Looking From Above at Stopped Medallion

Why don't they at least build and operate the parking garage portion of the project? It would shut up the worst critics of the shutdown.

This developer is an idiot. I say level the site and start over. Sell it to someone who knows what they are doing. 13 stories all around, 2,000 units of rental housing. That's where this market is going.

I'm in Bert! Meet ya at the bank tomorrow morning. Don't forget your safe deposit key.

;-)

No doubt this developer is an idiot. If they can't build, then they need to sell to someone who can.

Yes, the real estate market is down now, but you build housing that will be around for decades. The market will go back up, probably by the time they finish this project. What happens in five or six years when the market is up and these idiot developers built this smaller project with fewer units? Then what?

You can't sell when there are no buyers. Check out the CBRE downtown listings:

http://www.cbre.com/USA/US/CA/Los+Angeles+DT/tprofile/bkg-trm.htm?pageid=8

No shortage of listings and I am guessing none of these properties are getting bids. Banks aren't lending on dirt and the speculation game is over.

Fourth and Main: Theodore Roosevelt slept there - Westminister Hotel (It was a dry establishment; he prolly had to sneak out at midnight for a nightcap).

ThisGuy: let's not forget - location, location, location. The list you mention includes only one property within the most key, desirable residential area of Downtown. In that, I'd day there is a distinct shortage of properties on the block.

Norbie: Agreed. I have a feeling though that there is a lot more 'for sale' downtown, it is just not being listed. Possibly because the developers don't want the investors to know they are in trouble. Meruelo Maddux owns about about 4 parking lots slated for towers in South Park. I wonder if those are being offered in their 65% Off sale?

ER: My bad. I wonder though if they will be trying to sell the South Park lots? I saw in a CBRE land sales report that they were purchased for over $500/sf. It would certainly be hard to get that back in today's market. The KOR project on Olive is listed at $275/sf.

The important thing when developing such a large project is the saturation of similar product at the time of completion and the economic conditions at that time. If the market is down now, that does not mean that when the project is done the market will be the same. In two years it may have all rebounded and absorption of retail and residential units may be up. The problem is getting assurance for pre-leasing your property, it lowers your confidence and may give you a longer absorption rate. They are building for the future, not on the present.

Two years from now, one out of every eight (12%) homes in America will have been foreclosed on. America is going to get what southern California got circa 1990-97 after the fall of communism, the consequence of Ronnie Reagan's deregulation of federal oversight and low-life hucksters and lizards of every stripe (Friends of Cheney) having gone on a rampage.

Urban Trojan

More regulation? People need to start taking personal responsibility and stop blaming others (lenders, brokers). If you can't afford it, don't buy. If the mortgage seemed to good to be true, it probably was. This is a good correction. People who had no business buying a house are now paying for it. Sorry, but that's life.

The housing market will go back up again after all the bad mortgages get cleaned out.

Plus, this applies to the lenders also. All the banks including big ones like B of A and WaMu are losing billions. As they should for issueing all those crappy loans.

Anyways, if you haven't noticed, rental rates are increasing in the city. Normal when the real estate market goes down. More people are renting. The same should apply downtown. Less for sale units. More rental units.

That developer Saeed Farkhondehpour is an idiot. This is what long time developer Tom Gillmore said of Saeed's decision, "I know this market pretty well, and for somebody to be concerned about the rental market is simply not paying attention to how this market works right now," he said. "The rental market is very, very good, specifically in this part of the market like the Historic Core."

He also termed Saeed's decision "a little odd".

And they want us to deregulate rent control too... And how could we forget ol' Howard Jarvis and his Prop. 13 Campaign back in '78. He ran all over the state telling one and all that if it passed, rents would go down. Not.

The condo craze of this decade repeated the same mistakes of the similar mania two decades ago.

Condos pencil out best in areas like Honolulu and Miami Beach, where there's an abundance of natural features but scarce developable land.

The biggest problem with condos is that it is fundamentally the ownership of an apartment. The value of a property is the land, not what's on top of it. Condo owners don't get that upside.

UT, who is this "they" you keep referring to?

Look in your ballot pamphlet for next month's election. Both propositions would outlaw rent control throughout the entire state.

Condo are more for places like Honolulu or Miami where they have scarce developal land?

I'm sorry but I am not a fan of urban sprawl. So Cal has scarce developal land as well unless you want to live in a single family home half way fricken Bakersfield.

Condos and apartments are the only choice in increasing the amount of housing within the urban limits. And more housing is needed to accomodate the growing population.

Condos present people with the opportunity to create home equity and have something of value. The current decline in home values is simply a normal and needed correction of the inflated housing prices. Over the long term, people who own single family homes AND condos will see an increase in their equity.

Many condo owners across America are now discovering that they have to cover the ownership dues of recent owners within their buildings, those who have walked away to a new life back in apartment-hood. The institutions that are repossessing abandoned units in condominium-hood are not paying association dues. Hence, the common areas in said hood have become desiterata gone deteriorata. If those highrise condominium projects presently under construction are not switched to apartment-hood in this market, one can expect instant deteriorata in South Park. As well, Pershing Square is not Midtown Manhattan. Who will cover the maintenance costs of so many unsold units? Have all of those who have ponied up and reserved a space seen their deposit evaporate in the face of a declining market? On the other hand, if all units should happen to have aleady been reserved (by foolish residents of Seoul), wait till they begin to move in. Once they open their sliding glass doors and the odor from The Square wafts in, the site specific market will change, no matter the state of the Downtown or southern California market. If the project breaks ground this coming fall as the developer has said, I will eat my Kimchee sans fermenter. Moveins will quickly give away their tickets to Urinetown at the Ahmanson.

I don't think both props would outlaw rent control...only 98.