News About Properties

Loan of $159M Finances Multifamily Buy

The Bethany Group has acquired a portfolio of 2,873 apartment units in Florida, Texas and South Carolina from Aimco and has financed the purchase with a $159-million loan from GE Real Estate. Greg Garmon, CEO of Bethany, tells GlobeSt.com that the financing will go toward both the approximately $151-million purchase of the portfolio and improvements that Bethany plans to make as part of a value-added play.

The financing was brokered by Mark Strauss of the Newport Beach office of Cohen Financial and Steve Gunther of the Irvine office of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler.

No options in Bonita [South Florida]

Apartment hunting? Don’t go to Bonita Springs, because there aren’t any. As for the rest of south Lee, the trend of apartments converting to condos is starting to catch on.

Searching for an apartment complex in Bonita Springs doesn’t take long.

There aren’t any.

While the booming real estate market has sent prices skyrocketing for would-be homebuyers, the side effect of condominium conversions has hit renters hard. In south Lee County, almost every apartment complex has fallen victim to the conversion trend.

Region’s typical home price tops $500,000 [Southern California]

The median price of a Southern California home punched through the half-million-dollar mark for the first time in March even as sales remained soft, an industry tracker said on Tuesday.

The sales decline is in response to rising interest rates and a market past its “frenzy phase,” said La Jolla-based DataQuick Information Systems.

The median for the entire region increased an annual 14.1 percent to $501,000. In Los Angeles County it rose an annual 15 percent to $506,000, also a record, the company said.

Home sales slip, condos soar [Central Florida]

The number of homes on the market in Orlando ballooned again last month as sales of single-family houses continued to cool and the momentum shifted strongly to condominiums, according to figures released Wednesday.

The Orlando Regional Realtor Association’s inventory reached a record 14,559 homes in March — a strong bump up from 12,966 in February and nearly five times the count from a year ago.

Existing-home sales totaled 2,781 in March in the local Realtors’ “core market,” which is mainly Orange and Seminole counties. That was 10 percent better than a year earlier and a record for March.

Glut keeps rental rates down

Think the auto industry is tough? Try the office market.

Back in the mid-’80s, developer Peter Burton built the Arboretum office park in Farmington Hills and advertised space at the going rate of $18 per square foot.

Today, in an office market awash with high vacancies and low demand, the rental rate Burton can charge is stuck at that same $18 per square foot — or about 50% less than 20 years ago, once inflation is taken into account.

On the waterfront?

Home buyers pay plenty to have view of fake lakes.

Mughis Chaudhry wanted a house on the water and an easy commute to his office — just like many people in the Orlando metropolitan area.

But unlike most home seekers, Chaudhry, 36, was willing to pay nearly $600,000 for a lakefront lot, even though it is a fake lake being carved out of the ground.

Residential developments have long dressed up retention ponds and presented them as lakes, but because of a diminishing supply of waterfront property, the practice is reaching new heights in west Orange County.