The worst case we ran into was a speculator from New York. We were given his number by the contact from Craig’s List. Before speaking with him, I checked the particulars on the house from publicly available stuff at the county website (selling price, property taxes, etc.). He paid $647k in October 04. His asking price for rent was $2,200.
He was trying to rent out a one-year-old house in the new Hidden Trails subdivision of Escondido. He wanted to rent it out on a month-to-month while also listing it for sale (asking price of $760-790k; I should add that there appeared to be no improvements to the house other than those put in by the developer). I told him we weren’t interested in that arrangement. I also told him he needed to lower his selling price if he wanted to sell the property. His response: “I can’t. If I do, I won’t make a profit.”
He called a half hour later and suggested that we see the house. We did check it out and it was very nice (3,100 sf on a big lot; decent amenities). I called him back and told him we liked it but we still couldn’t rent a house while it was being sold. He offered to take it off the market for 6 months for us but he would also raise the rent $200/month. He also disclosed that his monthly nut on the place was ~$3,900. I took him at his word.
We ended up renting another place and when I spoke with him, he had a lot of questions about the market. I told him it had softened with the October YOY median resale price in the county only up about 2%. I also suggested that he take a trip out to San Diego so he could drive around north county and witness the amount of new home construction that was occurring. He mumbled something about holding out for the “miracle offer”.
A week or two later, I noted that he had dropped his asking price by $10k. Not enough IMO. The listing has since disappeared. I haven’t seen a sale show up yet on the county web site so I assume he found a renter.
