When's the mortgage contingency expire?
Here’s a guy after my own heart, satisfied with who he is and what he’s doing. “Vulture not ashamed of picking real estate bones.”
Chicago Tribune reports from Miami:
Buyers are definitely out there, he says, and he and his agents are putting in long days with them. He says 60 percent to 70 percent are investors or second-home buyers; the rest are “primary users” who will occupy them full time.
At the height of the boom, condo buying in Miami was frenzied. Buyers stood in long lines to put down deposits on not-yet-constructed buildings; some hired people to do it for them.
The frenzy is back, sort of, Zalewski says. Most prominent are foreign investors trying to take advantage of the weak dollar. These buyers, he says, are paying premium prices.
“A (bank-owned) property will come to the market on Friday, and on Monday, when the bank starts to collect offers, they might collect 10 or 20, and they can be 10 or 20 percent higher than the asking price,” Zalewski said.
So, is the Miami market headed for another bubble?
“I wouldn’t say we’re not,” he said. “The only difference in today’s Miami condo market, compared to (the market peak) in 2005, is that today’s buyer is all cash, no leverage.
“In 2005, it was all leverage, no cash. But it has the same feel, the same irrational exuberance.”
Zalewski says the pace at his Bal Harbour-based business these days is nonstop. He knows that both within and outside real estate, some are scornful of his specialty.
“There’s a hero and a villain in every story. We don’t have any trouble being the villain in some people’s eyes because we’re the hero in someone else’s. It just depends on which side of the table you’re sitting on at the closing,” he says.
“We’re going to do what we do as long as we’re doing everything legally and ethically. We’re not being charlatans.
“Vultures haven’t been put on Earth without a good reason.”
