Nuked on Newport: UPDATE

In this post from October, I predicted the $190,000 asking price would require significant cutting to interest an investor.

Specifically, I posited that even $166,000 still wouldn't be enough to lure a buyer.

At the time my reasoning was:

If you take the December 2001 sales price of $126,500 and calculate a 4% annual appreciation rate, today this condo would be valued at $166,000.

However, at $166,000--a discount of $24,000--the monthly payment would still exceed equivalent rent by about 100 bones (By the way, I could have started the appreciation timeline at the 2000 price of $87,000, but I didn't want to make the seller cry).

Well, after eight months on the market and a little List/De-list/Re-list grab assin', here we are at $158,000 and still no dice for this short sale.



For the record, if you take the pre-bubble price of $87k and compound 4% appreciation, today's value would be $124,000. Yep, that's a 2001 price.

And the price that would make this place a good buy. With 20% down and tax benefits, even considering recent reductions in asking rents, an $800 monthly PITI (Principal, Interest, Taxes, Insurance) would still reach rental parity--and maybe even beat it. But $124k is a long way from where we are today.



Personally, I think this place will sell long before it gets down to $124k because it's already so close to rental parity. But given the extremely narrow owner-occupier market for such a place (young, single folks) and the unemployment situation (creating an iffy investor market), you never know.