Originally Posted by kane

A few years ago, right at the top of the bubble, a friend of mine bought a new house in a new construction development. He paid 305K for it. All he did for improvements was put up a fence and put grass in the backyard. Total cost about 2K. He had only lived in the place 2 months when he was offered 355K by a co-worker. 3 months after that the builders broke ground on the next phase of the development and the new price for the house he had purchased was 410K. He was then offered 435K by someone and passed.

Now the house is worth about 270K an falling, about 70% of the new phase from the development sits empty and never has sold.