What will they do in 135 weeks?
 

all I do day in and out is survey empty foreclosed homes that have been bought for less than $0.25 on the the dollar.

I saw this and thought it captured the market perfectly.


http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y21...s/DSCN1271.jpg

BTW - I was considering buying an investment home to rent straight up cash. This was one of them. when you see this, you will realize how screwed the guy up top is.

Listing $51K:
http://rmlsfl.mlxchange.com/Pub/EmailView.asp?r=542247290&s=RML&t=RML

Sales History, sold in 2005 for 225K:
http://www.paslc.org/prc.asp?prclid=342067002850009

Wow, Jim. We looked into buying in FL about a year ago..... looks like it is still dropping, hard.

What is homeowner's insurance like these days?

Holy crap! How bad was the condition of the place that sold for $50K?

Friend of mine does the construction work in Cincinaty, OH. By accident he bought a house for 490$. Yes , FOUR HUNDRET NINETY dollars.
How bad? Interior messed up but it is three familly , two story , brick house. Don't know area , but the price it self is what I pay for gas per month( more or less).....

It has not sold, I never went to look at it because I am fairly certain the market will continue to drop.

I think we will see that same house in the 30's by the end of the summer.

Then I will get 2 for 1. :D

What is homeowner's insurance like in FL these days?

Homeowners insurance is coming back down. The trick is to properly prepare the home for a hurricane then have what is called a Windstorm Mitigation done. This is a report that is given to the insurance company and will enable you to get deep discounts.

My homeowners in 2004 prior to the 1st hurricane hitting was $1400 a year.

2005 - $2400
2006 - $3500
2007 - $7500
2008 - Dropped

Shopped around to 6 companies and did the steps above and was quoted by 3 companies in the $1400 range. Its back to normal.

I see these prices, and I'm way tempted to buy property, but what the hell am I going to do with it?

Can I rent that house for $350 a month?

The more modern (and cheaper) your home, the less the insurance will be. Location also plays a big part. Jim's neighborhood isn't fully in the "impact zone", so insurance will be less. The further South you go (and closer to the coast), the higher the price. Also, anything on the Gulf Coast is higher.

Governor is pushing a statewide insurance pool (everybody pays) which should bring prices down. This hasn't passed yet, however.

Last month did searches on Detroit, Houston, Buffalo, etc ...

IF I had 100K laying around I think that I might have flown home just to look at some of the stuff on the market.

Purchase cost alone could possibly, maybe, snow ball chance in hell, be offset by rent. But, my stepmom piped in with ... "who can afford" rent?

If some people with balls where to go out and start buying, in 10 years or so they will be laughing all day long in the Bahamas.

the market here jumped. kinda weird, because on the sunday morning drive you see looky-lu's in the driveways of the houses with signs.....

That's called a "reverse auction". Price goes down while everyone watches until someone can't hold out any longer and signs the contract. Lotsa fun (for the buyers).

Thanks for sharing Jim.
Very interesting, what a crazy market.

My neice is looking to rent in the same town as those houses. Port St. Lucie.

From what I have been told rent is down from a high of 1500-1800 a month to 600-750 a month. It almost makes sense now.

The problem is finding a tenant, this is the reason I have not jumped aboard yet. I am in no hurry and I am still waiting for the credit card companies to join the crisis then we will see deep discounts everywhere. I am guessing towards the end of this summer as kids head back to school.

Finding a tenant would be the tricky part, building houses WAS Port St. Lucie's industry it was what employed most of the people, now its the county and school district. The school district just announced it is closing 3 entire schools down. Another huge blow to this already depressed area.

I can only say this for sure, the foreclosure situation right now makes 1 year ago look good. I suspect I will say the same in 1 year from now looking back. This mess is far from over.

Fortunately, everyplace is not like a Fl (and a few other housing bubble states) imo. About the time I purchased my first house, a couple of old friends of mine in Jax. Fl did the same, but they didn't buy nearly the same amount of house and paid a fraction of what I did (we're not talking McMansions here, just basic houses). Over the next 10-12 years, their homes which were originally say 40% of mine shot up in value to be equal (or slightly greater) than what mine (showing modest, traditional appreciation) was valued at. I was VERY happy for them, but knew it was not sustainable. Your prices and charts are showing what happened when the "bubble burst"...imo, the big picture is to view what that same house was worth say back in 1993. The point is (and I know folks in CA will have trouble swallowing this), but that NEVER was a $225K house in the first place imo. Just my .005 cents worth...

No, not everyplace is like Florida and I think Florida is unique. It was way overvalued and its finally turning back into what it was, a place for the newlywed and nearly dead.


I surveyed 7 homes today, 5 were foreclosed on. When I was at the 5 foreclosed houses, I could look around each one of them and see 4 more that were vacant and foreclosed on as well.

Of the 2 that I surveyed, one had a cop living in his house with no electricity, I was told he was desperate to close, I suspect he is pulling money out of it. I can do a search on the property and see what it was last financed for and see.

The other one had been sold and the folks were moving out to move to South Carolina. No dollar amounts were disclosed but by the sound of the husband they took a beating selling it.

Today was unique because 2 of the houses were actually occupied. Most days they are all empty and obvious foreclosures and again once we are standing in the yard we look up and down the block and see about 30-40% of the homes are vacant.

Its almost surreal and it scares the hell out of me.

That's amazing. I find this anecdotal information fascinating.

My grandparents lived in Naples, FL up until 2002 when my grandmother moved into an assisted living facility after my grandfather passed. I went down there to clean out the house and get things prepped for sale and interviewed four REALTORS (TM). The price point was set at 167k but I didn't sign with anyone since a neighbor came by and offered 165k cash, no inspection and he'd clean it out. I accepted, grandma was happy. A few years later I 'zillowed' the property and it was tagged at nearly 500k (dunno what it would actually go for). Its now back just around the 2002 selling price.

What blew my mind was the construction and the area.... grumpy/gossipy old white people everywhere, slabs of concrete, concrete walls, stucco, drywall smallish 3br 2bath 'worth' 500k? I learned later that everyone in the neighborhood was 'flipping'. I suspect that most had gotten burned in the stock market in 2001 and had turned into RE investors in some sort of incestuous ponzi scheme of flipping amongst themselves and the snowbirds moving down.

Wild stuff.

Jim, do you know what percentage of those are because of unemployment and what percentage are because the bubble burst and people were upside down and decided to walk away?

Friend has a house for rent in N Upland, CA...nice upper middle classs area...no one is even looking...

So he has to dig the cash outa his pocket for the mortgage payment...

Section 8 in Beverly Hills?

I see a up-dated sitcom there. The new American dream. Old banker Drysdale begging those with a chit to move in. Please!

They should find a sexy Ms. Hathaway this time..