News About Properties

Dolphin Tower’s troubles stack up [South Florida]

Amid the discovery of still more concrete problems at Dolphin Tower, it appears that more money and more time will be needed to repair the damaged 15-story condo building.

Just as vexing to displaced residents, though, are signals that Great American Insurance Co., of Ohio, intends to deny a claim made by Dolphin Tower’s homeowners’ association that would pay for repairs.

Great American, which holds a policy on the 117-unit tower in downtown Sarasota, indicated in a letter to the association earlier this month that a policy claim would not be valid unless the building were to actually fall down.

“One of the defenses, ironically, is that coverage exists only where a building or component actually collapses, rather than being merely at risk of collapse,” said Alan Tannenbaum, a Sarasota attorney representing the association, referring to the letter.

Commercial Real Estate Borrowers Joint the Ranks of Strategic Defaulters

I can understand why the REITs like this–free cash flow! But I can’t understand how it’s a good strategy for the borrowers. Commercial mortgages are a highly leveraged business, and if one of these guys came to me asking for more loans, after he stuck his last banker with his ailing shopping mall, I’d tell them to go . . . well, do something I probably shouldn’t say on a family blog.

Of course, not all of these are what I would call strategic defaults. Just as I think a homeowner should walk away from any mortgage that risks pushing them into insolvency, some of these “strategic defaults” may simply represent owners walking away now and salvaging their capital, instead of being foreclosed upon later after their tenantless rental or shopping mall has eaten up every last bit of cash and they have to shutter the doors. In neither the business nor the individual case does this strike me as reprehensible.

After the craze: Condo conversions leave fractured communities

Michael Jacob was living at the Monterra apartments in Bonita Springs in 2006 when the wave of condo conversions came through.

Jacob, and everyone else in the 244-unit complex, was told by management to leave if they didn’t want to pay the sky-high price to buy - it was the very top of the wave to turn rental apartments into more lucrative condo sales.

Luckily for Jacobs, he and his wife didn’t buy their one-bedroom apartment for owner Tarragon Corp.’s asking price of about $200,000. Prices crashed almost immediately and Tarragon hastily canceled its plans even before the last tenants left.

“Poetic justice,” said Jacobs, who works as an assistant Lee County attorney. “It was just such an outrageous price.”

Pinnacle’s real estate fallout

When Pinnacle Financial Partners got started 10 years ago, the bank’s executives, who had survived many a past real estate collapse, pledged to focus lending on business and industry — not real estate development.

Now, the bank is beset by loan problems linked to real estate and homebuilding plans gone awry across Middle Tennessee, quite the opposite of its original goals.

This much seems clear: A series of acquisitions of suburban banks in the past few years shifted a larger concentration of the bank’s loans into real estate development in fast-growing areas around Nashville, leading to questions about how smart its bank purchases truly were.

The fallout has been severe.

Property tax appeals: South Florida property tax appeals on a blistering pace

The annual tax notices going out this month will bring a double whammy of bad news for many Florida property owners — lower values and higher taxes.

But a small minority will get a break by challenging the county’s value of their homes, businesses and land.

Tax appeals have been pouring into government offices throughout Florida, fueled by the real estate boom and crash and a highly profitable cottage industry of tax representatives. So far this year, Broward and Palm Beach counties have reduced property values by more than $2.5 billion as a result of appeals.

Lots to buy for Tampa parking kings after real estate bust [Central Florida]

In the wake of the real estate collapse, the most marketable use these days for some land in downtown Tampa may be – parking.

Two brothers who became the kings of downtown Tampa parking are becoming downtown land barons as well, snapping up property at a fraction of its peak price.

Hillsborough County land records show that entities controlled by Jason and John Accardi have paid at least $10 million for four pieces of land in the downtown core and the Channel District since fall 2007. And, they don’t appear to be letting up.

A few years ago, developers dreamed of luxury condos or office towers on seemingly every corner in downtown. But these sky-high dreams fell in the real estate bust, the properties were foreclosed upon and now are just distressed bank assets.