Real Estate Riddle

[Kenneth Warren]

Real Estate Riddle



JR Ball, Executive Editor for the Greater Baton Rouge Business Report ponders the real estate riddle his region and the loss of quality jobs. Ball's Southern perspective bears on the sprawl dynamics in this region. He provides useful, pragmatic context for thinking broadly about Lakewood's assets and strategies to differentiate from the riskier gamits of dominant economy engines.



Ball writes:



"Where's the money coming from to purchase all these $250,000-plus condos and townhomes, not to mention the $350,000-and-up McMansions? Last time I checked, job and wage growth were hardly on the rise, despite the fact Jim Bernhard is minting so many new millionaires.



Seems to me the only new jobs are coming from Wal-Marts, Cabela's and Bass Pro. There's also the gig as iHOP's dancing pancake on College Drive. But do those jobs pay enough to afford a four-bedroom on the ninth fairway at University Club?



I'm guessing the answer to our real estate riddle rests with area bankers desperate to boost revenues. And in today's climate, the fastest way to serious cash is commercial and residential loans, explaining why anyone with a set of blueprints pretty much gets approved."



For more: http://www.businessreport.com/newsDetail.cfm?aid=5769



Kenneth Warren

[Kenneth Warren]

Real Estate riddles continue to flow in news space. "A Trend Nearing the End" by Peter Schiff digests recent New York Times profiles of newby real estate moguls, issuing a cautionary note.



"I don't think there has ever been a greater "can't lose" consensus than the one which exists among today's real estate "investors." Combine this "irrational exuberance" with unprecedented access to cheap credit, and its no wonder that the Fed has succeeded in creating the "mother of all bubbles." In fact, it's the sheer size of this mega-bubble, which makes it so hard to detect, as so many observers are themselves trapped within it. But the simple fact that a 25 year old kid, with three years of experience, is the subject of a series article about real estate investing in The New York Times, itself is perhaps the best anecdotal evidence that today's real estate market is a bubble. When a self-described computer geek, proclaims real estate investing to be cool, you can bet the trend is nearing its end."



For more:

http://www.dailyreckoning.com/Featured/ ... heEnd.html



Kenneth Warren

[Jim O'Bryan]

Ken



I think when you combine a couple of the Observer articles something starts to surface. The mother of all economic crisis here or looming, while the banks and The Fed push us into heavier and heavier debt.



During the boom no one ever read the fine print, but the story is in the fine print and why it is there.



Most credit and loans can be called in 30 - 90 days. How many of us could clear ALL of our debt is 30 - 90 days? What are the ramifications? What has our "bankers" done to America? Is it any difference from what our manufacturing giants have done?



Sell us down the river.





Jim O'Bryan

[Jeff Endress]

A major part of the problem is the so called "home equity line". Before it became standard business practice, people would cringe at the thought of having a second mortgage on their home. Now, everyone does, and to make matters worse, many people end up charging dinner out against their home equity.



Much has been written about the drastic increase in American debt load, as well as the lack of savings. As you analyze the situation, what used to be the major asset, hedge and safety net was your home. This is no longer true. As the equity is tapped out, all it will take is the real estate market heading south for people to end up "upside down" on their homes.



Jeff

[Joe McClain]

Circumstances forced me and my family to leave dear Lakewood to take up residence in James City County, Virginia--one of the 10 fastest growing counties in the U.S., according to someone or another.
Developers are chomping at the bits to build those McMansions (which won't start at 350 here). The local government is trying to get people to build "affordable housing," which translates into sterile, even shabby, condos and townhouses under 200. I got a decent place at what, for here, is a decent price, but my god I'm still reeling.

Don't know about Baton Rouge, but people are pouring into the Peninsula like nobody's business.

[Kenneth Warren]

Greetings Joe.

I guess you are now a card carrying member of Virginiaís sprawlgeoisie.

Though we have lost you to the new VA vortex of the brain gain, we still love you in Lakewood. The Lakewood Observer team is interested in your comparative observations on Lakewood culture, places, losses and gains.

Are you familiar with James Kunstler's attacks on the sprawlgeoisie or his latest book The Long Emergency?

Having lived here and now there, you might be able to give us a sense of how Kunstlerís stridency plays to your brainy ear.

Hereís a bit of a recent pitch: ìevery new housing subdivision, every new strip mall, every parking lagoon and big box chain-store pod that you issue approvals for from this point on will lead your country deeper into tragedy.î

ìFlorida is one of the multiple epicenters of a hypertrophic suburban growth machine that has taken the place of the US economy. Reforming it is unimaginable because without the business generated by a cancer-like replication of car infrastructure, the economy would consist of little besides hair cutting, fried chicken, and open heart surgery. In places like Florida (and California, and northern Virginia, and Las Vegas, and Dallas), all citizens are complicit in the drive toward tragedy because all want business-as-usual to continue. The idea that any set of circumstances might put a stop to it is laughable to them. What can you do for such a people determined to commit civilizational suicide?"

For more see: http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary13.html

Please give my best to Helen.

Kenneth Warren

[Joe McClain]

Hi, Ken

Sprawlgeoisie? You'd have to be a native Son of the Commonwealth to pronounce that! I don't think James City County quite qualifies for sprawlgeois status. Yet. I can't figure out where all the people are coming from. William and Mary isn't growing. Colonial Williamsburg is shrinking. There's a military presence, but mostly to the east and north of us. There are a lot of retirees, including many improbably young ones who sold houses in Northern Va at a big markup and moved down here. I would think that in order to be part of sprawl, there has to be a center from which the sprawl eminates. Here, there seems to be none, or there are several. As I pointed out in another post, there are quite a few Clevelanders down here.
What is heartening is that the county government seems to be getting religion about the need to manage growth. In september, when I first came down here, developers were bulldozing trees into a big pile and burning them. It was crazy. I don't think they can do that anymore, or won't be able for long.
It's interesting being down here in that there is a whole new set of concerns about sustainable development.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful time; wish I were there.

Joe

[Kenneth Warren]

Joe:

If you are not a card carrying member of the Sprawlgeoisie, then you may have landed with good fortuna in Penturbia, a name created by Jack Lessinger. His book is: Penturbia Where Real Estate Will Boom After the Crash of Suburbia.

The book is not in Lakewood Public Library, by the way. I got it through inter-library loan from the University of Akron. It is worth reading.

Lessinger identifies counties certain counties likely to produce property value increases in the next 20 years. He tracks U. S. Census and other population data from 1790 through 1995 to identify the previous migration patterns that settled the US. According to Lessinger, the current migration to Pent-urbia marks the fifth region of opportunity. Maybe you are lucky to have landed in Penturbia. I hope so.


Kenneth Warren

[Kenneth Warren]

Joe:

Maybe it’s the homies and security OPs who are settling the VA vortex.

David Leonhardt, writing in The NY Times of May 28, 2005, “Is Your House Overvalued?â€Â

[Kenneth Warren]

In “Running Out of Bubblesâ€Â

[Stephen Calhoun]

The train wreck is going to be spectacular.

[Kenneth Warren]

Fear not, Dr. Puck.

Once the train wrecks, vultures from the La Jolla Renters Club will be ready to swoop with bitters on their talons.

David Streitfeld, writing “It's Not a Bubble Until It Burstsâ€Â

[Stan Austin]

Jim, Ken, and Steve, and Jeff---

I think this anticipated real estate bubble burst will be geographically limited to Miami and maybe the West Coast. In one of last week's NYTimes articles it described lavish parties in Miami to promote condo sales long before ground is even broken. And many times these units are resold again, even before they're built.
By comparison at the Rockport folks at least want to literally kick the tires before they buy.
So this may be an instance where our relative slowness in NEOhio is somewhat to our advantage.

[Kenneth Warren]

Stan:

That's the point of my starting the Real Estate Riddle.

The absence of frothy speculation and affordability in the Lakewood market, one quite rich in natural and constructed amenities, puts the city in a better place, at least in my personal estimation. The price people are paying for the natural amentity of warm weather seems to be reaching the unbelievable level that points to no return.

Figuring out a way to market Lakewood as the cool Yin City, with a salvific mist off Lake Erie may take consultations with a few Chinese medicine men. However, I think such a myth-making contra Western medicine narrative might work. It certainly does for me.

Kenneth Warren

[dl meckes]

There's a NY-based dance company who rehearses & resides in Cleveland because the space is relatively cheap.

ArtSpace/Cleveland is working to change laws regarding live/work for the empty buildings. The state is way behind on this.

I'm suggesting that we can't understand the real estate riddle without grasping the future employment riddle, unless we plan on attracting wealthy retirees.

We have problems keeping our wealthier residents here during the winter months as it is.

Where is our lakefront living and access?

How can we feel the mist when we can't get close to our greatest natural asset?

There are a number of deeply intertwined issues.