A Lot Of Seller Greed
The Sun Sentinel reports from Florida. ” Although more properties are hitting the market in Palm Beach County compared with a year ago, buyers and their real estate agents are still complaining about a lack of quality inventory. Broward County had 5,773 active single-family listings in April, up 41 percent over the same period a year ago, according to the Greater Fort Lauderdale Realtors. In the $150,000-to-$299,999 price range sought by young buyers, listings shot up 72 percent in April, according to MLS data provided by EWM Realtors International. But available houses in the most desirable neighborhoods remain scarce, agents say. Some listings are in poor shape, overpriced or both, leaving buyers scrambling to find something suitable.”
“‘There’s a lot of inventory that’s just garbage,’ said Allyson Sullivan, an agent with Lang Realty in Delray Beach. ‘And there’s a lot of seller greed out there. If the homes are overpriced, buyers aren’t jumping on them.’”
The Tampa Bay Times. “Tampa Bay home prices dropped year-over-year for the first time in 29 months as the spring selling season sputtered to a close, triggering fresh worries over a flattening housing rebound. Median home prices sagged to $162,000, down about 1 percent from the previous May, data from Realtors’ multiple listing service show. The number of sales also dipped for the seventh time in the last eight months.”
“The market this year has underwhelmed largely due to the booming rebound of 2013, when buying was boosted by a torrent of cash from investors gobbling bargain-priced homes. As the bargains have vanished, so, too, have the bulk buyers who propped up the market. Cash deals from investors and other deep-pocketed buyers last month slid below 40 percent of all sales for the first time since early 2012. ‘At this time of the year last year, things started to get a little crazy. It had that bubble feel to it, with so many offers,’ said Steve Capen, a Keller Williams agent in St. Petersburg.”
“The share of what’s selling in single-family homes has changed, too, with short sales dropping to the lowest share of purchases since 2008. Conventional sales of non-distressed homes have grown, but many foreclosures remain stuck in limbo. By April, state court data show, foreclosure judges still had more than 38,000 Tampa Bay cases to resolve.”
The Orlando Sentinel. “Brevard County pushed Metro Orlando out of the nation’s top spot for the number of foreclosure actions during May, a new report shows. Orlando foreclosure auctions were up 73 percent from a year earlier. In April, Orlando had the highest rate in the country. ‘The thing that stuck out to me is that Orlando is No. 3 in the national foreclosure rate, and what’s really driving that number is scheduled auctions,’ said Daren Blomquist, VP of RealtyTrac. ‘It’s actually kind of astounding because it had 400 [foreclosure] starts but more than 1,600 auctions.’”
From CNBC. “Jackie Schafer is not behind on her mortgage payments, and despite owing more on the loan than her Tampa area condo is worth, she has no desire to move. She wants to stay and pay, but she still may lose everything. ‘I thought this was something that I would have, and eventually it would be paid off,’ said Schafer. ‘I certainly didn’t think someone was going to come and steal it from me.’”
“Schafer is referring to a group of investors who recently bought 80 percent of the condos in her development in Palm Harbor, Florida. The investors want to buy out the remaining owners and convert the complex into rental apartments, but they are offering far lower than the owners originally paid—and they may have the legal right to do it. ‘They don’t care. To them it’s business. To us, it’s everything,’ said Schafer, who said she owes more than $90,000 on her mortgage and is being offered just $40,000 by the investors.”
The Miami Herald. “A panel of Miami real estate experts offered tips on buying and selling to a crowd of about 160 prospective customers at the Miami Herald’s residential real estate boot camp. Overall, Ron Shuffield, President and CEO of EWM Realty, said there has been a rise in inventory, by 25 to 50 percent since the recession. ‘If your budget is lower, there are values in every price range,’ he said.”
From Miami Today. “If you’ve been around Miami at least a decade you recall the euphoria that’s causing condos to spring up faster than we can count. ‘At this rate, we’ll have 12,000 [units] just this year,’ architect Willy Bermello told fellow members of the Miami’s Urban Development Review Board two weeks ago as more than 1,300 units in four unrelated towers sought approval.”
“Mind you, he only tallied what’s about to rise inside the city of Miami. As with all of Miami’s many booms, this one has unique elements, the reasons those caught up in the cycle use to assure anyone worried about a bubble that ‘this time is different’ – which is always true right up to the point that it isn’t.”
“Before the last bust $300 per square foot defined a luxury condo. The same units bring more than $600 per foot today. New condos are pricing well above $1,000 per foot – and getting their price. Since most buyers are foreigners who rent out their units, bankers and developers take comfort, telling us that none of us will get hurt if the bubble bursts. Nobody wants to talk about this, because lots of jobs and income are at stake. Well, nobody wanted to talk about it in the past decade, either. In fact, nobody ever wants to talk about it.”
“Back in January 1926, Harper’s Monthly Magazine ran a long tale of it by Gertrude Mathews Shelby about her dealings here in 1924 and 1925: Florida land buyers ‘found themselves in the midst of the mightiest and swiftest population migration of history – a migration like the possessive pilgrimage of army ants or the seasonal flight of myriads of blackbirds. From everywhere came the land-seekers, the profit-seekers.’”
“But less than a year afterward, the hurricane of 1926 wiped out much of downtown Miami’s value. That and the stock market crash of 1929 so far depreciated the worth of what she and others had owned downtown that prices didn’t return to their 1926 level until the 1950s.”
“Schafer is referring to a group of investors who recently bought 80 percent of the condos in her development, Madison Oaks in Palm Harbor, Florida. The investors want to buy out the remaining owners and convert the complex into rental apartments, but they are offering far lower than the owners originally paid—and they may have the legal right to do it.
“They don’t care. To them it’s business. To us, it’s everything,” said Schafer, who said she owes more than $90,000 on her mortgage and is being offered just $40,000 by the investors.”
This is stupid. If the investors are in a position to force the condo buyers to sell then they shouldn’t be offering them $40,000, they should be offering something like twenty-five cents.
The investors spent lots of time and money manipulating the situation and then what do they do? Why, they blow it.
Dummies.
“The investors want to buy out the remaining owners and convert the complex into rental apartments, but they are offering far lower than the owners originally paid—and they may have the legal right to do it.”
“… but they are offering …”
Bahahahahahaha they are not OFFERING anything, they are DICTATING what the price will be. And they are able to do this because some recently passed laws ALLOWS them to do this.
Bahahahahahahahahaha.
And take a guess as to just who was behind the backing of these recently passed laws?
Bahahahahahahahahahahahaha
You can’t lose with the stuff I use.
Bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
She owes you 90 large…
‘Aurora Loan Services won a $1.29 million foreclosure judgment against Rodger H. Skidmore, who borrowed $900,000 in April 2005 using a 3,764-square-foot-house in Siesta Key as collateral. Skidmore bought the 64-year-old house for $462,700 in September 1999.’
‘Imagine paying $4,000 a month in rent for a five-bedroom home only to find the landlord hadn’t moved out, but instead had moved into the garage. For Terry Kring, that’s the situation she said her family is facing in Davie.’
‘NBC 6’s Jamie Guirola asked Kring about the setup in the garage and she said she’s never been in the garage. The home is listed to Roxanne Odaiyar, who signed the lease. According to a search of records by NBC 6’s Guirola, the home is currently in foreclosure. When Guiorla went to the exterior door of the garage, two people were inside. However, they ignored Guirola’s knocks on the door, shut off the lights, and called police.’
I find this very entertaining.
Imagine being dumb enough to rent something for $4000 a month and not check out - or have access to - the garage!
I guess they could stop paying the rent and wait for the house to be foreclosed before moving out.
‘Well into their senior years, Kenny and Fran Goodnow were struggling to pay their mortgage in 2007 when a salesman offered what seemed like a wonderful solution. A reverse mortgage would tap the equity in their St. Petersburg home to pay off their existing loan and give them extra cash for travel, a new car, a nest egg. Best of all, they could stay in their house.’
‘The couple only had to take care of the property taxes and insurance, which totalled barely $100 a month back then.’
“He told us you get paid every month instead of you paying the bank,” said Kenny, now 87.’
‘Soon after, their insurance premium jumped so high they could not afford it. They fell behind on their bills. The reverse mortgage company demanded that they pay $217,000 or lose their home of 25 years.’
$217k for that shack? The lender got took.
Yeah. That’s $15k worth of materials and dirt right there.
Strange it is that people still don’t understand the value of a dollar.
The lender got took.
“…because the loan was federally insured, the company will get its money back and taxpayers will ultimately foot the bill.”
Yep.
You can’t lose with the stuff I use.
“The inventory is garbage.”
I’ve seen a lot of this here in central Florida. Partly just normal aging and partly neglect. Many houses served fine for the generation that built them. But, they cannot be updated if the price is above zero. It is Detroit spread out into the hinterlands, complete with crack houses the police ignore.
They have some ‘garbage’ homes in my area, however they are still asking for full retail price. Most are just neglected homes which my wife and I dub “A Baby Boomers Museum”.
I’d buy a garbage home at the right price, but keep in mind my sweat equity is worth $$$.
They’re all garbage.
Depreciating garbage.
‘For the first time since the U.S. housing crash, new condominium towers are sprouting in downtown Boston, Seattle and Los Angeles as developers bet on the return of the riskiest type of residential real estate.’
‘Buyers are signing deals to reserve units in two new high-end projects in Boston. A 41-story tower rising in Seattle is the first phase of the largest condo development ever in the city. In Los Angeles, a 22-floor building is slated for construction later this year, the first ground-up high-rise condo project downtown since 2005.’
‘Construction cranes also spike the skylines of Washington, Houston, Miami, New York and San Francisco as financing gradually returns to a real estate class that lenders shunned for years.’
“The key is being able to jump in with the start of a project and finish it while the cycle is allowing you to sell condos at the number you anticipated,” said Ted Tye, managing partner of National Development, which has presold half of the 83-unit Sepia at Ink Block, scheduled to be finished next year in Boston’s Southend area. “In Boston, the window is open.”
Professional roller coaster riders.
‘The stock market has been on a tear lately, with the Dow and S&P 500 hitting a series of records. And while the market has been described as “boring” as volume and volatility recede, every major asset class — stocks, bonds, commodities, emerging and frontier markets — was up year-to-date as of Tuesday, making this certainly a unique and interesting moment.’
‘Komal Sri-Kumar, president of the investment firm Sri-Kumar Global Strategies, says a dangerous conglomeration of factors is conspiring to threaten the rally. “My concern now is we’re in the sixth year of monetary easing, going into the seventh, and still don’t have economic growth pickup to a sustainable pace,” he says. “We’ve done [easing] for a long period of time and there’s still no improvement for the growth picture.”
‘Unlike most economists, Sri-Kumar doesn’t believe the drop in first-quarter GDP was all due to weather. “The economy showed a significant amount of weakness, that’s what the bond market is referring to.”
‘ he believes the bond market is signaling a weak economy and the stock market is merely “taking advantage of the Yellen put … and looks like it’s getting into dangerous territory right now.”
‘the Yellen put…’
‘every major asset class — stocks, bonds, commodities, emerging and frontier markets — was up’
Don’t forget condos.
Visual of excess liquidity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFBMIra45lU
And these are the boom times:
‘Hiring prospects in Lee County are expected to stall this summer, as job losses in hospitality and health care offset gains in construction and other sectors to create the weakest labor market in the nation for job growth, according to a national survey.’
‘The Manpower survey indicated that the construction industry would be hiring in the quarter, but Victor duPont, president of the Lee Building Industry Association, said most contractors and subcontractors are trying to make due with current staffing as long as they can.’
“Things have definitely picked up a little bit compared to the last couple of years, but I don’t think anyone is doing a lot of hiring right now,” said duPont, who is also president of duPont Builders.’
‘More than one in five homes in China’s urban areas is vacant, and a current housing-price correction is putting additional pressure on the owners of such empty properties, according to a nationwide survey by researchers from China’s Southwestern University of Finance and Economics.’
‘The vacancy rate of sold residential homes in urban areas reached 22.4% in 2013, or 49 million homes, up from 20.6% in 2011. The survey included homes left vacant by owners of multiple homes as well as those left empty by owners who have left the city to work elsewhere. In addition to the 49 million sold but vacant units, the survey estimated that China has 3.5 million homes that remain unsold.’
‘The survey said that vacant homes are more likely to add to homeowners’ burden and cause them to suffer a financial loss.’
‘Many consumers are now investing in wealth-management products or in homes abroad, leaving property firms with hefty inventories to clear. The survey pointed out that inventory levels are too high and demand for housing stemming from new urban residents would have only a limited impact on clearing inventory.’
‘An increase of 10 percentage points in the urbanization rate would result in only a 2.6% fall in vacancy rates, the survey said.’
‘Another property survey released last month by brokerage CLSA Research found that 15% of homes completed in the past five years, or 10.2 million units, are vacant. CLSA studied 609 projects across 12 cities in China, a sample that accounts for 20% of the country’s GDP.’
CLSA studied 609 projects across 12 cities in China, a sample that accounts for 20% of the country’s GDP
To quote George Takei: Ooooh Myyyyyy!
We’ll see what an end to the construction boom does to that “urbanization rate”.
‘The supply of houses at the lower, cheaper end of the market is drying up fast, which is stymying would-be homeowners, sure, but you know who else is having trouble? The investors who want to make money off of those houses by renting them out or flipping them. Well, they’re having to look at places in the middle-and-above section of the market, says the LA Business Journal, and lucky for them they’re finding a healthy supply of outdated mid-century houses in nice neighborhoods that, with a few sledgehammers and a contractor, can be flipped into desirable houses and of course profitable investments.’
‘Flipping firms are all taking different approaches, but a glance at three players in LA (American Coastal, Sequoia, Pathfinder Partners) reveals that they’re spending anywhere from $500,000 to $5 million to buy these ugly ducklings, and as much as 100 percent of the purchase price to fix them up.’
‘Flipping firms are all taking different approaches, but a glance at three players in LA (American Coastal, Sequoia, Pathfinder Partners) reveals that they’re spending anywhere from $500,000 to $5 million to buy these ugly ducklings, and as much as 100 percent of the purchase price to fix them up.’
Who is supposed to buy these turkeys? Chinese ex-pats?
If not them, I guess it’s up to us (taxpayers), huh?
You go first. I’ve got your back, promise.
Looking in Tampa, and the inventory IS crap.
Cannot find a:
1) nice 3 bedroom house
2) in safe neighborhood , no bars on the windows
3) with a garage (so the car doesnt get burgled)
4) without some ridiculous CDD or HOA fees
All gangland or 400k plus houses. Nothing that isn’t already falling down, for a regular family to move into for 20 years.
Oh we did find a great house. wait for it… sink hole!
And now add flood insurance on top of everything and Tampa is terrible for buying.
Sounds about right.
If you can stomach the commute, and handle a tiny 50’s chit-shack in a flood zone, there is livable stuff on the Gulf Beaches.
We hear there are some nice $40,000 condos for rent.
“And there’s a lot of seller greed out there.”
That’s Realtor screech which translates to:
“Wah wah wah Wheres my Commish!??!! Wah wah wah”
The amount of realtor fraud is stunning.