Point Grey Spec Build: “They’re underwater $390K when all is said and done.”

This from Whybuywhenucanrent on 2009 May 02, 3:04 am -

“4597 W 14TH AV sold for $1.69M on April 1 (2009).
As of Feb 1 at a $1.79M list, I estimated they were $260K underwater. At 2 more months of $15K debt service and a $100K hit on the price, they’re underwater $390K when all is said and done. To drive this home, they bought the place 12 months previous for $1.25M, bulldozed a house, built a brand new house on the lot, and sold it for a whopping $1.69M. That’s only $340K more than they bought the lot for. And they paid $50K in Realtor fees if they did a standard contract. (And I left out landscaping costs in the original post, so subtract another $10K?)
Another way of looking at it — to break even, they would have had to have brought construction costs from $250/sf to $90/sf. “