Thursday March 13, 2008

South Florida: Move here

miami sykline

“It’s too expensive to live here. We’re suffering. And you can help: don’t move here. If you’re thinking about it, just don’t come. If we can deflate this housing bubble, we can afford to live here once more. It might take years. But in the meantime, it sucks here anyway: don’t come.” — Amy, writing at Incertus (via)

Amy lives in Ft. Lauderdale, and the article that quote comes from concerns a story in Palm Beach. I’m not sure whether her logic makes any sense at all, but it for sure doesn’t apply to Miami. Look, keeping people from moving to your town (as if you could) might make housing there cheaper, but it for sure is not good for the economy. You want people to buy stuff, go to restaurants, create the demand for more stuff, and get the economy going. When your local economy is doing good, you have a chance, more then likely, of getting a better job. The above logic may work if you’re on a fixed income, but it’s a downer anyway you slice it.

More importantly, though, what we have here right now is an oversupply of new housing. Have you noticed? Maybe it’s not as acute for our neighbors in the BPB, but here in Miami we have tens of thousands of vacant condo units with no buyers. Thousands more, like the one bought by this poor sap, are facing the near-certainty of foreclosure. So you have all these cumulative effects driving down housing costs. Now, this is great for locals who have been waiting to buy a home. I told you over two years ago to sell your house. The market was at the top then (just starting to decline, really), and if you listened, you have some fraction of a million bucks sitting in CDs right now. Well, the bottom we’ve been waiting for will be upon us in early 2009. If you played your cards right maybe you can re-buy your old house and bank a 6-figure profit. Or buy one of the spectacular new condos and make even more (and join us in our new space-age metropolis from the future). If you’ve never owned a home this goes for you too — start saving now, have your twenty grand ready for a down payment a year from now, and you’ll thank me later. (Check out Housing Tracker: between August/05 and March/08, median home cost dropped from $425,000 to $316,900. That’s more then 25%, but the decline is still accelerating.)

But I digress. The point is that even if all the renters in Miami suddenly started buying condos we’d still be in a jam as a city. Empty buildings are good for laughing at greedy developers, but they are not so good for the economy. We need folks from out of town here to soak up a bit of the excess. I want them here adding to the economy, because I want a fancy new job with a 6-figure salary.

So, come on, folks, we’re looking forward to a brief window of opportunity. And you can help yourself, too: move here. If you’re thinking about it, just come. The bubble’s popping, and you can get in on the ground floor with the rest of us.

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  1. Rick    Thu Mar 13, 08:51 AM #  

    A few things.

    One, I appreciate you doing the “vias,” and recognizing where you first saw the info. Thanks.

    Two. I believe Amy’s post was slightly tongue-in-cheek. I may be wrong, but that’s the feeling I get.

    Three. With all due respect, predicting that housing prices had ballooned out of control and would eventually make their way back to more reasonable levels was not exactly cutting edge information. But, indeed, you and millions of other people got it right.

    Four. If you’re planning on buying a condo, be reeaaal careful where you invest.

    .



  2. alex    Thu Mar 13, 10:19 AM #  

    Her logic does make sense for YOUR goals, if you are serious about saving 20k and get on the bottom floor. The only way prices will drop more than 200K (on average) from the