Florida Real Estate Market "Report"

[touchring]

Re: Florida Real Estate Market "Report"

Like Bangkok, Singapore and (Hong Kong also) also went through the 1997 condo boom, but unlike Bangkok, the oversupply is not as bad due to space constraints. You can't build condos on the sea or in the mountains for the case of Hong Kong. The situation in singapore is exacerbated by the fact that the government own most of the land - the bulk of private land was seized from private ownership decades ago and so the Singapore government can artificially reduce supply by not selling state land.

During the 7 year "real estate bear market" from 1997 to 2004, the excess supply was slowly mopped up by migrants of well-to-do to wealthy overseas chinese (from Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia) and recently even mainland Chinese, leading to a shortage in 2005 when the property play started.

Without land to develop, housing developers got to buy over existing condos "en bloc", pull it down, and rebuild. Many house owners made a million to a few million US dollars by selling their home to such developers.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...-25658,00.html

THE residential property boom in Singapore has been characterised by a peculiarly Singaporean phenomenon known as en bloc or collective sales.

Last year, 109 such deals were done, totalling $S13.3 billion ($10.5 billion).
An en bloc or collective sale occurs when owners in an apartment block agree to sell the entire block for redevelopment.


In its wake, Singapore's en bloc fever has produced instant multi-millionaires, but has also spawned legal challenges and untold bitterness among minority owners forced to sell.


A High Court hearing due next week will be closely watched - and could unravel the many pending en bloc sales.


At least 10,000 apartments will be demolished for new developments, leading to even more expensive apartments, over the next two years or longer.

I'm hoping you can elaborate. It's always amazing to see buildings being torn down less than 10 years after they were built, especially if they are big with lots of units. Did the value of that land/location explode that much? It's very suspicious, and looks too much like money laundering. Condo occupancy where I live is less than 30 percent. You can read about it or just drive around and look at 40-story condos with only 18 apartments with lights on at eight pm. Yet, the cranes are everywhere just ten years after '97, in which a speculative housing boom and the money borrowed to pay for it brought on the crash of Thailand's currency. Billboards and sales offices are everywhere. And the prices are ridiculous...higher than you would pay in many cities in the US.

Singapore has an influx of expats. International schools are full, with waiting lists.
Do you really think hedge funds are driving up the Sing dollar? The currency seemed to be moving in concert with other regional currencies.

[ax]

Re: Florida Real Estate Market "Report"

Back in March FRED posted this video about a different sort of real estate related "camping out" experience... :eek:

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...31327#poststop

Here is the letter my local congressman, the honorable Robert Wexler, responded with (about a month later) to my request that he not vote for any legislation that allows a 4-year retro tax rebate to big builders or a bailout for upside down ARM/flippers.

Thank you for contacting my office regarding legislation that provides tax cuts to homebuilders, rewrites loans, or provides a bailout to subprime mortgage borrowers. I appreciate your views on these important issues.

Since the end of last summer, more and more homeowners in our country have been unable to make their mortgage payments and have been losing their homes to foreclosure. In fact, the number of foreclosures in our country has hit an all time high. To protect homeowners from losing their homes to foreclosure, the Bush Administration has implemented a program called "Hope Now." Hope Now requests that mortgage lenders voluntarily re-negotiate their loans with homeowners. I do not believe that a voluntary program alone is a workable solution for homeowners facing foreclosure.

Currently, the mortgage industry has very little regulation. I strongly support legislation that increases regulations on the mortgage industry. Indeed, mortgage lenders need to be required to seek alternatives to foreclosure, including: altering repayment plans, loan modifications, short sales, and other options. I firmly believe that foreclosure should only proceed as a last resort, after all available options have been exhausted. Moreover, if a lender does not take action to voluntarily modify a mortgage repayment plan, then I support giving bankruptcy judges the ability to modify the mortgage repayment plan. I firmly believe that if lenders refuse to re-negotiate loans, then the courts need to step in to save people from losing their homes. The threat of the courts taking action to modify repayment schedules would encourage lenders to voluntarily re-negotiate with homeowners. In addition, homeowners that are late on their mortgage repayments should be referred to qualified housing counselors to provide assistance. Proactive and robust action is the best way to address our Nation's mortgage crisis. Yet, I do not believe that the government should bailout individuals who have made very poor loan decisions. Please be assured that I will keep your views in mind as this issue is debated in the House Financial Services Committee and on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Thank you again for taking the time to write. Please feel free to contact me with any additional questions you may have or anytime I may be of assistance to you. If you would like to be updated on these and other issues, please stop by my website (www.wexler.house.gov) and sign up for my electronic newsletter. I hope you will find these tools to be valuable resources in keeping up with events in Washington and South Florida.

With warm regards,

Robert Wexler
Member of Congress

I like my brother's translation: “We must bail out homeowners. However, I do not believe in bailing out homeowners.”

Wow, he'll be keeping my views in mind! Guess he's not getting my vote.

[bill]

Re: Florida Real Estate Market "Report"

I firmly believe that if lenders refuse to re-negotiate loans, then the courts need to step in to save people from losing their homes. The threat of the courts taking action to modify repayment schedules would encourage lenders to voluntarily re-negotiate with homeowners.

he needs this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis


Some have argued that, despite attempts by various U.S. states to prevent the growth of a secondary market in repackaged predatory loans, the Treasury Department's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, at the insistence of national banks, struck down such attempts as violations of Federal banking laws.^[62]
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"There has been plenty of talk about 'predatory lending,' but 'predatory borrowing' may have been the bigger problem. As much as 70 percent of recent early payment defaults had fraudulent misrepresentations on their original loan applications, according to one recent study. The research was done by BasePoint Analytics, which helps banks and lenders identify fraudulent transactions; the study looked at more than three million loans from 1997 to 2006, with a majority from 2005 to 2006
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As of April 2008, credit rating agencies had downgraded over U.S. $800 billion in highly-rated CDO and MBS, and more downgrades are expected. Since certain types of institutional investors are allowed to only carry higher-quality (e.g., "BBB" and better) assets, there is an increased risk of forced asset sales, which could cause further devaluation.^[65]