At my house at Havre de Grace.
I am a poor person with
an education. That means that I have the means of getting what I want and what
I need. The thing that sets me aside from most other poor people is that I
started figuring out as a teenager what I wanted to do and how I wanted to make
money. I did not go to college just to get through college. I went to learn
specific things such as real estate, wills/trusts, contact law, finance, IT,
banking, and Business.
As many of you know, I
just moved into a property in Havre de Grace, MD. The property is in the rich
people’s section. You may ask how a poor person can move into a rich neighborhood.
The answer is easy; you look for a “want to” seller.
A “want to” seller is a
person that must sell because they are financially in serious trouble or they
have to vacate the property quickly for other reasons.
I met with one of the
partners that own Heron Harbor. He is a “want to” seller. He told me that the
banks are pressuring him to lower the prices on his condos. He wanted to know
if I wanted to buy a $600,000 condo for $400,000. I turned him down. He was not
dispirit enough.
In my situation down
the street at Seneca Pointe, I found an owner that had no choice but to sell. The
poor 40 something lady was a Construction Engineer making good money. The job
was so stressful that she quit and went to work in a dance studio. You can see
the stress in her face making her look 50 something. Her mother looked better
than she did.
When she quit, I don’t
think she realized her position in a collapsing housing market. After all,
everyone has been condition to think that the price of real estate always goes
up. Not only that but property on the water sales at a premium. Here is where
she got a good education.
When the property was built
and sold February 28, 2007, the property sold for $307,000. The original seller
put the property up for sell on July 24, 2012 for $209,900. That should have
been her first clue that something was wrong with the market or the property. She
bought the property for $307,000 on August 9, 2012. She thought that she
could make the payments. But her health started to fail because of the pressures
of the job. She had to get out of the
property and Wells Fargo, her banker, took over and made it into a “Short
Sale.”
They were willing to
sell the property for $199,000. Knowing that the owner and the banker were
pressed for time to unload this property with no other buyers in sight, I put
in a bid for $125,000. Zestimate estimated the average property price to be
worth today, $217,513 with a range of $196K – $235K.
Darnell's Kitchen
Here is why
Zestimate estimate is so high. The condo has; a two car garage, beautiful
granite and hardwood/bamboo floors, forced air heating and
cooling, carpeted bedrooms, an open floor plan, and
a fire place. You can walk to downtown shopping areas, to the Marina, and to
doctor’s offices and to the hospital. It is close to Rt. I-95 and Amtrak.
The condo has
2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms with 1,200 square feet. It sits on one acre of
property. I have a swimming pool below my back balcony. My side balcony faces
the bay.
The Neighborhood
The property
is nuzzled near the water
in the heart of historic Havre de Grace. It is walking distance to the board
walk.
The owner took the bid but the bank had to
approve it. The bank came back with a price of $195,000. I came back with a
price of $150,000. The bank came down to $170,000. My final bid was $165,000.
We agreed on that price.
Realty owners and
developers like Heron Harbor have been selling off their assets at distress
value under pressure from banks and financial institutions to repay their
loans. They are not the only developers doing this.
Meanwhile, in a related
financial story, the bankers said that they had no option but to push Vibor
Properties to repay their loans. “We know realty developers are having a
difficult time, but we have our own problems too,” said one of the bankers in
the Vibor Properties consortium. “Selling the property at distress value was
the best option at present; and developers should think about surviving, not
about profit making.”
Sources said other
banks in the consortium even pressurized their leader Siddhartha Bank to
recover the loan. “In the future, the market will see more instances of selling
at distress value,” said the banker.
This is how bad the
real estate market has gotten. If you know the situation and you are in
position to take advantage of the real estate market, you can get a large
discount on some properties that were unreachable just 10 years ago.
