Sunday, March 02, 2008

The Stages of Flipperdom


Fist came the Buccaneer Flipperette. She would swarm into the neighborhood find the hidden treasure and escape with her loot leaving a stunned group of honest citizens wondering what just happened.

Then came Hard Hat Flipperette. She'd paint, fix, shoehorn some pergraniteel and see 200% returns for her efforts as all the shiny surfaced blinded the marks. The problem that never really was the case. The market was wild and masked that most home improvements never return what they cost. CNN Money discovers what loyal EN readers have always known.
NAR's survey revealed that returns on investment for a wide range of high-end interior redecorations dropped in 2007. An upscale bathroom renovation cost an average of $50,590, nationally, but only added $34,588 to house value - a 68.4% return. In 2006, a high-end bath renovation returned 77.4% of its cost.

Adding a brand new bath didn't pay off as well either, earning just a 69% return in 2007, compared with 72.8% in 2006. High-end kitchen remodels held up better, adding value equal to 74.1% of the cost, compared with 75.9% in 2006.


And what can we expect next? The Wishing Fairy Flipperette.

18 comments:

wagga said...

I like the first pic best.

Lou Minatti said...

Rob,

Have you covered this yet?

http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/city-halls-density-hawks-are-changing-las-dna/18410/

Unknown said...

I was watching the other day this show "My House is Worth What?" in the housing channel. It's unbelievable! People being disappointed because the house they bought in Orlando in 2003 for $220K has only appreciated to $400K. They were expecting $450K because a few months ago their neighbors sold for $460K.

Lou Minatti said...

Harish, they deserve that $200k. They worked hard for it.

sm_landlord said...

Lou, thanks for the pointer. The Los Angeles city fathers seem to have missed the point that Blade Runner was depicting a dystopic future, not a utopic one.

Now dammit, where's my flying car?

Centipede said...

Repo man took it.

spooq said...

Gold touched $985. AUD is near parity with USD. Repo man took the USD too.

Arthur Wankspittle said...

Bit of long term investment going on here:
http://www.bakersfield.com/102/story/377212.html

Wonder how that will look in a couple of years?

Property Flopper said...

I'll take two of the brunette to go please...

Non-scientific, but fun... go to Craigslist / real estate for sale (pick any metro area you'd like) and type in "bank owned".

Interesting things - you can tell the areas hardest hit by the recession - the areas that shot up for no reason suddenly have a LOT of bank owned while "established" neighborhoods are doing much better. Supports what has been said here for a while.

Also fun (and why I put it here) is the number of "oops" posts - bank owned that were obvious flops. I don't have links right now, I'll post some later if I get a chance.

Jean ValJean said...

"As I kept reading his story, I realized he's very intelligent and pretty shrewd about reaching his goal of avoiding foreclosure," Swaby added.

Ogg the Caveman said...

Thanks, JVJ. It's been a while since anyone's properly needled 0 Response Time Swaby around here.

Ogg the Caveman said...

Sheesh. It's quiet here. Did everyone get foreclosed?

Centipede said...

Let's hope there are enough folks in Ohio who have an IQ higher than an amoeba. Texas is far more promising.

Anonymous said...

mort aka edgar aka buzz saw wuz here. She sure is a long legged puddy.

Sac RE Agent said...

Those are nice before pixs Rob. Let's see them a year or two later after the flip.

Property Flopper said...

>Let's see them a year or two later after
> the flip.

No! Please don't. I know the housing market is ugly, but we don't need the women to reflect that. It's a disturbing thing to see early in the morning.

w said...

How about the flipperette who got out just in time? She went to a Robert Kyosaki event sold everything and is now heavily into gold and silver.

http://www.blujay.com/item/Money-Ho-Costume-BoaRich-GirlMade-of-MoneySz-1012-6210000-1786092&keywords=

Bob said...

Somewhat OT but related to overpaying at the height of the
market, I haven't seen a free rent offer in Manhattan since about 1985.

BTW, the stuy town purchase was your CALPERS dollars at work.