hese questions are for the downtown condo watchers:
(a) Of the 1000+ condos for sale downtown these days (“downtown” being defined as downtown/bankers hill/hillcrest to keep things broad), what percentage of those for sale are by investors who have bought within the past 2.5 years and are trying to flip the unit? (In other words, they had no intention of ever living in the unit.)
(b) Of all of the condos in this area purchased as “investments” over the last 2.5 years, what percentage are being rented out – at negative cashflow obviously – in the hope that price appreciation will eventually bail them out and generate a good return?
(c) Of those people who have put down deposits on projects currently under construction but not yet completed, what percentage plan(ned) to live in the units versus flip them?
Regarding your question C there has been some discussion under a post I made about Icon, which is likely to be the first of the many new buildings completing in 2007, it was very interesting to see some of the Phase 1 pricing that was posted as it was quite underwhelming which leads me to believe that the escrows for the project aren’t very sticky. This theory is substantiated by the amount of adversting on Icon. It’s virtually everywhere. Clearly if the first new tower to complete isn’t sold out and people start to cancel their contracts the story will get tougher and tougher with each new building.
Anyway I hope this helps somewhat, know that it’s very hard to put any quantitative numbers on your list…
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