August 31, 2006

US laughingstock Florida getting uglier and uglier and uglier


Warning - if you live in Florida, you might not want to read this. And yes, I'm gonna get in a bit of trouble here. But here goes...

Maybe I missed a memo, but when did backwater towns like Tampa start generating household incomes that could find buyers for $500,000 apartments? When did Florida start getting tons of Fortune 500 jobs that could support $1 Million Toll Brothers McMansions? When did Florida get rid of the humidity, the bugs, the race issues, the lack of culture, the Piggly Wigglies and the strip malls from hell? When did Florida stop being the laughing stock of the US?

I suggest it never did. But it got really good at the Housing Ponzi Scheme. It got really good at generating fake income from people buying homes from each other at higher and higher prices. It got really good at no-down, no-doc, negative am financing. It got really good at cash-out refis. It got really good at using Housing ATM loot to buy that big ol' pick up truck with the NASCAR stickers and the confederate plates.

Now it's getting really good at crashing.

Adios Florida. It was fun while it lasted. Now you're heading back to being the laughingstock of the US (again)

Economic gloom tightens grip

Floridians' confidence in the economy plunged this month to its lowest level in 13 years, University of Florida economists said Tuesday.

The chill in the housing market, higher interest rates and fuel prices appear to be taking their toll. National confidence numbers also fell in August, but not as much as they did in Florida.
The Florida Consumer Confidence Index fell 11 points to 76, while the national index, compiled by the Conference Board, went from 107 to 99.6.

The Florida drop is very similar to the one that occurred last September in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, only this time there was no hurricane to blame. Chris McCarty, director of survey research at the University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business Research, thinks the changed outlook for housing is at least partly responsible.

"Florida is in a position to really be affected by a decline in housing," McCarty said. "There are a lot of overvalued markets in Florida, and there are a lot of risky loans, some of which are going to readjust right about now," he said. "Also, a lot of employment increases over the last few years have been related to housing."

40 comments:

Anonymous said...

Blame the Feds for allowing these risky loans to be made. Now guess who will pay for it?

David in JAX said...

When did Florida get rid of the humidity, the bugs, the race issues, the lack of culture, the Piggly Wigglies and the strip malls from hell?

I see that you've been to Jacksonville.

The housing in Florida is rediculous, but I wouldn't say it's the laughing stock of all states. I believe Arkansas and Mississippi are tied for that one and probably followed by West Virginia and Kentucky.

Anonymous said...

Because Florida has its coastlines on the Atlantica and the Gulf of Mexico,
it ranks as the number 2 US shithole category.
IMHO, the undisputed number 1 US shithole is Arizona and especially the Phoenix metro area. Arizona not only has all the ills of Florida to a higher degree, but also a significantand widespread population of genetic mutants, as the ones who call themselves Christians and like little girls.
This right-wing fundamentalist group of Mormons, Evangelical wackos, and brainwashed Catholics controls the state government and allows such a national disgrace as the FLDS perverts to operate with impunity and molest children.
Arizona is a haven for losers, pedophiles and third stringers who can't make it anywhere else.
The influx and domestic production of white trash is just staggering.
How can America be generating such low IQ scum in the 21st century?

Anonymous said...

Plus, FL college football teams suck.

blogger said...

florida is the laughing stock because it tries not to be the laughingstock. arkansas knows it's the laughingstock and embraces it (and their cousin)

Anonymous said...

I wonder how many people from the NE, California, and overseas got sucked into the Florida RE sinkhole. You won't be able to give away some of those FL houses & condos in a few years.

Anonymous said...

"How can America be generating such low IQ scum in the 21st century?"

Simple. As the adherents to conservatism grow so does the overal ignorance of the population. No coincidence.

Anonymous said...

How about paying $700k for a 500sf crapbox condo in downtown LA to live with all the homeless people, gangbangers, and illegal aliens? If you want to live in a third world hellhole, El Salvador is much cheaper.

Anonymous said...

Liberalism is a mental disease that has spread throughout the country. It was the retarded left-wing jackals from the northeast that flooded into Florida and drove up the housing prices. Only a low IQ liberal piece of trash would pay $1 million for a shabby condo in Florida.

I'm still laughing at the stupid leftards who couldn't figure out a butterfly ballot back in 2000.

"I wuz be robbed."

LMAO!!!

Anonymous said...

This blog has given me a place to see that I wasn't alone in my view that the housing market was developing into one giant bubble and now it is a place to gloat. My now ex-wife got the idea that I wasn't good enough for her anymore because she was so caught up in keeping up with her Joneses' assclown pals and I just didn't make enough jack and wasn't willing to enslave myself to a bank to suit her tastes or her mindless need to keep up with McMansion style mid-west living and buy a second condo home in overpriced Florida so she could get drunk on the beach with her idiot disco dancing pals and watch sunrises in the morning. The idiot bought and built at the absolute crescendo of the bubble and watching it do a slow twist in the wind is now oh so satisfying. Viva la idiots and their quest for More and Now. These are the dolts that PT Barnum was talking about and leaving such people is addition by subtraction.

Anonymous said...

Nationwide, existing home sales are down, housing starts are down and new home sales are down. I wouldn't be too concerned about Florida, because every cloud has a silver lining.

It appears that NAR puppet David Lereah can put a positive spin on any bad situation:

"Finding a silver lining in the clouded outlook, David Lereah, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors said the current price stagnation is drawing buyers who'd been sitting on the sidelines. "Now sellers in many areas of the country are pricing to reflect current market realities. As a result, there could be some lift to home sales." "

So, there you go. Home sales will be going up and home prices will be going down. We will be losing money on every home sale, but we will be making it up in volume. And this is a good thing.

http://www.hometextilestoday.com/
article/CA6367287.html

Anonymous said...

Don't forget that Florida has horrible crime problems, one of the reasons I left south Florida.

Not many rednecks in south Florida, they must be up north. Mostly whiney new yorkers....

A lot of the property (at least the high end) is bought from out of state, and out of country people. A fair amount of the market is driven by second home buyers, retirees, and people from third world country's trying to protect some assets...

Also, just about everyone has some sort of scam running. It was the large amounts of drug money in the 80's and early 90's, car and boat dealers that do lots of cash business, and finally real estate in the past few years...

The only good things I will say about Florida are:

Sun, Beaches, and Boating. And they let you carry gun's to protect yourself. Oh, and they helped Bush get elected ;-)

Anonymous said...

Anon - PT Barnum,

I hope you leave messages on your ex's voice mail of you laughing your ass off at her greed!

A laugh so hard that you have to catch your breath, and then start luaghing again... just as hard!

Dragasoni said...

I used to work for a real estate company in the Tampa Bay area, doing IT work of course. I was laid off in March 2006 because the market got so bad. They have since laid off 11 more people, and still can't make ends meet.

I can tell you first hand that Tampa Bay area salaries DON'T support Tampa Bay area housing costs. Rent here is still affordable, but the cost of buying a house or a condo is ridiculous.

Tampa is going to crash, and all these idiot speculators are going to get burned, badly.

-Dragasoni-

Anonymous said...

Why do the liberal garbage from the East and West Coast keep moving to the Midwest and South? Even liberals can't stand each other.

Anonymous said...

An investor that I met at a meeting in Phx called me last night looking for a "partner" to put up the last $ 15,000 needed to finish purchasing a spec condo in someplace called Port Saint Lucie (?).

I told him that I'd probably have to... ummmm.. pass on that particular opportunity this time around.

Thanks, HP!!!

Anonymous said...

Florida is not the problem. Check the census as to who is moving to Florida. It is obvious when people vote with their pocketbooks that Florida is one of the best states to live. The early migration was not because of speculation.

Of course there is an extreme to almost everything. The New Yorkers are the ones that really moved the prices. This is the biggest inter-state migration. Cost of living was a major factor. Well, now that seems to have changed, but do not blame Florida. The blame is at the feet of those who came to Florida in droves to speculate on real estate. However, the root of the problem is the Feds.

Anonymous said...

I think Nooawleens is the laughing stock... the new Chocolate City of the South. They're so stupid they re-elected Nagan who thinks he's Jesse or Martin Luther, but he's really in the pockets of the money men. Nooawleens is just ONE storm from extinction and they're still dividing up the spoils from last year. What a bunch of dumb shits.

Anonymous said...

Florida here. It is entertaining to watch this disaster unfold. I remember when every tom, dick and harry would come into the city's building dept wanting to build houses. Wonder what happened to those idiots. Yes these houses are so over priced that the only loans one can get are the adj. ones that cause you to be foreclosed on in a year or 2.

mort...on the califirnians that got sucked into it...TONS. I was browsing the county real estate appraiser site. The new development is full of CA hammerheads who bought these turd houses site unseen. They are all still for sale by these tard flipper wannnabe's.

Florida is the place. Great weather and I own enough land that I don't see the losers that bought these turd houses.

LMAO!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I've had family in FL for 50 years. Anyone familiar with the history of the state knows it is a virtual petri dish for growing every kind of real estate boom, bust, scam, and shoddy building practice. Still love the place.

Anonymous said...

anon 4:21. You are an idiot. Liberals AND conservatives are retards. If you follow a party line you are an IDIOT and a lemming. Right wing tards are also buying those turd condos. For you to think it is only liberals shows you are a tard.

Anonymous said...

florida gets their cash from retirees. think about all the money them old people bring and spend on golf, boating, and medical alone. i'd say 50% of FL $ is for these services alone. of course they own a lot of property and buy their kids and grandkids places so they can come visit comfortably. the coasts are also huge vacation spots, but the middle only has orlando and UF, the rest is nothingness.

Anonymous said...

"Liberalism is a mental disease that has spread throughout the country. It was the retarded left-wing jackals from the northeast that flooded into Florida and drove up the housing prices. Only a low IQ liberal piece of trash would pay $1 million for a shabby condo in Florida.

I'm still laughing at the stupid leftards who couldn't figure out a butterfly ballot back in 2000."

But I thought all liberals were poor, unemployed welfare recipients?

Fucking idiot conservative. Your days are numbered.

Anonymous said...

Talk about Nawhlins... From a rich guy that has a second house there:

"real estate in NOLA......what a mess......the lower classes are wiped out and not returning. the upper classes are now getting the itch to sell and there are no real buyers. Over 500 homes now for sale in the Uptown neighborhood and garden district has nearly 100 for sale. prices are falling and will fall further IMHO. What a mess. Many better restaurants remain closed and business is just plain bad. Been here for 3 weeks now and I see no good outcomes at this point."

Chocolate city. he he ;)

Anonymous said...

I don't know... when did all of the Jewish folks move to Florida..?

Anonymous said...

Bushwick Bill said . . .

"Of course there is an extreme to almost everything. The New Yorkers are the ones that really moved the prices. This is the biggest inter-state migration. Cost of living was a major factor. Well, now that seems to have changed, but do not blame Florida. The blame is at the feet of those who came to Florida in droves to speculate on real estate. However, the root of the problem is the Feds."

This is exactly right. Yankees, mainly from New York, have driven prices through the roof. For them, a million dollars for a 2 bedroom dump is no big deal, but for the rest of us, it is a nightmare that they have created.

As for when? Try 9/12. The influx of New Yorkers to Tampa has been nothing short of staggering, and you wouldn't believe the hideous condos and townhouses they snatch up, thinking they're elegant for living in Florida. Even waterfront property facing the sewage treatment plant is regarded by New Yorkers as enviable real estate.

For several years now, Tampa has been the #1 destination for millionaires in America, and there are TONS of millionaires here who CAN afford the prices. Davis Islands, Hyde Park, SoHo, Beach Park, Palma Ceia, Bayshore Beautiful, Golfview . . . Crammed with money.

Anonymous said...

It has to do with Taxes too. If you lived in new york and were looking to retire (not to mention die and pass on your wealth) you would move to florida (no state tax or death tax) and save yourself a lot of money. The weather in florida is great in the winters too but I think that is secondary.

Everything else said is pretty much true.

Anonymous said...

Those of us who love Florida think that the bubble cannot pop soon enough.

We have watched beautiful beaches be scraped flat and paved to make way for soulless concrete monoliths filled with vulgar carpetbaggers, with their lousy manners, entitlement issues, and chainsaw voices. The water is now seriously polluted, thanks to runoff (watch out for the flesh-eating bacteria!). Flooding is a growing problem, since every inch of ground is paved now.

Real estate is so impossibly expensive that people who actually work for a living are having to bail out, to be replaced by still more idle carpetbaggers. Property taxes have skyrocketed, thanks to the insane false valuations brought to us by the carpetbaggers and our own homegrown parasites who cater to them. Insurance rates are killing us, in large part because of people who insist on building ostentatious multimillion dollar Mcmansions right on the water. (There's a reason why oldtimers built cinderblock shacks at the beach--when the storm comes, as it inevitably will, you can just sweep the sand out, put on a new roof, and go on with life.) The elderly carpetbaggers bitch ceaselessly about paying school taxes, since their kids graduated back in Noo Yoik in '42.

And so on.

Like I said, those of us who actually live here are mostly happy to see what's happening here. I hope every carpetbagger loses every penny he's got and has to thumb a ride back home with his few remaining belongings in a paper sack.

Anonymous said...

"Real estate in NOLA......what a mess......the lower classes are wiped out and not returning. the upper classes are now getting the itch to sell and there are no real buyers. Over 500 homes now for sale in the Uptown neighborhood and garden district has nearly 100 for sale. prices are falling and will fall further IMHO. What a mess. Many better restaurants remain closed and business is just plain bad. Been here for 3 weeks now and I see no good outcomes at this point."

++++How sad. It looks like the popping of the housing bubble will be the end of New Orleans. If the rich people move away, there will be no one left....

Anonymous said...

Keith,


You aren't from the South. Please don't try to understand us. (I grew up in Mississippi; a lifetime is needed to "get it".) And stereotyping us just makes you look really sad.

Anonymous said...

I love it! The places that will be hit the hardest as the housing crash unfolds are overwhelmingly in Blue-State metropolitan areas disproportionately populated by leftards.

Carl Rove, you ROCK dude!

Anonymous said...

Florida was very good to me. In the past 6 years i made enough money in RE to never have to work again. I moved to smith lake in alabama, the people here are ten times nicer than all of those so called educated people i have met over the years.

To bad some of you educated people didn't have the common sense to buy lots of florida property 6 years ago. I retired at 26 and uneducated to boot. Ahahaha I'll be going back when the crash is over, to buy my condo for the winter months..

Anonymous said...

Leftards - I love the term!

Anonymous said...

Here, dont go around knocking Florida, where else am I going to off load this warehouse full of pink t-shirts, white linen suits and espadrills??

Anonymous said...

And by the way go MIAMI. Lets Go Canes.

Anonymous said...

How come everytime someone gets in over their heads, whether it's a natural disaster, ala Katrina or someone being told to leave (New Orleans), not to buy, not to jump in over your head...etc. There's always someone there to bail them out! Then we find out corruption abounds...remember the Gov. gift cards!
I just recieved a notice from the FTB about a $5 ,that's right five dollars, additional re-adjustment for something from years ago, to my quarterlies. I'm married, no kids, don't own my own business. All told, i'm giving them $2500.00 every quarter! Now their busting my Balls for five dollars! Where's my Gift card?
We can't find the most wanted, or Osama, but they had no problem in trackin me down for $5

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Keith,


You aren't from the South. Please don't try to understand us. (I grew up in Mississippi; a lifetime is needed to "get it".) And stereotyping us just makes you look really sad.


I too grew up in Mississippi and if it took you a lifetime to "get it" then your severely retarded. The reason its still so cheap to live there is an almost perfect record of creating poverty and driving educated wealth producers out of the state. Don't listen to these illiterate bubbas, the real welfare in this country flows from the rich new yankees to the forever poor and stupid red state folk. They think because they don't get a check every month that they aren't on welfare, somehow they are living the middle class american lifestyle without producing the wealth needed for it.

Anonymous said...

If I could diverge from the "you liberals are stupid..no you conservatives are stupid..wah...wah.wah..wah...(isn't this getting old already?..maybe not)


Florida may be unique among states in the pain it is going to suffer from the housing crash. So much of the employment (especially good paying employment) is dependent on the fees..commissions..contractor pay, etc. from the housing boom.

If you strip that away without giving the economy time to adjust you have the makings of a true economic crash. While I share many of the criticisms of my adopted home state I would prefer not to see it go down the toilet.

One criticism I have not seen other posters state is how proud they are down here of creating low wage jobs, there is definitely an emphasis on quantity over quality, we gleefully pour derision on those northerners losing those high wage "blue state" factory jobs as we have a plentiful supply of wal mart jobs. I think we're soon going to find out that our economy was also propped up by overpaid and unsustainable employment (high commissions = high union wages), while they weren't union members they are just as endangered in the changing american economy.

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