Thursday, September 14, 2006

Yet another "Short Sale" listing - Downtown Condo at ParkLoft #218

This entry validates a what is becoming a clear trend, once again the MLS listing markets this property as a "Short Sale", this means the owner of the property is selling at a loss. That's obvious when you review the numbers below.

To be down $138,000 in just less than a year is quite interesting.

Type: Listed on MLS(#066078740)

Resale Price: $560,000
(Range priced $540,000 to $580,000)
Cost: $665,000

Loss@6% Sales Expenses: $138,600
Loss%: 20.84%

Purchase Date: 09/26/2005
Holding Period: 12 months and counting...

Bedrooms: Loft
Bathrooms: 1
Square Feet: 1281

Purchase Details: view

13 comments:

Mark said...

Is the flipper/speculator a Realtor, as so many of them seem to be? If that is the case, how does the loss look?

Mr. Brightside said...

Lindismith,

The biggest loss so far has been this property:

http://sandiegomarketmonitor.blogspot.com/2006/08/multi-million-dollar-condo-takes-loss.html

There are a lot of $100K+ loss properties. I'll put of a post this weekend that shows all of them.

Mr. Brightside said...

idaho_spud,

If the owner was a realtor I'd assume 4% sales expenses as they still need to pay the other side 2.5-3% in commission.

That said I do have a post in the works that focuses on a property that is in pre-foreclosure proceedings that is in fact owned by a real estate agent that is very active downtown.

I do think that real estate and mortgage people are highly levered in property and all their incomes are stepping down in this market, that is the type of situation that leads to distressed sales and bankrupcy so keeping an eye on this (and posting about it) is an important metric to gauge the health of the market.

Anonymous said...

What a deal! Plus you get concrete ceilings and exposed ventalation and piping.

Is that the norm in downtown condos?

Mr. Brightside said...

bub,

Not really, ParkLoft is a "Contrived Warehouse Loft" as it wasn't a rehab of an old classic building that a lot of lofts are, it was built to look like one. Indidentally they were going to building another one like it but since the market doesn't really have a huge appetite for lofts they built The Mark there instead as high rise condos are in good demand.

Anonymous said...

A bit off topic. . .

But just noticed that Sterling Real Estate office on India has closed its doors and the space is for rent. . .I believe there were only about 60? condo sales last month downtown, so with over 20 (that I count at least) RE offices (some like Keller Williams with 200 agents) something has to give!. . .btw - was in Washington DC last week, and a RE friend who has been in the business 25 years, said, (and I quote) "I am afraid myself to buy anything right now, because we just don't know where bottom is.". . .DC is also overbuilt with condos.

Sven said...

He's smart, predicting the bottom on any market downturn is next to impossible. Historically, housing changes inertia very slowly (downturns and upturns usually last over 3 years), and I don't see a reason for this to change. This means that if it is going down, there is no reason to try to jump in and buy at a false bottom. You can just wait for it to eventually start very slowly going up again and buy then.


As for the realtors, it's a good thing that a lot of them move onto other jobs. As of July, in just the state of California, there were 508,196 licensed real estate agents (about 1 for every 72 individuals, that counts children). That kind of competition is just crazy, and it's better for all the people in the industry for it to shrink back to a more reasonable size. A sane number for real estate agents would be more along the lines of 1 for every 300-500 individuals. (depending on real estate turnover rate for that area)

Anonymous said...

Mr. Brightside,

"Contrived Warehouse Loft" what a great description!

That reminded me of a hilarious post by a blogger regarding the terms used by Realtors for La Jolla real estate.

http://www.brianstorms.com/archives/000371.html

Anonymous said...

One more time.
http://www.brianstorms.com
/archives/000371.html

Anonymous said...

Why do you use the midpoint of a range price? I would think most buyers would completely ignore the top end and considering the lower number the "list price."

What does the sales data say? Do houses really sell in the middle of their range price?

Mr. Brightside said...

bob,

I have to make assumptions so I try hard to keep them conservative and reasonable as in my view there are way to many wild claims in real estate.

Taking an average seems reasonable. I periodically update a post with the closing data. We can track where in the range the actual selling price averages out to. Could be interesting.

I do think that in an up market the prices are at the high end, in the current market the tendancy would be towards the low end.

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