Monday, October 09, 2006

The Bubblicious Pole


Located at Saintsbury Plaza at the Vienna Metro Station
in Northern Virginia (Suburban Washington, DC)
From the low 300's [Thanks to the citizen reporter who found this]

19 comments:

  1. And this is an "active adult" community (55 and older). Amazing how you can have so many flippers in this kind of scenario.

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  2. Somewhat OT, but this place has some very odd floor plans.

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  3. Somebody with a digital camera please cruise westward down Main Street in Fairfax. Near Fairfax Square Center on my way to work this morning (about 8:45) there was an Open House sign with a handmade "FREE BEER" sign on top.

    Why on earth would anyone think this would garner more than a few drink-besotted looky-loos?

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  4. I am naive I guess.what exactly are those things and what do they mean for housing bubble??? please explain..

    thanks

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  5. Blood in the streets!

    Home Debtors are Doomed!

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  6. David,

    That's too funny!
    ROTFL

    I count 16 boxes. How the frak can anyone determine which box is the right one without going through them one by one?

    cookie cutter housing is going to take it the hardest.

    Neil

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  7. i guess there is just a few "homes" for sale near by!!

    this RE bust is gonna be as umimaginable as the rise was.

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  8. I hate when Realtors put their lockboxes on a common area fixture like that. Some condos don't allow it ... More should write that into their rules. There's always going to be a certain percentage of condos for sale ... which means you're always going to have lock boxes showing unless you ban them. So, what does this picture have to do with the cost of housing?

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  9. "
    Lance said...
    I hate when Realtors put their lockboxes on a common area fixture like that. Some condos don't allow it ... More should write that into their rules. There's always going to be a certain percentage of condos for sale ... which means you're always going to have lock boxes showing unless you ban them. So, what does this picture have to do with the cost of housing?
    October 09, 2006 2:48 PM
    "

    It does not say anything about cost of housing and the poster did not post to show that!! What it does show that flippers trying to escape the falling house of cards and we are here here to watch who escapes and who gets crushed.

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  10. On behalf of all housing bulls, I'll provide the response David got from them from the last bubblicious picture. Here goes:

    "All those units have probably been sold and the realtors just forgot to take back their lockboxes after the sale."

    The only thing that tops the picture is the denial from the housing heads.

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  11. mbarl,

    Excellent link!
    -----------------------------------
    Lance, do you have any comment to add about the couple, being baited? eg.. they could refi, seeing "real estate only goes up". Those people will lose everything, but I'm sure that's ok, right?

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  12. "I am naive I guess.what exactly are those things and what do they mean for housing bubble??? please explain"

    Those are realtor lock boxes. Within each box is a key to a unit listed for sale. Realtors access the boxes when showing units to prospective customers.

    As for the housing bubble, the implication is that the number of boxes relative to the total number of units available and unsold by the developer indicates (1) flippers heading for the exit or (2)nothing at all. Without knowing days on market for the units or number of owners (one person may be listing multiple units) it's impossible to say.

    A proliferation of lockbox trees (and benches,etc.) however, is a visual metaphor for the bubble.

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  13. Chris G -- is "All Adult" a synonym for 55+? (It's tough to keep up with ever-changing PC terminology.) If it is, I agree that I'm surprised to see so many re-sales. You never see that percentage volume in 55+ places here in Florida.

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  14. chip,

    Yep, the builder's website says there are "Limited Opportunities Remaining" at this 55+ community. I'm surprised that there would be that much "investor" action, too. Aren't you limiting the number of prospective buyers to flip to? And the floorplans don't look ADA-complient -- stacked washer & dryer and double wall ovens from a wheelchair? -- so you're really limited on both ends of the age spectrum.

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  15. Those lockboxes are about $75 each as I recall so it's pretty unlikely that anyone "forgot" to take them back.

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  16. Anon 7:19 -- that is amazing. Must be boomer flippers planning to sell to other boomers who supposedly won't be clever enough to figure out they're being had. We have flippers galore in Florida and some, though fewer, are still buying. But to try this in a 55+ place outside the sun belt or at least a pleasant mountain valley is nutty, IMO.

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  17. Similar situation in Fairfax, by the new Wegman's. Some relatives just moved into the new townhomes neighborhood there. Places are pretty nice but not worth the $400K people want for them. In any case, they have no real nieghbors - just lockboxes on either side.

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  18. If one owner were listing multiple unit then you wouldn't need a lock box for each key.

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  19. "If one owner were listing multiple unit then you wouldn't need a lock box for each key."

    Could be you're right, but I've never seen multiple unit keys in one box.

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