Sunday, April 6, 2008

A Sign of the Times- The State of the Housing Market

It seems like only yesterday people were running to open houses, caught in the middle of a bidding wars, and everyone, everyone was suddenly interested in flipping a house. Making money in real estate just seemed to easy. And it was.

Then, just like the stock market of the late 90s, everything stopped. The proverbial bandwagon everyone had happily hopped on was now overloaded and going nowhere.

Now, what would have taken a few days to sell, takes months. New construction, in particular, has hit an all time low and sellers are pulling out all the stops to unload property. Extra incentives (in addition to dirt bottom prices) include finished basements, free golf memberships (shout out to Dominion Valley), covered closing costs, and so much more. These deals are astonishing, and a remarkable measure of how bad it has really gotten out there.

As a military brat that considers relocation an art form, I've lived in more houses than I can count and I still, despite being married to a civilian, get the itch to go every few years. In all that moving experience, however, I have never seen anything as far as incentives go, than what I happened upon in the Sunday Inquirer.

Much like other cities, Atlantic City hopped on the wave of condo living and constructed an extravagant, luxury condo building known as the Bella. With units listed in the millions, there is certainly a particular buyer targeted for this kind of living. And what incentives are being offered to the small population who could afford to buy into the Bella?

Now, with your purchase of a condo...

you get a BMW.

Sign me up.

If only I liked Beamers...perhaps they'll negotiate?

Check it out: www.bellacondos.com

Redunkulous!

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