Urban Condo Market

[Richard Lawson]

On Monday, my column dealt with the condo market. The cover of the City Paper had "Condo Collapse?" I'd be interested in thoughts on whether that title. There was major blowback on the use of that headline. There were a lot who viewed that negatively. But the column explained that the market isn't nearly as bad as folks seem to be worrying about.

I'm pretty sure I can post the link here.

http://nashvillecitypaper.com/news.php?viewStory=58709

[smeagolsfree]

Well to be honest Richard, I sort of thought the same thing. I even commented on it to a few friends. I understand where you are coming from, but I am going to take a wait and see attitude and see what happens. I think we may be a little better off here than other places.

I dont know how much of it was the Presidents fault as it was stupid people, speculators and greedy mortgage brokers.

[barakat]

Based on the fact that most of the downtown condos remain overpriced, I don't believe the market has collapsed. I'm sure those "investor buyers" want to max out their investment [and I don't blame them] but I believe their expectations are way too high for a virgin highrise condo market like Nashville. Those buying comparable Novare product in Charlotte and Atlanta enjoy far lower prices for condos similar to Viridian and Encore [185k in ATL vs. 245k at Viridian based on a comparison of similar units]. Atlanta probably has a glut of competing condos on the market, resulting in the lower prices. I think Nashville's condo prices have to come down considerably for the purported "unmet demand" for downtown living to become reality.

[Richard Lawson]

Well to be honest Richard, I sort of thought the same thing. I even commented on it to a few friends. I understand where you are coming from, but I am going to take a wait and see attitude and see what happens. I think we may be a little better off here than other places.

I dont know how much of it was the Presidents fault as it was stupid people, speculators and greedy mortgage brokers.

[smeagolsfree]

Good luck on that. Its probably a good idea. It would seem they would let you write the headline as well. Sort of sensationalist the way it came out.

[samsonh]

Richard,

I am going to preface the following comment with this: I cannot stand President Bush. With that said, blaming the housing crisis on him makes your knowledge of finance and banking seem suspect. Banks write the mortgages, with their own money at risk. They began lending to people who could not afford their notes when they ran out of quality borrowers. Bush did not entice them to do this anymore than he enticed the bond market to not charge a high enough premium for Brazilian bonds over T-bonds. The housing market and that example share one thing in common. Risk was not priced into the market. Bush can be blamed for a lot of things, but the housing crisis is not one of them.

If you really wanted to blame someone for the current crisis you should look towards Greenspan and his actions earlier in this decade.

[Richard Lawson]

Richard,

I am going to preface the following comment with this: I cannot stand President Bush. With that said, blaming the housing crisis on him makes your knowledge of finance and banking seem suspect. Banks write the mortgages, with their own money at risk. They began lending to people who could not afford their notes when they ran out of quality borrowers. Bush did not entice them to do this anymore than he enticed the bond market to not charge a high enough premium for Brazilian bonds over T-bonds. The housing market and that example share one thing in common. Risk was not priced into the market. Bush can be blamed for a lot of things, but the housing crisis is not one of them.

If you really wanted to blame someone for the current crisis you should look towards Greenspan and his actions earlier in this decade.

[Richard Lawson]

Good luck on that. Its probably a good idea. It would seem they would let you write the headline as well. Sort of sensationalist the way it came out.

[ATLBrain]

So many people never even see the question mark.

[Richard Lawson]

So many people never even see the question mark.

[samsonh]

Oh that thing on Bush was partial sarcasm. Everyone is blaming Bush for stuff so I was having a little fun with that because if you go back and look at his ownership society initiative in 2003, you'll see there were programs started to encourage the private sector to lend to low income folks etc. I also noted that the Democrats in Congress went along with it but folks skipped right over that. I got called everything but white on that one. Those exchanges are fun because of the partisanship that comes out. Few want to blame their politicians for creating the environment. Back when I was at The Tennessean, I wrote a series on affordable housing. At that time, people in the affordable housing non-profit biz were sending up warning signals about the programs lending 110% and over inflating home prices to justify the loans. But you can also go back to the 1980s with the advent of structured finance vehicles. Then bring in the hedge funds, etc. It was kind of a perfect storm.

[Nashville_maestro]

^dont call poor people dumb. Life circumstances aren't always so black and white.

Unless you're referring to people who are so lazy that they dont get jobs and just live off of unemployment. Yes those people are stupid but just because someone doesnt make 30k a year doesnt mean theirs dumb. Sorry. You just hit a note with me because I've had close friends who had to move into public housing because that's all they could afford. Trust me. They didnt live there because they wanted to.

[Plasticman]

^dont call poor people dumb. Life circumstances aren't always so black and white.

Unless you're referring to people who are so lazy that they dont get jobs and just live off of unemployment. Yes those people are stupid but just because someone doesnt make 30k a year doesnt mean theirs dumb. Sorry. You just hit a note with me because I've had close friends who had to move into public housing because that's all they could afford. Trust me. They didnt live there because they wanted to.

[monsoon]

You know, I don't know why we are having arguments on foodstamps, people's personal responsibility vs the failure of government, and calls that we here are socialist forum. And calling people dumb based on their economic status is really disappointing. All of this based on an article in a newspaper that I consider to not be much better than a tabloid given some of the other stuff that we have been hit with from there.

This is an Urban Development forum for Nashville and it amazes me that so many people here fail to recognize that and continue to want to air out their agendas having nothing to do with this this forum. (and we even created a coffee house where this could take place)

While the collapse of the condo market would be a legitimate subject, Plasticman, samsonh, and of course AtlBrain have demonstrated, yet again their ability to send a topic into lala land. I wish one day you might want to make a positive contribution to UrbanPlanet and Nashville.

Richard, before you post another topic that asks us to critique one of your newspaper articles, you must clear it with me first. Please refer to our rules.