Bust

I did another interesting assignment for The New York Times business section a couple of weeks ago about the incredibly high foreclosure rates in Miami's (many) dozens of condo buildings (across the board from low to high end), many of which were just built in the development boom that I began to photograph when I first moved to south Florida two years ago (turns out I was really looking at the death throws then). Though the story was not as graphic as we had been led to believe (big surprise), I really enjoyed mining for a sort of "evidence" approach, even more because I got the OK to use my now departed Mamiya 7 camera to do it. So all in all the assignment brought me full circle in more ways than one.

We (some realtors and an Italian investor looking to capitalize on the foreclosures) visited a few buildings in Brickell and I was pretty shocked to learn that a couple of these condo towers have foreclosure rates from 15-30% (not just unoccupied, but foreclosed). Now many floors in the buildings feel like a ghost town, with lock boxes covering doors, dirt and dust everywhere, and very dark hallways with bright yellow foreclosure notices pasted up. I guess just like in the Texas oil towns, if you believe the boom you gotta expect the bust.

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