Condo seller employs new strategy: pay back buyers [South Florida]
Selling condos in South Florida has become such a difficult task that some sellers are actually paying buyers to acquire their units.
The Villas at Emerald Dunes, a recently finished condo development in West Palm Beach, is offering buyers a deal where the seller would pay buyers monthly, the equivalent of an annual return of 8 percent of the purchase price for two years after the closing. For instance, investors paying $325,000 for a unit would receive an income of $2,167 per month. The seller also would pay property taxes, association fees, maintenance and property and management fees.
The guaranteed return strategy was used in the early 1990s by commercial real estate owners who tried to cope with an oversupply in the commercial market, said David Dabby, president of Coral Gables-based real estate research firm Dabby Group.