Another Great Real Estate Analysis by the Key West Citizen
Hey listen, I'd be the first person to rejoice in the stabilization of Real Estate prices in the Keys, for as I have argued in the past it is absolutely essential to so many aspects of our lives. There are the obvious aspects of home equity, tax base and funding for all our government services that depend so critically on stable home prices. But as I have also argued, fraud in the foreclosure, rubber stamping of robo-signed documents, destruction of our title histories, and a judiciary that turns a blind eye to it, enables the fraud and does more to adversely our property values than 100 fluff pieces that reference Real Industry mouthpieces regurgitating the same old tired rhetoric.
"The market is coming back!" "It's a great time to buy." It's as tiring as watching the World Championship of Knitting. What we need is the truth and an exposure of what is truly depressing our property values, and not a monthly twisting of the one single statistic that can birth the latest "Real Estate Market Rebounds" headline.
For example, enter stage left, Robert Silk and the Key West Citizen's latest verbal portrait of joy. In an article in Sunday, November 20th's edition of the Citizen with a headline of "Priciest Homes Lead Market Rebound," Silk references the fact that waterfront homes have enjoyed a year over year price increase. Woo Hoo. Now where did I leave my Pom Poms?
This year over year stat is primarily due to the fact that those exact property types saw a huge decline due to the BP oil spill concerns last year. Remember, waterfront and oil don't mix. Now that the fear of oil drenched osprey flopping around your canal front yard have subsided, it's only logical price support should return to those properties. So what is the "rebound" that these year over year stats LEAD? Well according the Citizen article, one small little sentence seems to contradict our "Rebound" headline, and it's this, "...the improvement was confined to the high end of the market." Yeah, no kidding. For the rest of us average folks, we saw a decline.
Oddly even Silk himself gets more detailed in a similar story from the Upper Keys Free Press published a few days before the Sunday front page article. There in an article headlined, "High-End Homes Lead Market Rebound," he mentions that dry lot properties are off in price 8 percent, and condos are off 12 percent for the same quarter last year. I kind of thought that "leading" implied that other segments are "following," not dropping off a precipice in the opposite direction. 8 and 12 percent in one quarter compared to an already depressed quarter last year is a travesty. It's ugly and brutal and leads to a negative equity position that is the main cause for people to choose to walk away, thus continuing the downward trend.
Why does this tick me off so much? Because it distracts attention away from the the true story of why our property values are crumbling and won't come back anytime soon, all of which is covered so clearly in my foreclosure fraud series.
It also bothers me because it misleads people into having confidence in a questionable market. An example is an associate of mine who within the last year put $80,000 down on a half a million dollar "bargain." Within a year a recent appraisal revealed he lost $30,000 dollars in equity after doing improvements to the property. That is huge hit, and exemplifies that kind of pain and misfortune these cosmetic stories cause.
We can only speculate on why the Citizen covers the stories this way versus exposing what is going on in our Court system, but the amount of ads they run from high end real estate professionals sure might point you in the right direction.
Hey listen, I'd be the first person to rejoice in the stabilization of Real Estate prices in the Keys, for as I have argued in the past it is absolutely essential to so many aspects of our lives. There are the obvious aspects of home equity, tax base and funding for all our government services that depend so critically on stable home prices. But as I have also argued, fraud in the foreclosure, rubber stamping of robo-signed documents, destruction of our title histories, and a judiciary that turns a blind eye to it, enables the fraud and does more to adversely our property values than 100 fluff pieces that reference Real Industry mouthpieces regurgitating the same old tired rhetoric.
"The market is coming back!" "It's a great time to buy." It's as tiring as watching the World Championship of Knitting. What we need is the truth and an exposure of what is truly depressing our property values, and not a monthly twisting of the one single statistic that can birth the latest "Real Estate Market Rebounds" headline.
For example, enter stage left, Robert Silk and the Key West Citizen's latest verbal portrait of joy. In an article in Sunday, November 20th's edition of the Citizen with a headline of "Priciest Homes Lead Market Rebound," Silk references the fact that waterfront homes have enjoyed a year over year price increase. Woo Hoo. Now where did I leave my Pom Poms?
This year over year stat is primarily due to the fact that those exact property types saw a huge decline due to the BP oil spill concerns last year. Remember, waterfront and oil don't mix. Now that the fear of oil drenched osprey flopping around your canal front yard have subsided, it's only logical price support should return to those properties. So what is the "rebound" that these year over year stats LEAD? Well according the Citizen article, one small little sentence seems to contradict our "Rebound" headline, and it's this, "...the improvement was confined to the high end of the market." Yeah, no kidding. For the rest of us average folks, we saw a decline.
Oddly even Silk himself gets more detailed in a similar story from the Upper Keys Free Press published a few days before the Sunday front page article. There in an article headlined, "High-End Homes Lead Market Rebound," he mentions that dry lot properties are off in price 8 percent, and condos are off 12 percent for the same quarter last year. I kind of thought that "leading" implied that other segments are "following," not dropping off a precipice in the opposite direction. 8 and 12 percent in one quarter compared to an already depressed quarter last year is a travesty. It's ugly and brutal and leads to a negative equity position that is the main cause for people to choose to walk away, thus continuing the downward trend.
Why does this tick me off so much? Because it distracts attention away from the the true story of why our property values are crumbling and won't come back anytime soon, all of which is covered so clearly in my foreclosure fraud series.
It also bothers me because it misleads people into having confidence in a questionable market. An example is an associate of mine who within the last year put $80,000 down on a half a million dollar "bargain." Within a year a recent appraisal revealed he lost $30,000 dollars in equity after doing improvements to the property. That is huge hit, and exemplifies that kind of pain and misfortune these cosmetic stories cause.
We can only speculate on why the Citizen covers the stories this way versus exposing what is going on in our Court system, but the amount of ads they run from high end real estate professionals sure might point you in the right direction.
Clue Number Five of the Great Naked Conch Scavenger Hunt
A Person and a Password Play a Part in this Perplexing Puzzle
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