News About Properties

Dezer Properties takes stake in Sunny Isles Beach Trump Towers

As the Related Group unwinds projects, Dezer Properties has taken over the Miami mega-condo developer’s ownership stake at Trump Towers in Sunny Isles Beach and is assuming the remaining debt on the property.

Condominium prices are being cut by at least 30 percent at the newly built skyscrapers, said Dezer Properties President Gil Dezer, as the company tries to unload hundreds of unsold units amid a troubled real-estate market.

Real-estate experts say the prices now rank below competing new oceanfront properties countywide.

The three-tower, 813-unit oceanfront condominium project at 16001 Collins Ave. was co-developed by Related and Dezer — with Related responsible for construction and financing and Dezer in charge of sales and marketing, Dezer said. The towers derived their name through a licensing deal with New York real-estate mogul Donald Trump.

Lakewood Ranch firm buys lots … $81 million worth [Central Florida]

Starwood Land Ventures, a Lakewood Ranch firm formed three years ago to acquire distressed real estate, has scored one of the largest land purchases in Florida in the past year.

Starwood Land officials say the company’s $81 million acquisition of nearly 5,500 lots from the bankrupt Tousa Homes Inc. will allow it to re-energize communities from Jacksonville to Miami and generate sales to builders.

“This is really the culmination of Starwood Land’s efforts in regards to searching and bidding on residential assets,” said Mike Moser, the local company’s east regional president.

As part of the acquisition, Miami-based Lennar Corp. has committed to buy 1,400 of the Starwood lots, and has options to buy another 1,350.

Texas Rangers Owner Tom Hicks Sells House in Aspen Area

Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks, whose Hicks Sports Group is in default on $525 million of debt, sold his three-acre, Aspen-area estate to Howard M. Jenkins, the former head of the Southeastern Publix Super Markets chain, for $18.5 million.

Besides the baseball team, which Mr. Hicks is in the process of selling to an investor group, his Sports Group owns the NHL’s Dallas Stars. Separately, he owns England’s Liverpool Football Club. The Snowmass Village, Colo., property, with an original $20 million asking price, has a main house and a guest house totaling 11,000 square feet. Mr. Hicks sold the contemporary homes furnished. The ski-in, ski-out property also has a pool, and the two homes share a driveway. The 58-year-old Mr. Jenkins, who has a home for sale in the area, said he plans to use the property as a getaway for his family and friends.

Mr. Hicks bought the property in 1995 for $1.03 million and says he’s selling because his family has been vacationing elsewhere in recent years. Mr. Jenkins, a son of Publix founder George W. Jenkins, still sits on the board of Publix. Chris Lewis of Chaffin Light Real Estate represented Mr. Hicks and George Huggins, also of Chaffin Light, Mr. Jenkins.

The new flipping: short sales [South Florida]

Untold millions of dollars that banks could have recovered from the sale of distressed Florida homes have instead been pocketed as profits by a new breed of property flipper.

These flippers target houses on the verge of foreclosure and persuade banks and mortgage companies to accept lowball buyouts, sometimes by using questionable appraisals and not disclosing that a quick sale at a higher price has already been arranged, experts say.

No one knows how widespread the scheme has become. But a national glut of short sales — pre-foreclosure sales in which the lender agrees to let the house sell for less than the mortgage owed — has spawned a small industry of short-sale flippers, some of whom use these questionable tactics, experts say.

Note Deals Take Off in South Florida

When Robert Lechter heard Banco Popular North America was selling a note secured by a recently completed condo tower in Miami’s Brickell area, he knew it was no time to be timid. Lechter says he won the bidding with a $10.2-million offer for an $18-million note secured by the 62-unit Brickell Station Village.

Besides offering $1 million more than the second-highest bidder, he agreed to pay cash and to put down $2 million soon after Banco Popular accepted his offer. “I pursued it very hard,” says Lechter, principal of REMS. Group, a Hollywood-based developer. “In these transactions, you have to be aggressive.”

The condo’s developer, Royal Explore Development, signed the project over to Lechter’s company at the same time REMS closed on the purchase of the note in mid-August. The total cost per unit was about $164,500.

“It was almost like a short sale,” Lechter says, adding that he plans to rent out the units for three years and sell them when the market improves. Lechter is among a growing number of investors who are buying distressed notes at big discounts as lenders step up efforts to shed bad assets and cut the cost of carrying unwanted projects.

A gilded headache [South Florida]

Jorge Perez joined Donald Trump Jr. Friday for a familiar task: selling a posh and pricey condominium high-rise on the ocean.

How hard has that become lately? Perez says he is directing most of his sales energy toward people who have already signed sales contracts to buy units.

“We are going to concentrate our efforts on the existing buyers first,'’ Perez said in the glass-walled “cigar room'’ of the Trump Hollywood, a 41-story oceanfront condo where the cheapest unit sells for about $1 million. “What can we do to get you to close?'’

Some buyers who once felt fortunate to get in early with a luxe condo like the Trump Hollywood now are regretting their decisions, in some cases suing to break contracts. Others are simply walking away from deposits that can top $200,000.