The 475-square-foot “junior one bedroom” condo #629 at 177 Townsend Street was purchased for $466,000 in August of 2007 and resold for $295,000 in November of 2011.
With “over 35K” since invested in the unit, including new floors and refinished cabinetry, the South Beach condo with parking was returned to the market this past March listed for $550,000.
Yesterday, the sale of the 475 square foot unit closed escrow with a reported contract price of $560,000. Call it a 90 percent gain in value for the condo from 2011 to 2014, a gain which includes both market appreciation as well as the investment in – and returns from – remodeling, versus a 37 percent decline in value from 2007 to 2011 on an apples-to-apples basis.
Location, location, and well…. timing.
Also, FWIW, you could have bought the S&P 500 at 1,158 in November 2011 and today it’s around 1,869, that’s about 61% higher, with fewer headaches, no cap ex and no carrying costs. And yes, you can also lever stocks with margin, if not quite as much as mortgages.
…but you can’t sleep (or party) in your stocks.
The $295k purchase in 2011 was particularly bright.
“…but you can’t sleep (or party) in your stocks.
The $295k purchase in 2011 was particularly bright.”
Bright?! Come on, any A-hole with the $ could have purchased the condo. I’d hardly call that “bright”.
If you want to see “bright” why don’t you some of returns the less desirable neighborhoods in the east bay where an investor could have made 3x return from 2011 and 5x from 2009.
If this is “bright” the East Bay investor deserves the Nobel Prize.
Wow, anybody who sold in 2011 was a loser. Let’s be real.
Buy and hold people.
And since that transaction closed, the one floor above came to market in the Fall of 2015 asking $1.195 million and closed 26 days later for almost 13 percent . A full ten years later, Unit 728 returned to market asking $950k, or $870 per ft.² and 20.5 percent less than the asking price in 2015, not accounting for inflation.
If the listing agent’s intent was to incite a bidding war, it appears that he didn’t succeed. 37 days later the property closed for , but at the same time an equity-eviscerating 29.6 percent less than what it last sold for a decade earlier, in just nominal terms.