Pssssst ...Wanna buy our luxury pad? Jet?
USA Today
SAN FRANCISCO — They're down and out in Beverly Hills — and in San Francisco, Miami and other haunts of former big spenders.
Hammered by plunging stock prices, wealthy Americans are raising cash by unloading vacation homes, jets, jewelry and other goodies snapped up during their 1990s shopping sprees. Some signs of the gilded garage sale:
• Collateral Lender pawnshops, with stores here and on ritzy Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, says business is up 15 percent in the past month.
One customer borrowed $12,000 last week, pledging his diamond-studded gold Rolex watch. Collateral co-owner Tal Shmargal didn't ask why; the borrower cited "business difficulties."
Another client turned over jewelry in return for a $100,000 loan.
Customers fork over as much as 5 percent interest per month. The last time Shmargal saw this much well-heeled traffic was during the last big slowdown, in the early '90s.
• Miami auctioneer Jim Gall is doing four times as much business as he was two months ago. He's getting pleas to sell 1,500-acre ranches in Colorado and luxury homes in south Florida.
"We have people call and say, 'We absolutely lost our shirts,'" he said. "It's just unbelievable."
Gall's phone started ringing more, early last month. He's seen the pattern before. Second and third homes are the first assets out the door for the suddenly overextended. "When the crisis hits, the family sits down and says, 'Well, we just lost X, what goes?'" he said. Answer: "That second home we splurged on."
Near Palm Springs, there has been a 25 percent jump in the number of $1-million-plus homes listed during the past six months, said Mike Adams of the upper-crust Fred Sands Estates agency. Desperation hasn't set in yet, but Adams is ready for pressure from clients. "They want it sold," he said. "The stock market had an effect on everyone."
• Aircraft Shopper Online, which helps broker luxury planes, reported that listings have soared 30 percent, to 3,200, from a year ago. TAG Aviation USA in San Francisco listed a nine-seat Hawker 700A business jet three weeks ago. Mike Moore, vice president of sales, said it could fetch around $4 million.
