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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ild who wrote (67511)	11/29/2006 11:57:23 AM
From: Elroy Jetson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

The $1.3 million one bedroom apartment in West Hollywood is a new listing for a newly completed building with a lovely view of a restaurant parking lot. We'll see if it sells. . . But there are far more stupid people than I previously believed possible. The new building which has nearly sold out is four blocks away, with prices ranging from $960k to $1.1 million for one bedroom plus den with 2.5 bath. All units were apparently sold with "option pay" loans arranged by the builder where the monthly mortgage payment for the first two years is less than the actual interest being charged. Walking through the parking garage for the building, not one car is more than a year old. The building does have a great view of the wall of the adjacent rent-controlled apartments on either side, about 15 feet away. This is a building on Norton (one block north of Santa Monica Blvd) three buildings west of Crescent Heights (behind the Traktir Razgulyai restaurant). Two features that really left me laughing is the large ceramic tub which is actually made of creaky fiberglass and the ugly metal circuit breaker panel which sticks out prominently on the wall of the main hallway. Each unit comes with one tandem parking space. You can pay $5,500 a month to own there, or you can rent a nice two bedroom rent-controlled apartment next door for about $1,500. Based on our 1989 to 1996 experience, I expect to see these $1 million dollar condos selling for $380k in a few years - which is still more than comparable units were selling for in nominal dollars eight years ago. The U.S. dollar has taken a beating under the Bush administration. .