The City Council's use of moratoriums on condo conversion may all be for naught. Developers have gone sour on condos and are jumping on the apartment bandwagon in the hopes of capturing some of the revenues being generated by increased rents. It seems that a sizable portion of Los Angeles can't afford to buy a home (shocking, we know!), so apartments living is all that is left for those of us left behind. CBS MarketWatch has more bad news for Angelenos, and Californians in general.
For the seventh consecutive quarter, Los Angeles was the least affordable big city, with just under 2% of the homes affordable for a family earning the metro median income of $56,200. The median sales price in LA was $521,000.And still grimmer (eh, worser?) news from the land of "bubble talk", Fin24 has declared the California housing bubble popped. Signs of the bubble pop, and potentially worse things to come, are all over the place from rising oil prices, hedge fund losses and rent prices skyrocketing. And now people are starting to curb their luxury spending. What's wrong with you people?? Buy, buy, buy!! But its not all bad news, as the LA Times reports on another group of developers, the Moinian Group from New York, who plan to build two luxury residential towers at 11th and Figueroa. It's great to see things are so peachy in the Downtown luxury residential market while the rest of the country implodes.All of the least affordable cities -- except New York City -- were in California. Other unaffordable California cities including Anaheim, Salinas, Merced, Modesto, San Diego, Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara.
· Builders sour on condos, love apartments [CBS MarketWatch]
· Is the US cupboard bear? [FIN24]
· Some consumers curb upscale buying [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
· Plans Build for Downtown L.A. [Los Angeles Times]