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]

14 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. 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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  4. Blood in the streets!

    Home Debtors are Doomed!

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  5. 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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  6. 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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  7. "
    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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  8. 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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  9. "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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  10. 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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  11. 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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  12. 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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  13. If one owner were listing multiple unit then you wouldn't need a lock box for each key.

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  14. "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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