How to lose $94 a day – 12% price drop in 1br/1ba condo in Mountain View
Since October, Burbed has been following the story of these three condos at 274 Pamela Drive in Mountain View.
Here were the prices in October:
And then in December:
And here’s what they looked like today:
Wow… #5 is really leading this race to drive the prices down! That’s almost a 12% price reduction!
What’s interesting is that according to Zillow, this person paid $335,000 in 10/14/2005 to buy this condo. If that’s true, and this condo clears for $308,000 – well, that’d still be a 14%+ loss after comission and $268 HOA! This doesn’t even include any renovations/repairs.
That’s $2820 thrown away per month. $94 a day.
Remember though: renting is throwing a way money. So you wouldn’t have wanted to rent a comparable unit for $1000 a month anyway. Why? Because the $1820 a month you would’ve saved allows you to be a homeowner. 
January 2nd, 2007 at 9:29 am
“Investors” are still in denial about prices. Our visit to Florida reveals a microcosm of what will eventually be evident nationally.
See part II here:
http://www.viewfromsiliconvalley.com/id289.html
Part III coming tonight…
January 2nd, 2007 at 6:19 pm
I was the buyer of #5 in Oct 03, and the seller in Oct 05. The condo was a nice little starter home. If I remember correctly, I bought it for $221,250 in Oct 03 and sold two years later for $335,000. I am not a real estate analysis or a financial guru… but a little common sense and being able to “read the writing on the wall” goes a long way.
Basically real estate is cyclical; I bought when I thought the prices were increasing, but still low. I sold when I thought the market had capped. A little common sense pocketed me a decent amount of cash.
Now I have spent the past year in Thailand, were I have watched the home prices go from around $52,000 for a nice 2B/2B near the ocean to currently $155,000 for the exact same home. To top it off they are continuing to build new homes by the hundreds in this little fishing village.
It strikes me as funny that no one was buying homes a year ago when the prices were low, now that the unpredictable market in Hua Hin, Thailand has spun out of control and home prices are ridiculously high people are buying them up like crazy. Now is the time to sell, but people are determined to buy. It is interesting the way that greed makes people lose sight of the basics and forces them to buy high and then forces them to sell low.
January 2nd, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Wow… thanks for sharing your story!
January 6th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Joseph,
Great post!! Thanks alot. It is good to see the trend of an individual unit to really put the whole macro numbers into perspective.
Burbed,
Please keep tracking this one all they way. It is very helpfull. After reading these type of blogs for the last 12 months I am finally taking some more aggressive action. I just opened an options account so I can put my money where my mouth is. I am tired of having these blogs say the market is going down and the news saying it is going up.
January 6th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
I don’t think that the news is really saying going it is up anymore though…
January 8th, 2007 at 8:01 am
Did you see the Toll Brothers CEO’s comments and the ones the media chose to push. It was farcical. Litterally he said that using very spotty housing data from the virginia market the market seems to be showing that it is starting to bottom out. That seems like a great legal lie to keep your stock from plummiting and unload a bit more stock….
The media reported only the postivie part of the CEOs message and the markets ate it up. While they are not saying it is going up, saying it is not that bad is just the same to me.
This ship is going to sink this year once people cannot hide behind fake numbers.
January 13th, 2007 at 12:20 am
Looks like #19 is now listed for $300K according to mls-2.com.
January 22nd, 2007 at 11:11 pm
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