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The Big Glut: Trouble in Paradise
Barron's ^ | 5/29/2006 | Robin Goldwyn Blumenthal

Posted on 05/29/2006 11:31:33 AM PDT by ex-Texan

IT WOULD SEEM TO HAVE IT ALL: four bedrooms, a guest house, a pool and a rock waterfall. But the vacation home in Naples, Fla., hasn't been drawing much interest from buyers, so the seller recently threw in that most modern of amenities: the $1 million price cut. That's brought the asking price down a full 25%. "If you want to sell, you've got to go back to '04 prices," says Chip Harris of Coldwell Banker Previews International, which is handling the property.

* * * After a long string of double-digit annual price increases, a number of second-home meccas across the country are suddenly suffering from plunging sales volume and burgeoning inventories of unsold homes. Result: Naples-style discounting is starting to spread. It hit the town of Pocasset, on Massachusetts' Cape Cod, just as retired executive Jack Reen was trying to sell his four-acre, six-bedroom beachfront home. He cut the price several times, for a total of 42% off the listing price, before striking a deal at $3.95 million. Reen takes a philosophical view of the experience, noting that the original price was set at the top of the market. "Calling the tops and bottoms is impossible," he says.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.barrons.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; US: Florida
KEYWORDS: bubbles; housing; iluvwilliegreen; mynameisdoom; pimpingmyblog; realestate; skyfallssomemore; wrongsince2003; zotmeplease
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To: aimhigh

I thought read somehwere that Bend has peaked? I guess with Multnomah county, every county should continue to grow in Oregon.


21 posted on 05/30/2006 7:55:26 AM PDT by OregonRepublican (Jesus Loves you Allah wants you dead! Liberalism is a mental Disorder- Savage)
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To: Dick Vomer
Texas, I'll have to look at that. A guy I work with just inherited a third of his folks' home down there, then bought the other two thirds from his siblings. He intends to rent out the place until he retires and then move down there. I can't remember the town he said it's at but it's a 3 BR with decent square footage and a separate shop (apparently secure enough that he's keeping a couple of his Harleys in it with nobody living there) on an acre, and he swears the place's value is only a hundred grand.

I have a very small 3 BR basic home on a small panhandle lot with no extras and I could sell it for way more than that any day of the week. I bought the place at the bottom of the market almost 20 years ago and I'm ashamed to say what I paid so I won't. It has been a decent affordable roof over my head, and though it's in a very blue town in a somewhat blue state, I can keep all of the black guns I want.

I hope in 20 years it will be my ticket to a nice, warm red state where it's cheap to live. If that doesn't work out plan B is a coach touring WalMart parking lots with maybe a home base in Bullhead City. I know for darn sure that when I can start collecting my rocking chair money I am taking my money and rocking chair as far away from Eugene as I can get.
22 posted on 05/30/2006 9:57:11 PM PDT by Clinging Bitterly (Oregon - a pro-militia and firearms state that looks just like Afghanistan .)
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To: Tax-chick
To answr :-) your question my tagline is a takeoff of Gretchen Wilson/Merle Haggard's hot Politically Uncorrect.

Thus, the misspelling of religiously is due to my contempt, disdain and disgust for liberalism wrapping themselves in cloaks, collars and robes feeding their filthy lies to innocent, unsuspecting honest folks who want to love God, if only they could know Him.

Thus, my "religion" is all out of style and misspelled.

23 posted on 06/02/2006 4:23:17 AM PDT by BikerGold (Reliously Uncoooorrrrect...Reliously UUUUUUncorrect)
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To: BikerGold

Very clever!


24 posted on 06/02/2006 5:17:33 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Let all creation sing of salvation. Let us together give praise forever!)
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To: Dave in Eugene of all places

If you are looking for cheap property then look no further than Truth or Consequences, NM. It's not the end of the world, but you CAN see it from there! Could be going up, though. WalMart is coming in and a space center is in the works not too far away near Las Cruces.

My crazy mother moved there with my crazier brother and bought a manufactured home with river frontage for around 70,000. Okay, so the river is not always exactly abundant and flowing, but it is NM, after all.

I used to like to sit naked in the hot tub and shoot at rats, but Portland has lost whatever humor and common sense it once had. I had to give up my little hobby.

I miss my guns.


25 posted on 06/05/2006 12:41:29 AM PDT by dolander2002 ("...but that doesn't make me a bad person, does it?")
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Its odd that they list Nassau-Suffolk as a vacation market. The population of the East End may swell in the summer, but there are over 2.5 million year round residents in the entire market.


26 posted on 06/05/2006 6:39:00 PM PDT by NYCynic
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To: dolander2002
If I had rats scurrying around my hot tub I'd probably want to shoot 'em too.

I had an old friend (dead now drank & cranked himself to death) who kept a .22 loaded with birdshot next to his chair in his living room. Had a view of the kitchen and if he saw a mouse come into veiw he'd shoot it. The first time I saw him do that it was a bit of a shock (and even a .22 is pretty loud in a small room) but after seeing it a few times it became just another of his weird habits. He had a cavalier attitude about guns though - he shot left handed out of necessity because he shot his right arm off with a shotgun when he was a teenager.

Truth or Consequences eh? Does it stay warm in the winter there?
27 posted on 06/05/2006 9:49:18 PM PDT by Clinging Bitterly (Oregon - a pro-militia and firearms state that looks just like Afghanistan .)
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To: Dave in Eugene of all places

I don't think T or C stays warm in the winter, but if you are looking for a non-liberal location where it is cheap and the weather is dry, it might be worth a look.

The rats were using my yard as a short-cut to get to a neighbor who put out food for stray cats and fed the birds. They were coming from a neighbor's yard behind me who probably has holes in their sewer line. It is an old neighborhood and many of the old sewer lines have holes or have collapsed. Another neighbor had a rat come up through their basement toilet and he shot it. Of course, he broke the toilet and had a whole new set of problems!

The offending neighbor behind me also shot my dog in the chest with a pellet gun. I couldn't prove it and it was not of interest to the police. I'd seen the bastard pointing the barrel out of the window upstairs.

Some days I just want to move, but haven't figured out where I want to go.


28 posted on 06/09/2006 1:18:00 PM PDT by dolander2002 ("...but that doesn't make me a bad person, does it?")
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