http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aKQoeHb1MraI&refer=home "Atlanta-based Beazer Homes USA Inc. was offering houses in the first quarter at a development about 44 miles outside Phoenix, Arizona, for $136,990, down 36 percent from the year-earlier price of $215,490, said Samantha Morris, senior consultant in Houston- based Metrostudy's Mesa, Arizona, office." .... "Prime Home Builders, a closely held company in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is advertising a 23 percent discount on a new four-bedroom townhouse with two and half bathrooms in Naples, Florida. The price was slashed to $344,169 from $449,258 in a development where about half the units have been sold, said Keith Thompson, a marketing consultant with Prime Home Builders."
Not yet. They need to cut prices more. Even with these price cuts, there are few buyers, because of further deflationary threats and fears, much smaller pool of qualified lenders, and much higher carrying costs (property taxes, insurance and energy/utility costs). Flippers have all flopped. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/26/us/26condo.html?em&ex=1180584000&en=25a31aa04dc5aac7&ei=5087
If they can't sell them at 137k, because there are no buyers, what will they do? I have seen this area first hand - there is no industry or job base. Flippers were buying anything in Arizona or Nevada or Florida, anywhere, for the last 4 years. 137k is still too expensive if there aren't any buyers.
I hate Naples. $20M for those condos near Venetian Bay was a great example of how ridiculous Naples area was selling for. Crazy crazy crazy.
I've said this before BLSH: location. location, location. By definition anyplace that "new homes" are being built is on sub-prime land. The good shit is long taken. A townhouse in "Naples" for 300k? Doubtful it's in Naples. Probably in a swamp far east of Naples. I just searched for homes in two of Naples best zip codes, 34102 and 34103. Unless you consider 900k for rather pedestrian looking condo's to be a freefall in prices then their isn't exactly a panic occuring.
You would not want to rush into this market for a mere 30% discount. With no good news on the horizon, only degrees of bad news, coupled with some of the most unfounded lying I have ever heard or read, I would be inclined to close the book on RE and revisit for a look in the spring /summer of 2008 with no commitment to buy even then.