U.S Real Estate at stand still!!
 

How are you guys in the USA finding the real estate market at the moment. From a review I read in forbes and fortune it says that the U.S 5 years housing boom is now at stand still, and in some cases prices are dropping. Just interested to know as I'm in the Property development/real estate business and I buy/develope all over europe. But at present I'm looking at buying a property in Orlando just 5 miles from Disney and a property in Las Vegas. Both properties will be just purely for investment and will most like be structured as holiday accomodation. I believe that there is a return of around 12 to 15 weeks rental in Orlando I have not yet received any figures for Las Vegas. So anyone here done the same?? And whats your views?

I'm not sure how things in Orlando are doing specifically, but in general the market is slow right now, and prices are beginning to drop.

Yeah thats what I heard!

Slooooowwww now. A year ago, any house in my zip code would have gone into a bidding war and sold within 7 days. Now, some houses stay on the market several months until sellers drop their asking price.

JV

Do you guys think its only certin areas that are affect badly?

The commercial market is still strong,

I'm no national real estate expert, but I'd guess speculators in the DC metro area helped to drive up prices. I can't tell you how many existing apartments have gone condo and how high home values have shot up since about the year 2000.

JV

Homes here had multiple offers in the first 24 hours 2 years ago. Now 60-120 days on the market and price reductions are the norm.

We still have a decent market for single family homes in SF. Condos are slowing down. The surrounding areas are pretty slow. Prices have dropped around 5-7% this year, not too bad considering how much prices have gone up in the last few years. The market seem to have picked up the past month though because interest rates have gone down a little.

Check this out! They mention Orlando as one of the areas still chugging along.

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06...id=msnbc_price

Hope it helps. There are plenty of speculation web sites at the moment and each market is different but Vegas went through its crazy phase as well and I hear things are on a slippery down slope with peeps finally realizing they live in the desert with just an adult Disney Land as company!