Bulk buyer’s condo coup busts small-time investors
In early 2008, with the real estate market well into meltdown, a deal to sell more than 100 condominium units in Royal Palm Beach was struck.
Considered one of South Florida’s first bulk condo buys, it was called “savvy” by market analysts and heralded as a sweetheart deal for Miami-based purchaser Kensington Trust LLC.
The high-priced flips that the trust subsequently made to individuals, sometimes for 75 percent more than it paid, was optimistically thought to be a sign of a real estate upturn.
Two years later, 70 percent of the units at the Kensington at Royal Palm Beach are in foreclosure or were recently repossessed by lenders.