Quote:
Originally Posted by ThreeHundred
Park Fifth isn't supposed to break ground until around March,
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The proj's devlpr originally said they'd break ground in Oct 2007. Then he said 1st qtr of 2008. I've since heard through a friend of a friend, who works in LA govt, that it's now been pushed forward, so no way will the site at 5th & Olive look any different from the way it is today when March 2008 rolls around.
I'm cringing right now cuz I have a feeling that projs like Parkfifth----which reportedly has gotten many early reservations for condos from Koreans----are going to become a game of doubledare, mainly due to problems like these:
Home prices in South Korea stalling at a high point
By Martin Fackler
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
In 30 years as a real estate broker, Chung Doo-hyun says, he has never seen a market behave the way South Korea's is.
First, there was the wave of feverish buying that drove up housing prices across South Korea, including in Seoul's skyscraper-studded financial district, Yoido, where Chung's tiny office is. Then, about a year ago, buyers and sellers became scarce, he says. Real estate prices stopped moving. The market came to a near halt. "The whole real estate market is frozen," said Chung, 65. "Everyone is just waiting."
It is an unusual predicament, at a time when increasing volatility in real estate markets elsewhere has emerged as one of the biggest challenges to global growth. In the United States, a housing market slowdown has strained the economy, shaken Wall Street and spread to Europe; while in fast-emerging China and India, runaway property values threaten to spur inflation or, worse yet, plummet.
Across South Korea, prices are just standing still. In the last year or so, there has been a steep drop in the number of housing transactions, particularly in Seoul, the nation's political and commercial capital. According to the construction ministry, the number of apartments sold in Seoul fell to 8,680 in October, down almost two-thirds from a year ago. During the same period, transactions nationwide fell by almost half.
Since December, apartment prices in Seoul have risen just 3 percent, after increasing 93 percent over the preceding five years, according to data from Kookmin Bank. Nationwide, apartment prices have risen just 2.1 percent this year.
Real estate agents, developers and economists here all agree that the frozen market is the work of the current president, Roh Moo-hyun. Roh imposed new taxes and restrictions on real estate deals, in an effort to deter speculators, whom he blamed for stoking the overheating housing market. But many agents, developers and economists say Roh overshot his mark, making it prohibitively expensive for anyone to buy or sell.
If there is a bubble, it was created by economic growth and higher living standards fueling a half-decade construction frenzy that continues to chug along, even amid the drop in real estate sales. Across the country, dominolike rows of identical high-rise apartments have sprung up, while armies of bulldozers and cranes transform farmland into dozens of "New Towns" and "Innovative Cities."
Development helped cause a land grab that drove real estate values to such heights that middle-class buyers felt increasingly priced out of the market, prompting concerns of a possible asset bubble. In Seoul's most popular neighborhoods, three-bedroom apartments now routinely cost $2 million, about 100 times the average national income.
Some experts warn that South Korea faces a severe glut in new housing over the next five years, as large developments begun during the early 2000s, when the market was soaring, reach completion. Shim Gyo-eon, a real estate professor at Konkuk University, predicts that some one million new units will come on the market by 2013. "I have never seen so much supply coming at once," said Shim, who has been unable to find buyers for his own house in Seoul.
One of the developments soon to come online is in the twin cities of Cheonan and Asan, a 40-minute ride from Seoul on South Korea's new high-speed train. On what is now a huge stretch of excavated red earth, developers are building the Cheonan-Asan New Town, a corporate park and high-rise community meant to house some 4,000 families. Along the development's outskirts, more than 100 additional apartment towers, with space for 20,000 more families, have already begun rising.
Large glass-fronted showrooms in Cheonan, display full-size models of the uncompleted units available for order. But while construction continues, developers say that orders have been disappointingly low, with most showrooms sitting empty. "Buyers just aren't coming," said Shin Dong-hyun, a director at Daewoo Engineering and Construction, which is building three apartment complexes with 2,100 units in Cheonan.
Fight Over L.A. Agency Official Reflects Gentrification Tensions
Redevelopment board member angers builders with demands for concessions but draws praise from labor.
By Duke Helfand and David Zahniser,
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
December 19, 2007
As he sought approval for three downtown high-rises last year, developer Sonny Astani promised the city's redevelopment agency that he would hire union workers, install expensive underground parking and donate $1.5 million to a skid row housing fund. None of that was enough for Joan Ling, one of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's appointees to the Community Redevelopment Agency board. Ling also wanted Astani to provide money for affordable housing. "I was about to say, 'How about my children?' " recalled Astani, whose downtown project was approved on a 6-1 vote with only Ling dissenting.
Downtown business leaders and some elected officials are pointing to such incidents as they target Ling, whose reappointment comes up for a vote at City Hall today, saying she has gone too far in trying to extract concessions from developers even when their projects receive no public subsidies.
Ling's case has evolved into a clash over the CRA's attempts at controlling the gentrification of blighted areas. And it has turned what is usually a routine confirmation vote into a rare public fight, with council members Jan Perry and Bernard C. Parks calling Ling -- who runs a nonprofit affordable housing corporation in Santa Monica -- an impediment to new investment.
"I am concerned that she has acted in a manner that is not only inappropriate, but may expose us to litigation down the road by . . . loading on her social agenda," Perry said.
Labor leaders and affordable-housing advocates have rallied to Ling's defense, flooding council members with letters of support that praise her real estate finance knowledge and call her one of the city's most important voices for working families and the poor. They describe her as a fair-minded commissioner who tries to ensure that developers pay their fair share once they receive tax breaks, zoning changes and other incentives. "We are very concerned about how she is being attacked, as if she is doing something to harm our city," said Maria Elena Durazo, head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, who lobbied council members on Ling's behalf.
Ling says she is only heeding Villaraigosa's charge to balance the needs of the poor with downtown's rapid transformation into a high-cost district where rents exceed the reach of its indigent residents. If developers "are getting all these land-use concessions that are worth a lot of money, they should be giving something back," she said.
Ling enjoys Villaraigosa's strong support. "The mayor did not appoint Joan to be a rubber stamp on that commission," said Villaraigosa spokesman Matt Szabo. "She has every right to advocate for affordable housing. She . . . asks tough questions and tells the truth."
Ling infuriated Parks in 2006 when, during a public hearing on a student housing project near USC, she asked the developer if he would be willing to accelerate property tax payments to help fund affordable housing. Parks said the concession -- which was repealed after he complained -- would have made it difficult to attract other investors to South L.A. Ling said the developer had offered the concession himself.
The 53-year-old Mar Vista resident also drew fire for comments she made while opposing a 210-unit apartment project planned for Chinatown. Lawyers for the developer produced a transcript of Ling warning that a
"luxury" apartment complex would harm the neighborhood because such buildings have frequent tenant turnover -- a comment the developer believed went beyond the scope of her oversight duties with the CRA.
Perry, meanwhile, accused Ling of overstepping her authority by allegedly advising low-income tenants of a downtown hotel not to divulge their incomes to the property owner, who needed the information to qualify for public financing. Ling said she gave no advice to the hotel tenants and only asked whether it was legal for the owner to demand income data. The commissioner also said she does not negotiate with developers and, as one of seven CRA board members, has only so much influence.
"I don't have the authority to cut deals," she said. "I simply ask questions. I think it has upset some people as a result."
Two other CRA commissioners are also up for reappointment today. John Perez, Villaraigosa's cousin and political director for the United Food and Commercial Workers in Orange County, faces no organized opposition, even though he often agrees with Ling. Business leaders say he is willing to listen to their concerns. No opposition has materialized for the other, Bruce Ackerman, president of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley.
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