FB

I haven't heard that the Fontainebleau is in trouble, but their initials are slightly humorous - any good Bubble Blogger knows what FB stands for.

Superbole

It's starting.

But in case you don't care for American Football, take a look at this series of shots I put together for the upcoming Housing Bubble Blog gathering:

Map Link

Image Link

T2

(Update to this post)

The Review Journal from Nevada. “Don’t call them layoffs. According to developer Donald Trump, roughly 70 employees at the Trump International Hotel & Tower were ‘impacted by changes in their schedules’ due to the slowdown in closing sales of the building’s 1,282 studio, one-bedroom and penthouse units.”

“Before the building was topped off a year ago, Trump had said all the units had been reserved by potential buyers who plunked down 20 percent nonrefundable deposits for residences that carried prices of between $700,000 and $5 million.”

“The current mortgage crisis, he said, has slowed the closing process. In June, Trump said sales had been completed on 250 units. However, a report by Deutsche Bank a week later pegged the closings at almost 200 units as of June 12.”

Ouch. 200 closings out of 1280 units. That's gotta hurt. Especially since they were all reserved over a year ago.

Any bets on how long it'll take to close on the remaining thousand or so?

[From the HBB]

Keep Your Powder Dry

Sage advice from the Red Baron

Metaphorically Speaking

Joshua Trees

ex-nnvmtgbrkr's real estate moron suppository source.

(I can't figure out how to zero the link in any better than that - you'll have to search for his handle on the page.)

Terrible Vita

I was out walking through a neighborhood recently. It was a neighborhood that I assumed was largely untouched by the ravages of the Housing  Bubble™.   I couldn't have been more wrong.

At first, I remarked that there were no for-sale signs in the yards. None. But then, on a subsequent visit, I saw a sign in a window, offering the house for lease. It turned out that there were several houses with signs in the windows - some lease, some for sale.

Then, one day, there was the standard T-Bar real estate sign in front of the house next door to the original one for lease on Walbrook.



I pulled out one of the pages of information about the home. I saw that it was "bank owned". I turned the sheet over and was surprised to see that 20 out of 26 properties (not all in this neighborhood) listed on the back were "bank owned".

So of course, I had to go to the Clark County Assessor's Page to see what I could find out about this seemingly pristine 'hood.

Terra Vita is a Richmond American Homes development comprised of 52 single family homes, which started selling in the summer of 2004. Twenty houses are on the east side of the main drag, Walbrook Ln, the rest are spread out over six adjoining cul-de-sacs.

Just looking at the info for the twenty homes on Walbrook then, this is the story:

5004 2333sqft

First sale - 06/14/04 $560,518 - Not owner-occupied

5014 2115sqft

First sale - 06/24/04 $476,453 - Owner-occupied
Second sale - 11/26/04 $570,000 - Not owner-occupied
Bank owned - 02/13/07 $575,177

5024 2115sqft

First sale - 06/10/04 $463,590 - Not owner-occupied
Bank owned - 04/24/06 $485,838
First sale - 01/31/07 $390,000 (ouch) - Owner occupied
Quit-claim deed, parents to children - 03/29/07 - Not owner occupied

5034 1937sqft

First sale - 06/29/04 $489,990 - Not owner-occupied

5044 2200sqft

First sale - 07/28/04 $534,690 - Not owner-occupied

5054 2115sqft

First sale - 08/09/04 $516,490 - Owner-occupied

5064 1937sqft

First sale - 06/01/05 $440,976 - Owner-occupied
Second sale - 09/13/05 $526,000 - Owner-occupied (how sharp was that knife?)
Bank owned - 04/24/07 $440,000

5074 1937sqft

First sale - 05/27/05 $441,618 - Owner-occupied
Second sale - 12/09/05 $510,000 - Owner-occupied

5084 2200sqft

First sale - 06/08/05 $451,415 - Not owner-occupied
Second sale - 09/13/05 $475,000 - Not owner-occupied

5094 1937sqft

First sale - 05/26/05 $513,213 - Owner-occupied
Quit-claim deed - 08/16/05 - Owner-occupied

5104 2200sqft

First sale - 07/01/05 $470,000 - Owner-occupied
Second sale - 10/04/05 $545,000 - Not owner-occupied

5114 1919sqft

First sale - 04/25/05 $510,990 - Owner-occupied

5128 2200sqft

First sale - 04/01/05 $539,990 - Owner-occupied
Correction of name on deed - 05/12/05 - Owner-occupied
(Interesting - the address is 5124 on both deeds)

5134 2200sqft

First sale - 06/01/05 $456,850 - Not owner-occupied

5138 2200sqft

First sale - 05/26/05 $458,970 - Not owner-occupied, she lives at 5144?

5154 2200sqft

First sale - 02/03/05 $469,000 - Owner-occupied
Quit-claim to KDR, Inc Profit Sharing (same POB as first owner) 07/13/05

5164 2200sqft

First sale - 12/30/04 $430,000 - Owner-occupied
Quit-claim to living trust - 05/20/05 - Not owner-occupied?
Quit-claim to AMI Property Rentals - 05/27/05 - Not owner-occupied?
Bank owned - 03/29/07 $410,000

5174 2200sqft

First sale - 08/31/04 $530,990 - Not owner-occupied

5184 2200sqft

First sale - 02/02/05 $450,000 - Owner-occupied
Second sale - 10/19/05 $550,000 - Not owner-occupied
Bank owned - 08/30/06 $479,808 - Not owner-occupied
First sale - 05/18/07 $379,900 - New comps! Not owner-occupied
Second sale - 05/18/07 $379,900 - Not owner-occupied

Allow me to reiterate: New comp for the previously $500k+, 2200sqft'er - $379.9k!!!

5194 2200sqft

First sale - 11/24/04 $450,000 - Owner-occupied

For Sale

This is my street. I'm feeling kind of left out. Maybe I should put up a "for sale" sign.

Oh wait, I rent!

Suckers!

Let me explain. These poor bastards paid somewhere around $400k for these 1600-2100 sqft boxes. Boxes that rent for about $1400. The basic rule-of-thumb, in a non-bubble market, is rent times 150. That's about $200,000. They're hosed.

Vegas is the Pits, Pt II

(clicking on image is mandatory for getting joke)

You know, if you're going to buy an over-priced stucco box in Las Vegas, you might as well get one with a view.

"Look honey, they've got one of those new D-9 Cats!"

"Sweetheart, our dung-colored, cookie-cutter crapbox is worth every penny of its inflated price, because we can look at American-made earth-moving equipment whenever we like. Mmmm, Caterpillar, Deere, Link-Belt..."

"Tish! You drive me crazy when you speak heavy-industrial!"

"Now Gomez. Control yourself."

Previous

Goodbye Heloc

It is my fondest hope that in the coming real  estate  meltdown, every inconsiderate jerk in an expensive, oversize pickup, every ignorant "thug" in an Escalade and every impatient prick in a Beemer, used funds from refinancing (HELOC*) his McMansion.   With any justice they'll end up back in the Luv pickups, Plymouth Voyagers and Buick LeSabres they so richly deserve, in order to afford the rent on their half of the double-wide.

*Home Equity Line of Credit

Flipper to Bag Holder

(click on image for full grokness)

No, not the lovable dolphin. But speculative real-estate investors who assumed they could buy up a bunch of properties, hold onto them for six-to-twentyfour months, and then "flip" them for a profit.

That actually worked for a short time - 2004 thru 2006, mostly. But then, the music stopped and there was a mad scramble for chairs sales.

This is a picture of the "investments" of several (now) bag holders on Fairwind Acres Place in Pulte's Silverstone development, taken in January, 2007.

A cursory inspection of the Clark County Assessor's database, shows that approximately 50% of these homes are owned by people with different mailing addresses.

More info at OCRenter's excellent Bubble Markets Inventory Tracking blog.


[Update 06/27/09]: OCRenter for reasons unknown, has restricted access to his most excellent blog.