They reported this on ABC as if you could buy 500k condos for 35k I hear all the flights to Miami for the next month are now booked by buyers because of this earth shaking news. http://www.abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=8206292&page=1 Anyone know the real reason these empty shells went so cheap?
There are 60k to 70k condominiums coming online in south Florida over the next 18 months, even amidst the anemic demand. Many of the projects have been taken over and are being finished by the lenders who foreclosed on developers, including people such as the condo kink of Miami, Jorge Perez, a former billionaire. So, Florida is an extreme case of supply outweighing demand by an incredible margin. Add high property taxes, insane maintenance/association fees, and the inability to procure hurricane insurance to the mix, and it doesn't spell a great selling environment.
My aunt has a condo in fl for years. She is trying to sell. Her income is reduced because of market losses, the maintenance assesment went way up for roof repairs, misc. She said if she owned a home at least "I could rent a room out to a boarder to help with the mort" apparently taking in a boarder has to be approved by the mgmt. People who recently bought in her building are way under water re mort and resale and with the higher assements, people just pack up and leave. Obviously her place is not going to sell very quickly.
Funny that it takes so long to collapse. We went to Disney in `02 and stayed at a very nice condo for $50 plus change a night. Three bedrooms, for crying out loud - bigger than most of the apartments I've had. And most units were empty, but they were building `em as fast as they could, and everybody had promos out to get buyers in. Might be time for me to go back for another cheap vacation.
I forgot to add that I spoke with someone selling units on Brickell Avenue that were being sold for as much as $880,000 back in 2006, that you can now buy for $270,000 if you have cash, but because there are so many vacated units in the building, monthly association and maintenance fees are running at $940 per month. So, in addition to taxes and insurance (if you can get it), add another $11,300 in association fees per year to your carrying costs. By the way, stock777, thanks for posting the original article. vhen made a salient point - to get those units for $32,000, the vulture fund had to buy 51 units. I know that area well and even know where that building is. It's an older area of Miami with a lot of mix of old and new, as a lot of old stuff was torn down during the boom and redeveloped. Trump even did some stuff in Sunny Isles, which is very near there. Bob Dole has a place there, also, and the restaurant that's on the first floor of his building is very good.
Cmon guys , there is a lot more to it than just buying 51 units. We're talking a 90%+ discount. I thought ya'll were hip. You really think you can buy RE at 90% a net discount without a catch?
Maybe some people are actually looking at charts and preparing and/or trading when you post early in the morning. Just a thought that some might actually trade on a trading website. I know, novel idea.