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May 5, 2006

Gloom And Doom for RE Outside of NYC

Fortune Magazine is ratcheting up the real estate bubble rhetoric with several stories on the topic:

We're not forecasting a nationwide housing collapse. For one thing, the vast expanse of America between the coasts was never touched by real estate mania and is in no danger of a meltdown. And even some overheated markets - including Manhattan, Los Angeles and California's Orange County - are still simmering. But things are suddenly looking very chilly indeed in four coastal cities - Boston, Washington, Miami and San Diego - as well as three Western boomtowns: Phoenix, Las Vegas and Sacramento. So far this year, monthly sales have fallen 11 percent to 25 percent in Miami, Boston, northern Virginia and San Diego, according to local housing experts.

This is an interesting back drop for the anecdotal evidence we've been hearing that things in Brooklyn have been picking up a bit in recent weeks. Maybe it's just a seasonal pick-up.
Welcome to the Dead Zone [Fortune]

Comments

A few of my friends who are looking for houses in the burbs are all saying that there is inventory galore.

Posted by: JoshK at May 5, 2006 9:13 AM

Prepare for the broker counter-attack to begin!

Reasons why NYC is different from the real estate bubble elsewhere in the country

1. Its an island, duh!

2. Hey, there not making any more land.

3. Bonuses, bonuses, bonuses.

Prices are so out of whack with people's income, some semblance of rationality is very much welcome. The bubble in real estate is due to the Fed machinations after the Internet Bubble burst and is tied to US currency overvaluation. The Piper must be paid, lets hope its an easy slide.

Throw in the rise of Petro Euros and things could get interesting, we better seize those oil fields in Iran before its too late.

Posted by: GrandPa at May 5, 2006 9:24 AM

There has been a big slowdown in the burbs since last fall.

Meanwhile, if Brooklyn seems to be acting independently, that's because there's major gentrification going on. Brooklyn is becoming more valuable than it used to be with respect to Manhattan. I predict a bursting bubble won't burst as much here.

Posted by: Ed at May 5, 2006 9:31 AM

What about the anecdotal evidence pointing to a slow down in our area. Yesterday you highlighted a property that was on the market for 5 months and ended up going 50K under ask. Thats not very encouraging for prospective sellers. I was walking down Clermont Ave a few days ago. There are currently 5 properties within a one block radius of PS 20 that have been sitting since the beginning of the year. Last spring these properties would have gone to contract within days.

When does anecdotal evidenece actually become hard cold facts?

Posted by: ItsAWrap at May 5, 2006 9:51 AM

It seems to be area by area and softening only on the higher end stuff in less easily accessible areas. For example, the higher end inventory in PLG and Ditmas/Midwood is staying on the market with stubborn buyers or brokers not willing to face reality and lower prices. But a great brownstone like 15 Lefferts gets snapped up in a week. Agree with Ed that the ever-rising value of living in Brooklyn coupled with great housing stock will affect Brooklyn less than other areas. Seems to be split between a buyers and sellers market right now.

Posted by: west at May 5, 2006 10:03 AM

Oh puhleeez, do not lump Ditmas Park into the same category as PLG. Get real.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 10:10 AM

I think there is softening in Brooklyn, esp areas that had a terrificly high run-up in recent years (ft greene, clinton hill, park slope south). Of course, it hardly matters unless you bought 6 months ago.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 10:11 AM

Check out the Clinton Ave house in today's "Recently Sold..." post that went in 2 weeks for over ask--granted that was a few months ago though and a unique property.

Posted by: Brownstoner at May 5, 2006 10:12 AM

I agree that gentrification will be a mitigating factor but I think Brooklyn will still take a decent hit.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 10:12 AM

Echoing Ed and JoshK. My Westchester sources (who happen to be brokers) are citing high inventory and unrealistic pricing by Sellers as the cause for longer lenght of stay on the shelves. Starter homes in the $400 to $600 range (viz: Mt Vernon and other non-marquee areas) are being snapped up. [My broker friends are also complaining about all the new brokers entering into the markets ;-)]

Sales in Brooklyn are happening if the pricing is on target [realistic] and the quality is there. When the market gets tight, people revert to fundamentals:

1. Move-in condition.
2. Location (proximity to public transport, amenites, schools, [downtown NYC for the hipsters], parks, etc.)
3. Who the neighbors are or what the neighborhood story is.

Posted by: crouchback at May 5, 2006 10:15 AM

i see brooklyn freezing for a while but there is so much going on all over brooklyn that in 5-10 years everyone will then be choosing brooklyn straight away vs. the old days of being priced out of manhattan and then brooklyn as the back up for most. brooklyn is set for a major renaissance not all good but many thing that will bring brooklyn and all it's areas into it's own identity as a city.

Posted by: luxeterna70 at May 5, 2006 10:17 AM

The issue in housing costs isnt whether Brooklyn is a great place to live or whether it continues to gentrify - it is simply a matter of expectations:

if buyers think that the price may be less tomorrow, they'll hesitate or wait, if owners think prices may be less tomorrow they'll list faster and be more flexible on $.

Brooklyn can not and will not exisit on its own - if the rest of the country, region and city are falling, then the same expectations will effect Brooklyn owners and buyers and the prices will fall.

Posted by: David at May 5, 2006 10:33 AM

ItsAWrap 09:51 AM

If inventory is staying on the market due to the softening and perception of over-pricing, never quite understood why - if someone thinks a house is overpriced , but is interested in the property - they don't make an offer they think is realistic - vs. waiting for the price to be lowered. If we think that sellers are pricing too high in some areas, we can bring it to a realistic level ourselves.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 10:39 AM

Brownstoner, the Clinton Ave house was on the market for 2 weeks. Considering it went on the market in late September, it must have gone into contract by mid October. The market was different then IMO.

These things that run in the paper are always months and months behind...

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 10:41 AM

Brokers eagerly told me a few weeks ago (as I was looking at expensive houses) the news that the fed had topped out on interest rates. They know that interest rates control affordability and affordability determines sale price.

Unfortunately this news was not news, just someone misinterpreting the body-language of the new fed chief and now he has all but said to expect more increases. (also the 30 year rate can still rise even while short term rates are stationary or fall).

I don't think brokers will correct their story, however. Brooklyn is not immune to affordability calculations.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 11:12 AM

I think most sellers fail to realize the effect interest rates play on the price of a property. The run-up in prices was largely fueled by low interest rates and the corresponding low monthly payment. The biggest reason why inventory is sitting around now is rising INTEREST RATES. Mortgage rates are a full percentage point higher than they were last year. So despite flat prices and an abundance of properties to choose from, buyers still find themselves shut out of the market.

Unless rates come down soon, the buyers strike will continue. Soon sellers will have no choice but to accept reasonable offers or start reducing prices.

Posted by: ItsAWrap at May 5, 2006 11:15 AM

If I want to buy a house in Brooklyn, and I find a house in Bed-Stuy, and I Buy that house? Does that mean the Bubble has burst? The only thing that's going to happen is the person I buy that house from, isn't going to be able to the amount of consumer surplus that he may have gotten a year prior. So ok... you can say good-by to 25%-30% prop. Value increases year over year for a while. But a house that is currently valued at $650,000 isn't going to all of a sudden be sold for $500. When the bubble burst in the dot.com era... Yahoo at one point in March of '00 traded at $200. Then fell to $15 in May of 2002. That's a bubble bursting! 93% loss of value. Find me a home in half decent shape that's going to drop 50% in value let alone 93%.
We had record numbers with respect to home value appreciation in the last few years. A slow down does not equal a Bubble bursting!!

Posted by: NewStoner at May 5, 2006 11:35 AM

In some fringe areas I could easily see a house that went for 650 drop to 500. What areas are considered fringe is another discussion.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 11:42 AM

"But a house that is currently valued at $650,000 isn't going to all of a sudden be sold for $500. When the bubble burst in the dot.com era... Yahoo at one point in March of '00 traded at $200. Then fell to $15 in May of 2002. That's a bubble bursting! 93% loss of value. Find me a home in half decent shape that's going to drop 50% in value let alone 93%."

You are forgetting one thing: someone paid for that yahoo stock with all cash! Someone pays for the house you are selling with 20% cash, but the rest is loaned them by a bank.

If the house drops 10% in value, and the cost of selling it is 6% (and the cost of buying was 4%), this buyer has lost 100%! They wiped out their ENTIRE savings in one season, savings they may have taken 10 years to accumulate. They are then in worse shape than the yahoo stock holder was after the dotcom crash! THAT is a burst bubble.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 12:14 PM

anon 12:03... go ahead, laugh yourself hoarse.

First, nobody with any sense is planning on selling or mortgaging their house to send junior to Harvard. Second, if my house's value drops in half tomorrow, I've still got a few hundred thou equity on an initial investment of less than 20K 8 years ago. Third, since I'm not going anywhere, decades from now when I kick and the market has gone through several up and down cycles, Junior's getting an inheritance that your bitter sitting-on-the-sidelines ass can only dream of.

I'm laughing too, all the way to the bank.

Posted by: Mr. Smug at May 5, 2006 12:31 PM

Junior got into Harvard? Great news! And to think, he got rejected by Huggs lo those many years ago.

Posted by: west at May 5, 2006 12:41 PM

There are plenty of folks who mortgage the house to send their kid to a good school.

Posted by: anon at May 5, 2006 12:54 PM

Well said, Mr. Smug. The depth of the jealousy that people show towards their successful peers never ceases to amaze me. Their motto seems to be "If I can't get it, then the next best thing is to wish the worst on someone who has".

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 1:02 PM

So true, so true 1:02pm. Sometimes I think we ought to sterilize the poor, but then I remember: If they stop having kids, then who's gonna wait on OUR kids when they get older!! So, I guess we can't sterilize them, but maybe we should kill them when they go over the age of, oh 40 or so.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 1:10 PM

Amen to Mr. Smug!

Over the past 10 yrs, I have leveraged an initial $23K down payment into over $1MM in equity. If I lost 50% of my home's current value, I'd still be laughing all the way to bank. And in 20 years after another couple of cycles, my heirs will seriously be laughing their way to bank.

Posted by: Mr. Even Smugger at May 5, 2006 1:17 PM

Its rather obvious to everyone that if you bought more than 8 years ago your fine so quit you're crowing...its those who bought recently who will take the hit.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 1:20 PM

12:14, how common was it for people to own $500k of YHOO. Actually most people who bought YHOO did so in margin accounts. People bought excessive amounts of stocks, using the excess equity in their margin accounts. What could be better than buying something without having to put any extra $$ in. Oh those were the days. Then prices started falling, the excess equity quickly evaporated. Equity surpluses turned to equity deficits. The biggest reason for the rapid meltdown was margin calls and the relentless forced margin liquidations.

Fortunately for homeowners, they wont get margin calls if prices start falling. How much prices fall will depend on how committed people are to their underwater mortgages and their willingness to stick it out for the long haul.

Posted by: ItsAWrap at May 5, 2006 1:26 PM

The level of courtesy and intellect on this thread is truly surprising

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 1:27 PM

12:03, you can work from sun up until sundown your entire life, and you'll never amass half as much wealth as I inherited from my father.

Take that and suck on it.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 1:29 PM

This conversation is why HedgeStreet started their binary options on NYC housing prices.

Posted by: anon at May 5, 2006 1:33 PM

"Its rather obvious to everyone that if you bought more than 8 years ago your fine so quit you're crowing.."

CAW! CAW! CAWWWW!

Posted by: Mr. Smug at May 5, 2006 1:36 PM

Coming at you from Florida things are getting bad down in Miami it looks like there is not an investor left in the whole city. values will start to drop big time down here in the next 2 years. The amount of listings is thru the roof and real estate agents here and around the country need to start looking for new jobs. The low wage imigrant workers are in big trouble to.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 2:27 PM

The upstairs bathroom in my brownstone is worth more than your life savings, and that will never change because Brooklyn is infallible.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 2:27 PM

Brownstoner just seems to get classier and classier every day. It's almost as though someone opened a 'virtual trailer park' right next to www.brownstoner.com.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 2:53 PM

this thread is funny. I particularly liked the idiots at 1:29, 1:22, 1:10, 12:31 and 12:03 - each of you is a real "mentsch." Where would the world be without you?

Posted by: anon at May 5, 2006 2:54 PM

wft: Homeowners are going to get margin calls in 3-5 years when their ARMs start floating and they can't refinance or sell. The same goes for interest-only loans in 10 years.

In the stock bubble, the biggest losers were those with fat 401ks and money to play the market. The people who will lose in the housing crash are largely middle and working class first-time buyers who are taking extremely risky loans that didn't exist 10 years ago.

You can also throw divorce into the mix. A large portion of the couples buying right now are likely to split. Imagine going through a divorce when your biggest asset can't be sold because it's really a liability, but neither party can hold down the mortgage alone.

Since many buyers are putting under 20% down and paying next to nothing into their principal, they're essentially renting from the lender. So, if we see the market drop and a lot of defaults, major lenders are going to be stuck with a lot of property they can't move without a substantial loss. The buyers will end up losing their downpayment and their credit rating will be ruined. The lenders will probably get bailed out by taxpayers, depending on how much the government props up Fannnie Mae.

It's going to get ugly out there.

Posted by: figa at May 5, 2006 2:55 PM

Does anyone know the % of recent (last 5 yrs.) Brooklyn brownstone purchases/refi's were with exotic loans?

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 3:06 PM

The prices may slow down but they ain't going back down, especially for choice properties. In the 15 years since I bought my brownstone I have seen the birth of BAM, Prospect Park blossom, The Brooklyn Museum renovation, Public Schools with waiting lists to get in. World class restuarants who deliver to your door. My house could loose $1.3 million in todays market and I would still be ahead.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 3:11 PM

03:11 PM,

Good. You bought at the bottom of the last cycle. Was your purchase price higher than it was a few years before that? I doubt it. What about those who bought at the top of this cycle?

Everyone,

Where are the numbers that show Brooklyn is different?

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 3:23 PM

"03:11 PM,

Good. You bought at the bottom of the last cycle. Was your purchase price higher than it was a few years before that? I doubt it. What about those who bought at the top of this cycle?..."

What about the people who bought at the top of the cycle before 3:11 PM? By the time he bought, they were in the hole. And now? Those who didn't have to sell in the meantime -- the great majority -- are richer than Croesus, and you can bet they don't care about not having waited years so they could buy when 3:11 did.

You're totally right that prices can go down, but for anyone who's not stretching themselves foolishly it should not matter. People need to stop thinking of personal real estate like the stock market.

Posted by: Mr. Smug at May 5, 2006 3:35 PM

Yeah, right Mr. Smug. Seems like that's what everyone says...right before they lose big time.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 3:43 PM

You know, 12:03's comment was pretty obnoxious, but some people's responses are truly disgusting.

Posted by: Yente at May 5, 2006 3:48 PM

As usual in these debates it's rare to hear from a non-owner who thinks the market will continue to go up (or even rise more slowly) while owners seem intent on assuring one another that everything's going to be OK.

Vested interests passing themselves off as informed opinions!

Posted by: TW at May 5, 2006 3:48 PM

Smug,

Got data? How can you infer that you're right about the majority?

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 3:52 PM

I will gladly confess I have no data. But I was around for the slump and ever since, and I'm just making an educated guess that if *the majority of homeowners* at the time were forced to sell at a loss, I would have met, oh, like one at least. I haven't; don't even know anecdotally. (I did have a landlord who sublet to me because his mortgage was underwater; later, after I bought elsewhere, he sold at a profit.) What I do know are people who sold willingly and traded up to bigger homes at the time, and baby boomers who just stayed living where they were and now live in $2M houses on middle-class salaries, their mortgages paid and then some by tenants. They say the average person moves once every 7 years, but that includes all the people who are moving willingly and could choose not to if it mean taking a loss.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I never met any of the unlucky people because they left the NYC area to live as hoboes or to swell the enormous shantytowns of dispossessed homeowners that sprang up all along the east coast from 1989 to 1995, where people in rags fed their children boiled shoes from tincans. If so, you're welcome to prrove me wrong.

Seriously, though, I actually believe prices will drop in NYC again, how much I don't know. And some people will be hurt IF they have to move for jobs and IF they just bought recently. But that's a slice of a slice -- some people will also get cancer or get hit by trucks. Otherwise, nobody who has any business buying -- who can afford their home and is not taking one of those BS loans or using their house as an ATM -- has much to worry about in the long run, which is the only run that matters. The stupid people will get what they deserve, but this idea of the mass ruin of homebuyers just seems like an overblown, and kind of sad, fantasy.

Posted by: Mr. Smug at May 5, 2006 4:09 PM

Can you folks that keep insisting that real estate prices run in cycles cite another down period besides late 80-early 90's that NYC metro prices declined? Or does that one downperiod predetermine the future of prices from now on?
Using term bubble is misleading. About only way your home here could suddenly/ever become almost worthless is something like Chernobyl. Comparing to dot-com bust is nonsense - people were buying something with no real underlying value - essentially gambling.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 4:11 PM

Yente, in my opinion, the constant bickering between the PLG people and their critics has lowered the level of dialogue on this blog considerably. You aren't the only one who has noticed the change.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 4:43 PM

I have been hearing so much about this housing boom bubble and how it will burst. I will tell you one thing that I have sure noticed. A lot of people are getting thier real estate licenses. Our website The Real Estate License Professor helps future realtors realize thier career goals and I tell you we have helped a lot of these people lately. I am not sure if this will affect supply or demand having so many "middle men" selling but it sure is a sign that real estate is hot. I hope it stays that way.

Posted by: Tom at May 5, 2006 8:30 PM

The rest of the country, for instance Franklin, Wisconsin a suburb of Milwaukee has a great supply of new housing in price ranges from $220,00 to more than a million dollars. Lots of open land still be developed. My parents home, a 45 year old 3 br ranch is worth about $190,00. The house has increased in value at a steady rate over that time. There has never been a bubble to burst. In recent years their home has even become more desirable as young couples with kids are moving into the hood as it is truly affordable. By the way, it is astounding to see what a million dollars can get you in the midwest. Tear downs in the south slope of Brooklyn for $700,000?

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 9:57 PM

"A lot of people are getting thier real estate licenses."

This just shows that there's an oversaturation of real estate agents b/c it's an easy job to get into and they all think it's a get rich quick scheme. When the average joe catches onto a money making scheme, that's when the scheme is no longer a good one. The more agents there are, the worse they will do - according to everything I've read, boom years are actually pretty bad for a majority of people getting into something like real estate, b/c there are just too many agents to go around. Now there are lots of homes, but fewer sales - the agents that are new will likely drop out of real estate entirely.

By the way, I can't see how the number of agents will have anything to do with the number of homes for sale.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 5, 2006 10:39 PM

12:03 is a black blogger who lives near PLG and does not want the neighborhood to gentrify by whites, so he routinely posts outrageous comments to elicit emotional responses. Most of the PLG community already recognizes this ploy and stays out of the fray.

But now, this anonymous blogger has decided to cast a wider web than PLG - lambasting the Brooklyn's entire landowning gentry.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 6, 2006 3:51 PM

If a Broker or Firm asked specifically that you not include them on your Blog, would you be legally obliged to honor their request?

Posted by: Ed at May 6, 2006 3:55 PM

We banned 12:03's IP address. Another (or the same) jerk arguing both sides of the coin under different names trying to stir things up.

Posted by: Brownstoner at May 6, 2006 4:50 PM

As for a firm not wanting to be mentioned on the blog, they couldn't ask (well, they could ask), but there's no basis for having to comply.

Posted by: Brownstoner at May 6, 2006 4:51 PM

Frankly, I don't trust most people in their ability to assess professionals. I find people typically do not have the necessary knowledge and analytical abilities to comment intelligently on whether the broker did their job well. Too many people will get general, positive reviews which are fundamentally meaningless, and there will be a good number of bitchy complaints written by princess who have distorted senses of entitlement. In my experience, that's what you get in these kinds of things.

Posted by: Ed at May 6, 2006 5:09 PM

Brownstoner, how do you know that was one poster? I assume you\'re not making this judgment on the basis of IP addresses, correct? If so, then what tells you that there was only a single poster?

Posted by: Katya at May 6, 2006 10:11 PM

Er, wouldn't identical IP addresses be a pretty good indication that posts were coming from thesame person(or at least the same computer?

Posted by: Bob Marvin at May 6, 2006 11:11 PM

Not really. An IP address is easily spoofed. You will never get anywhere fighting these trolls by simply banning IP addresses. Ban one address and in five seconds they will have a different one.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 6, 2006 11:22 PM

It can be but there are ways to trace back.Spoofing, unless you're a real computer geek, is usually done in emails. Not to mention it's pretty obvious who constantly tries to start trouble with incendiary comments. His name may change, his writing style can change but his personality can't. And yes- he seems to get a new address every five minutes- but Mr. B can still see when a group of posts within a certain time frame come from the same ISP.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 7, 2006 1:53 AM

I know the poster's IP address is visible. Even so, if he's able to vary it more or less at will, then knowing what IP address he's posting under during any given period doesn't seem that important. Yes, there are stylistic things and personality traits that will show through in his posts and these are traceable to a degree. My point was just that you can't reasonably think of his IP address as a proverbial smoking gun when he's able to change IP addresses at will.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 7, 2006 9:06 AM

The thing with the slash marks is weird. I have had it happen to me and I have seen it in posts made by others as well. I can only guess that it has something to do with fonts or keyboard mapping?

Posted by: Anonymous at May 7, 2006 10:32 AM

Ah. Glad to see the debate turned civil again.

Thoughts on the above:
1) Brooklyn is not different from the rest of the country. If anything, it's worse. Browsing through the Times today I realized that at the prices we're looking at for a place in the Slope, we can actually look at some places of similar size and better quality in Midtown/UWS Manhattan. Granted, they'd be a unit in a complex instead of a condo or coop in a brownstone, but still, THAT'S screwed up.

2) Not sure why everyone thinks a 10-15% drop in prices is going to kill sellers. We looked at one place that their asking is about 65% over what we know they paid 2 years ago. By my math, 90% of 165% is still about 140%, or a 40% return over two years. How that's going to impoverish somebody, unless you borrowed out on that value and have been living off of it, is beyond me.

3) Word on the interest rates. Realistically, what a buyer cares about is the monthly payments. If rates go up, the purchase price that you can pay goes down. Incidentally, this is what helped cause the housing bubble in the first place. Low rates led to people being able to afford more house causing bidding wars, and well, X years later....

Posted by: Anonymous at May 7, 2006 11:33 PM

Edit: Easier to do math than at 11.30pm.

90% of 165% would be about a 150% valuation, or 25% annual return. However, that's also the return on the value of the entire home and is assuming you paid cash. If you did a 25% down mortgage, that's actually a 100% annual return on your investment.

And THAT would turn sellers into paupers?

Posted by: Anonymous at May 8, 2006 8:31 AM

Anon @4:11 housing fell in the mid 70's as well as the early 80's to name some of the more recent slumps.

Posted by: David at May 8, 2006 10:23 AM

Here's a funny snippet from an article in the WashingtonPost profiling some people who were entering the market and some who were leaving.... it's talking about the D.C. market, but applicable here, as well.
----------------------------------
Sweeney, 35, said he realized at the height of the market frenzy last summer that the numbers were no longer adding up for him.

When he decided to buy his two-bedroom, two-bath condo in Falls Church in 2002, Sweeney estimated that he could, if he wanted, rent it out for about $1,200 a month, or about 1 percent of the $125,000 purchase price. That was reasonable, Sweeney thought, an indication of a market in the balance. But home prices kept going up. And up.

"The discrepancy between ownership and rent just went bonkers," he said. "I realized I could move out and take the cash and invest it, and defray the cost of living somewhere else."

So in June, Sweeney cashed in. He sold his place in three days, for $280,000. "I just said: 'This is weird. Things just don't go up 100 percent,' " he recalled. "Weird things make me scared. I ran away."

Posted by: Anonymous at May 8, 2006 1:17 PM

"The discrepancy between ownership and rent just went bonkers," he said. "I realized I could move out and take the cash and invest it, and defray the cost of living somewhere else."

Posted by: Anonymous at May 8, 2006 1:18 PM

« Friday Links Signage for the Ages from Forgotten NY »

May 5, 2006

Gloom And Doom for RE Outside of NYC

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