News About Properties

New York Times Tower Leaseback Plan May Disappoint

The New York Times Co. may have missed its chance to cash in on its Manhattan headquarters.

The media company’s plan to raise up to $225 million by selling its portion of the 52-story skyscraper and paying rent to stay there may come too late, said Dan Fasulo, managing director at Real Capital Analytics, a real estate data service in New York.

“Buyers do have a certain appetite for leasebacks,” Fasulo said in an interview. “The problem is that debt markets are still tied up. It doesn’t matter how many willing buyers you have, if there is no debt available, the deal is not going to happen at a price that the New York Times will be happy with.”

Times Co. is raising cash as a $400 million credit line expires in May and the recession pushed November advertising revenue down 21 percent from a year earlier. The third-largest U.S. newspaper publisher may also sell all or part of its 17.5 percent stake in the Boston Red Sox baseball team, a person familiar with the situation said.

26 sue law firm over West Palm Beach condo money [South Florida]

More than two dozen buyers trying to recover deposits on the failed Palladio Terrace condo have filed a $2.5 million lawsuit against the Gunster Yoakley law firm, claiming the firm failed to properly guard their cash when it served as the condo’s escrow agent.

Merco Group of the Palm Beaches, Palladio Terrace’s developer, abandoned plans to build the West Palm Beach luxury condo two years ago, but it has not returned all $10 million in deposits it obtained from would-be buyers. These and other buyers have lobbed lawsuits against Merco, seeking the return of their money. Some judgments have been reached but not paid by Miami-based Merco.

Now, 26 would-be Palladio Terrace buyers are pointing the finger at Gunster Yoakley, saying the firm was negligent in releasing their money to Merco in the first place.

“Knowing you have one of the largest, most important law firms in the county protecting your money - only to find out that they didn’t - is outrageous,” said Steve Katzman, a Boca Raton lawyer representing the group. “If a project fails, the only thing standing between you and the loss of your money is the escrow agent.”

Great payout wasn’t sale motive [South Florida]

Looking back, it was a heck of a land deal.

Seven investors, five of whom were Bradenton High School chums from the late 1940s, bought 60 acres along a scenic stretch of the Braden River in 1978 for $350,000, about $1.2 million in current dollars.

There, in the middle of nowhere, they built the 476-unit Horseshoe Cove RV Resort, a quintessential Florida destination for snowbirds and the 55-and-older crowd.

Now, the aging group of investors is cashing out. They agreed last week to sell Horseshoe Cove for $24 million to a company that manages 30 or so such communities throughout Florida, including RV parks in Ellenton and Punta Gorda.

Real Estate Investors May Resort to Prayer

As the president of Silverstein Properties, Larry Silverstein, recently remarked on my television show: “The capital markets’ dislocation in real estate is the worst I have seen in my 55 years in real estate.”

The dislocation of those markets has had a critical effect on the sales of commercial properties in New York City. Few properties are selling at values that were achieved in 2006 and 2007, and sales volume is down at least 15% from its peak.

“Investment sales for properties which were closed or under contract for the first six months amount to $14 billion, which is off from the total volume of $38 billion for first six months of 2007,” the chief operating officer for the New York metro region at Cushman & Wakefield, Joseph Harbert, said.

“Foreign investors, mostly from the Middle East, China, Ireland, Sweden, and Germany, accounted for 40% of the purchasers of property during the first half of the year,” he added.

Real estate: Just the right price

If you’re getting ready to sell your home and thinking of asking a little more than $200,000, you might want to think again.

“I would definitely drop it to $199,999,” said Bree Fary, an agent for Keller Williams Realty of Brevard in Melbourne.

If there’s a bright spot in today’s slow real estate market, homes priced below $200,000 might be it.

“That’s what’s selling,” said Judy Aubuchon, broker-owner of Classique Properties in Satellite Beach and 2008 president of the Melbourne Area Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service.

Is Save Our Homes Portability Selling Houses? [Tampa Bay Area]

Raymond McIntyre’s office generated an interesting set of numbers this week: 222 people have moved to Highlands County, and brought their Save Our Homes tax exemptions with them.

Just 75 homeowners left the county, and applied to transfer their Save Our Homes elsewhere in Florida. Net gain: about three to one, said McIntyre, Highlands County’s property appraiser.

So, three real estate agents and brokers were asked, are people moving to Highlands County because they can buy a cheaper home, with lower taxes?

When people buy a home, they can apply for a $50,000 homestead exemption. If their home costs $100,000, the homestead exemption allows them to pay taxes on $50,000 instead.