Homes for sale along Ocean Drive-will they ever sell? (Corpus Christi: real estate, insurance)

[houstmom]

I realize this is a very slow board but I would love to discuss homes for sale along Ocean drive and nearby streets and see what others think.

I frequently look up real estate listings for Corpus and right now, there are many homes for sale on Ocean Drive and on Louisiana Ave that are $700K+. The "castle" house at Doddridge went on the market recently as well as 3913 Ocean. There are several high-end houses for sale along Ocean and Louisiana (near Ocean) that have been on the market for a very long time. I think a $4.95Mil house is a for sale on Ocean (I see it on Zillow but not on HAR). There is a $2.7 million house on Ocean that has been on the market for almost two years and I think a new construction house on Ocean has been on the market for at least 2 years.

I always wonder who will buy these homes. Many of them are older and outdated on the inside. If someone can afford a $1mil+ home, why would they buy an older, out dated home in Corpus Christi?

[Marlow]

They do sell, but slowly. If they're really old they're sometimes torn down and new houses are built there.

As far as who would buy them, believe it or not, there are rich people living in CC who like fancy houses. And you can get a lot more house (and a wonderful view) for a couple of million dollars than you can in most other coastal cities. Offhand, I know doctors, lawyers, a banker, the owner of the local beer distributorship and business people with multiple interests who own houses on Ocean Drive. Ocean Drive is still the prestige address in CC.

I think that houses that don't sell either need lots of work because of their age, or they sit right next to the road. There was a house that was on the market for years that finally sold in the past year. It was built in the 60's and has no yard.
The price kept dropping and eventually someone bought it.

The new construction house you mention is just plain ugly from the outside. It sits right on the road and is a plain rectangle. If I'm not mistaken, it's unfinished on the inside. Still, if they'd lower the price, someone would buy it eventually.

Since you like real estate, have you ever looked at some of the high-end houses for sale in Rockport and Fulton? Pretty amazing.

[houstmom]

The new construction house is finished inside based on the pictures on the online listing. However, I agree it's just a box and has no landscaping. For a house on Ocean I would expect more landscaping and more interesting architecture. I think that house has been empty waiting for a buyer for close to 3 years. The developer really made some bad decisions here.

[Marlow]

Agreed on the house. It's nuts to think that someone is going to plunk down that much money on a spec house. For that kind of money, especially in CC, a person is going to want to have some input on design. There's nothing special about it at all, except for the location. Maybe someone started it for themselves and backed out--I have no idea. But it's looked like that on the outside for a long time.

I know a person who sold a very large, older house on Louisiana. She just kept dropping the price until it sold and it didn't take more than a few months. She was anxious to move.

[jackalope48]

Corpus, especially on the high end, is a list high and negotiate residential market. It's not uncommon for these houses to sell for 3/4 or 2/3 of list price. One issue is that when you get this high in price a 20% down payment note is required on top of needing a high income to pay the mortgage. Maintenance, Insurance, landscaping, and taxes kick running costs up to $100k a year or more.

These homes are heavily customized as well and people buying them want exactly what they want. This leads to some odd negotiations. The current owners most likely bought it and then plowed hundreds of thousands into improvements they think are great and want the money back out from them. The buyers are looking at it as a base for further improvement. The reality is more on the buyer side. High end housing anywhere is pure consumption not investment. However, unlike a middle class neighborhood plenty of sellers can dig in and support two houses while the old one is waiting for a buyer so they aren't as likely to drop prices immediately. Given their size and cost a year rather than 3 months is a more common expectation of sale time.

The biggest issue affecting sales is the drop in oil prices. Lots of these houses sold or got built when oil was $100 a barrel. $100 a barrel oil was like spraying lighter fluid on a fire in terms of prices. Now fewer people can afford them at lower prices and not everyone has adjusted.

These houses get bought by all sorts of people. Urban waterfront houses on larger lots are quite rare and they are very inexpensive here. Similarly situated houses in Miami or LA would be tens of millions. That being said most of them are local business people, some lawyers, some doctors, some bankers, and a fair number of oil and gas folks. There are some retirees from other places that wanted a relatively inexpensive waterfront house in a no income tax state.

Houses "off" Ocean can sell fairly quickly. Del Mar, Bessar park, and Lamar Park houses usually sell quickly and for decent prices. Like Ocean you get sellers who plowed a lot into fixing up a house and are coming to terms that no one is going to pay them full price for their remodel. Tract houses have similar issues when someone adds a bunch of builder options and most commonly a pool and then expects to get 30% more a square foot than the house across the street because their house is "nicer". The off Ocean houses tend to be the same group of buyers that are either younger, less wealthy, or just aren't into the idea of plowing that much cash into their house.