Investors see fast-bucks plan unravel
Investment firm helped many join CCI home-building deal
Hundreds turned out to a Long Island Marriott Hotel to hear one of several presentations that led many northeastern investors into perhaps the biggest financial catastrophe of their lives.
So many people showed up for the monthly meeting of the Long Island Real Estate Investors Association that staff at the Melville, N.Y., hotel had to remove two partition panels to convert the banquet room into a ballroom.
As the historic 2003-05 Florida real estate boom peaked, Seashore Resorts LLC, a South Carolina-based real estate investment firm, and its agents regaled investors with stories about Southwest Florida’s magical climate, its low unemployment, its booming demographics and most of all, the potential for 30 percent annual returns on residential real estate.