Home > Jay Bookman > Archives > 2008 > June > 04 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.US‘Buy this house, get one free’ sale
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Times may seem tough in the ATL housing market, with prices falling and thousands of vacant lots where developers had hoped to be raising houses. But if misery loves company, get a load of this story out of Southern California:
In a sign of how difficult it is to sell new homes in Southern California right now, a San Diego developer is offering a “buy one, get one free” deal, pairing million-dollar homes with less expensive homes.
“We thought, ‘Why does it just have to be on Pop Tarts and restaurants? Why not buy one home, get one free,’” Dawn Berry of Michael Crews Development told 10 News in San Diego.
Operators are standing by!!!
Comments
By hillbilly ragger
June 4, 2008 1:37 PM | Link to this
Pretty sad, really.
Jay, being that you’re an Atriot, I thought you might sometimes hang out at the Calculated Risk blog. If so you might have seen a link to this WSJ piece about Ed McMahon’s pending foreclosure.
I’m not quite sure why, but that story made me even sadder than the “Two-fer” piece you’ve linked.
By Taxpayer
June 4, 2008 3:32 PM | Link to this
This is a sad situation. Thinking about the real estate bust in the U.S. leads me to think more about the leadership of companies such as Bear Sterns, Merrill Lynch, Countrywide, Bank of America, Citi, and more. I mean, if you simply look at the pay packages that all these CEOs and other executives get, you should expect to see a lot of really, really intelligent people. I mean, not some plain old run of the mill PhD or something but really, really smart people. Am I right. Why else would a corporation of the magnitude of these corporations fork over so much money to executives. Surely these Boards of Directors had great expectations of those that they were willing to fork over millions and millions and millions of dollars to, didn’t they. Wow. Anyway, I have sure learned my lesson. I have been moving more and more of my money out of stocks and into CDs, treasuries, and high quality bonds (not associated with mortgages). I would rather accept a guaranteed return of a few percent than to risk a penny on a company run by over-paid bums that cannot even spend enough time thinking about their company to protect it from such obvious problems. Don’t they think they’re being paid enough to at least try to do some good for their shareholders. They probably all slept through or skipped the same classes that Bush did.
By hrw
June 5, 2008 12:51 PM | Link to this
For the very first time America has hit a slump…gas, food, homes, wage, jobs, what america always stood so proudly. We are seeing a grave turn in our economy that is hitting the Rich, Middle Class, Upper Middle Class and even the poor of the poorest. Those elected official who are all Lawyers, Senators and Representatives just sit and watch this picture with ease and yet, do nothing! Well, for evvery builders; those who treated their customer right, those that didn’t and those don’t care; those who can’t sale a house as well as those who can…the trend has arrive where we are pricing ourselves right off the face of the earth! Recovery, well, asked yourself; do you actually think that people are going to buy homes or save their money preparing for the worse? One thing I do know is…we haven’t seen nothing yet and if the prices don’t slim down; well, we all are going to be in a world of hurt!
By Logical Dude
June 5, 2008 1:34 PM | Link to this
What Jay doesn’t say is that you need to buy a 1.6 million dollar home to get a 400,000 dollar home for free.
So, you only need 1.6 million to buy 2 million worth of home. That is a MUCH better deal for the seller, who can barely get 1.3 million for 2 million worth of home in San Diego.