Sunday, December 07, 2008


Condo calamity | The San Diego Union-Tribune: "The housing bust has spawned thousands of tales of staggering declines in home values in San Diego's foreclosure-ravaged neighborhoods. But few local projects have suffered as much carnage as the Normal Hights condo conversion Cityscape.

Units started selling in late 2006 and early 2007, one-bedrooms for $237,000 and two-bedrooms for $345,000. Today, of the 70 condos in the flat-roofed, nearly 40-year-old complex, 66 have been taken back by lenders or are in default, the first step of the foreclosure process.

One-bedrooms are reselling for an average of $66,900 and two-bedrooms for $94,200 – down more than 70 percent from the original prices."

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Fred Pilot sent this tragic story of a devastated San Diego condo complex. The lockboxes on the gate tell the tale.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

“It's a pretty low-quality conversion,” said Todd Lackner, a San Diego appraiser who has examined sales at Cityscape. “On the inside, very little was done. But these were selling at significantly higher prices than nicer properties at the same time.”

Lackner said a two-bedroom, two-bath condo on Monroe Avenue about a block away from Cityscape in Normal Heights sold in early 2007 for $231,000 – when two-bedroom units in Cityscape were going for $345,000...

-This had to have been some sort of mortgage fraud. Likely a cash back at closing, in tune of $100k per unit.