http://www.wfmz.com/news/Developer-gears....

Developer gears up for massive auction:


A local developer said he wants the slow housing market to speed up again and he's holding an auction to try and get things going.

Greth Development Group will have many properties up for sale next Saturday. And he's hoping they don't all sell for the minimum bids.

A large 4 bedroom, 2 and half bath model home in Exeter Township was for sale at $350,000. On March 10, the minimum bid is $55,000.

Greth is the president of Greth Development Group and he said his inventory in this market has been difficult to manage.

"We're paying taxes, interest and loan," said Greth.

He's decided to unload many properties through an auction.

"We're trying to drive the market as opposed to the market drive us," said Greth.

"These days even though the interest rates are lower than ever people just aren't coming out to look at properties," said Bob Dann.

Bob Dann is from the auction house Max Spann.

"If we get people out here looking, come, look, like and hopefully buy," said Dann.

Potential bidders who weren't able to make it out to Wednesday's open house will get another opportunity this weekend to peek around. That's what Walter Greth is hoping will happen to generate lots of interest.

"You can only build so much and then you have to sell something," said Greth.

"That's how it works. So that's what we're trying to do, sell something so we then can build some other stuff and get our trades busy."

Dann explained to someone at the open house, "If you are the winning bidder you're going to be required to put 10 percent down."

There are single family homes, townhomes, lots, and raw land for sale.

"We are flooding the market," said Dann. "We're putting a lot of properties up for sale all at one time and people are going to get tremendous bargains."

Greth said he hopes the bargains aren't too good.

"It's some good value depending on how the auction goes," said Greth, "We'll be really sad, they can make us real sad."

I see that is in the Allentown, PA area. (had to dig a bit)

Maybe FL is the promised land after all? I live within 15 minutes of 5 active new home developments. Homes being built and SOLD signs are in the yards of the newly built homes. (I said 3 on prior posts but I forgot 2 of them!)

Prices are around $180k and up. (Average family income in my county is around $48,000)

Here's my shock and awe on housing price. 7200 sq ft, $1.5mil listed in 2009 (built in 2006). Just sold for $500K. 14 ac property too! The land alone sold for 315K before the home was built.

http://www.redfin.com/WA/Woodinville/223....

Had I known it would go for 500k, I would have tossed my hat in the ring on that, but I gotta wonder if there was something seriously amiss with this. 14 ac is enough to do something useful on.

There has been a surge in homes going "pending sale" on my watch list. Many are short sales and had been languishing on the market for a long time.

Got a home in my neighborhood sitting on 14 acres, the land was bought for 400K in 06 then the home was built on it, 4400sqft, it's got a nice ****ing 1200sqft guest house out back, the home was put up for sale in 08 for $800K, now it's listed for 379K.(not a typo) My realestate agent friend says the owner has put 1.2 million into the property, it has 2 driveways connecting to 2 different roads and a huge steal building shop as well.
forgot to mention, the owner is cool guy and a full time stock trader, he used to have all kinds of cool toys, custom choppers, classic cars, young hot trophy wife.... All that's gone now. He sold everything and is living in the guest house.

Urgh, this is an increasingly sore spot. I'm having a hard time weighing the pros and cons of buying a home/compound vs continuing to rent. While renting I'm somewhat at the mercy of my landlord and the burgeoning renter population, and I can't really build a whole lot of improvements that are immobile (such as water collection, solar, greenhouse, chicken coop or goat pen).

By summer I'll have saved about $45-50k (from zero in Feb 2011) and I find that I can't trust any sort of investment with it other than possibly rolling credit union CDs over. So I guess the question is, should I just continue renting until TSHTF or my LL decides to jack rent up and sit on the cash, or find a compound on a few acres even if it could lose another 10-20% of value..

Remember Florida is a retirement beacon. It could be that a lot of recent retirees from around the country are cashing out and looking to buy homes there. Only thing I can think of because you look at a lot of non-destination spots and the markets are down, down, down.

Even for Florida, next time the stock market declines this kind of buying will dry up fast.

i'm buying, new construction in South Tampa which is actually kind of a rarity, I'm paying $1850 to rent and I can buy for the same price, I'm probably never leaving Florida anyways, this is one of the better places to live IMHO

all those northern **********s from NJ, NY, PA are moving down here with their fat pensions from teaching or whatever the **** they were doing and just want to lay their fat asses in the sun while they collect from those miserable ****s up north

1lump, where is that gem at?!

Gen, right on. My SIL works in NJ and she said a lot of her coworkers retired this year and they ALL sold their NJ homes and moved to FL!

I don't agree on Tampa being that great however. Still pretty sketchy, but this is FL so you can have a $1M home and 2 blocks away, cracktown.

LOTS of white hairs in my town, clogging up the Olive Garden parking lot and spending their SS and pension checks. Without them, we would be toast.

If you aren't working, you can't afford to live in NJ. But I wouldn't move to Florida under any circumstances.

Steel, Southern Middle Tennesee. 50 miles outside Nashville

Lump, how much did he get for the trophy wife?

Jazen, I think he paid half of all his stuff.

So this guy is going to "drive the market" by selling at a loss? I guess he'll make it up in volume. LOL!

I think in 07-08 he was long the stock market and made the losses up in volume, then in 09 he got "smart" and went short to make his money back.

Lump-that's ouch twice. He got ****ed by the trophy wife and then by the market.

Anecdotal. My aunt and uncle are looking to relocate to Logan Square from the NW burbs. They are empty nesters now and looking to downsize into a nice two/three flat. The places are going for pretty cheap, they need work. However, the old game of listing it for a week and taking offers only after 7 days of being listed, is back again. My uncle claims that people are outbidding each other on ****holes in Logan Square.

Insane. It's the whole rental phenom. Now, dickheads have the bright idea that rental properties are the greatest investment evah because people don't want to be tied to a mortgage in case they lose their job. So, any potential multifamily housing is 'prime'.

Knifecatchers. Gotta love em.

Multi family glut coming.

Herd stupidity...

What do you think of the larger apartment buildings >20 units? They do have a nearly captive population, as all the students who come out of college with nutty debt levels won't be able to buy a house for a Long Time.

Gen_maximus57 wrote..

"all those northern **********s from NJ, NY, PA are moving down here with their fat pensions from teaching or whatever the **** they were doing and just want to lay their fat asses in the sun while they collect from those miserable ****s up north"

The best part is, those miserable turds from the NJFSA move out of the Glorious People's Republic down to Florida because "the taxes are way too high here is New Jersey!". Gee, how do you think taxes got so damn high Mr. Six-Figure Pension cop and Mrs. Six-Figure Pension schoolteacher?

HAHAHAHA...When I retire, there will be no pension for me but I also promise if there is one, I will not plant my ass in FL. Promise.

Brewcrew2 wrote..

The best part is, those miserable turds from the NJFSA move out of the Glorious People's Republic down to Florida because "the taxes are way too high here is New Jersey!". Gee, how do you think taxes got so damn high Mr. Six-Figure Pension cop and Mrs. Six-Figure Pension schoolteacher?

This @ Gen_maximus57, also: I was thinking about it today, and I believe that when the plundered states come to the realization that their own .gov pirates took the swag and left behind an intravenous fire hose pumping the state's lifeblood revenue south to the warm climes, there's going to be some confiscatory pension laws passed if you don't live in the state you retired from.

Our various state leaders are moronic, greedy nitwits, but even they can eventually see through a brick wall, given enough time.

You could probably accelerate the process by anonymously mocking them about it on the Internet.

Quote:

when the plundered states come to the realization that their own .gov pirates took the swag and left behind an intravenous fire hose pumping the state's lifeblood revenue south to the warm climes, there's going to be some confiscatory pension laws passed if you don't live in the state you retired from.

You're probably right about that. Now the state and loco public sector jobs will be a life sentence.

Quote:

The best part is, those miserable turds from the NJFSA move out of the Glorious People's Republic down to Florida because "the taxes are way too high here is New Jersey!". Gee, how do you think taxes got so damn high Mr. Six-Figure Pension cop and Mrs. Six-Figure Pension schoolteacher?

+500 to that.

Everyone wants to take and take all they can out of the system but don't you dare ask them to put anything back into the system.

Just wait until more of the current generation gets to voting age and they begin to outnumber the baby boomers who are looting the system. The younger generation will vote to take back those big pensions and/or will vote for the respective governments to go BK so that the pensions evaporate. Either by economic collapse or at the ballot box the retirees are going to get a ****ing.

Flap