MIAMI — For sale: one newly constructed three-bedroom, four-bathroom home near the University of Miami, with South African wood in the kitchen, marble from India, Egypt and Spain, and a $4,500 top-of-the-line garage door.
Listing price two years ago: $979,000. Listing price now: $599,000.
“I always figured the market trend wouldn’t catch me,” said Rafael Diaz, the owner and builder. He turned down $770,000 more than a year ago, he said, and has come to accept that he will never get the $700,000 he said he needed to break even. “By the end of the year,” he said, “I might just turn it over to the bank.”
Homeowners are struggling nationwide. But here in South Florida, the reversal of fortune has been especially severe, scrambling the psychology of a community that has historically treated real estate as a game of how-rich-can-you-get.
Overdeveloped and still building, this remains a place where conversations about the market are sugared with a rush of dreams and speculation. Now, though, people start with “if only I had sold when,” rather than “I should have bought.”
No comments:
Post a Comment