By Ostrowski Fan

February 19, 2007 10:36 AM | Link to this

The shopping center at River Bridge is a dying shopping center. Don’t know why anyone would want that. The movie theater is gone the large Carfts and Stuff store just left. Publix - “Where shopping is a nightmare” won’t save that location and once taxes go up at that location more businesses will leave soon.

Signed, Ostrowski Fan

By BIG ROB

February 19, 2007 12:50 PM | Link to this

This shopping center is is lame. I live very close to this location for 16 year’s I must have been there 10 times once to see a movie.

By maxmoose03

February 19, 2007 2:26 PM | Link to this

I don’t mean to discourage you, BIG ROB, but if you didn’t understand the movie after 6 times, you should have quit.

By Rich R

February 19, 2007 2:32 PM | Link to this

Once again Max, you got it all wrong. This seems to be your way.

The man said he had been to that center 10 times, ONCE TO SEE A MOVIE.

Did you attend SoFla public schools? That might explain it.

By forest hill and jog

February 19, 2007 2:48 PM | Link to this

what did big rob do the other 9 times at that place?

is there a massage parlor or something?

forest hill and jog is a dangerous place in my opinion, and filled with decadence and filth.

By maxmoose03

February 19, 2007 3:36 PM | Link to this

Rich R. —- Please tell me you’re not serious. If you are, you need serious help. (As if that hasn’t been established already.)

By Smart Renter

February 19, 2007 4:00 PM | Link to this

So you feel that supermarket anchored plazas are recession proof?? Whered you get that notion? How many Winn DIxies shut down last year due to losses?

SUre, everyone needs to buy groceries, but that doesnt mean they will shop anywhere else.

Take me for instance. I’ve lived at City Place for 2 years now. I do shop at the Publix there several times a week. Beyond that though, I have barely spent a dime anywhere else at City Place. The exception being an occasional beer and burger at the Original Steak House, and only during NFL season to watch a Bears or Lions game thats not on regular cable. Besides that place, I havent spent a dime anywhere else. No, I dont buy $10. drinks at Blue Martini next door. I have no desire to tryt o impress anyone with buying $10 drinks.

By chow ping

February 19, 2007 4:48 PM | Link to this

smart renter? hee hee. no exist

no spend money in city place? where you buy your crack? waste 1200 month rent in city place. if you no buy crack can afford house.

stupid

By Signed's second cousin twice removed

February 19, 2007 7:39 PM | Link to this

[Setting: A Restaurant]

MAXMOOSE03: Maybe you should take a civil service test.

MIKE FINK: (Studying the salt shaker) I’m not taking a civil service test.

CW1900: Look at this, Mike. (Takes a coin out of his pocket) You ever seen a silver dollar?

MIKE FINK: Yes, I’ve seen a silver dollar.

MAXMOOSE03: Why don’t you want to take a civil service test?

MIKE FINK: To do what?! Work in a post office? Is that what you want me to do?

CW1900: Would you believe when I was 18, I had a silver dollar collection?

MAXMOOSE03: I don’t understand. You get job security - you get a pay check every week.

MIKE FINK: I’m a college graduate. You want me to be a mailman?

CW1900: (Still looking at his coin) You know, I couldn’t bring myself to spend one of these. I got some kind of a-a-a-a-a phobia.

MAXMOOSE03: So what are you gonna do?!

MIKE FINK: I don’t know. I do know that I have some kind of a talent - something to offer. I just don’t know what it is yet!

CW1900: I bet that collection would be worth a lot of money today. (does a form of magic trick making the coin disappear as he shows Mike Fink an empty hand)

MIKE FINK: (Looks fed up with cw1900 and Maxmoose03 and puts his face in his hands and cringes) Oh my God..

Signed,

Signed’s second cousin twice removed

By postman

February 20, 2007 9:21 AM | Link to this

The Condoflip.com website which was proudly declared that “Bubble Are for Bathtubs” is now longer operational. The site has been ‘retired.’ Instead there is now a website called Condo Super Center. They explain what happened:

How Did The Market Change in 2004 and Beyond? We saw a dramatic shift in how preconstruction condos were bought and sold. The condo boom was driven by overly-ambitious speculators, many of whom had been successful in flipping condos in the past. As condo inventories grew and prices rose many speculators realized that further purchasing was increasingly risky. So, buyers just stopped buying.

What Kinds of Results Did Condo Flip See? We saw thousands of sellers, and very few buyers. It didn't make sense for us to maintain a marketplace where there were few buyers

That is the supply of condos has now overwhelmed the demand. Much of the demand for condos in the Miami during the 2001 - 2005 period was speculators anyway. Despite, the meltdown in the Miami condo market. The site goes on and writes:

We have NOT seen prices drop, nor do we expect them to drop. The rapid appreciation, however, seems to have stabilized to about 5-7% per year.

No. Prices for individual condo units are down in the Miami area as speculators are trying to unload unwanted properties. Back on July 18th, 2006, I wondered how long this site would last “We will see how long this internet based condo flipping company lasts. This gives a whole new meaning to dot condo.”

By cw1900

February 20, 2007 11:37 AM | Link to this

What a deag blog. Absolutely nothing going on here.

Signed, ok, that was funny. You got me. I laughed. You hit it on the mark. Max, cmon, you gotta laugh at that one.

Postman is back. Easy is still not. Easy being Baker Acted?? Who knows.

We blog in very interesting times.

cw

By maxmoose03

February 20, 2007 12:07 PM | Link to this

CW - Sorry, “signed” never struck me as funny. Verbose without funny, like younger generation’s comics. All attitude, no wit. David Spade (?) for example.

How do you go from “What a dead blog” to “We blog in interesting times” in 5 seconds? Make up your mind, CW.

Psotman - Maybe your web site should have waited for a comeback in condos. FAR figures has median price for condos in Miami jumping 15% YOY in December, although still flat for entire 2005 vs 2006.

By cw1900

February 20, 2007 12:17 PM | Link to this

Max,

I meant that there are some faces we haven’t seen in a long time that are now back all of a sudden, and a couple others have disappeared. That’s all I was referring to as “interesting”.

You have to admit, even having said that, this blog is still dead at the present.

cw

By maxmoose03

February 20, 2007 12:28 PM | Link to this

CW - I think I know what you mean, I was noticing it seemed like people hadn’t gotten back from the weekend. I guess that makes this a good time….

Now, as a public service, Uncle Moose presents results on R/E related mutual funds.

1/1/07 - 2/16/07

FSHOX UP 6.11%

FRESX UP 12.10%

REPIX UP 14.78%

I hope you all were there, like I was, instead of here arguing with me, and telling me how real estate companies were suffering.

By South Jersey Boy

February 20, 2007 2:02 PM | Link to this

I have a chance to get a job here paying between $32k to $38k a year depending what computer job I get. Guess what. That is only enough to afford a mobile home. 25% of a $36k gross annual salary is $750 a month. No house, condo nor even rental apartment is affordable due to insane Florida house prices. You bet I wont be buying a house in FL unless prices come down big time. I wont hold my breath, if they dont drop enough I can get a nice house for $100-150k or a nice 2/2 condo for $50k in many cities in Texas.

By Trickle Down Economics

February 20, 2007 2:58 PM | Link to this

No price drop on luxury homes read on! Housing Market Heats Up Again in New York City The New York Times- February 19, 2007 Can PBC Florida be far behind for NY’ers cashing out! Read on:

“Since the new year began, a burst of activity has broken out in Manhattan and several Brooklyn neighborhoods as New Yorkers frenetically hunt for co-ops, condominiums and town houses, sending prices higher despite sluggish sales in many other cities. Preliminary indications from real estate firms showed that this increased activity, with open houses jammed and bidding wars taking place, has occurred in all price ranges — from tiny studios in the East Village to red-brick mansions on the Upper East Side — in counterpoint to the heavily weighted record sales of luxury properties that led the market in the late summer and fall. During the last quarter of 2006, the major real estate agencies differed on which way prices were headed.

But now, the three largest real estate companies in the city agree: for January, at least, both prices and the number of signed contracts rose in double-digit percentages compared with the same month in 2006. With higher Wall Street bonuses, a strong regional economy and pent-up demand from New Yorkers who were once worried that the city’s real estate market would crash, buyers’ attitudes have done an about-face.

“Their psychology has changed,” said Frederick W. Peters, the president of the Warburg Realty Partnership. “For almost two years, they’ve been scared that the market would plummet and they’d end up like fools who paid too much.”

Real estate experts say they see no reason for the trend to not continue, with economists predicting stable mortgage rates and a continuing city budget surplus. However, other factors may alter New Yorkers’ renewed interest in buying real estate, including an expansion of the Iraq war, a changing employment picture or another terrorist attack.

A week ago, one open house attracted 100 people to an Upper West Side one-bedroom; a $2.475 million house in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn sold in a day. Across the board, the prices of Manhattan apartments are rising. Jonathan Miller, the president of Miller Samuel, an appraisal firm, said the number of contracts signed this January was 19.4 percent higher than in January 2006. Prices were up 14.4 percent in the same time period. Inventory, which was mounting last summer, is shrinking fast.

Now, according to Mr. Miller, statistics showed that sales of studio and one-bedroom units, stagnant over the past year, were up 13.7 percent in January. “It’s not like a lot of huge sales at the high end skewed the average up.”

According to a report released last week by the National Association of Realtors, prices are falling in many other metropolitan areas around the country. The report covered only the last quarter of 2006, and showed a modest increase of 3.1 percent for the New York area, which includes parts of northern New Jersey. Anecdotally, there isn’t much talk of falling prices in Manhattan and in the most sought-after neighborhoods in Brooklyn, where young people looking for a break, empty nesters looking for a guest room and foreigners looking for a pied-à-terre say they want to live . Katalin Shavely, a 30-year-old bedding designer in Manhattan, devotes her weekends to scanning the classifieds and attending open houses, searching for just the right one-bedroom apartment for less than $750,000. She can’t find it. “I made a mistake,” she said last week. “I should have started looking before Thanksgiving.”

Mr. Miller said New Yorkers had been reluctant to buy because of the feeling of an impending crash. “Last summer, a lot of information was being dumped on the consumer: stories about the glut of condos in Miami, Washington, D.C., and Las Vegas, exacerbated by the constant debate on the blogosphere about housing bubbles, mixed together with a barrage of negative predictions,” he said in a telephone interview.

Although no one can pinpoint the moment when New Yorkers started feverishly buying again, Kirk Henckels, the director of the private brokerage division of Stribling & Associates, said he thought the luxury market picked up after Labor Day.

Within the last month, the Corcoran Group, Halstead and Prudential Douglas Elliman, three of New York City’s largest real estate sales firms, say they have recorded double-digit increases in contract prices and in the number of transactions.

In a real estate market where 18 and 22 percent price increases were recorded in 2004 and 2005, last year’s 6 percent increase was depressing, Mr. Miller said.

Pamela Liebman, the president of the Corcoran Group, reported that the company’s contracts for this January totaled $1.3 billion, an increase of 53 percent from January 2006.

Prices in many areas of Brooklyn are going up, too. According to Marc Garstein, the president of Warren Lewis Realty in Park Slope, prices in what he called the downtown neighborhoods — including Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Prospect Heights and Windsor Terrace — are now approaching 2004 highs, after being off about 10 percent in the last two years.

A town house at 171 Garfield Place in Park Slope, priced at $2,475,000, sold for the asking price one day after it was put on the market. Fifty people had shown up at the open house, Mr. Garstein said.

Customers said they had expected a buyer’s market in which they could call the shots, but found a race track, instead.

Jane LaFarge Hamill, a 25-year-old painter who lives in a “small, kind of stinky” studio in Chinatown, said she had looked at 60 apartments over three months, trying to take advantage of the lull she had noticed. “We decided to look while sellers were still worried that the market was crashing,” she said.

When she started looking last fall, there was still “wiggle room,” she said. But now, there is frenzy, said her mother, Leita Hamill, who, with her husband, Bill, is helping her daughter search for and buy a new home. The Hamills had gotten into a bidding war, one of many reported by brokers these days, for a two-bedroom co-op in Gramercy Park. They had started bidding above the asking price, but it wasn’t enough.

“There were people bidding on the apartment sight-unseen,” Mrs. Hamill said. The victors got the co-op through a sealed bid, she said. “It was like a pair of shoes that you absolutely had to have,” she said.

Real estate executives say they do not know how long the market’s heat will be turned up, although they say the regional economy looks strong.

They also say that the first two quarters of the year — the spring market — are traditionally stronger than the last two. Thus, the average for the whole of 2007 may or may not show the double-digit growth that the first part of the year is showing. “It’s all about price now,” Ms. Ramirez said. “The market is not in a spike mode, when anything, for any price, will sell.”

Ms. Ramirez, who has sold real estate for more than 30 years, said she expected that the current rocketing growth would be followed by a period of slower yet steady increases. “I don’t want to hear, ‘Oh my gosh, the market is slowing up again,’ ” she said. “With the number of deals we had last week, it has to calm down. But I feel much more confident than at any time in the last five years when the market had fits and starts and there was always a certain underlying nervousness.”

Toward the end of 2004, the real estate market in the city was booming. But then, brokers started seeing “great concern among clients that mortgage rates were about to jump and that house prices would suffer a sharp correction,” Mr. Miller said.

Since then, there has been change of leadership in Congress, Mr. Miller noted. In the region, unemployment has dropped. Mortgage rates didn’t soar. “Two years ago, we were predicting they’d be up to 8 percent now,” he said. (Rates for a 30-year fixed loan on a New York City co-op hover around 6.25 percent, according to the Manhattan Mortgage Company.)

After months of trying to push shoppers over the edge of indecision, brokers now say they spend time warning house hunters not to rush in heedlessly — advice the would-be buyers don’t always listen to.

“When my wife and I got into the market in mid-December, people told me there was a glut of one-bedroom apartments and I could take my time,” said Shelly Cohen, 51, an empty-nester. “When we actually got into the market, I found it was just the opposite.” He just found a newly created condominium in a beige brick high-rise at 1438 Third Avenue at 81st Street and quickly signed the contract. He said he felt he had to.

Mrs. Hamill, the mother of the young artist in Chinatown, offers her own advice to friends.

“Now I tell everybody: Be ready to write the check the minute you see something you love,” she said. “If it’s any good, it’ll be gone by the next day.” She paused. “Or, even by that same day.”

By maxmoose03

February 20, 2007 3:39 PM | Link to this

South Jersey Boy —

Take it from someone who really, really, REALLY knows what he’s talking about.

If you are a bright kid — and I have no way of knowing that - get the f—- out of IT as soon as you can.

32K to 38K a year? Is that a salary for an adult professional in this day and age? South Florida, in particular, has exceptionally stupid and incompetent IT management. You will spend your whole life working for idiots in places like Office Depot, and getting paid a pittance.

If you have the skills du jour, like Java, head up to Wall Street and get a contract making $80, $100, $120 an hour until those skills go stale. Put a few dollars in the bank, then get the hell out. If you can’t make a bridge into management by then, get into Law School, Med School, something where you will be compensated for your intelligent. Maybe do a 5 year pharmacy progam and start at 150K a year.

They say a mind is a terrible thing to waste, and there is no place you are more sure to waste yours, than working as an IT person, under a bunch of mentally retarded managers in South Florida.

By Rich R

February 20, 2007 4:47 PM | Link to this

Max, I am still waiting for you to cite some lies.

You can’t find any, I know that.

If you can, post them.

I am waiting you loser realtor scum.

You ride this blog looking for your next victim, you call me a liar.

Just way too funny.

Please, please post my lies.

I’ll sit here and wait.

By Rich R

February 20, 2007 4:51 PM | Link to this

Now we have a Realtor giving HR advise.

Because he REALLY knows what he’s talking about.

This is just too much to handle. I’m falling off the chair in laughter.

Where do PharmD’s make $150k to start. Certainly not SoFla.

Once again Max, you are talking out of the wrong opening.

Hilarious

By maxmoose03

February 20, 2007 5:41 PM | Link to this

Rich R. -

I posted a couple of your lies. You are too stupid to find them where you posed the question.

Rich, you are not the most sadistic, you are not the most psychotic, but God love you, you are without question the stupidest person any one in this “era” has ever seen on these blogs.

While you are here, I suggest you scroll up, where you made a fool of yourself not being able to tell that I was joking with BIG ROB. Are you capable of effecting the operation of scrolling up, Rich? I doubt it.

I know you are too stupid to realize how stupid you are, Rich, but you have to be the village idiot even in North Carolina.

By SINGH

February 20, 2007 6:22 PM | Link to this

Here is a job I was look at. I am would be required to work 55 hours per week, and with shift deifferential this is to over 150 dollars a year to start. The truth is, I make over 100 dollars a year driving cab tax free in New York City but medallian cost almost 1 millions dollars per car.

http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobDetails.aspx?IPath=OCCG&job_did=J8B2XC66P94SPS31M1R&cbRecursionCnt=1&cbsid=5b45436f1cd6488ea753401c6f6ca5ac-225310274-VH-4

By maxmoose03

February 20, 2007 7:45 PM | Link to this

Mr. Singh - Hopefully you “Singh” better than you write.

Just kidding. Allow me some observations:

That medallion is an investment, a business which would earn you money 24 hours a day, even if someone else is driving your hack. In fact, I’m surprised you can get one for under a million dollars, but maybe you are implying you have a connection of some sort, a friend leaving the business or whatever.

You would probably work fewer hours as a pharmacist, even including the overtime, plus have benefits, and 150K a year isn’t so bad. I assume this is already decided, however; if you already did 5 years of schooling, there’s probably no turning back.

I should probably stop talking about earnings in the employment marketplace, since a tiny consciousness like Rich R’s is likely to explode if he finds out how much people are earning outside the backwater hamlet of North Carolina. Rich had an orgasm all over these logs a week or two back because he made less than 200K profit selling land to some schmuck in North Carolina.

Just imagine if he found out my neighbors, mostly doctors and lawyers, all make over a million a year with no exceptions.

Look at how he reacts to finding out what a pharmacist earns.

Enough of this, though, we don’t want to sink to his serpentine level. We will continue to appreciate the goodness in people, while Rich R. will continue to hope they don’t make more money than him.

By ncsux

February 20, 2007 7:56 PM | Link to this

IF YOU need any proof NC sucks, look at Rich the Hick’s posts.

North Carolina is the shithole of the nation, and Rich. R is the s**t.

By BLOGS ARE BORING

February 20, 2007 9:07 PM | Link to this

Yep, these blogs are boring and we all know why. Easy has not around. He likes to enjoy life so I bet he is in New Orleans for Mardi Gras or on some island enjoying himself.

Maxmoose, of course lawyers are making over 1 million a year. They are billing at $400 an hour plus the %’s when the settle cases.

Maxmoose, you give bad advice to South Jersey Boy who really writes like Carolina Girl.

Jersey Boy, tell me your skill set. I will tell you how much you can make and where to find job.

Maxmoose, IT headhunters make even more than realtors. They too work for %’s on annual salaries. This IT headhunter can give you a whole fistload of job orders that pay over 90K in South Florida. If I place 4 people this year at 90K or more, my earnings are $140K.

Looks like the lawyers are going to make even mone money with the overload in foreclosures and mortgage fraud. Here is the link for anyone interested. Guess there is alot of mortgage fraud and identity theft here in South Florida due to the realtors, title companies, and the mortgage brokers. You guys and gals are making alot of lawyers rich in South Florida.

http://www.dailybusinessreview.com/news.html?news_id=42105

By maxmoose03

February 20, 2007 10:33 PM | Link to this

“BLGOS ARE BORING”:

Thanks for the laugh. You are one of the simpletons who can’t understand that I do not work as a realtor in any sense. But enough of that. You have s**t for a brain and you won’t understand if I explain 1000 times. As Mlle Chow would say, stupid stupid stupid.

Since you are apparently a money devotee, I am sorry your earnings are so low. $140K a year certainly is an embarassment in Boca Raton. I would recommend you go to law school to, but you would never survive the first term. If you were perceptive enough you might have asked how I know so much about questions on the LSAT, but you let the moment pass.

I gave Jersey Boy good advice, not only because a bright young guy can make a hell of lot more money than you, but mostly because of the scum he would have to deal with, and the worst scum, the biggest liars, the human dregs who would sell their souls and their mothers in the same deal —are recruiters.

Your view of the world is so simple you sound like one of these high school children who write here because they haven’t discovered sex yet. Are you playing with yourself while you write this blog? What time is homo room in the morning?

Worst of all — YOU are the boring part of this blog, and a waste of my time.

SO take another dab of clearasil, or call up a candidate who thinks (correctly) that you are poison in his career and life.

By maxmoose03

February 20, 2007 10:41 PM | Link to this

Say BLOGS — see my entry on R/E mutual funds above.

How does it feel to know I make more per year just investing in the stock market, than you do manipulating and lying to people for a year?

Do you get a rush out of lying to IT kids who are ten times as smart as you? Is that how you rationalize your lack of ability?

You are a pathetic waste of protoplasm.

By Lukather

February 20, 2007 11:44 PM | Link to this

It’s been six months She hasn’t shut up once I’ve tried to explain She’s driving me insane

She won’t even miss me when she’s gone And that’s okay with me I’ll cry later on

Talk to ya later—don’t want to hear it again tonight Talk to ya later—just save it for another guy Talk to ya later—don’t want to hear it again tonight I’ll just see you around

Get out I’m telling you now Do you catch my drift What could be plainer than this

Nothin’ more to be said Write me a letter instead I don’t mean to be cruel But I’m finished with you

By maxmoose03

February 20, 2007 11:48 PM | Link to this

Jersey: I may have to write as “easyasabc” next time, so let me offer a few parting words.

Stay away from scum like the recruiter above. Whether he is a recruiter or a high-school imitation of a recruiter, the mentality is the same. He already sees dollar signs looking at your post.

In South Florida, you should stay away from the whole business.

It was probably a recruiter who told you that you could find an apartment for $750 a month. If you find an apartment for $750, it is either in a bad area, or in a complex that has a halfway house operating within it. You will probably pay at least $1,000 a month for a decent apartment. This will represent about 1/3 or more of your earnings after-tax if you get one of the higher-end jobs.

You will never deal with smart people down here, you will never learn anything down here, you’ll never make any money down here.

In 10 years you will be like Mike Fink on these blogs, crowing about his “IT” job and forever explaining why he can not take a chance on buying a house.

You will forever be competing with foreign immigrants in your country, for low-paid jobs, and God forbid you have an unpopular opinion, either technically or politically — and EVERYTHING is political in a hell-hole like Office Depot or FPL.

Go North, young man.

By maxmoose03

February 20, 2007 11:58 PM | Link to this

Go North, and get your butt into school for a real professional field.

By South Jersey Boy

February 21, 2007 8:59 AM | Link to this

I love how you all tell me to go North and find a job or go to school. I am 34 years old. I am not going back to school and I am up North now. See my name? “South Jersey Boy” Ok.. Maybe I’ll just go to North Carolina like everyone else. If people in South Florida act like the people that post in the blog maybe it’s better that I don’t move down.

Thanks for making up my mind for me.

By TANC

February 21, 2007 9:44 AM | Link to this

Trickle down…for what it’s worth I really don’t care about what’s happening to real estate in New York City and I don’t think it has much effect on PBC for now. Maybe a few years from now, but not now…

I got tired trying to read that article….

And for South Jersey Boy….my suggestion…come to SFL and marry rich….if you can’t do that…take max’s advice.

By Rich R

February 21, 2007 12:28 PM | Link to this

Why does anyone care what Maxmoose says?

He is a struggling Realtor sniffing for leads.

You still have not posted the lies that you put on me.

Either post them, or retract what you said.

You are a loser with no leads and have to sit on this blog all day sniffing out your next victim.

Go away you little man.

By maxmoose03

February 21, 2007 3:59 PM | Link to this

Rich, your lies were again posted, but since you are so stupid, so incredibly brainless you can not figure out where you asked me for them, here are just a couple.

1) You claim to be in North Carolina, yet you slipped and mentioned you were watching FOX 29 that night. There is no way to do that in North Carolina. I think Easy caught you on that one.

2) I have your blog from October claiming you paid 300K for your house in North Carolina. I also have your blog from just the other day claiming you paid 149K. Which is it, Rich?

You are nothing but a low-level scumbag promoter, trying to find suckers to buy your lots in that hellhole of a state.

You are a liar, a lowlife, a scumbag and an example of the worst the South can produce.

You are supposedly the one who has gone away, so stay away. You can’t do that, can? You need the free advertising on this blog, and are too wretchedly cheap to pay for legitimate advertising.

You could’t show your “face” here for a week when this blog became an anthology of true, hilarious stories mocking you and North Carolina. You are inviting that once again.

The guy had it right who said NC is the shithole of the nation, and Rich R. is the s**t.