MICA Reduces Pricing for the Weekend
By Silver Springer • Nov 1st, 2007 • Category: Real Estate
By way of Bubble Meter, the MICA condos, an apartment building conversion on Blair Mill Road in downtown is having “special pricing this weekend onlyâ€.
$279,900 will get you an 816 square foot condo.
The previous initial pricing was $299,900.
According to Bubble Meter, “on 11/09/06 someone bought a 1br unit (#503) on the very same floor with the same square footage for $327,900. So this offer is 15% below the price paid in December 2006. Or inflation adjusted about 16.5% below.â€
The next step up in the special pricing is $334,900 for a two bedroom, one bath condo that’s 1,049 square feet. That’s a difference of $7,000 or 3% from the one bedroom purchased November 9th, 2006.
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I thought Mica was in super top secret double-all sales final close out six months ago. Really, with the glut of condos in the market right now, you can get a brand new condo for the price they are offering this sub-par conversions at.
This is seriously a joke….. In certain places you can buy a house… Now one thing I want to know is why pay mortgage for a condo and end up paying rent on top of that? yes I said rent… HOA fees are as high as what rent used to be (from 200+)… now someone tell me why would I want to do that with a property that historically doesn’t go up in value as much.. oh yeah there was this great hype of ‘03-’06. Lol best of luck to all the condo owners out there.
on another note..
Um why is it that the ad has nothing reflecting the MICA but the logo. LOL Huge giveaway…. when a condo or apt does not show any pictures of the actual condo that’s a dead giveaway that you should…..run in the opposite direction.
You ever notice that the majority of people who leave comments are b*tches who just complain and leave negative responses?
Well I shall do the opposite. I currently live in the Blair’s and a friend of mine lives in MICA across the street. While his condo is smaller than my Apartment (800sf compared to 1,000 sf) I still find that his building is nice and the apartment itself is not bad at all. I would live in MICA if they dropped their prices some. Instead I am searching in the condo market elsewhere.
To the comment above, yes I said condo market. Not all of us can afford half-a-million dollar homes in Montgomery County. Gotta start somewhere.
BlairTruth
If MICA Condo units were ready for sale in 2003, the place would have been full by now. Bad timing since the real estate market is going through a downtown. Condo developments are getting hammered everywhere in the DC area.
The bottom hasn’t hit yet. I would wait until summer 2008 to look at condo purchases.
[quote comment="2974"]You ever notice that the majority of people who leave comments are b*tches who just complain and leave negative responses?
Well I shall do the opposite. I currently live in the Blair’s and a friend of mine lives in MICA across the street. While his condo is smaller than my Apartment (800sf compared to 1,000 sf) I still find that his building is nice and the apartment itself is not bad at all. I would live in MICA if they dropped their prices some. Instead I am searching in the condo market elsewhere.
To the comment above, yes I said condo market. Not all of us can afford half-a-million dollar homes in Montgomery County. Gotta start somewhere.
BlairTruth[/quote]
awww someone is upset, truth does hurt huh, aww poor baby. Thanks for confirming everything I wrote.
Do what you want, but don’t get upset at a person who’s only telling the truth. Nothing I wrote is false. Since you claim you are looking for a condo just make sure you are armed with the truth instead of the false assumptions you want to walk around with. Truth does hurt. But good luck on your hunt.
Ihateyuppies I see you have great faith. Good luck with that.
Bubblemeter has a history of Mica posts. One is a Mica flyer from March 9: “Final opportunity”! Hilarious!
Months ago Silverton added “Final Phase Now Selling” to their sign. I snickered to myself that they added this because they must have gotten a few more cancellations…
“I would live in MICA if they dropped their prices some.”
Wouldn’t it be nice if you COULD live in MICA if they dropped the prices to REALISTIC levels? If MICA cost $150,000 for a one bedroom, then I would take a real look at it. But it doesn’t and its not going to in the next few years.
I’m not against condo purchasing at all. Hell, if I decide to remain in the DC area for the long-term future, I probably will buy a condo. What I’m against is overpaying for a condo-conversion (MICA is not a brand-new buidling, these are old apartments that were upgraded to “luxury” condos) and then paying massive condo-fees on top of that. MICA’s condo fees were $645 a month at one point for a two-bedroom, that’s insane. They don’t even have a parking lot to maintain.
Condo’s on a whole aren’t bad if thats what you can afford to start out with. But it doesn’t make alot of sense to me to pay $280k for a condo in Silver Spring. I like Silver Spring, but an outdoor strip mall and proximity to the metro station aren’t worth it for me personally to trade in my lower monthly rent for a morgage that is triple that number.
SS used to be a bargain but its been discovered and probably its going to keep going up in price…good for the city and the people that bought here when it was cheap. If one is looking to get a bargain home, they would do what BlairTruth is suggesting, look someplace else…take a look at areas near metros that look primed for improvements. Hyattsville looks like a possibility to me.