One thing I've noticed around the country during the bubble was the building of $500,000 condos in places where $10 crack cocaine was more like it just months before.
In Phoenix, that includes projects like the X10 Wine Lofts, The Vale and everything downtown. Clear out the hookers, clear out the burned cars, and get those yuppie condos up ASAP.
Well, in the end, most folks are going to find out that no matter what the brochure showed, instead of yuppie wine parties, they got an episode of COPS outside their always-closed door.
Here's a great write-up from the Wash Post. Wish Catherine Reagor would read one of these and be inspired..
Who'd Want to Live There?
Developer Jim Abdo eased his silver Range Rover down a potholed alley on the eastern edge of the District, pulling to a stop a few feet away from a junkyard dog.
The German shepherd slept on the other side of a chain-link fence, under a piece of tin. Crushed cars and stacks of tires surrounded the dog. Beyond that: auto repair shops, a strip joint and a nightclub where police last year arrested the owner in connection with a 220-pound cocaine bust.
"I've just found the greatest freaking site," Abdo said in his rapid-fire fashion. He lowered both windows. The smell of fuel and oil wafted in. He pointed to a banged-up red Ford. "That's where the center part of the private green space will be. It can feel like a sanctuary!"
Will anyone pay $700,000 to $2 million?
"There's 87 units here. I only need 87 people to say, 'Jim you're crazy, but we love it.' '' Abdo said with a wry smile. "Right now I'm sleeping okay at night."
July 25, 2006
Luxury condos in the middle of junkyards, crack dens and strip joints - Housing Bubble effect #2215
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18 comments:
Keith, what a gem this is..I love how they noted the Silver Range Rover as the weapon of choice of the REALTORS (TM)..
Same things are going on in South Phoenix, oops I mean South Mountain Village.
Same story in Tampa Bay. I know of a complex built next door to the regional trash dump that has 30 foot high piles of garbage nearby. There's also a complex built between a shade-tree mechanic building, directly underneath high-voltage power lines. Bet their flourescent lights are buzzing all the time.
This is extremely stupid... who is going to want to spend all that money on condos in a really bad neighborhood?
Guess you know now which builder stock to sell short ... (all of them :) ) no, these guys ...
When forty percent of sales went to flippers, it didn't matter where the condos were. Flippers never even visited the property. For flipping to work, however, somebody eventually had to live there--a minor, unforeseen problem.
Actually this pattern helped tipped me off that a bubble was nigh. In the '70s and '80s, gentrification spread in a rational pattern, growing out from fully revitalized neighboods to slightly less nice streets to marginal areas. This time, it was different: You could spend as much on a condo with crackwhore neighbors as one with skyline views. That helped kill the boom, actually, because it made decrepit housing stock too expensive to renovate.
Most of the posters on this blog are on crack....oh no I dinnit!!!!
In Denver's LoDo district there are new lofts right across the street from the rescue mission. The mission feeds the homeless dinner, but doesn't open the doors until it's ready. So you drive by the trendy $300k and up lofts and see a couple of hundred homeless guys, unwashed with their shopping carts, plastic bags with clothes and paper bag wine bottles hanging on the sidewalk. It's REAL upscale. The yuppies, or whatever the genX equivalent is just love living there. No sh*t.
Can someone tell me where this site is so I can go rescue that dog. No need for an animal living in filth. Flippers and morons who buy from flippers can live under a worthless piece of tin but the dog deserves better than that! Someone let me know where and I can go get him or her!
I want to rescue that dog too! Seriously, tell us where the junkyard is.
A couple of months ago I was walking around the South Park district of downtown Los Angeles, a few blocks west of what may be the world's most horrific skid row. There are hundreds of empty lofts on the market for around $500K. When I was there (a Sunday afternoon) the streets were abandoned except for a few homeless people. There were no businesses open and downtown LA only recently got a grocery store. I'm not sure who is going to buy those $500K lofts.
Maybe after this developer goes bankrupt the govt can convert his project into halfway houses. if the public gets it for pennies on the dollar it will give value to the public while doing some good for those less fortunate. We are all, here on this blog, interested in helping the poor, good works, compassion, etc. Right? Right? At least I think we are. Actually, tell the truth, most of the participants here come across as greedy, materialistic, narrow-mind, bitter SOBs. Keith included.
"Maybe after this developer goes bankrupt the govt can convert his project into halfway houses. if the public gets it for pennies on the dollar it will give value to the public while doing some good for those less fortunate. We are all, here on this blog, interested in helping the poor, good works, compassion, etc. Right? Right? At least I think we are. Actually, tell the truth, most of the participants here come across as greedy, materialistic, narrow-mind, bitter SOBs. Keith included."
This is kindof anti-capitalist. What are you, a freaking commie? LOL
Help people??? What, are you trying to go Mother Theresa on us? This is about raping the earth and others for profit. LOL
Yes, indeed. When stupid suburbanites would buy a new houses next to an international airport or an 8 lane interstate would condos in drug infested, junk yard areas be far behind. We no longer have American citizens, we have American consumers.
"Yes, indeed. When stupid suburbanites would buy a new houses next to an international airport or an 8 lane interstate would condos in drug infested, junk yard areas be far behind. We no longer have American citizens, we have American consumers."
I live in a neighborhood by an international airport. I went to a neighborhood rally set up by people who were fighting to block a runway expansion because the airport is too loud and there are too many jets flying into there. I made a lot of friends when I stood up and said the airport had been built in the 1930s and all the houses from were from 1980s. Who was here first?
To add insult to injury, after there was some extensive grumbling, I said I didn't give a fuck since I'm just a renter.
90% of the idiots in that room pulled up in Tahoes and large SUVs with ginourmous payments and they spent a good portion of the time complaining about gas prices.
I worry about this country if we ever have another major war. We would get our asses handed to us with the number of consumerist pussies here.
The entire "East Village" of San Diego is STILL a sea of homeless, drug dealers and guys selling stolen merchandise. . .I rode my bike through there last week, and some guy was trying to sell me a bike tire he had "liberated" from some other bike park...I suppose the 20 somethings might appreciate being near 10 tatoo parlors, or a block of closed storefronts, but not at 500K a pop!!!
I am now convinced this site is bunch of republican country bumpkins. As an urban dweller and one who has lived in several big cities including SD, LA, PHX, NYC and CHI - many people want to live in the edgy parts of town, in warehouse districts, in meatpacking districts, in older areas that are being gentrified. Most of the real estate I have bought was purchased in what people like you considered to be rough parts of town - those places have all contributed to me having enough saved for my retirement fund at 32. Trust me, I understand where you are all coming from, but seriously, you must realize different strokes for different folks. I paid a bundle for the place I am in now in Chicago and it was in the hood when I bought it - now I can sell it for two bundles....
"I paid a bundle for the place I am in now in Chicago and it was in the hood when I bought it - now I can sell it for two bundles.... "
And in a year or two you'll be able to sell it for half a bundle!
All of downtown Los Angeles is like this - there are literally tens of thousands of homeless people in the streets, with police from nearby cities well documented to be bringing criminals, mentally ill and homeless people to downtown L.A., and the L.A. County jail nearby to boot. And yet, they are asking $500-700/sq. ft. plus for many lofts.
I live in downtown L.A. because I can walk to work, but won't buy here for many years - I can't tell you how many bashed in car windows I've seen, how much human feces on the sidewalk (including seeing the folks doing this, sometimes [b]right in front[/b] of million dollar lofts), how many dumped out trash cans, etc. The missions down here will litigate to eternity before they are moved, because they have nowhere else to go, but no one seems to realize (or at least the buyers so far don't, though sales seem to be slowing a lot) that the chronic crime and homelessness in downtown L.A. is not going to disappear just because you build a few residential condos - if anything, this will just give the homeless people more sources to panhandle and the criminals more cars to steal...
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