Thanks a million: Priciest homes still sell

[CatholicEdHead]

http://www.startribune.com/417/story/1511596.html

When it comes to selling a house, price isn't always the issue.

While sales of existing homes in the Twin Cities metro area dropped a whopping 14 percent over the past 12 months, sales of homes priced at $1 million-plus jumped 4 percent, according to data from the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors.

"People that own these expensive homes are not affected by the market very much," said Linda Blyth, director of Coldwell Banker Burnet's Previews-Distinctive Homes Division. "If they see something they want and they see value, they have the money to buy it."

In large part that's because upper-bracket buyers often pay cash and aren't concerned with what's happening with mortgage interest rates or the state of the mortgage industry or even the snowballing foreclosure crisis.

Yep, while the low and moderate income homes are being foreclosed left and right, the upper income homes still come and go with many paying outright cash for them. Tells you where the money has been distributed. :(

[tanyev]

1. So... all we have to do is scrape enough money together to buy $1 million-plus homes,

and then our worries will be over. Sweet.

[Beausoir]

2. My BIL is a manufacturers rep for building materials. Doors, windows, etc. He had to change his

business model. His business is tanking so he scrapped his product lines and is gearing toward the upscale multimillion dollar home market. Problem is..it takes a long time to get things rolling.

Just another story about what the housing market has done to middle class America.

[jaksavage]

3. Sales of yachts and airplanes are

UP, UP, UP!!!!!

I am soooo happy.

[daninthemoon]

4. I'll betcha the late twentys looked alot like that, too.

[Bobbieo]

5. In the late 20s remember Prohibition was in force and people were making money fron "booze"

[daninthemoon]

8. And today people are making money from drugs.

[Wapsie B]

6. And reasons like this are precisely why repugs will claim the economy is great.

In their minds what benefits the upper class benefits us all.

[question everything]

7. And then you have Pop-Up Mansion

from the WSJ:

Existing-home sales fell to a nearly 10-year low last month, and major builders are reporting big losses. But a small group of wealthy people unfazed by the downturn are paying big premiums to have houses erected in record time.

(snip)

But builders in wealthy suburbs like Greenwich, Conn., and in resorts areas like Aspen, Colo., say such projects represent a growing percentage of their business. To pull them off, specialized builders are deploying small armies of workers who often work seven days a week. Joe Farrell of Farrell Building, which is constructing Mr. Lapidus's house, says it's not uncommon to have 70 people working on a job site in a single day. For a Connecticut mansion, a contractor sent five dozen masons and laborers to build in two days a 480-foot stone wall that normally would take months to complete. The builders also use complex staging tactics to slash the time it takes to construct a house by half or even more.






In Aspen, Colo., a 20,000-square-foot house is being built by Silich Construction in 20 months, down from the normal two-years-plus a house this size would normally require.

[TahitiNut]

9. Instant gratification ... nothing stands in the way of wealth.

Not even time. :puke:

[Milo_Bloom]

10. This happens in EVERY housing crunch.

And there is a reason for it.

During a housing boom, a bunch of "up and coming areas" are created, because most people can't afford to live in the already designated good neighborhoods. Say you have towns seperated by 10 miles, Majestic and Agrestic. Agrestic is and always has been a "good neighborhood". Lots of money, good schools, low crime, a city council that works really hard to keep it nice, etc. The other town, Majestic, was a town on the edge. They had several problems, higher crime rate, a mild gang problem or heck, they were just a dirt lot before.

People WANT to move to Agrestic, but the reality is there is only so much housing in Agrestic and the prices are skyrocketing because demand is far outpacing capacity... so some people who could afford to live in Agrestic, wind up moving to Magestic because the whole area is improving and Magestic is becomming one of those "up and coming places" and why not save a few dollars and be in the new hip place.

Then comes the crash and Magestic starts slipping, people who just squeeked into the neighborhood are in trouble, banks foreclose "investment" buyers swoop in and rent the properties. Neighborhood upkeep goes down... Those people before who could have affording Agrestic, but chose magestic... well, they don't stick around. They see the neighborhood slipping, probably rent their place out OR sell at a slight loss and move into Agrestic.

The result... demand drops everywhere, EXCEPT in the "good" neighborhoods, which continue to see small appreciation, even during the toughest times.

You can look back at housing prices over the last 60 years and see the exact same thing happen every 10-15 years.

[SoCalDem]

11. Well they could always ask Nancy for a job selling weed

:rofl:

[Milo_Bloom]

14. LOL. I wondered how many would catch it. (nt)

[Duer 157099]

17. Speaking of Agrestic and Majestic...

I wondered if any of the news coverage of the SoCal fires mentioned those towns?

I fully expected to see Celia, or Andy, talking to reporters at a fire scene.

Course, we may yet see that.

(I had thought I read that they film near Acton, or somewhere over there, not far from where the Buckweed fire was...)

[SOS]

12. The money manager

who bought your place of employment, outsourced the staff to Chinese slave camps, looted your pension and then sold the gutted carcass for a staggering profit has to live somewhere.

It's the 21st Century American Way.

[varkam]

13. I think we're headed the way of some Latin and South American countries...

where you have an extremely small, albeit uber-wealthy population with their expansive villas whereas the rest of the population lives in shacks and ghettos. I find this sort of thing to be very sad, indeed.

[earth mom]

15. Yep, the 21st century robber barons are doing quite well-no worries.

Meanwhile, the peons are struggling to put food on the table & keep a roof over their heads. :grr:

[Solar_Power]

16. The rich get richer

the poor get poorer