I had breakfast today with a couple of businessmen from Miami, Florida. When I asked the occupations of the men, one replied that he was in real estate for 23 years; now he is “looking around”.

He painted a picture in the air with his finger of a typical condominium building of say, 100 units. “When driving by at night”, he said you might see a light here, another light here and maybe one more over there. The rest are unoccupied.

What this is leading to, he explained, is condo association dues that allocate basic maintenance, taxes and other expenses to those units occupied. The result is fees no one can afford to pay. Queue the lawyers.

This is not going to be fixed by some cheap money from Hammerin’ Hank and Helo Ben. Problems like this, that are not exclusive to Miami real estate, will not be resolved soon or easily. And chances are, the efforts of the government may merely extend the period of pain in the futile hope of minimizing the pain.

As pointed out in today’s flash report of the TREND letter ($50 discount through this link only!, this tactic was employed in Japan 18 years ago and only guaranteed that the Japanese economy would not participate in the prosperity that preceded the current crisis, while it is dragged down the tubes with the rest of the world at this time.

I extend my best wishes to my new friend that he might have some capital available to deploy when a turnaround finally does appear. At that time, he can probably pick up some exquisite Miami properties for pennies on the dollar, or yen, or gold; depending on what currency still has value at that time.