Foreclosure tour
Florida Housing Crash, Real Estate May 2nd, 2008
More stories of the bursting of the housing bubble in South Florida. According to the Miami New Times:
On this foreclosure tour, the mortgage crisis is just another money maker.
The unlikely day-trippers were part of the inaugural Miami Homes Tour, a new tactic for hawking foreclosed property. Its organizers are part of a burgeoning brood of businesspeople cleaning up after Miami’s burst real estate bubble.
It’s certainly no secret — foreclosures are climbing across the nation and particularly in South Florida. Lenders took possession of 1,143 properties in March, a 317 percent increase from last year and almost double the February total, according to a recent analysis by the South Florida firm Condo Vultures.
Those who haven’t lost their homes have lost money. The median home sale price in Miami-Dade has dropped 12 percent and condos have plummeted 11 percent in the past year.
But that doesn’t mean the wily among us can’t make a few bucks. It’s boom time for lawn guys, foreclosure specialists, and maids, says Kia Grant, who runs a Miami Beach property maintenance firm. “Everybody’s getting in on it and trying to make a dollar.”
