Downtown development: Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach officials check to see if they overbuilt in the early 2000s [South Florida]

Downtown development: Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach officials check to see if they overbuilt in the early 2000s [South Florida]

Developers poured money and concrete into South Florida’s three county “capitals” this decade, furiously building up the downtown skylines with thousands of new residential high-rise condos and apartments.

Now that the real estate boom is over, officials in those major urban centers are asking: Did we overbuild?

Prices in the three downtowns — West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami — plummeted to bargain-basement levels. But recent surveys suggest only Miami severely overbuilt its urban center during the real estate boom. Nearly 40 percent of the condos there are empty and up for sale.

Some developers were left holding unsold condos in West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, but officials in both downtowns said they’re well-positioned to recover from the bust.

One seller ploy first-time buyers should avoid

One seller ploy first-time buyers should avoid

Here’s a tactic that was used on me as a first-time home buyer: The seller is asked to pay an amount into a fund, and told he can recoup that payment by raising his selling price, which would then be paid by an unsuspecting buyer. I didn’t understand how this worked until after I had put down my earnest payment to purchase the house.

I ultimately found out it was really more of a ploy that results in the buyer paying for it twice, first in terms of a higher mortgage amount (and possibly a higher interest rate) and second in terms of higher property taxes.

What sort of things should first-time home buyers be made aware of and what sort of disclosures should the agents be required to provide to the first-time home buyers? Is this the sort of reason why such programs are only offered to first-time home buyers, because once someone been through this once, it won’t work on them again because they will know what to look for the next time?

Miami-Dade property tax appeals flood in from condo associations

Miami-Dade property tax appeals flood in from condo associations

With the deadline to appeal property taxes a week away, local appeals firms are hard at work, with many more cases coming from condo associations seeking appeals on behalf of unit owners.

With condo values dropping steeply, many condo associations are filing class appeals on behalf of those unit owners seeking a review of their assessments.

A state law allows condo associations to seek such group appeals, and the cost is less in bulk.

If the association files the tax appeal on behalf of multiple unit owners, it pays a smaller fee of $5 per unit, while an individual filing fee is $15.

Condo converter ordered to turn over 15 units to association

Condo converter ordered to turn over 15 units to association

A South Florida condominium converter who was renting out units but ducking his maintenance fees has been ordered to turn over ownership of 15 units to the condo association, plus rent checks that had been improperly collected.

Facing possible jail time for contempt of court, developer Robert Wolfarth, the managing member of the Village at Dadeland Associates, agreed to hand over title to the units in about 90 days.

He also was ordered to pay the association $11,700 in rent owed under a blanket receivership established in June. Under a blanket receivership, a judge appoints a single custodian to collect rents from all tenants living in units subject to foreclosure by a condo association.

Such receiverships are a relatively new legal tool being used by associations to collect maintenance fees. The order against Wolfarth, issued Aug. 27, demonstrates how effectively they can be used, said attorneys representing the Village at Dadeland Condo Association.

How local housing market went from boom to bust [Central Florida]

How local housing market went from boom to bust [Central Florida]

Those who quickly rise to the top also fall the hardest.

Real-estate analysts say that explains, in a nutshell, why the Sarasota-Bradenton market has been among Florida’s hardest-hit in the post-boom housing slump.

“The ones that rose the fastest and the highest all are falling down the hardest, and Sarasota is definitely at the top of the list,” said Jack McCabe of McCabe Research & Consulting, based in Deerfield Beach.

A Bradenton Herald analysis of home sales-price data supports his assertion.

Should You Buy REITs?

Should You Buy REITs?

If you don’t already have a significant chunk of your net worth invested in rental property, it’s time to think about buying stock in real estate companies. But in our first Real Estate Stock Talk, Alexander Goldfarb, a seasoned stock analyst, and Peter Slatin, a veteran journalist and industry observer, suggest you go slow.

Forbes: Let’s talk broadly about investing in real estate. Ibbotson Associates and other research firms say we all ought to have a big chunk of our net worth in investment property. Just owning a house doesn’t count. Something like 10% to 20% of our net worth should be in rental property–offices, warehouses shopping malls, hotels, apartment buildings, college dorms, prisons, self-storage or whatever else we can think of.

But how? Should a reader, wealthy or not, buy a property himself or herself? Invest through private partnerships? Or should he or she prefer realty stocks, and in particular, REITs? These are large enterprises that own many, many buildings, whose shares trade on stock exchanges in New York or overseas and pay out rental income in the form of dividends.