Trends

[Bobby J]

I raise my hand. I am a Real Estate agent! Please don't tell anyone. I try to keep my identity unknown.

 

[flyguy]

Since I have been reading this board a few people have been constantly saying this could finally be the bottom, activity is picking up, etc. For the most part their lively hood is tied to real estate and they are up front about that fact.

As for me I am a buyer. I am actively seeking beachfront property. And all of the signs I am seeing are that prices have not stopped falling. The only exception possibly being the very high end stuff.

Short sales are now being replaced by forclosures. And until those are worked through the system I don't see much chance of a bounce.

I will be on the beach for a week at the end of this month. I may be making some cash offers, but if I do they will be very very low.


As I have stated before, better to buy a little too late when prices are heading up rather than too soon when the bottom has not been reached.


JMHO,
Flyguy

 

[Smiling JOe]

As for me I am a buyer. I am actively seeking beachfront property. And all of the signs I am seeing are that prices have not stopped falling. The only exception possibly being the very high end stuff.

GulfFront properties, while included in my sales data for the area, is a different beast from interior property. There are many negative factors of owning Gulf Front, ranging from critical erosion, incorrectly placed seawalls (better read the FAR contracts regarding correct permitting), private vs public, additional maintenance required, etc. Prices of the Gulf Front properties don't reflect the trend of selling prices for the other single family homes in SoWal.

 

[Beachduck]

If your not a gambler then don't go to the casino. Trust your own instincts and research, research, research. Sometimes you make the right call and sometimes the wrong. I will say that I feel like now is not the time to step in unless you have deep pockets and can afford to ride the waves. You shouldn't buy on an adjustable rate now. I forgot that this is probably part of what got the market here in the first place. It is definately shifted more to a buyers market in housing. The only real estate sector nationwide gaining momentum is farm land. Remember that some day down the road beach property will make a come back. Too many people wanting to retire, visit, and the prestige of a home on the beach. It may be a few years but a good buy now will be worth something down the road in my opinion. I remember staying in a home at Seaside in late 80's and could not believe they were asking 240,00 for it. That would steal make some money now. I am not a real estate agent or investor in the Fl market yet. Maybe a home owner at some point in the future. Near future hopefully.

 

[beachwanabe]

I hardly ever post, but read and learn a lot from everybody on this board. In all of this I have never heard the word CORRECTION, isn't this part of the downfall. Houses everywhere rose after the stock market CORRECTION when people started investing in real estate. It had to catch up sooner or later. Sure there are other issues with the economy, major thing would be the stability of oil prices. Dreaming - what would the economy do if oil prices dropped and stayed down for a LONG period of time.

 

[2bohemians]

​

 

[TooFarTampa]

I LOVE living here, my family and I invested in property in 2005 at the peak of the market - many people may find that really stupid - but all we knew and what we still know is that we loved living here and saw the potential. We invested certainly hoping we would not lose our shirts, but we were/still are committed to this area, believe that like many other businesses, RE has its cycles, have absolutely no idea when things will start to turn around but believe with absolute certainty that this little paradise we live in will continue to grow and prosper in the long run.

Excellent Chickpea. We do not live there but we are property owners and we feel the same way. We went in as investors but consider ourselves end users. As a native Floridian I have a strong belief that SoWal is very, very special (yes, even after all the development) and that there is a great deal of inherent value in the homes and land within walking distance to the beach. When you take a step back, consider the lack of developable land vs. conservation land, the elevations along almost all of 30-A, and of course the very special beaches and beautiful water, it is hard not to be impressed. Add in the height restrictions and the fact that most of the housing is newer and better suited to withstand storms -- all this makes SoWal extremely unique.

Because of this inherent value, my main concern with the prices in SoWal is not the large inventory, or the major pieces of property either going back to the bank or rumored to be. My concern, and maybe I am not seeing is correctly but I can't help but thinking this way, is more the national perspective -- ie, what is the going rate for homes in Hilton Head? Naples? Cape Cod? Catalina Island? If prices are declining in all these places because coastal real estate prices jumped too far way too fast, then it is hard to say where the bottom will be.

I keep going back to Shawn Tully's excellent 2002 piece in Fortune that declared the housing runup had to be over because any more growth was unsustainable. I also remember back in the mid 90s when 350K was the going rate for a very expensive executive home. My guess is we will level out nationally somewhere around 2001-2002 prices for desirable coastal areas. In SoWal, I don't think they will drop that far because the infrastructure and construction quality is much better than it was in 2001-2002. In other words prices at the time were cheap to begin with, and I don't see how they could get that cheap again.

Of course, it is just my opinion, and I don't have property for sale.

 

[TooFarTampa]

If you are interested, here is the article I read in 2002. At the time we thought we would probably be relocating, and when we did a couple of months later, Tully's warning influenced us to go for the best buy we could find with a fixed rate mortgage because we figured the gravy train was over.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2002/10/28/330962/index.htm

Sound like someone we know? :scratch:

SHELLY = SHawn TuLLY?

 

[Capricious]

"...If you are interested, here is the article ..."


A quote from your article:

"..Of course, even if we don't get a housing bubble, we may still wind up with a double-dip recession. An oil shock or a financial implosion could also pulverize the economy and slam housing prices...."


Housing buble?

Oil shock?

"financial implosion" (SIV, subprime, hedge fund)?

Recession?




What's the secret of his crystal ball?

Clairvoyance or common sense?








"Sound like someone we know?...."






Shelly had the same crystal ball.

And a few of the rest of us were not far behind.

 

[livingiSoWal]

my hands up. Licensed at 18 GRI by 19. I do advertising as well though, you should buy some advertising for me.