Flopped When They Should Have Flipped

Great location, location, location but four and a quarter still seems a tad high to me. Perhaps you've seen the movie, Best In Show, about a group of kooky characters involved in the world of big-time show dogs. If you have seen it, you will recall a scene in which the annoying yuppie couple, Meg and Hamilton Swan, describes how they first noticed one another. He sat in Starbucks store and saw her through the window as she sat in a different Starbucks directly across the street. I had a variation on that experience today. I went to meet a guy who is building a, you guessed it, Starbuck's at one of the malls here in our fair city. I arrived to find that he was running 40 minutes late and since I didn't have time to go anywhere else and get back to meet him, I decided to walk down the block, about 200 yards, to a Target store to get a drink. Imagine my surprise to find another Starbuck's location down there. We may have lost our lead in manufacturing, but we're the world leader in making coffee and coffee-related drinks. In another development and sign that the world has gone mad, a new home that someone built down the street from Casa Sneed is for sale for $425,000. Perhaps that isn't a big deal in some places, maybe even in your area, but in our neighborhood it is a sign of lunacy. About a year ago I noticed a for sale sign on this property and I couldn't figure out what was for sale. The sign was stuck beween two houses in what looked like the side yard of each. It turned out that hidden behind the oleander hedge was a buildable lot. Some real estate guys have built this house and are having trouble selling it, based upon the fact that it is still empty, after taking the better part of a year to finish. Its a nice house, but it isn't a palace or anything. It is maybe 2000 square feet, with a small lot. The houses on either side are definitely not $400,000 plus models. In fact, I did a little research on this property, using our assessor's website, and the house immedaitely next door sold for $235,000 about a year ago. That was at the height of the real estate craze and was the most a house in this block had ever sold for. I think the investors in this project are about to experience bitter disappointment. I also heard on one of the Las Vegas podcasts that there are 20,000 resale homes currently on the market there and that one-half are not owner occupied. A bunch of homes in Las Vegas are about to be foreclosed on. Too bad for the greedy investors who thought that they could flip them and cash in quick. On the better news front, only three days of work this week. The only thing better than working four days a week is getting to work three. Merle. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgemental and cranky Tag: Daily Life Personal Finance Humor