Posted by Home foreclosures spark new market for apartment dwellers
A toddler played with toys in a playpen a family set up on the balcony of their new, luxury town
home in Desert Hot Springs on Friday Nearby, a green flag flapping in the breeze called attention to the “Free 1 Month” rent sign.
The Willow Crest complex, built as a high-end condominium property when real estate sizzled, has been open just a few months.
Half of the 50-unit complex is already leased out, Marisa Aguilar said.
Most of the renters were displaced when homes they leased from real estate speculators or small-scale flippers fell into foreclosure, she said between fielding calls at the leasing office.
It’s created a new market for apartment dwellers.
On the other side of the Coachella Valley stands The Vineyards, a multimillion-dollar construction endeavor that kept many construction workers employed, includes a retail component and flanks Homewood Suites by Hilton.
Water laps against the side of the clubhouse pool in the luxury rental complex near the university campuses along Cook Street and Interstate 10 in Palm Desert.
Ben Pruiksma of Redlands thinks apartment complexes will one day bustle with activity.
As one who works in the construction industry, Pruiksma said he hears all the war stories about how tough it’s been to find work.
“We’re OK,” he said, but many workers, some of whom have lost their homes, roam from job site to job site to put bread on the table.
Pruiksma and a buddy travel daily to a construction project in Desert Center while staying at Homewood Suites in Palm Desert.
“Some of the guys at the site traveled all the way from Montreal, Oregon and Florida,” he said.
Rentals also may surge, given the latest Construction Industry Research Board report. It shows home-builders are pulling markedly fewer permits. For the first 11 months, permits for single-family units were down 46 percent from the same period in 2008.
With permits trailing off considerably, Fred Bell, who has long monitored the valley’s building industry scene, has said pressure will continue to be felt in the construction industry.
The employment and credit situation, in tandem with that, will keep the squeeze on commercial development and retail sales.
Not all of the homes falling into foreclosure have returned to the real estate pool.
Carol Corcoran, an agent for Greater Palm Springs Realty, said real estate professionals who comb local neighborhoods have a sense that banks are holding inventory back to keep median prices — already hovering around the $180,000 mark — from falling further.
The affordability factor has brought first-time buyers into the market at a clip not seen in many years.
“Foreclosures are still what people are looking for,” Corcoran said.
“There’s big demand for the best deals; and there’s a market out there of people who are prepared to scoop them up as soon as they come back on the market.”
