[Audacious]

Originally Posted by SRQ single

Like in when sally met harry I want whatever some of you posters are having…
I’m not a realtor just a 20 year homeowner in sunny lil SRQ…I bought my home in the right area of town at the right time…Mid 80’s for 87K…It was a fixer upper needed roof central ac, window units removed and siding resided, replumbed rewired etc … In 1999 it was appraised at 225K
After I remodeled my kitch and one bath it appraised out at 460 something in 2001
In 2004 it appraised out at 700 something, I had remodeled another bath and repainted in as well as out…
My neighbors house that they had done virtually nothing to since 1970 sold in 3/06 for 850K…It was bull dozed and 6300sq. foot ego shrine is currently being erected…They call this green housing for three people…LOL

My point is that many of us have not succumbed to using our house as an ATM…The reality is this >>> Yes there will be foreclosures due to the subprime lenders and borrowers…Yes it will affect areas of fl. Including parts of Sarasota… There are many that somehow did not understand negative amortization…Lets face it not all people are bright enough to correlate the negative in there as it related to their 2% interest rate…
The subprime will have an effect for several more years for sure nationwide…

Then you have folks like me…I have an area that it highly desired I know it and others know it too…Why then would I ever sell it below it’s value, they are not making land here in Sarasota anymore…I owe very lil on my home so yes it’s almost all equity… After reading all the yank posts in here I do understand, I even empathize with you all…Your mkt in ohio ny nj minn wis etc is in a bad slump and the subprime mkt isn’t going to help your price point stabilize…Yes the foreclosure deals will be all over fl. too. Probably not in the area you want to live though…

Florida has been and always will be a retirement dream for many of our winter friends why??? Cause paradise is awesome and it has never been cheap! Yes your folks bought here for under a 100 K back in the 70/80’s…That was not considered cheap then either…Cheap is how we got all those trailer communities, cheap is what created Nport port charlotte, Lehigh acres rotonda etc…… Those of us that have ridden out the slumps over the years know this to be true…We will never see prices of the 70’s and 80’s again anywhere in florida. What drove up our prices were the yanks retiring here bulldozing beautiful remodeled homes to build their dream retirement home near the water… Entire keys and inland neighborhoods experienced this during the 90’s and it still is happening though the pace has slowed the past few years…

My biggest concern for buyers as well as sellers is the likelihood of interest rates increasing…I can pluck down increments of 10-20K into 3 mth CD’s and get 7% today, right now…Interest rates are going up people get yourself ready…! When I bought my home they were around 13%...I had a arm years ago…I refied to fix rate in 2004…As did anyone that was intelligent…
Now if one does the math is it better to gamble on declining home prices or interest rates going up??? The better neighborhoods are not ever going to be affected by the foreclosures of subprime…If you want the best schools closeness to beaches and seabreezes now might be the time to buy because the next decade could put us in the naples league of Small lots tiny funky lil house 6 blocks to beach 1.2M…
Sellers that want to sell are negotiable, but keep in mind most here in Sarasota near the bay or islands do not have to sell…It has always been that way…Every winter I see the same for sale signs on the same island properties, they have a predetermined make me move price and until someone meets it they will continue to enjoy paradise and take the sign down after season till next year…Like it or not it is reality…I have watched as each year the homes get bigger some yanks even buy adjacent homes to build their shrine…For the right price anyone will sell. Welcome to Florida!
I do not want to hurt anyones feelings or get you upset but realize Sarasota gulf coast is an English speaking low crime upscale area and we hope it always will be…Price point does assure that it stay that way!

Well said.

[Audacious]

Originally Posted by lostbuyer

The better neighborhoods are not ever going to be affected by the foreclosures of subprime… I wouldnt be so sure about that....thats the whole point right know people who couldnt afford a 700k house...were being handed the loans....if west l.a. has foreclosures.....I dont think sarasota is any safer........

Sarasota has more liquidity than you can even begin to imagine. The area saw the same increase in condo development as other areas perhaps more so but the mindset here is " OK we'll wait a year or two". For the most part these condos were not bought on 100% financing or even 20% down. They were paid for in cash and are currently beig rented to cover taxes and ins. Thus the great short term advantage to renting here. The operative words are SHORT TERM. A few projects were never started eg The Sarasotan because the potential buyers already bought.

It is not a question of if the prices will go up here but when and how much.

[nychiefsfan]

Originally Posted by UKOK

Does anybody have Florida sales numbers broken out by county? I am interested to see how Sarasota did compared to April. Thanks.

Area...Existing Homes...Sales...Increase/Decrease
Ocala 233 465 -50%
Miami 494 875 -44%
Tampa-St. PetersburgClearwater 2,241 3,891 -42%
Fort Myers-Cape Coral 575 993 -42%
Orlando 1,729 2,898 -40%
Punta Gorda 235 387 -39%
Fort Pierce- Port St. Lucie 315 519 -39%
Lakeland-Winter Haven 338 524 -35%
Fort Lauderdale 574 862 -33%
Pensacola 401 589 -32%
Daytona Beach 644 912 -29%
Jacksonville 1,258 1,732 -27%
Melbourne-Titusville- Palm Bay 483 651 -26%
West Palm Beach- Boca Raton 741 982 -25%
Fort Walton Beach 242 309 -22%
Tallahassee 406 523 -22%
Sarasota-Bradenton 772 834 -7%
Gainesville 299 332 -10 $219,100 $207,500 6%
Panama City 158 144 10%
Naples-MarcoIsland*(1) 37 29 28%

[nychiefsfan]

Originally Posted by JimKing

Wanting to pay 33-36% of income for housing is not being greedy. And people getting themselves into financial hot water with exotic mortgages, buying way more house than they could afford, is not any reason for the next buyer to jump into the sinking ship with them.

You're on a roll!!!

[Baja Boomer]

Originally Posted by Mike Peterson

I think you need to read back through the thread because there are quite a few hoping for it to happen.
Statements like " I can't wait till the prices come down 40%" would be wishing for it.

Let me be more precise, then, since I'm unlikely to go back through all these posts to find what you refer to: It does not apply to me and I would appreciate not being lumped in with anyone who thinks like that. It isn't going to be just a matter of prices dropping so someone can get a good deal on a house, it's going to be a disaster for millions of people and our economy in general. I don't think that's anything to hope for.

Question: Will we taxpayers end up paying for this mess the same way we paid for the S&L bail out? That one cost us in the vicinity of $1 trillion, if memory serves.

Some of you might be interested in this. I recently had a conversation with an acquaintance who is a major resort developer. He mentioned that the unemployment stats are seriously skewed for this reason: the federal stats have not reflected the real extent of housing industry layoffs because the first people to go are the illegal aliens, who cannot file for unemployment. That, of course, is where the federal unemployment stats come from. I hadn't thought of that.

[lostbuyer]

Originally Posted by Audacious

Sarasota has more liquidity than you can even begin to imagine. The area saw the same increase in condo development as other areas perhaps more so but the mindset here is " OK we'll wait a year or two". For the most part these condos were not bought on 100% financing or even 20% down. They were paid for in cash and are currently beig rented to cover taxes and ins. Thus the great short term advantage to renting here. The operative words are SHORT TERM. A few projects were never started eg The Sarasotan because the potential buyers already bought.

It is not a question of if the prices will go up here but when and how much.

I get your point....just one question how do you know most were bought cash??

[Audacious]

Originally Posted by JimKing

Patience nychiefs....unfortunately this will take a long time to come down. If you look at Credit Suisse's Adjustable Rate Mortgage Reset Schedule available on many websites, you will see the majority of mortgages have not even reset yet. Momentum in price decreases will pick up eventually.

A year from now will be the time to buy again in some markets....but it might be more like 3 in other markets, depending on how long people stay delusional.

1-3 years is not a long wait to save a ton of money on a house.

You could be right as an overall view but when you look at state and local markets I do not believe the statemen to be 100% accurate. Read some of the other posts here re local markets. As an example of an exception to a broad based statement, apartments and condos are rising fast in NYC, housing in the NE Bronx is over 500K, if you go iver to Riverdale a basic house will cost over 1.5 Million, this is the BRONX boys and girls. In of all places, FLatbush Brooklyn, the local RE market is on FIRE! The same for Redhook, remember Saturday NIght Fever. That whole area was commercial and now is THEE place to be. Who whudda tunk! BTW a NYPD Cop starts at 39K per year, same for Firemen.

[SKB]

Originally Posted by SRQ single

Like in when sally met harry I want whatever some of you posters are having…
I’m not a realtor just a 20 year homeowner in sunny lil SRQ…I bought my home in the right area of town at the right time…Mid 80’s for 87K…It was a fixer upper needed roof central ac, window units removed and siding resided, replumbed rewired etc … In 1999 it was appraised at 225K
After I remodeled my kitch and one bath it appraised out at 460 something in 2001
In 2004 it appraised out at 700 something, I had remodeled another bath and repainted in as well as out…
My neighbors house that they had done virtually nothing to since 1970 sold in 3/06 for 850K…It was bull dozed and 6300sq. foot ego shrine is currently being erected…They call this green housing for three people…LOL

My point is that many of us have not succumbed to using our house as an ATM…The reality is this >>> Yes there will be foreclosures due to the subprime lenders and borrowers…Yes it will affect areas of fl. Including parts of Sarasota… There are many that somehow did not understand negative amortization…Lets face it not all people are bright enough to correlate the negative in there as it related to their 2% interest rate…
The subprime will have an effect for several more years for sure nationwide…

Then you have folks like me…I have an area that it highly desired I know it and others know it too…Why then would I ever sell it below it’s value, they are not making land here in Sarasota anymore…I owe very lil on my home so yes it’s almost all equity… After reading all the yank posts in here I do understand, I even empathize with you all…Your mkt in ohio ny nj minn wis etc is in a bad slump and the subprime mkt isn’t going to help your price point stabilize…Yes the foreclosure deals will be all over fl. too. Probably not in the area you want to live though…

Florida has been and always will be a retirement dream for many of our winter friends why??? Cause paradise is awesome and it has never been cheap! Yes your folks bought here for under a 100 K back in the 70/80’s…That was not considered cheap then either…Cheap is how we got all those trailer communities, cheap is what created Nport port charlotte, Lehigh acres rotonda etc…… Those of us that have ridden out the slumps over the years know this to be true…We will never see prices of the 70’s and 80’s again anywhere in florida. What drove up our prices were the yanks retiring here bulldozing beautiful remodeled homes to build their dream retirement home near the water… Entire keys and inland neighborhoods experienced this during the 90’s and it still is happening though the pace has slowed the past few years…

My biggest concern for buyers as well as sellers is the likelihood of interest rates increasing…I can pluck down increments of 10-20K into 3 mth CD’s and get 7% today, right now…Interest rates are going up people get yourself ready…! When I bought my home they were around 13%...I had a arm years ago…I refied to fix rate in 2004…As did anyone that was intelligent…
Now if one does the math is it better to gamble on declining home prices or interest rates going up??? The better neighborhoods are not ever going to be affected by the foreclosures of subprime…If you want the best schools closeness to beaches and seabreezes now might be the time to buy because the next decade could put us in the naples league of Small lots tiny funky lil house 6 blocks to beach 1.2M…
Sellers that want to sell are negotiable, but keep in mind most here in Sarasota near the bay or islands do not have to sell…It has always been that way…Every winter I see the same for sale signs on the same island properties, they have a predetermined make me move price and until someone meets it they will continue to enjoy paradise and take the sign down after season till next year…Like it or not it is reality…I have watched as each year the homes get bigger some yanks even buy adjacent homes to build their shrine…For the right price anyone will sell. Welcome to Florida!
I do not want to hurt anyones feelings or get you upset but realize Sarasota gulf coast is an English speaking low crime upscale area and we hope it always will be…Price point does assure that it stay that way!

SRQ, Who is paying 7% on three month CD's? The best rates I have seen are in the range of 5.31%

[hiknapster]

Originally Posted by Audacious

You could be right as an overall view but when you look at state and local markets I do not believe the statemen to be 100% accurate. Read some of the other posts here re local markets. As an example of an exception to a broad based statement, apartments and condos are rising fast in NYC, housing in the NE Bronx is over 500K, if you go iver to Riverdale a basic house will cost over 1.5 Million, this is the BRONX boys and girls. In of all places, FLatbush Brooklyn, the local RE market is on FIRE! The same for Redhook, remember Saturday NIght Fever. That whole area was commercial and now is THEE place to be. Who whudda tunk! BTW a NYPD Cop starts at 39K per year, same for Firemen.

Still, in general, the pay is better, there is more industry.

To the person that said Florida was never cheap, you are so wrong. You could get twice the house, and more, for the same money than up North, even five years ago. It's because retirees cashed out and came to Florida. Once the market turned and the working and middle class were priced out the game was over.

[SRQ single]

Originally Posted by JimKing

How is any buyer being greedy?

There is not one long term holder of real estate that would lose out by selling at a reasonable price. Many bought for $100,000 20 years ago and are trying to get $400,000 for a house worth $200,000.

You are missing the point... It's not so much about the house as it is about the location of the land...Also not to insult you but why do you feel that someone that has paid 20+ years on a mortgage, interest, repairs, upgrades inflation etc should sell for only 100K above what their INITIAL investment was??? After paying on a 20 year mortgage one has more than 100K interest into it not to mention taxes closing costs etc... Thats unrealistically silly!

Hindsight is an amazing lesson for most folks...The old woulda shoulda coulda...Just because you didn't buy a place and rent it out down here 20 years ago does not mean those that did should give you a break now...Even your parents generation at least tripled on their 30 year mortgage in other states than Fl...Provided they bought smart in the right location that is...

When I left the north in the very early 80's I lost money when I liquidated my properties...I was done with the north and saw much potential in fl...I was right and have no regrets! Years from now I'm sure others will say the same