[stars99]

Originally Posted by TNRyan23

[/b]

By visitng, They pour probably billions of dollars into Florida's economy each year. If Florida lost that revenue, Millions in the tourism industry would lose their jobs meaning Florida would take on other burdens with unemployment and welfare.



There are/were just as many greedy Floridians as their were Northerners, I would imagine there were close to as many internationals doing the same. People flipping houses aren't to blame for the crisis. They bought a house cheap, fixed it up, and tried to make a profit. Many of them did. You can't blame them if banks gave risky loans to unworthy people. You can blame the state for crazy property taxes too. As a kid I lived in a dump of a town called Lithia ( about 30-40 minutes inland from Tampa ) They have houses out there now that have property taxes OVER $4-5k a year. You can't put blame from foreclosures onto house flippers, I agree that they're pretty much low lifes but still, It's not their faults.

I agree, the banks should take most of the blame.

[Scientifical Madness]

Everyone got greedy, the banks, the appraisers, and the developers. I work in RE Dev, so I dont necessarily blame them for building homes, but they should have dont it at a much, much slower pace and not so many specs. But they relied on the northerners and the foreigners to buy them up, they didnt care what happened afterwards. I also fault the people that lied about their income, let's not blame the banks entirely.

As far as the tourism money and the tourists pouring millions into our state, of course it can be a good thing. But as we all know, tourism isnt carrying FL well enough. More diversified economy, more industry, less tourism would be more ideal.

[stars99]

Originally Posted by Scientifical Madness

Everyone got greedy, the banks, the appraisers, and the developers. I work in RE Dev, so I dont necessarily blame them for building homes, but they should have dont it at a much, much slower pace and not so many specs. But they relied on the northerners and the foreigners to buy them up, they didnt care what happened afterwards. I also fault the people that lied about their income, let's not blame the banks entirely.

As far as the tourism money and the tourists pouring millions into our state, of course it can be a good thing. But as we all know, tourism isnt carrying FL well enough. More diversified economy, more industry, less tourism would be more ideal.

Ultimately the buck stops with the banks and maybe the government for not regulating them enough. Unfortunately, when there's money involved, you can't depend on individual people will do the right thing without rules.

[TXRyan23]

Originally Posted by Scientifical Madness

Everyone got greedy, the banks, the appraisers, and the developers. I work in RE Dev, so I dont necessarily blame them for building homes, but they should have dont it at a much, much slower pace and not so many specs. But they relied on the northerners and the foreigners to buy them up, they didnt care what happened afterwards. I also fault the people that lied about their income, let's not blame the banks entirely.

As far as the tourism money and the tourists pouring millions into our state, of course it can be a good thing. But as we all know, tourism isnt carrying FL well enough. More diversified economy, more industry, less tourism would be more ideal.

I was also in various construction fields until our company folded. Flipping houses was not exclusive to Florida. There were tons of spec homes and flips done in Nashville that are still on the market, obviously not at the pace or abundance of those in Florida but it was also popular in Texas as well. Everyone saw flipping houses as easy cash.

Other places will recover faster because other places have more diversified economies. Florida doesn't have much diversity in their workforce.

[stars99]

There's different senses of "flip". There's a "fix and flip" where somebody takes a condemned (or otherwise messed up by mold, water damage) house that no retail buyer will touch and adds value to it. This actually requires some skill--there are plenty of examples of people on those Flip shows who tried and lost their shirts.

Then there's what was happening in Miami with people buying condos from a developer or owner and then "flipping" them within a matter of days, sometimes colluding with the appraiser to jack up the "value". Clearly there was no real value being added to the "product" in many of these cases, and it all turned out to be a big pyramid scheme. The people who know how to do a real flip are different from the pyramid people in South Florida.

[CollegeGuy9]

On the flip side, there are some amazing deals to be found in Florida Real Estate today due to the oversupply and speculation. That's a positive thing for first time homebuyers or responsible people who actually saved enough to afford a decent down payment.

Anyone familiar with the concept creative destruction?

[TriMT7]

Originally Posted by OrlandoRE_Miracle;

Then there's what was happening in Miami with people buying condos from a developer or owner and then "flipping" them within a matter of days, sometimes colluding with the appraiser to jack up the "value". Clearly there was no real value being added to the "product" in many of these cases, and it all turned out to be a big pyramid scheme. The people who know how to do a real flip are different from the pyramid people in South Florida.

EXACTLY. When everyone posts on here about the foreclosure rate, I often wonder what percentage of the foreclosures are owner-occupied units. That is the troubling statistic, not the rate in general.

In downtown WPB, for example, big condo buildings went up, people from NY, NJ, etc. scooped up three and four at a time, NEVER had any intention on living there (or if they did, maybe had intention of keeping one of their four for snowbirding or future retirement). The goal was to buy units pre-construction, with 5% deposit and a teaser rate ARM, and then put it on the market the same day as closing, hoping that the bubble craze would mean that unit could be sold to a post-construction buyer for 100k profit... for doing nothing!

Now, many of those "distance buyers" are losing their shirts, and to be honest, I have little sympathy. After grad school, I rented in downtown WPB from a landlord who wanted to "flip," but at least he was a doctor, and could afford to carry his "investment" through these bad times. My friends, however, rented in another building where the owner from Brooklyn was losing money every month. She whined to them when they needed the washing machine fixed (for $120) that she "couldn't afford it" --- when the time came to end the lease, my friends never paid their last two months of rent, because last month was already paid for up front, and they KNEW their security deposit (which was equal to one month's rent) would be a FIGHT to get back because this woman obviously didn't have $1300 sitting around.

This also happened in a lot of the single family homes in the area as well (and sometimes in neighborhoods that aren't exactly the best places to live). On the upside, both my aforementioned friends above, and myself, have been able to buy short sale homes now that were once "going" for $450,000.00, for a fraction of that price. At least four others have also bought, or are actively looking to buy in the county within this year now, taking advantage of the fallout from the speculation bust.

[Scientifical Madness]

Originally Posted by TriMT7

EXACTLY. When everyone posts on here about the foreclosure rate, I often wonder what percentage of the foreclosures are owner-occupied units. That is the troubling statistic, not the rate in general.

In downtown WPB, for example, big condo buildings went up, people from NY, NJ, etc. scooped up three and four at a time, NEVER had any intention on living there (or if they did, maybe had intention of keeping one of their four for snowbirding or future retirement). The goal was to buy units pre-construction, with 5% deposit and a teaser rate ARM, and then put it on the market the same day as closing, hoping that the bubble craze would mean that unit could be sold to a post-construction buyer for 100k profit... for doing nothing!

Now, many of those "distance buyers" are losing their shirts, and to be honest, I have little sympathy. After grad school, I rented in downtown WPB from a landlord who wanted to "flip," but at least he was a doctor, and could afford to carry his "investment" through these bad times. My friends, however, rented in another building where the owner from Brooklyn was losing money every month. She whined to them when they needed the washing machine fixed (for $120) that she "couldn't afford it" --- when the time came to end the lease, my friends never paid their last two months of rent, because last month was already paid for up front, and they KNEW their security deposit (which was equal to one month's rent) would be a FIGHT to get back because this woman obviously didn't have $1300 sitting around.

This also happened in a lot of the single family homes in the area as well (and sometimes in neighborhoods that aren't exactly the best places to live). On the upside, both my aforementioned friends above, and myself, have been able to buy short sale homes now that were once "going" for $450,000.00, for a fraction of that price. At least four others have also bought, or are actively looking to buy in the county within this year now, taking advantage of the fallout from the speculation bust.

Exactly, now others that actually live there are suffering, watching their values decrease, etc...

[TriMT7]

Originally Posted by Scientifical Madness

Exactly, now others that actually live there are suffering, watching their values decrease, etc...

Well, yes and no....

I mean, people's "values" went UP so fast in the first place because of speculation, and everyone partied. Now people want to curse speculation because their values went "down"..... but neither the buildings downtown themselves, nor the property values that are going "down" would have existed in the first place if not for speculation.

The market in West Palm Beach area is very localized. Homes in massive new gated communities (themselves built on speculation and flipping goals) and condos/condo conversions have seemed to have lost the most value really really fast. Established neighborhoods throughout the county have lost value from the boom times (which it needed to!) but seem to suffer from less foreclosure rates.


The thing keeping the entire country's real estate problems magnified are people having problems getting mortgages. My friends who bought a couple months ago bid twice on homes, only to be outbid, but then to find out later that the winning bidder lost financing.

[Scientifical Madness]

But the people who live there and bought the property with the intent to live there are suffering. Let's say those condos were priced at 200k before the boom, then they went up to 400k. Say folks that are living there and bought b/c they enjoyed the area, etc... bought at 400k, and now they're property is worth 200k again (back to pre-boom levels). The price would have come down eventually, maybe to 275k, but that may have been OK for some folks who say themselves living there for 10-20 yrs, whatever... but now, every foreclosure in their immediate vicinity brings down their value even more...