Buy One House, Get One Free

Top sign the housing market is still going downhill: when you purchase one McMansion, you get a smaller yet still ‘luxurious’ row home free. No kidding. One San Diego real estate developer has clearly gotten very, very desperate to sell homes.

From the LA Times:

We thought, ‘Why does it just have to be on Pop Tarts and restaurants? Why not buy one home, get one free,’” Dawn Berry of Michael Crews Development told 10 News in San Diego.

More: “Michael Crews Development is offering new, 2000-square foot cityscape row-homes worth $400,000 in Escondido for free — if you buy one Royal View Estate home in San Pasqual Valley starting at $1.6 million. ‘You know it’s a straight-up legit deal; no prices have been increased, there are no hidden costs. Michael is just giving away a free home for people that buy at Royal View,’ said Berry.”

“Adam Rossman of Michael Crews Development added, ‘People have been coming in saying, ‘How can you do this?’ Well, it’s our way of dealing with current market conditions to move some inventory.’ “

Another real estate development company, Toll Brothers, posted a $93.7 million dollar loss last quarter, so clearly things aren’t going so well, even in previously booming areas like Southern California. In previous years, when the real estate market in such areas was so hot that it was incredibly difficult to find an affordable home, developers like these saw their bank accounts growing distended as they built more and more subdivisions, condos and retail space with the assumption that all units would easily be sold.

Considering the greed in the development industry, I think it’s poetic justice that they’re finding the rug pulled out from under them – how many times did they find loopholes in laws and ignore the public’s wishes so they could build a mini mall on natural, untouched land?

Link [LA Times] + [Huffington Post]

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