By BJ

June 21, 2006 08:45 AM | Link to this

How does one find distressed properties, those in foreclosure, and at auction due to unpaid taxes? As interest rates rise, it seems likely that there will be an increase in loan defaults. There are probably some bargains out there, for a savvy buyer.

By PBC OWNER

June 22, 2006 04:25 PM | Link to this

No bargins here on foreclosures. Ask any honest real estate agent or banker, and they will tell you all about those hidden fees and the higher mortgage rates you will have to pick up on from the previous property owner. The banks will have plenty of time to make sure they get their money back and more, on the property that is coming back their way. Just make sure you have a clear title on the property, so you won’t stuck with previous owners tax lien or other unpaid liens.

North Carolina and Alabama …. did anybody check out the jobs there ? What about transportation, schools, hospitals, infrastructure ????? It might be a pretty area, but it is no Palm Beach, New York, California, or Arizona ! The taxes will follow into those areas to build all those roads, schools, fire stations, brides, and water lines for those new cheap homes.

The Carolinas and Alabama are for those peeople who cannot afford Palm Beach prices and have to settle for those low cost frame homes that are built in these other areas. You will never get a big return in an investment there, but at least the ones who rent in Palm Beach and are waiting to buy in another year or two, or have a “seven” figure in liquid assets, here is your chance to get new low cost housing !

Grab a house, before it is to late for you….. again !

By Oscar De Low Renta

June 23, 2006 06:46 AM | Link to this

Just wait till Big Ben gets rates to 6%. The backs of all the speculators (gamblers) will be broken.

Repeat after me.

I promise I will not gamble with other peoples money. I will work for a living.

By NC visitor

June 23, 2006 08:33 AM | Link to this

PBC OWNER- I once thought of the Carolinas as you do. Thought my brother was nuts when he sold here 3 yrs ago and had home constructed in Western NC. After many visits, I now concede he was right. That area seems to have learned form our over-building mess. Zoning works. Vistas of the mountains are gourgeous, seasonal changes are delightful. His country club, while not inexpensive, is terrific. When he feels like it, there are many cultural events, especially around Research Triangle Area. I love SoFl, as you seem to, but trying to build it up by knocking the Carolinas just makes it seem you haven’t traveled much lately, or have been going to the wrong areas.

By bubba

June 23, 2006 11:21 AM | Link to this

Does anybody know of any areas in Jupiter Farms where you don’t need septic/well?

The lot sizes out there are great and are much much bigger than Abacoa/Paseos/etc., and you aren’t really far from everything in Jupiter and the Gardens, but I don’t trust well water.

By Mike Fink

June 24, 2006 11:19 AM | Link to this

Well, I am not going to get into the contest above “who has money who doesn’t”. But, I am in a situation where I could buy a home here if I wanted to. I don’t have money; but my parents do, and would be willing to help me purchase a home if I asked them.

However, regardless of where you got the money; or if you even have it, this is not the time to buy in So. Fl (in general). People have to realize, the reason others will pay crazy sums of money for something is because its “special” or rare and unique. If I wanted to live on the beach; I would not hesitate to buy right now. They are not making anymore oceanfront property; none of it is undeveloped, it is somewhat insulated from the craziness of the real estate market down here. No matter what happens, your always going to have that home/condo on the beach, and it will always be special.

However, I want to live in the downtown WPB area, and given current market situations, I would be crazy to buy. I live in a condo that I rent for about 1/2 of what it cost me to own. The appreciation on this property has been negative for the past several months; and the asking price is insane. Why on earth would I chose to buy this?

Maybe in 5-10 years I would see some return on my investment. However, if I add up all the money that I would have saved by renting; I am certain that my return would not come close to that (not unless this condo is going to be selling for 600K or more in 10 years).

There are definatately places where I would buy right now; but downtown WPB is not one of them! This area has positioned itself for several years of terriable real estate depreciation; and frankly, nothing down here is “special” in any way. Yes, I live in CityPlace, and I can walk everywhere. But CityPlace is a manufactured area; what’s to keep someone else from putting a “better” area right down the street (Downtown at the Gardens; for example, although I feel that development area is even crazier then here, and forsee a huge price adjustment in that area). Unless you have something that cannot be reproduced easily/inexpensively, your definately taking a huge risk buying something right now.

So, yes, I realize its difficult to believe, but those of us who have the money (or in my case, the means to get it) are going to sit out the housing market until things settle down. I forsee these manufactured areas, like CityPlace, are going to have the most exreme price ajustments of anywhere, and I just don’t want to worry about paying 1.5 to 2X too much for my condo.

To pull from my previous posts; we are not out of land, not even in the “best” inland areas. There is no reason to have a $300/sq ft price on something that can be recreated down the street for $100/sq ft.

By Ed

June 27, 2006 01:46 PM | Link to this

well all the creative financing… im sure thats going to do a lot of people in. We have people like cutaya mortgage group and their radio extolling the virtues of interest only loans and how you should take out the equity in your home and leverage it to keep buying more real estate, its a great idea if you have alot of money to fall back and and cover the increase in the mortgages, but people trying to do that just to buy their own home its nuts.

By Jeff Poole

June 27, 2006 07:36 PM | Link to this

Mike is on the money on CityPlace on fairly extreme price adjustments downward. His “Manufactured” comment is what he is right about. What he doesn’t realize is how bad or how far reached it can be. What is so easy to see for people who have been here since at least the 80s is the following: People forget the condo building boom in the early 80s, way overdone, and then in the late 80s, the south florida condo was the butt of jokes, remember. there was a severe glut. you could buy all the condos you wanted for prices so deflated it was scary, and that lasted years. of course, it finally worked itself out as the population increased, but it took years. there were thousands of people in palm beach county that took a bath on that fabulous florida condo. it is worse now. at least then, they were still building on land that was at least in decent locations. the problem now is the good locations have long been built on, so, not only have they overbuilt what the area can handle for the next few years, those new ones are land that developers laughed at, passed on, and now, when the frenzied, idiot amateur bandwagons for a must have condo or cookie cutter zero lot liner, the developers finally built on that lot next to cracktown in delray, or the railroad tracks in anytown pb county. what is unique about these properties? Is it the fact that they are concrete built, as our naive friend, PBC Owner, says, or the amenities that the “wannabe wealthy in their leased cars” want, but in the end, they are still residences in locations that most people still laugh at. When northerners get off the plane in wpb, they still have to drive through rundown areas to get to that condo. once inside, i’m sure it’s nice, but they will not want to drive through the crap to get to it, or worse, have their friends and relatives see the neighborhood they have to live near, it’s laughable.

When you have people like PBC Owner say ignorant and blanket statements like every frame home in every state in the union is junk compared to his concrete one here, and Bubba saying he wants to find city water in Jupiter Farms because he doesn’t trust well water, we know we are getting close to the absolute top to a real estate frenzy like the stock market was in 1999. This is comical. Look, obviously, studies have long proved our tap water and well water is no different than the bottled water that Madison Avenue has sold ole’ Bubba, and I know there are plenty of wood frame homes in every state in the US, including right here in PB County, that are a hell of alot nicer and more expensive than our “pompous” PBC Owner. Remember PBC, there’s an a*s for every seat.

When the bandwagon masses follow the rest of their broke friends and relatives up to North Carolina or Atlanta (I think they have listened to too much real estate radio shows), we are near the top. The problem that those people will have when they get there is threefold. The residents up there don’t want them, hence the popular NC phrase AFF (Another fu#$ing Floridian…kinda like why we all left Boca 15 years ago…), they are escaping to places that are themselves getting overcrowded and will be in the same predicament a few years from now with higher taxes, overcrowded schools and rising crime rates, and the fact that if they stopped listening to radio shows and their idiot brother in law, they would realize there are other states close by that are less expensive and have nicer amenities that htey are looking for….Get this, if you are moving to NC or North GA or TN, you are more than likely paying full retail. There are better bargains elsewhere and not too far from there.

In the end, we will be fine here, and most single family homes will not be killed as much as the condo market here (frame or cement) but it will be better when the amateurs have gotten out. The money to be made when the idiots fall is going to be amazing. The people are still coming and they will always come. That will always help us faster than other areas.

Let the “Interest Only” hare crowd get pushed out and us tortoises will be there to pick up the pieces. The tortoise always wins. I know. I saw the movie a few times. -Jeff

By TB

June 28, 2006 12:16 PM | Link to this

I agree about Jupiter Farms with Jeff and bubba. I just bought a fixer upper out there last month. That area is very unique to Palm Beach County which always is good when it comes to real estate. Having a bit of land (my 1 1/4 acres) around me is unique in the county and that is going to be more and more unique in years to come here. Jupiter Farms is a very undervalued situation, I believe, for what it is going to be in a few years. Can you say Parkland, anyone?

What sets it apart in my opinion from the other westwern communities of Wellington, Acreage, Loxahatchee, etc, is exactly what Jeff was saying about another area.

To get to the nicer western communities, you still have to come from the east to get west, and the drive to Wellington, Acreage, Loxahatchee is a drive through slums, industrial areas, real eyesores. They can widen Southern Blvd all they want, but dressing up a pig is still a pig in the end. I do not want to drive through trash to get to my nice house, and every one of those areas you do, except in Jupiter Farms. Sorry to say, but true. The drive to Jupiter Farms is nice, and I see no hookers and bums pushing Publix shopping carts across the street as I do if I drive out to State Road 7 or any western area west of West Palm Beach. All of these areas would be more attractive if that one issue was resolved, but that can’t happen.

On the other issue of water…I don’t worry about the water issue either as these new water systems provide better drinking water now than they ever did. The water is fine, not an issue at all. That probably won’t convince my old neighbor who gave his dogs only bottled water instead of the tap water of Boca Raton, lol.

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June 28, 2006 02:38 PM | Link to this

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