Faded Grenelefe Resort For Sale Again

Faded Grenelefe Resort For Sale Again [Central Florida]

A relatively small amount of green may purchase a lot of Grenelefe.

The Grenelefe Golf and Tennis Resort, a once premier Florida facility that fell on hard times during the 1990s, is up for sale again.

Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services of Encino, Calif., listed the Grenelefe property on its Web site in December, but the sales push will begin this month, said Sean Glickman, a company associate.

“I have a very strong confidence we will have a contract in the next couple of months,” Glickman said.

Disney World-area Reunion Resort struggles with unoccupied properties amid mortgage meltdown

Disney World-area Reunion Resort struggles with unoccupied properties amid mortgage meltdown [Central Florida]

In 2001, The Ginn Cos. broke ground on what was billed as Central Florida’s grandest vacation and golf resort: Reunion, with three signature golf courses, million-dollar mansions, half-million-dollar condos, a water park, a luxury condo hotel and more, all set in 2,300 acres in Osceola County just south of Walt Disney World.

Eight years later, Reunion may be the poster child for the collapse of the Central Florida housing bubble. Lenders have foreclosed on hundreds of properties; abandoned, half-built houses and condos pock the landscape; and property values have plummeted by as much as 80 percent.

“They talk about how wealth is being destroyed. I think we’re seeing that here,” said Mike Searles, general manager of Reynolds Signature Communities’ Reunion office, which manages the real estate.

Property owners who have bailed, or were tossed out by banks, have suffered big losses. And even those sticking it out find themselves in a largely vacant community where, everywhere, there are reminders of the crash.

Real Estate in Cape Coral, Fla., Is Far From a Recovery

Real Estate in Cape Coral, Fla., Is Far From a Recovery

Fellow adventurers, refugees from winter and armchair archaeologists, we are here on this shiny green tour bus to embark on a safari of sorts. We’ll be exploring the local habitat, as upended and reconfigured by an epochal real estate fiasco.

Our guide, Marc Joseph, stalks wildlife of the white-elephant variety. A real estate agent, he specializes in houses that proved financially disastrous for someone — the banker, the homeowner, the American taxpayer, often all three. Mr. Joseph’s bus is emblazoned with red letters spelling the name of this thrill ride: ForeclosureToursRUs.com.

As we navigate this speculator’s paradise turned financial wasteland, Mr. Joseph stands at the front of the bus in a green polo shirt, highlighting specimens like this one: a white stucco house fronted by palm trees and topped by a Spanish tile roof on a canal emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. It last sold in 2005 for $850,000. Yours today for $273,000.

Florida Supreme Court orders mediators to be first step in foreclosure cases

Florida Supreme Court orders mediators to be first step in foreclosure cases

Florida’s troubled homeowners and their lenders will increasingly meet at the bargaining table under a state supreme court order issued today that aims to reduce a foreclosure overload.

The administrative order written by Chief Judge Peggy Quince creates a statewide program that requires mediation on all homesteaded properties before a foreclosure hearing is held.

It guarantees homeowners will have an audience with their lender to discuss whether a loan modification or short sale is an option instead of foreclosure.

It also means lenders will be doing more work on the front end of the foreclosure process, and paying for it.

Half-built homes can be bargains – but with strings attached

Half-built homes can be bargains – but with strings attached

First came foreclosure sales, then short sales. Now Central Florida is seeing more half-finished homes for sale: bare-stud, bare-yard houses abandoned by their builders and left to languish on the market.

Purchasing a partially built home is nothing new; during the housing boom, many new-home contracts were signed before even a slab had been poured. The difference now is that the builder might no longer be around to finish the job, particularly if it’s a house started by a custom builder who subsequently lost clients, financing … or its entire business.

“If I had known three years ago that my business would be based on selling short sales, foreclosures and half-built houses, I would have told you you were smoking crack,” said Kelly Price, a veteran real-estate broker based in Winter Park. She is trying to sell three partially complete houses for banks that took possession of them from a builder or owner in financial trouble.

Officials in Orange County say they aren’t sure how many partially built homes are in such limbo, partly because back in March they gave builders a one-year extension on their building permits. Also, builders often deliberately delay work on new homes, putting off completion until the new year for tax purposes. Nationally, the percentage of incomplete houses among new homes listed for sale rose this year from 39 percent in January to 43 percent as of October, according to the U.S. census. Though those numbers included homes under contract and still under construction, they also included unfinished homes abandoned by builders and placed on the market by banks.