
The traditional phrasing would be, What is the sound of one hand clapping?
If you think about it these are basically the same question.
Well, come to think of it, there actually is a way to measure how “the market that is not for sale” is doing.
Look at all the HELOC getting shut down. The house might not be for sale - but somebody sure thinks it’s worth less - and it’s not the “owners”.
True John, true.