Reuters:
Rust pokes through the peeling paint on the railings, pest control has been curtailed and the palm trees are no longer being fertilized at the 1940s-era Miami Modern condominium building in Miami Beach.
The condo association has been forced to cut expenses because the owners of 11 of the 28 apartments in the modest two-story building are delinquent, victims of a mammoth U.S. real estate collapse that has hit Florida especially hard.
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How in the world did these prices get this high? Labor in construction in Florida is much lower than the northern states. The investers make a killing with inflated prices?
LET THEM EAT THEIR LOSSES THEN! Million dollars for a tiny apartment is ludicrist! UFBielievable.
Another thing that may not be obvious to folks who haven't lived in a condo, particularly in a high-rise. There are shared facilities, not just the halls and lobby, but the chilled-water system for everyone's air-conditioning, the elevators, the phone system (to a lesser degree), they guys you have to have at the front desk and so forth.
Assuming that some of these costs are variable and can be reduced, you still have to keep the plant running. If only half the building is paying it's fees and YOU want air conditioning, you're going to have to make up their share for them so both you and they can keep cool.
You might think that if they aren't payiing, you can turn off their air-handlers, which would reduce the load a little, but then you get all sorts of mildew, etc, in their units.
It's amazing how few people ev er really look at the liability sides of a condo.
"Why it's just like renting except you build equity!"
"Death Spiral" seems a very accurate description of what can happen.
I really don't care about these condos and the surplus of houses that should never have been built in the first place.
I guess the Costanzas won't be moving into Del Vesta Backup, Del Vesto Bicco or Del Boca Vista! So much for the Buffer Zone.
Condo owners may have to start doing what home owners have done since the dawn of time; cutting their own lawns, trimming their own trees, painting their own walls.... I understand that many are elderly, but most are not, If Americans remember anything about hard work and personal responsibility, they'll just shoulder this burden as they did once upon a time before the invention of the condo.
Since when is it the American way to stand around watching paint peel and metal rust?
Since I started paying $180 every month for the last 8 years, that's when. Do you think we all paid that for the fun of it. No, it is for the yard maintence people's salaries and the other work to be done while we work hard to earn the money. That's why we choose to buy in the HOA community instead of the freestyle type neighborhood.
I heard someone on the radio claim that one in ten housing units in the country is now vacant. I don't know the ratio of foreclosures, eviction, etc to those never occupied or unsold after the owners moved. Still, that's a ghastly number -- it's got to include a lot of housing that used to be renter- or owner-occupied. Where are all these people? Back with Mom and Dad? Couch surfing? Living under bridges?
Three large condo buildings have gone up here in downtown Manhattan over the past couple of years, obscuring our formerly nice view of the Hudson. Now the word is they'll lie empty for years. What a lame waste of money that could have gone to helping people, like supporting the school system here for one thing.
One more reason to pull the plug on the banks. If Banks had to liquidate, then at least the condo's woukd go back on the market. The condos would sell and the associations would not have to drag down the other condos.
STOP ALL BANKSTER BAILOUTS
Instant public housing stock.
Agreed. Unfortunately, the cost of maintaining these buildings can be exorbitant.
Good for them. I can finally afford a Miami condo for a vacation home.
The Bush depression.
NYC is not geeting as hard hit but it will happen here as well. At the high of the condo market a 1300 square ft condo would sell over 2 million and up to 3 million in newly built building.
The housing went NUTS in NYC one bedrooms for a million plus were a dime a dozen. Not NYC is seeing the beginnning of a long downturn in pricing. It will take time but you will see allot of NYC housing go down by 60% or more and if you ask how just read what i wrote from the beginning
Condo-sleezas stock is crashing..
http://www
The condos in the picture look like the three Trump Towers in Hollywood Beach and when i was down there a couple a months ago, all of the towers appeared to be just about empty.
Hard to believe anyone would want to live there. Crashing home values, a tanking job market and the ever present short-term threat of hurricanes and long-term danger of flooding due to climate change combine to make it one unattractive place to be.
Don't knock it - its not as bad as it sounds.
don't worry
Rush lives down there and he'll help all these folks out to keep Florida beautiful
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Reuters | Jim Loney | 04/ 2/09