"BENTONVILLE, Ark. -- Dennis Pflueger and his wife won a rent-free year in a nice new house in an expensive subdivision not far from the headquarters of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. As part of the prize, they then have the option to buy the four-bedroom home for $452,000.
Mr. Pflueger, a telephone-cable installer who describes himself as an "old redneck," is in the middle of his free year. But the Pfluegers are a bit lonely. Just one other family lives in any of the 28 new or unfinished houses on Foxboro Court. Up the street, a sign announcing "Elegant Homes" sits on a lot choked with weeds. The block is as quiet as an old ghost town.
Since real-estate tanked, many new planned communities across the country are half-empty, with for-sale signs outnumbering residents by a large margin.
Across the U.S. the first to move into new subdivisions in recent years find themselves all alone. WSJ's Alex Roth looks at a suburb of Georgia in which new homes sit empty and how the few residents there live isolated existences.
Some of the projects abandoned by bankrupt developers are in places that were hotbeds of new housing construction: Southern California, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix. As of July, the percentage of vacant housing stock available for sale or rent stood at 4.8% nationally, the highest figure in at least 33 years, according to Zelman & Associates, a real-estate research firm.
Daily life in these developments seems a bit post-cataclysmic. Children play on elaborate but empty playgrounds. They walk their dogs past rows of shiny houses that have never been lived in. Voices echo up and down the block. Unfinished houses and vacant lots strewn with construction debris clutter the horizon."
(continued) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121763228998406131.html
So, is this a bad thing or an opportunity?
Edit: Reminds me of the northern suburbs of Harare.
Originally posted by SeitseAn opportunity to steal? Tsk, tsk, tsk. Even the real estate market is not immune to the laws of supply and demand. Eventually, the prices will have to be lowered in this new suburb, and some buyers will get a great deal on a new home.
An opportunity, for sure.
Particularly, an opportunity to break in empty houses, take materials, and then sell them as scrap in order to have some money for crack.
A visionary I am, isn't it?
Originally posted by der schwarze RitterSpeaking of which, have you seen the really low prices of land in the (still) undeveloped part of South Padre Island?
An opportunity to steal? Tsk, tsk, tsk. Even the real estate market is not immune to the laws of supply and demand. Eventually, the prices will have to be lowered in this new suburb, and some buyers will get a great deal on a new home.
A bargain!
Originally posted by SeitseTexas real estate in general is cheaper than just about anywhere else in the country. We have lots of land, less obtrusive laws regarding development and there was no run up on the real estate market that overcame places like Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc.
That's my question. As a Texan, I thought you could provide some insight. Maybe a toxic waste disposal facility will be built there?
Check it out in www.remax.com
Originally posted by der schwarze RitterI see, nice input. Thanks.
Texas real estate in general is cheaper than just about anywhere else in the country. We have lots of land, less obtrusive laws regarding development and there was no run up on the real estate market that overcame places like Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc.
So, how was the execution of the Mexican guy yesterday? Was it big news over there?
Originally posted by SeitseIt was probably bigger news in liberal Austin than Dallas. All the Texans I talked to agreed that Mr. M. deserved the death penalty. However, Geraldo Rivera of all people had an interesting take on the issue. He believes that since the United States drafted the treaty that the World Court cited in Mr. M's behalf, this would one day come back to bite Americans on the backside should they find themselves in some Third World, undemocratic hell hole with drugs on them. Geraldo thought that Mr. M. deserved death, but seemed very preoccupied with how this would affect Americans abroad who got into trouble with the law while in foreign lands. That being said, I think there's a world of difference between some college kid caught holding marijuana and a foreign national who is in the country illegally who rapes two teenage girls and murders one as some sort of gang retaliation.
I see, nice input. Thanks.
So, how was the execution of the Mexican guy yesterday? Was it big news over there?
Originally posted by Bosse de NageOpportunity, baby!
"BENTONVILLE, Ark. -- Dennis Pflueger and his wife won a rent-free year in a nice new house in an expensive subdivision not far from the headquarters of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. As part of the prize, they then have the option to buy the four-bedroom home for $452,000.
Mr. Pflueger, a telephone-cable installer who describes himself as an "old redneck," i ...[text shortened]... his a bad thing or an opportunity?
Edit: Reminds me of the northern suburbs of Harare.