Paradise Still Has A Price In Florida
The Palm Beach Post reports from Florida. “The stock market’s harrowing free fall Thursday made stomachs lurch harder than the twists and turns of Walt Disney World’s Space Mountain. But it’s how the 513-point Dow Jones dive impacts visitors to the Magic Kingdom, as well as baby boomers’ retirement accounts, senior citizens’ investments and foreigners’ homebuying ability, that Florida should be watching. Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo noted that South Florida could be hit particularly hard by a plummeting market because of its many retirees and their investments.’
“‘Clearly, you’ve got some people feeling a little less wealthy than they did a few weeks ago,’ he said. ‘We’re not just talking about investment banks going belly up; we’re talking about countries going belly up.’”
“Economic turmoil in those countries could negatively affect Florida tourism, but also homebuying. About 22 percent of all foreign homebuyers nationally chose properties in Florida last year, according to a survey by the National Association of Realtors. ‘What will help us is we don’t have a big speculative bubble in housing,’ said William Stronge, a senior fellow at the Economic Development Research Institute in West Palm Beach. ‘We’ve already gone through all that and we’re not going to have that again.’”
The Associated Press. “As Americans worry about the economy and debt ceiling, international investors still perceive the U.S. as ‘the most reliable country in the world,’ said Andrew Hellinger, chief executive of Coral Gables-based Hellinger & Penabad. ‘We are a country where you can place your money for investment and know it’s safe.’”
“Stephan Gietl of Austria and his partner Fernando Levy-Hara, of Argentina, have purchased 307 South Florida condo units for $40 million, since 2009. The duo has sold most of the units, mainly to international investors. Levy-Hara says the units yield between 5 and 6 percent profit per year after maintenance fees and property taxes. ‘With the potential appreciation, if you’re buying at half the price of the bubble, you have the potential to go up 60 to 70 percent in the next five years,’ he said.”
From WINK News. “H.G.T.V.’s House Hunters is about to give the nation a real look at Southwest Florida’s housing market and Cape Coral RE/MAX realtor Victoria Yereance hopes it sets the record straight. ‘My decision to participate was not to get the message out about how unrealistic some of these buyers are but really to say, here’s what’s really going on that you aren’t seeing or reading elsewhere,’ Yereance said.”
“‘Don’t get me wrong, there are still really good deals to be had here,’ Yereance said. ‘Two years ago we were deeply discounted. This year? We’re just ‘discounted’ and the property values are going to go up.’”
“Experts say just remember: paradise still has a price.”
The Miami Herald. “Ex-teen heartthrob David Cassidy and the Miami Lakes bankers are entangled in a tug-of-war over a $1.35 million-condo that Cassidy bought in Fort Lauderdale in 2005. BankUnited drew first blood by filing a foreclosure action against Cassidy when he stopped making payment on its $900,000-exotic mortgage. ‘It’s a strategic default,’ says Cassidy’s lawyer, Jeff Harrington.”
“And Cassidy’s fighting back. He’s counter-suing for fraud. Bank officials declined comment. In their court action, they claim Cassidy now owes $916,488.62. Cassidy listed the 34th floor condo at the Las Olas River House for $1.1 million.”
The Orlando Sentinel. “Orlando continues to struggle with a bigger share of underwater homes than any other metro area in foreclosure-scarred Florida. Retiree Dorothy Nypiuk has not missed any of the $2,400 monthly payments on the $287,000 house she and her husband bought in theConway area more than a decade ago. They are struggling to pay the mortgage along with their medical bills, but at this point they aren’t ready to walk away from the house, even though it is now worth only about $200,000.”
“‘My husband doesn’t want to do that,’ she said earlier this week. ‘He has a hobby: He works in the garage on radio-controlled airplanes. If we let the house go, what would he do? Where would he go? It would be just like putting him in a coffin someplace.’”
“Maitland real-estate agent Dan Duff said Central Floridians’ attitudes about losing their homes have changed a lot since the market began its slide four years ago. ‘First there was the shame factor, and then came the mad factor, when they tried to destroy their houses to get back at the banks,’ Duff said. ‘In the last 18 months to 2.5 years, it’s been about strategic foreclosures. … Just about everybody knows the banks aren’t going to come after them. There’s too many people out there, and the banks haven’t come after them all yet.’”
The Sun Sentinel. “Board-certified real estate attorney Gary M. Singer answers housing questions. Q: I own an investment property that I have stopped paying on… Recently, the lender filed a lawsuit against me to collect on the note, but it is not trying to take the property back in foreclosure. I have money in the bank and other assets. I called the lender, and it doesn’t really want the property back. I am afraid that the bank will come after my other assets. Can it? – Anonymous.”
“A: Yes. This is getting to be a much more common trend. First mortgage lenders are starting to decide that they really do not want the responsibility of owning the property, especially if it has a low value or is in disrepair. Second mortgage lenders realize that even if they foreclose the property, the first mortgage lender is going to get all of the proceeds from the foreclosure sale, leaving the second mortgage holder with little more than a legal bill.”
“The lenders know that a promissory note case is much easier — and cheaper — to bring than a foreclosure action and can be finished much faster. After the lender wins the lawsuit on the promissory note, it will get a judgment that it can execute against your other property, your bank accounts and even your wages. Plus, it still has the mortgage lien against the original property, so it can go back and take that at a later date if it decides to. I have long advised my clients that this is one of the real dangers in ’strategic defaults’ and it looks like the lenders are starting to catch on, at least a little.”
“Further, it is too late to try to transfer the assets as most states have a two-year, look-back period for fraudulent transfers made for the purpose of hiding assets to creditors. The best thing that you can do now is to fight your lender in court and try to come to some sort of settlement.”
“A prime swath of vacant land in Jupiter was sold last month to homebuilder Otto “Buz” DiVosta. The parcel, which contains nearly 300 acres and is the last large piece of undeveloped land in the town, is known as Parcel 19 and was owned by WCI Communities Inc. Sources familiar with the deal say DiVosta paid a rock-bottom price of only $6 million for the land.”
“In 2005, WCI sold off about 500 acres on the south side of Indiantown Road to Toll Brothers for a different number: $100 million. Toll Brothers developed the Jupiter Country Club there.”
“Once a local powerhouse, Dan Catalfumo’s construction empire is fading rapidly. Banks are breathing down Catalfumo’s neck, a consequence of the real estate recession: His holdings have been slammed in the past two years by lender suits seeking $100 million-plus, several of them naming the highflying multimillionaire builder personally.”
“A come-from-behind deal is believed to have netted Catalfumo $25 million: last year’s bulk sale of unsold luxury condos in Riviera Beach, twin resort towers developed and built by Catalfumo. Given the upscale condos’ sluggish sales, that would seem to be a real estate coup. But he might have received much more early on. That’s because pre-construction, during the real estate boom, developers were interested in buying the property as soon as a resort condominium was permitted. By some estimates, that would have put $50 million or more into Catalfumo’s pocket.”
“Catalfumo went his own way, though, sources said, determined to develop the building himself and sell condos in what was a white-hot condo market. He poured tens of millions of his own money into the luxury development, the sources said. By 2007, when the market stalled, lawsuits to recoup deposits as prospective buyers tried to walk away from their purchases and new buyers failed to materialize. It was a $100 million blow.”
“‘The 160-plus buyers turned into over 100 defaulting buyer lawsuits instead of closings for in excess of $100 million,’ Catalfumo told The Post.”
“Few are counting Catalfumo out. ‘I don’t think anybody really cares ‘ about the cluster of lender lawsuits, said Neil Merin, chairman of the West Palm Beach commercial real estate investment firm Merin Hunter Codman Inc. ‘We just know this is how Dan does business. When times are good, he’s here ; when times are bad, he’s gone.’”
The News Press. “When Krista Davis drives around town, through road-widening projects and around new housing developments, she can almost imagine she is back in Southwest Florida in boom times. Then, the parched air blowing through the 40-story downtown skyline — and the mere fact she is driving to work — reminds her she is in Fort Worth, Texas. ‘There is just so much work going on here and so much happening all of the time, it almost reminds me of Southwest Florida a few years ago,’ said Davis.”
“Davis and her fiance, Cape Coral native Matt McFalls, moved to Texas last year after both lost their jobs here and lost their home to foreclosure. ‘We stuck around for about six months to try to find work, but there just wasn’t anything,’ Davis said. ‘We couldn’t wait any longer.’”
“‘Texas is creating a lot of jobs right now, no question,’ said Gary Jackson, director of the Regional Economic Research Institute at FGCU. ‘It is little concerning because a lot of those jobs are high-skill jobs. We would certainly like to keep those high-skilled people here. But, if we are not employing those people, can we really consider it a loss?’”
“Agents sold 107 homes on Sanibel from January to mid-June - including nine between $2 million and $5 million - compared to 88 homes sold during the first half of 2010. During the past four months, inventory was down on Sanibel by 17 percent. Agents say it’s a result of buyers adapting to new market values, and coming to terms with what their homes are worth.”
“After too many months on the market, some sellers are lowering their asking prices on Fort Myers Beach as well, said Isabelle Wells, of Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate on Estero Boulevard. ‘People, after two or three years, are getting a little bit more realistic and they drop the price,’ she said.”
“People from out of state - who make up the bulk of island buyers - sometimes have perceptions that prices are still at unprecedented lows. ‘Even if you drop to a great price, they’re still going to argue with you that it’s too much,’ Wells said.”
“The average listing price on Fort Myers Beach was $480,154 as of the end of July, according to Trulia. Median sales price was $300,000.”
“Greg McBride is the senior financial analyst for Bankrate Inc., a financial-research firm in North Palm Beach. While some in the the housing industry complain that lenders have overcorrected for the financial wrongs of the housing bubble five and six years ago, McBride says the new sobriety in lending is just a return to pre-bubble normalcy.”
“Q: Higher down payments are not a new concept — they used to be routine, didn’t they?”
“A: Loan-approval standards are not appreciatively different than they were 15 or 20 years ago. And 15 or 20 years ago, you didn’t hear people screaming that nobody can get a loan. You didn’t hear anyone screaming, ‘Who are we going to sell all these houses to if nobody can get a loan?’”
Catalfumo is not a good dude. Besides the fact he strings out sub-contractors and makes them feel fortunate they got 80% of their money 9 months late in dribs and drabs.
“Few are counting Catalfumo out. ‘I don’t think anybody really cares ‘ about the cluster of lender lawsuits, said Neil Merin, chairman of the West Palm Beach commercial real estate investment firm Merin Hunter Codman Inc. ‘We just know this is how Dan does business. When times are good, he’s here ; when times are bad, he’s gone.’”
Tuesday, July 26th, 2011 | Posted by Peter Schorsch
According to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, Florida developer Dan Catalfumo, owner and president of Catalfumo Construction, gave $5,000 to Lois Frankel’s congressional campaign, through her campaign committee “Lois Frankel For Congress” on May 31, 2011.
That name may sound familiar. That’s because of this Sun-Sentinel report involving Heather Hill, former fiancé of Catalfumo. Hill had him charged with felony battery and aggravated battery, after Hill asserted that Catalfumo “pushed [her] into a glass-covered picture frame, causing severe injuries that required multiple stitches in the shoulder and back and staples in her head.”
According to the Palm Beach Post in May 2004, “prosecutors want[ed] Hill to testify about an allegation made in one of their filings: that Catalfumo told her he could tie concrete blocks to her ankles, throw her off his boat and no one would ever know.” They also “pushed to introduce evidence that Catalfumo beat other women.” In the criminal trial of this case, the prosecution used the reports of similar conduct by Catalfumo against another former girlfriend and his ex-wife. They planned to use the testimony of these two women, in addition to Hill, to demonstrate that Catalfumo was “a serial abuser.”
In February 2005, the Palm Beach Post reported that Catalfumo’s former girlfriend Allison Petronella testified that she had been similarly abused by him during their relationship. Petronella said that “three times during the years they dated, Catalfumo beat her, slammed her head into a marble floor, choked her, punched her…[and] she had pictures to prove it.” When questioned by prosecutors, Petronella described three different beating and choking incidents. “‘I had bruising. I had bloodshot eyes. I had bruising on my neck. I had bruising on my chest. I had a concussion. I was hospitalized,’ she said.” During the trial, Petronella said that Catalfumo had beaten her to times, and told the Palm Beach Post in January 2005 that Catalfumo had told her: “The only way [she] would ever leave him was in a pine box.” The article said that during her testimony, Petronella “wrapped her hands around her throat, demonstrating how she said she was choked.” It added that, “earlier in the trial, Heather Hill, a woman telling a similar story, had done the same.”
It gets worse.
According to the Palm Beach Post in March 2005, the battery charge against Catalfumo was not the first time these charges of abuse had been made against Catalfumo, and instead were indicative of a long history “of Catalfumo being bare-knuckled with women” that included Hill, Catalfumo’s former girlfriend Allison Petronella, and began in 1997 when he was arrested on charges of beating ex-wife and mother of his children Barbie Catalfumo. “According to a police report, Barbie Catalfumo was bruised, scratched, had an inflamed jaw, a small gash in the center of her forehead and knots on her scalp after Catalfumo attacked her in a Boca Raton hotel room. Catalfumo pleaded no contest, and the charge was dropped after he completed counseling.” Barbie’s testimony was originally meant to be included in the trial of Hill’s battery charges against Catalfumo, but the a technicality made it so that she was not permitted to testify, as the Judge ruled that the prosecutor had listed her too late. According to the Palm Beach Post, “Barbie Catalfumo could have been a linchpin witness for prosecutors if she had been able to tell jurors of the 1997 incident in a Boca Raton hotel room, during which she said he beat and choked her. According to police reports, Barbie was bruised and scratched, with an inflamed jaw, a small gash in the center of her forehead and knots on her scalp.”
http://saintpetersblog.com/2011/07/the-horrible-irony-of-lois-frankels-criticism-of-allen-wests-alleged-misoginy/ - 47k -
“Sources familiar with the deal say DiVosta paid a rock-bottom price of only $6 million for the land.”
Stole it.
$20K per acre isn’t exactly stealing it but at the same time it represents a fair value IF people are buying houses there.
“Economic turmoil in those countries could negatively affect Florida tourism, but also homebuying. About 22 percent of all foreign homebuyers nationally chose properties in Florida last year, according to a survey by the National Association of Realtors.”
Awesome! I have been awaiting and expecting the news that the foreign buyers have been drummed out of the U.S. residential investing game.
One of my favorite bubble rumors, which I never could confirm, is that Germans were coming to Ft. Myers by the planeload to “snap up” houses. When I first wrote about it, somebody here posted that the Lufthansa in-flight magazine was featuring southwest Florida properties.
Lots of Germans around Punta Gorda, according to my sister who lives there.
My property manager is German, and my Realtor speaks German, which he used in a surprising numbers of walkthroughs in the Seminole area.
Just sayin’
There are a lot of Germans here in the Fort Myers area. Just go to any beach at certain times of the year and you will hear more German spoken than anything else, including English.
Are the men wearing thong bathing suits? European beach practices are, shall we say, a little different. On the flip side, I was on a Spanish beach many years ago, before I got married. I had been told, by Americans, that no attractive females went topless. That is false.
But I do know that the “four corners” area — where Lake, Orange, Osceola, and Polk Counties come together — has been a popular area for UK nationals. I have no idea why, other than the appeal of the sun for someone coming from that climate. But that particular part of the state has nothing to endear it, and no beach is close. No doubt the brochures are declaring it paradise.
The Four Corners area is the anus of Central Florida; ugly strip center after ugly subdivison and so on and so on………..
We’ve been selling banality as premium luxury for decades. I have a Midwestern relative who bought, as a second home, a golf course condo in the Sarasota-Bradenton area in the 2003 time frame. Listening to other relatives talk about it, you would have thought it was a luxury getaway on the Riviera. Then I visited and it was just an unremarkable unit on an unremarkable golf course in an unremarkable subdivision. There probably were 10,000 units just like it in a 50-mile radius.
And that, snake charmer, is how I feel about places like Sun City, AZ, which is outside of Phoenix, and Rancho Vistoso, which is north of Tucson.
You wouldn’t catch me dead in one of those places unless I were bored to death first.
“…the new sobriety in lending is just a return to pre-bubble normalcy.”
HBB posters have already been saying that for years.
I returned yesterday from a visit to my parents in SW FL. D.R. Horton, “The Nation’s Homebuilder”, took over a long-stalled development in Punta Gorda where Mom and Dad bought last November. Now, ten months later, the development is nearly built out, and every new home is sold. It seems that a good house in a good location at the right price (under $150k) still appeals to people who have the money to buy. So what if their neighbors’ houses look exactly like theirs? People personalize their property with flowering shrubs and plants, immediately after the one-year moratorium on installing their own landscaping expires. We might even do some stealth re-landscaping before the year is up. I’m trying to convince my parents to paint their house a vivid shade of coral or lime green, but so far I’m the only one interested in that idea.
Punta Gorda?
You can keep it…yech beach and some golf that is about it…pass
Where are you in FL, Mike?
Punta Gorda doesn’t actually have beaches. Its little downtown area is on the Peace River. My attitude toward FL in general is ‘you can keep it’, but that’s where my parents’ caregivers (sis and BIL) live, two miles from the parents.
I think people actually like it when their house looks like their neighbor’s. I mean everyone buys cars in the same color and style too. Why should houses be different?
‘took over a long-stalled development…ten months later, the development is nearly built out, and every new home is sold’
I’m curious at what price? As we’ve seen, the builders have no problem under-cutting the previous buyers. Like this guy with the $6 million. Do you suppose he’ll undercut the Toll buyers?
It’s been asked, why have none of the big builders gone under? Even Beazer is still around. IMO, it’s the way they structure it. Like breakaway pieces they can walk away from and not bring down the parent company. This isn’t new and I’ve seen small developers jump from state to state leaving failed projects everywhere they go.
The attitude about the condo guy is interesting. I remember posting a quote from Florida a while back where some guy says if you haven’t declared bankruptcy at least once in this business you haven’t been around very long.
I don’t know what D.R. Horton paid for the development, Ben. The pool, clubhouse, pond and a handful of homes were already there when the big guys took over. Construction costs must be fairly low. Three or four home styles to choose from, standardized exteriors and limited interior choice of finishes. Although I am not a fan of building new homes where there is plenty of older housing stock available, that does not appear to be the case around Punta Gorda. Just a mile away is a higher-end deed-restricted community with a number of vacant lots and no building going on. Not a lot of For Sale signs in the area. I also noticed far, far fewer vacant business sites than in northern Illinois where I live.
Construction costs have probably not gone up any faster than inflation since the late 1990s. Land prices soared, the labor supply got short, and a few materials like dry wall become short. But the prices of labor and materials have since fallen rapidly so that a sharp contractor should be able to sell new houses at a profit. Also keep in mind that many of the abandoned houses in SW Florida were McMansions, too big for comfortable retirement, and so far inland that they only offer hot, muggy weather and a long drive to medical care. A well exicuted and located new development should bring a profit even as those Mcmansions are being raised at some cost to local taxpayers.
I love how these think-tank “institutes” and real estate consultants continue to thrive even as the economy remains listless. The propaganda industry may be the only recession-proof sector in America. And here’s a radical thought — perhaps housing prices should depend on wages rather than the stock market. See, I can start my own institute now, but no one will want to fund the truth.
And here’s a radical thought — perhaps housing prices should depend on wages rather than the stock market.
Amen, snake charmer!
perhaps housing prices should depend on wages rather than the stock market ??
For some people the stock market are their wages…As far as housing prices and wages I believe wages and or cash (wealth) are the driver of housing prices…
+1
I know this is OT, but I didn’t want it to get lost in Bits. Apologies if it has been posted before. Apparently someone placed a huge bet that the US would either default, or lose its AAA rating. As the article notes, very few entities are capable of this big of a bet. My money’s on PIMPCO. Disgusting.
http://etfdailynews.com/2011/07/25/investors-the-1-billion-armageddon-trade-placed-against-the-united-states/
Bill Gross has been openly bearish on US debt for some time now.
Maybe so, but to place that huge of a bet at this time is most unusual. I agree with the writer that there HAD to be insider information passed. And, given the cooperation of the ratings agencies with Wall Street in rating all sorts of kee-rap AAA, why wouldn’t there be collusion here?
Look, I have no problem with gambling as long as it is done in Las Vegas, where the general population is not exposed to the actions of risk takers. But with Wall Street and global finance as a whole, we’re talking whole populations affected by the moves of traders at the push of a button or stroke of a key. Voila! Tomorrow you have to pay more for gas to get to work, or more to feed your family, etc. I think it is despicable.
BankUnited drew first blood by filing a foreclosure action against Cassidy when he stopped making payment on its $900,000-exotic mortgage.
Hmmm, wasn’t David Cassidy just in the news?
David Cassidy goes after ‘Partridge Family’ fortune
http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/04/news/companies/david_cassidy_partridge_family_lawsuit/
“Cassidy said he was only paid $5,000 for merchandise from “The Partridge Family.” Under his 1971 contract with Screen Gems, a division of Columbia Pictures Industries which is owned by Sony, Cassidy was supposed to get 15 percent of net merchandising revenues for the use of his image, voice or likeness.”
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Methinks Dave is hurtin’ for cash. Florida is non-recourse, right? David should just walk away from his property, save his pennies from his Vegas show, and go on the Oil City plan. For further savings he can shack up with Nicholas Cage.
“‘Clearly, you’ve got some people feeling a little less wealthy than they did a few weeks ago,’ he said. ‘We’re not just talking about investment banks going belly up; we’re talking about countries going belly up.’”
I don’t base my feelings of wealth on the size of my stock portfolio or the value of my house. Instead, it’s about cash coming in vs. cash going out.
The market took an absolute beating today (as we all probably know), but I don’t think any of us should be happy about it. This rout could have dire consequences for all of us, the frugal included.
This is what happens to dumb countries led by fools. And I am talking about both parties too.
Just what dire consequences did you have in mind? Most of us have not “benefited” from the runup in prices of stocks and surely not in the runup of food and gas. How then would a reversal be dire?
Because the poor are the ones who are being asked to pay taxes even if they feel it more*, receive less in SS and Medicare, receive less in local and state government services, and work longer and more stressful hours because they’re happy to have a job. That’s why.
——————-
*This is to get around “the rich pay more in taxes than the middle class.” Yes, but if you took 10% from Joe who makes $25K, Joe will feel it a LOT more than if you took 50% from Jamie who makes upwards of $600K.
Joe has to pay more taxes if the stock market tanks? Maybe, if the logic is the FedGov pukes up a bunch more to keep their banking clan masters in place. Otherwise, what’s the connection you are thinking of?
BTW, I think it is absurd to call someone who makes $25K poor. Poor in this circumstance is a matter of debt and balance, and of course the household population of ankle biters. If you ask Joe, I’ll bet he would like to see his grocery and gas bill take a nosedive more than he wants the stock market to levitate.
“The market took an absolute beating today (as we all probably know), but I don’t think any of us should be happy about it. This rout could have dire consequences for all of us, the frugal included.”
Not my problem. Holding gold and silver and buying the dips.
I am inclined to be happy about it.
For the past two years, I have thought that the market was HEINOUSLY overvalued relative to the fundamentals of the economy. And it was overvalued primarily due to the Fed’s reckless fire-hose of liquidity.
Why shouldn’t I celebrate the stock market reflecting the realities on the ground? People having a firm grasp on reality is a good thing.
My sentiments exactly.
Ditto.
Been sitting out the rally since 2009, with the exception of a relatively small retirement account.
Anyone with eyeballs could have seen that it was only going to be a temporary bullish run.
Hey, so, I, Uh, maybe, like over hydrogen peroxided my terrazzo floor stain, and now I have an overbleached area.
Any advice?
Travertine
“The stock market’s harrowing free fall Thursday made stomachs lurch harder than the twists and turns of Walt Disney World’s Space Mountain. But it’s how the 513-point Dow Jones dive impacts visitors to the Magic Kingdom, as well as baby boomers’ retirement accounts, senior citizens’ investments and foreigners’ homebuying ability, that Florida should be watching. Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo noted that South Florida could be hit particularly hard by a plummeting market because of its many retirees and their investments.’”
How are those sick stomachs feeling by now? Sell now, or get priced in forever, just like Japanese investors did back in the early-1990s!
Dow tumbles 634 points on recession fears
The sell-off comes in reaction to the downgrade on U.S. debt by Standard & Poor’s.
By Jim Puzzanghera, Walter Hamilton and Tom Petruno, Los Angeles Times
August 8, 2011, 4:24 p.m.
Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles—
Accelerating fears of a new global recession sent the Dow Jones industrial average plunging more than 600 points as Washington policymakers scrambled to contain the damage fueled by reaction to the U.S. credit rating downgrade.
The worldwide sell-off began the moment investors were able to weigh in on the historic decision by Standard & Poor’s to revoke its AAA rating of U.S. debt and the rout continued in a day that echoed the market chaos of the financial crisis three years ago.
“The sentiment among Main Street investors is this is going to be 2008 all over again,” said David Dietze, chief investment strategist at Point View Financial Services in Summit, N.J. “They’re thinking ‘I may have been fooled once but I won’t be fooled a second time and I want out’ ” of the stock market.
…
All this foreign buyer fluff isn’t true in my part of Florida. Of the last 150 residential purchases in Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral only 7 buyers were foreign, 5 Canadian and 2 Euros. Not exactly the herds of Speedos “snapping up” properties the media would have us believe.