St. Petersburg condos thrive amid economic turmoil

St. Petersburg condos thrive amid economic turmoil [Tampa Bay Florida]

Its recent record of bankruptcies, broken contracts and busted lenders aside, the Tampa Bay area’s condo tower market still has a pulse on the St. Petersburg waterfront.

As all-but-dead projects like Trump Tower Tampa hold off creditors in bankruptcy court, Ovation in downtown St. Petersburg will spend the week pouring concrete for its final — 27th — floor at Beach Drive and Second Avenue NE.

The $85-million building offers 45 units ranging from about $1.2-million to $4.4-million. Despite the high prices, two-thirds have sold.

“Amazingly, September was an excellent month. We had three new sales,” said Mike Cheezem, president of JMC Communities, the project’s builder/developer.

26 sue law firm over West Palm Beach condo money [South Florida]

26 sue law firm over West Palm Beach condo money [South Florida]

More than two dozen buyers trying to recover deposits on the failed Palladio Terrace condo have filed a $2.5 million lawsuit against the Gunster Yoakley law firm, claiming the firm failed to properly guard their cash when it served as the condo’s escrow agent.

Merco Group of the Palm Beaches, Palladio Terrace’s developer, abandoned plans to build the West Palm Beach luxury condo two years ago, but it has not returned all $10 million in deposits it obtained from would-be buyers. These and other buyers have lobbed lawsuits against Merco, seeking the return of their money. Some judgments have been reached but not paid by Miami-based Merco.

Now, 26 would-be Palladio Terrace buyers are pointing the finger at Gunster Yoakley, saying the firm was negligent in releasing their money to Merco in the first place.

“Knowing you have one of the largest, most important law firms in the county protecting your money – only to find out that they didn’t – is outrageous,” said Steve Katzman, a Boca Raton lawyer representing the group. “If a project fails, the only thing standing between you and the loss of your money is the escrow agent.”

Errors in loan documents can save strapped homeowners

Errors in loan documents can save strapped homeowners

Homeowners who are having difficulty getting the attention of their lenders to discuss their troubled mortgages might want to obtain a forensic loan review to determine if their lenders made any mistakes when the mortgage was issued.

Even a $30 miscalculation on the lender’s part could be an actionable offense, and the threat of a lawsuit can be enough to persuade the lender to deal with you in trying to find a way to help you work through your financial difficulties.

In a forensic loan review, a legal pathologist scours your loan documents looking for errors in, among other things, the truth-in-lending statement the lender provided shortly after you applied for your mortgage and the lender’s annual percentage rate calculation so you could compare loan costs.

If the truth-in-lending statement doesn’t match the HUD-1 closing-cost sheet you received at closing, if the APR is off by just a hair, you might have cause for legal action against the lender.

Q&A: Time to pay the piper on condo roof replacement

Q&A: Time to pay the piper on condo roof replacement

Q: I live in a retirement condominium that is about 40 years old. Our county notified us that we must be inspected by an engineer to determine if we have construction deficiencies. The report indicated that our main problem was the roof. We recently started a fund to replace the roof but we do not have enough and our board is discussing borrowing the money. The added expense to replace the roof is far beyond some of our residents’ ability to pay. Why can’t there be some kind of compromise for seniors? Can you help us?

A: As a senior, you are old enough to remember the advertisement that said pay me now or pay me later. Well now is later. As long as I can remember, the condominium statutes have required that condominium boards must include reserves for roofing, paving and painting in the annual budget. Did your past boards fail to comply with the statutes or did the members vote out the reserves? If you had been paying reserves, you would have the necessary funds and your fees would be lower. I have no answer for your board’s or members’ failure not to have a reserve for roofing. Now we are in a bad financial market and real estate market and you will have a problem finding outside funds. I print your question in my column as a warning to other associations that their failure to properly reserve will cause extreme hardships on future members. I have compassion for you and your neighbors but in truth, you and your fellow members must now pay the piper. Your association failed to properly prepare for the future expenses as our statutes required. One idea: Maybe the board can find a roofing company that will let you pay on time.

Canarsie, Brooklyn – Homey, but No Haven From Hard Times – NYTimes.com

Canarsie, Brooklyn – Homey, but No Haven From Hard Times

Even years ago, back when she rented in East Flatbush, Ismay Gardner knew she liked Canarsie, a quiet suburban community on Brooklyn’s south shore with row upon row of detached houses and neat lawns. When she decided to buy a house, Canarsie was the first place she looked, and even when she moved — twice — it was within Canarsie.

Now, Ms. Gardner, who is 58 and has two grown children, believes she may finally have reached the end of her time in the neighborhood. Partly because of a feeling that the area is not quite as tidy as it used to be, and partly because she is simply restless for something new, she has decided to sell the two-family house on 103rd Street, in a leafy corner of the neighborhood, which she bought just last year to live in with her son and daughter.

Her timing, people who follow real estate in the neighborhood say, is less than ideal. Hit hard by the mortgage crisis, Canarsie is one of the city’s trouble spots for foreclosures. A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, released in January, found that the 11236 ZIP code, which includes Canarsie and the adjacent Flatlands neighborhood, had the highest number of subprime mortgages in the city, 1,930, and that lenders had initiated foreclosure proceedings against 12 percent of them.

New lender rules on ‘buy-and-bail’ to help, and hurt

New lender rules on ‘buy-and-bail’ to help, and hurt

A crackdown by mortgage lenders on a fraudulent practice known as “buy-and-bail” could make it more difficult for law-abiding homeowners to take advantage of today’s depressed market.

The scheme involves owners telling the lender on a new home that they plan to keep their old one as an investment. After escrow closes, they stop making payments on the first house and let it fall into foreclosure.

The scheme has caught on in recent months, as owners with unaffordable payments saw that they could buy a comparable home and pay less per month. Now lenders are adding restrictions to make it tougher to qualify for a mortgage if you plan to keep your old home as a rental property.

The new rules will potentially penalize honest buyers who don’t plan to defraud their old lender but simply want to rent out their old property while waiting for it to regain value.