MUST READ ARTICLE: Mountains of homes still listed for sale in South Florida (Miami: city hall, home owners insurance)

[tallrick]

We don't "rock" the buyers just have rocks instead of brains.

[unixpilot]

Originally Posted by elfyum

Hey guys!!! Sunday's Herald (2/18) - huge section on real estate...
HA! I don't wanna say I told ya so, but...
Basically ALL of Dade has gone up in value - most 10-20%!!!
It's right there in print. Read it!
Now condos...That's another story...
And even they will be ok eventually...
But there are really way too many & that was where alot of investors went crazy - though they're saying it's not as many as they originally thoght.
So fear not Happy Floridians!
We still ROCK!!!

Yeah, who are you gonna trust the Miami Herald (rolls eyes) or the National Association of Realtors.....

//www.city-data.com/forum/flori...ns-losses.html

Nice try with your KoolAid shellgame

[jhlcomp]

I don't know how many of you live in south Florida, but just to confirm for the umteenth time - the real estate market has done a nose dive. Prices are falling and continue to do so. This will continue for the foreseeable future. That's it.

[doggiebus]

I agree, the market has slowed in Miami. My brother-in-law put his house in South Miami on the market for 8 months in 2006 with no luck. He took it off for the last 6 months, and ia going to put it on the market again, but with a much lower price than a year and half ago, and he plans to give the realtor a higher commision to get the house sold faster.

I wish prices were still going up in Miami, but I chose not to wear rose colored glasses.

[elfyum]

OMG! You people are too funny! Yes SALES have fallen! SALES have fallen!!!
You might not sell your house for 6 months to a year or MORE! But the PRICES are still HIGHER than they were in 2005!!! Hell-o! What is so hard to understand?! By now I think you people must be joking! And also, NONE OF YOU LIVE HERE!!! As in MY area!!! But the article/prices are for most of Dade. YES SOME AREAS HAVE GONE DOWN!!! But "down" is relative.
Ok - this is my last example & then good luck to you all. I give up. Can't talk to someone that has closed off!

We bought our house in 2005 for 200k. Follow closely now...

Please look in the zips 33161 or 33162 for a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom on an 8100 sq ft lot.
If you find one for 200k I will give you a million dollars.

House down the street (basically the same size - smaller house, bigger lot)
sold for 285k a few months ago.

Ok - are you still with me?

If we were to sell our house today, the ABSOLUTE LOWEST we would get is 250k.
And that is if we said f*ck it, we really wanna move.
Otherwise we'd easily get between 260 & 275.

Now - are you still with me? Time to do a little math...

Even if we only got 250k, that's 25k per year of appreciation.

That's ten percent per year!!! Thus at the ABSOLUTE CHEAPEST, we just made 20% on our investment.
It might take a year to sell, though the lower priced houses sell faster, but we have still made 20% in 2 years - AT THE LEAST.

Give me a stock with that kind of return, & I will buy. (In fact I HAVE stock that gets that good a return - which is why I have it! )

But we didn't BUY for that reason. We bought to have a home.

So we've won twice!!!

[Need_affordable_home]

Ok I believe you house prices went up but what about in the year 2007 and 2008? The experts are saying prices are going back down. This means your $200k house that is worth $270k now could be worth $200k again in the year 2008

[CiXeL]

if you do buy just pay close CLOSE attention to every detail of the house.
we're living in a lennar home. lots of walls arent straight. floors creak upstairs. the roof seems to be solid for hurricanes and the walls are concrete block though. theres a crack in the tile that extends from the back of the house on the ground floor over halfway across the house into the middle of the diningroom. when we first started using our master bathroom shower it started raining in the livingroom downstairs due to a bad faucet and the water was flowing into the wall. we did alot of the repairs ourselves for our landlord simply because it was such a pain in the ass to get the builders to come by. youd have to wait all day for something simple like putting weather proofing around the front door to keep the roaches out. there are weird things though like GFI's that pop for no reason, the mercury light switches act funky sometimes, and again ill meantion walls that arent straight/corners that are too pinched or lumpy. a very loud creaky spot at the top of the stairs which is where i hear they cut corners and leave a hole to pass materials up to builders on the second floor and then seal it up with plywood.
if i had purchased this house id be upset. our landlord was very happy with the fact we were willing to fight the home builders for them to get everything that needed to be fixed, done. i mean you cant fix crooked walls but everything else is pretty much ok now. i still dont know how inspectors were able to sign off on these houses though. back in california there are builders who give you a pad of orange stickers and you stick these orange stickers on everything you see wrong for them to fix.

[jbravo]

Well I'm glad Lennar hasn't changed in 25+ years. After Andrew you should have seen my brother's house.
Oh, and by the way, this "super duper hurricane proof" (sarcasm) that "seems to be solid for hurricanes" hmmm, just wait; in case of a hurricane water will be gushing in from all directions, think...super duper fungus.

[unixpilot]

Originally Posted by elfyum

OMG! You people are too funny! Yes SALES have fallen! SALES have fallen!!!
You might not sell your house for 6 months to a year or MORE! But the PRICES are still HIGHER than they were in 2005!!! Hell-o! What is so hard to understand?! By now I think you people must be joking! And also, NONE OF YOU LIVE HERE!!! As in MY area!!! But the article/prices are for most of Dade. YES SOME AREAS HAVE GONE DOWN!!! But "down" is relative.
Ok - this is my last example & then good luck to you all. I give up. Can't talk to someone that has closed off!

I'm not sure I follow your logic... You bought in 2005 @200k, you guesstimate you can sell now for minimum of 250k leaving you with an cool 50k profit.

What you conveniently leave out is your "opportunity costs" from owning this home for 2 years:

Property Taxes for 2 years.
HOI for 2 years
Maintenance costs for 2 years.
Realtor fees for future sale and closing costs.

Not to mention that those zipcodes (33161 or 33162) aren't exactly desirable areas.

Add up the TRUE costs and your tidy 50k profit shrinks down significantly.

But spoken like many South Florida homeowners in the red.....YOU ONLY LOSE MONEY WHEN YOU SELL

[tallrick]

That's right, unlike stocks real estate costs money to hold, and costs you dearly when it sells. Sure you get a tax break but that mortgage interest cancels that out. Property taxes.....well in a few of years it costs me more than I paid for the place!!!