[Rhodes22-list] Buy one, get one free

[Hank]

Here is some interesting developments about the real estate market.

Hank

 Buy one, get one
free<http://www.boston.com/realestate/news/blogs/renow/2008/06/buy_one_get_one.html>

Posted by Binyamin Appelbaum June 4, 2008

Two reminders that the housing crisis is much worse in other places.

>From Detroit comes news of people buying foreclosed homes in bulk, sometimes
several dozen homes at a time. Sometimes several hundred homes at a time.

"I usually buy 40 at once," an investor named Tarik Dinha told the Detroit
Free Press <http://detroitprogress.com/?p=15>. Dinha pays cash for the
properties, which in a bulk deal each can cost as little as $10,000. He then
tries to sell the properties as quickly as possible to other investors, or
prospective landlords.

Dinha's company, Urban Development Solutions Group<http://www.prime-loan.com/>,
is one of several in Detroit that describes itself as being in a "wholesale"
company, a wondrous term in a quintessentially retail industry.

Then we have the case of San Diego, where the Los Angeles Times
reports<http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laland/2008/06/in-escondido-bu.html>that
a developer is offering a special deal on new homes: Buy one, get one
free.

"We thought, 'Why does it just have to be on Pop Tarts and restaurants? Why
not buy one home, get one free?'" a spokeswoman for the company, Michael
Crews Development, told a San Diego television station.

Here's the deal <http://www.michaelcrews.com/>: If you buy one home in Royal
View Estate, a gated community where prices start at $1.6 million, you get a
second, 2000-sq.-ft. home in Cityscape, a neighborhood of row homes where
prices start at about $400,000.

Says the company's ad, "Great for your children, grandchildren, parents,
guests or rental property."

"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*.' "

Or if you need a place to store your extra pop tarts.

*BUY ONE, GET ONE FREE!! <http://www.michaelcrews.com/>*
<http://www.michaelcrews.com/Home_of_week/CenterStage-lot5.html>