News About Properties

Couple may face prison time in Southwest Florida real estate scam

A decade ago in New York, where Wall Street held the promise of riches, Ronald Luczak started selling securities.

He ended up in jail instead. He was one of 13 defendants in a stock-trading scam, pleading guilty to a federal fraud charge and receiving a 30-month prison sentence.

By the summer of 2005, he was on supervised release and settled with his family in Southwest Florida. This time the promised riches were in real estate.

With his wife, Lisa Luczak, who opened Cape Coral Equity and Development Group that fall, real estate ended up being his trade. But he continued his previous profession, too.

Joe Adams: New laws tackle flags, receiverships, liens

Today’s column is the 12th installment of our annual review of legislation affecting community associations. We shift gears today and discuss some new laws aimed specifically at homeowners’ associations:

• Flags: Section 720.304(2) of Florida’s statute applicable to homeowners’ associations has been amended effective July 1, 2008, to provide that any homeowner may erect a free-standing flagpole no more than 20 feet high on any portion of the homeowners’ real property, regardless of any covenants to the contrary. The flagpole cannot obstruct sight lines at intersections, or be erected upon easements. Homeowners are entitled to display from that flagpole, in a respectful manner, certain flags not larger than 4 feet by 6 feet. Permitted flags include: United States flag, one official flag of the state of Florida, and various armed services flags.

Condo-Minimum

With the condo glut growing as new towers are finished, and buyers walk away from presale contracts, developers increasingly are resorting to auctions to unload units at steep discounts.

Unlike ubiquitous foreclosed-home auctions, these events seek to establish market prices for untainted, often upscale properties. In an aggressive test of the strategy, 39 luxury coastal condominiums in Long Beach, Calif., went under the hammer in late August at about half their previous asking prices.

“We believe people are sitting on the sidelines looking for an excuse to buy. We gave them that excuse,” said David Parsky, director of Citi Property Investors, a Citigroup Inc. unit that is the controlling owner of the West Ocean Two building in Long Beach.

Associations look to cash advance for help – Forbes.com/a>

Two years ago, Captiva Lakes Villas in suburban Miami was struggling to pay its water and garbage collection bills, and its condo association was mired in a $60,000 budget shortfall.

Like other homeowner associations around the country, Captiva Lakes Villas saw many members, some with unmanageable mortgages, stop paying fees amid a slowing economy. Cash-strapped associations took out loans, raised fees, curtailed services or even fired management companies as past-due assessments piled up.

Captiva Lakes Villas took another, more innovative route. It teamed with Miami-based Association Financial Services, which, backed by private investors, gives associations a cash advance to cover its shortfall and use for maintenance, landscaping, repairs and other responsibilities.

Assemble across-the-board insurance coverage for your home

As some Central Florida homeowners continue to pick up the pieces left from Tropical Storm Fay, others are keeping an eye on Ike and Josephine — and hoping their insurance policies have them covered against every peril.

Basic homeowner’s insurance is just that — basic. It doesn’t cover damage from flood or the loss of expensive clothing or jewelry, among other things. But it’s possible to assemble across-the-board coverage for your home.

So what does gold-plated, top-notch home-insurance protection look like?

It starts with standard home insurance

As prices plunge, housing experts wonder when recovery begins

With the pep talk from real estate agents contradicted by doom-and-gloom reports on the housing industry, nobody seems to really know if or when the market will begin to recover.

Consumers who have been sitting on the fence are being advised by sales agents that it’s a great opportunity to buy as Las Vegas home prices have plunged 25 percent from a year ago and the average foreclosure home is selling for $190,000.

Pundits are saying you’d be a fool to buy now and watch your home value continue to free-fall for at least another year.

“The recovery is a tricky question,” Realtor Steve Hawks of ReMax Platinum said. “For people who bought a home for $200,000 and their neighbor across the street owes $450,000, if you ask the homeowner who bought for $200,000, the recovery has begun. You ask the homeowner who owes $450,000, that homeowner will be giving you a much different answer.