I don't want to be an "I told you so!" Wait a minute, that's exactly what I want to be.
Back on August 28th I notified my dear readers about one heck of a house at 1601 Patricia Street that had been previously listed for $1,195,000 whose owner dropped the price to only $695,000 and was offering the house as a short sale. I showed the house the same day to two different potential buyers both of whom loved the house and the price. But they could not decide that day. READ what I wrote then.
Good deals do not last long in Key West. The house went under contract a couple of days later. Something went astray and the property went back on the market On September 29th. I notified everyone again that this particular house was a genuine buying opportunity. That was two weeks after the Wall Street "bailout" was the "crisis" du jour. However, there was one smart shopper who anted up and made an offer that the seller accepted. The beautiful house at 1601 Patricia closed yesterday for $650,000 or $378 per sq ft for a super clean 3 bedroom, 2 bath home, livingroom, dining room, office, new kitchen, separate pantry, beautiful landscaped yard, pool, spa, storm shutters, and a real nice neighborhood near the beach. CLICK HERE to see what you missed.
I know just about everybody is really nervous about the economy right now. The talking heads on TV do their best to keep everybody worked up all the time. They have to feed the need to watch their channel for "BREAKING NEWS". Fix the damned news, I say. Stop scarring the crap out of everybody. The world is not going to end. We will get through this mess.
Remember three years ago after Hurricane Wilma when us Key Westers all shared in the misery of our fellow neighbors. It's all better now. The junk got hauled away. The green came back. The island is more beautiful than ever. The weather is still great. And the tourists come back every year to give us their money.
Right around the same time the talking heads on TV were scarring us about Avian Flu. Remember? Whatever happened to the dire forecast? Why aren't we all dead, or at least sick?
Don't miss the opportunity to buy while prices are very low and some people are selling their places at sacrifice prices. CLICK HERE to search the Key West mls to find your place in Paradise. Then, please call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642, or e-mail me at kw1101v@aol.com.
9 comments:
Sure we will get through this but not any time soon. The real estate market will take several years (yes YEARS) to come back to the pre-2004 years when prices were somewhat reasonable. Too many sellers still believe that their homes are worth more than they will ever get on the open market. No matter how you spin it, the market is dead. Very very dead. Money is still tight. People are not buying vacation homes or second homes or whatever. Not now. Not yet. And that, to quote a famous tv police officer, is 'just the facts'
You are absolutely right. The bottom line is that over the past few years real estate prices have escalated beyond what is reasonable or sustainable (especially in desireable areas like Vegas and Key West), and have a long ways to drop before they fall back to reality. Have a look at the chart in this link, it puts things into perspective very well http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeqrguz/housingbubble/
Yes, sales will occur during this normalization period because there will always be people willing to make bad investment decisions, but Gary I beg to differ, "deals" such as this will be easy to come by in the months ahead.
And those so called 'deals' today will not compare to the 'deals' of 6-12 months from now. The bottom is far from over. There are no deals as there are no buyers (unless all cash). There is no credit extended to buyers - yet. This will have to change but I would say this will take a good 6-12 months. And do you notice that the locals aren't buying? Makes me wonder....
If the local economy can't sustain the value of the housing market, don't you think these so called 'deals' that you call them are just pie-in-the-sky dreams of seller trying to milk the last bit of profit from the bubble market?
As long as they buyers are staying away, you can call anything a 'deal'. Face facts. The housing market is dead (for now). It will come back but when the locals aren't buying I do wonder...
The fact is that there are "cash" buyers out there that are looking and that are writing offers. Some deals occur. Many do not.
Some sellers are still living in La-La Land and think they are entitled to $1000 per sq ft. But many are coming around either willingly or because they have to. Prices have dropped. And many properties are becoming very attractive.
You nay-sayers can put down the sales that are occurring right now. That will not stop buyers that have cash and who want to buy.
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped below 6% on average this week, a seven-week low for the mortgage, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey, released on Wednesday.
Sorry, guys, the world is not coming to an end, people still want to buy into the dream of owning a place in Key West.
People with real money and people with credit are buying deals. A lot of buyers are sitting on the edge of their seats waiting to pounce. They have cash and want to spend it. They are the ones who may miss the boat by waiting too long.
Gary
People with good credit are still not getting deals. Banks aren't lending even if you have a fantastic credit score and a good bit of money to put down. Cash buyers will always want to invest in good or bad times. But even those buyers want a great deal and those are still not out there, not in this overpriced market. Key West and paradise just isn't true when you can drop money on other places (better yet WATERFRONT places) in other parts of FL including the rest of the FL Keys. The lure of Key West is over as the overdeveloped and underwhelming aspect of a town on the verge of financial disaster looms. The tourist economy has suffered and the quaint charm that use to attract people to flock to the island has been destroyed by overdevelopment in the past decade. The amount of empty condo conversions, luxury homes and the like are a glut to the pretty island that was.
Gary you are right, people are still buying homes in Key West, and every other city in the U.S.. And people are still buying SUV's, and some people are pulling their life savings out of mutual funds that have lost 50% or more. Hell, some people are paying cash for a promise of a piece of the lunar surface if and when it becomes available. So what? Should the fact that some people are making stupid decisions, or have enough money they don't care, give the rest of us any reason to do the same? Come on, you know better. The evidence is overwhelmingly clear and you shouldn't make conclusions about the state of the market based on a few isolated sales....
Agreed!
If people are so wanting a piece of paradise in Key West, why is the market there at a stand still? Why? Because it isn't paradise it is an overpriced market with realtors not yet ready to believe that all is not as rosy as Gary makes it seem. The second home market is DEAD and the locals sure aren't buying. Not when they can barely pay for their rent and food in an economy drying up from the lack of tourist dollars and a lack of decent jobs.
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