Meadowmont

I haven't picked on Meadowmont for a long time, but only because it seems too easy.

There is one realtor in Chapel Hill whom I like. I won't link to his blog, because I don't want him to know I read it -- and judging by my recent harsh words for realtors in the area, I don't want to stigmatize him*. What he does is post regular updates for recent transactions, broken down by neighborhood, and which houses are for sale in that neighborhood. This includes their asking price and the square footage of the house. It's really useful for watching transactions over time. I've been keeping a record of everything he's posted since June or so. You can find his blog pretty quickly on google if you search for chapel hill real estate blog neighborhood update.

(*I used to have a realtor follower, and she left a message once saying she enjoyed my blog. But she's deleted that message, either to distance herself from my bearish attitudes, or because she doesn't like my opinion of her national organization.)

From this Realtor's blog, I was able to watch something astonishing:

The only houses to sell in Meadowmont this summer sold for ~$200/sqft. They have a dozen houses in the $300 to $400 per square foot range. Ok -- some of those links were for houses in the $200 /sqft range -- but those were 6K sqft houses. Each one that I linked to cost more than $1M. Or I should say, each one is asking over $1M.

Today's property is a foreclosure. It's not yet on the market. SunTrust foreclosed in July. They haven't gotten their act together yet to put this property -- originally purchased for $1,048,000 -- onto the market. Instead, it stays on their books as a non-performing asset. If I held shares in SunTrust, damn right I'd sell.

The history for the property doesn't look good.



XXX Circle Park Place

(As identified by realtytrac.com)

12/15/2006 DEED OF TRUST -- $750K Adjustable Rate Mortgage from SunTrust

2/15/2006 DEED OF TRUST -- $270K Second Mortgage from MERS.

03/19/2008 DEED OF TRUST -- $230K Third Mortgage from the owner's family trust.

07/28/2009 FORECLOSURE -- Sold back to SunTrust for $858K.


Todays owners placed a $28K down payment on a $1M house. 2.6% of the purchase price.

How long do you think SunTrust will keep this off the market? What happens to the other Meadowmont sellers when they see that the only house to sell since MARCH 2009 is a foreclosure property?