Condo buyers struggling for closure amid credit squeeze

Condo buyers struggling for closure amid credit squeeze

Ronald Cowan thought he’d be living the high life in Las Vegas, rubbing elbows with sports stars and celebrities who frequent hip places like ghostbar, Rain, Playboy Club and the Pearl concert hall at the Palms.

Cowan plunked down $132,000 for a deposit at Palms Place, the swank condo-hotel tower that opened earlier this year next to the Palms.

One slight problem: He can’t close escrow on his $663,000 unit.

Cowan, of Cambria, Calif., was hoping to sell his property in nearby Grover Beach and use the proceeds in an Internal Revenue Service code 1031 exchange to buy the unit at Palms Place.

Condo owners can be caught up in market downturn

Condo owners can be caught up in market downturn

When the real estate market boomed between 1995 and 2005, speculation ran rampant. Property “flippers” were rolling over huge profits, selling their contracts for condos in new buildings before they were even built.

Just like the game of musical chairs, the music stopped and someone was going to get stuck.

All across the country new construction and conversions have been foreclosed by unpaid lenders because of slow sales, and early buyers are getting stuck with units in a building that cannot cover its overhead. Recent stories about owners vacuuming the hallways and shoveling the parking lots is only one small aspect of the possible crisis.

How about the hypothetical building with 90 units? Thirty sold to owner occupants, 30 to investors who have renters and 30 who own empty units. An active imagination can create a number of scenarios, such as bankruptcy, with a capital – ruptcy.

From Russia — With Cash

From Russia — With Cash

The Russians are coming.

As many of America’s wealthy are roiled by the credit crisis and general financial gloom, a growing number of rich Russians are house-shopping — and buying — in costly U.S. enclaves.

Fertilizer mogul Dmitry Rybolovlev is set to pay nearly $100 million to Donald Trump for an oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach, Fla., say people familiar with the deal reached in May. Last year, Oleg Baibakov, president of GSC City, a Moscow construction-management and consulting firm, bought a condo at Manhattan’s Time Warner Center for $13.5 million, according to public records.

And in Snowmass, Colo., perhaps the most famous Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich, paid $36.4 million in April for a 200-acre ranch. The property’s massive, split-level house is five minutes away from an $11.8 million ski-in, ski-out house that Mr. Abramovich, owner of England’s Chelsea soccer team, purchased two months earlier, records show.

Florida builder goes green in a big, big way, designing a luxury mansion that’s eco-friendly — OrlandoSentinel.com

Florida builder goes green in a big, big way, designing a luxury mansion that’s eco-friendly

With an asking price of $29 million, the 15,000-square-foot seaside mansion real estate “artist” Frank McKinney is building south of Palm Beach will have every luxury imaginable.

And a projected utility bill of $800 a month.

The bargain bill — typically, it would be $4,500 — will largely come courtesy of a $200,000 array of solar panels on the roof of what McKinney says will be the biggest certified “green” mansion in the world.

To build Acqua Liana — “water flower” in Tahitian — no rain forest will be cut. Few chemical vapors will foul the air. Construction debris will be recycled. And every drop of rainwater that falls on the cedar roof will be reused.

Start-Up Banks: ‘Hog-Wild’ to Humble [South Florida]

Start-Up Banks: ‘Hog-Wild’ to Humble [South Florida]

The future looked bright when several small banks decided to open in this city along the Gulf of Mexico. Property values in southwest Florida were surging, and older start-up banks had sold themselves for handsome profits after just a few years in business.

Now, though, for-sale signs dot shopping centers, offices and vacant lots. Developers are desperately hawking vacant houses built on former farmland. In nearby coastal hamlets, some clusters of homes are half-built, with wires dangling from garage ceilings and pipes sticking out of the ground.

While just about every bank in town is suffering as a result, Bradenton’s latest crop of start-up banks has been hammered. At First Priority Bank, which opened in 2003, nonperforming assets have swelled to 16% of total assets, according to analysts. Coast Financial Holdings Inc., staggered by bad loans to out-of-state investors who hoped to flip homes, nearly failed before being sold to First Banks Inc. of St. Louis last year.

“They went hog-wild and made far too many of these loans,” said Tramm Hudson, a local banker who advised Coast before it was sold.

Market leaves housing flippers flopping

Market leaves housing flippers flopping

At the peak of the real estate boom, they inspired TV shows, how-to Web sites and the envy of friends and neighbors.

Then the tumbling economy snagged “house flippers” like Mark Lepzinski of Clearwater.

After 36 whirlwind months buying and selling dozens of homes throughout the Tampa Bay area, Lepzinski, 50, declared bankruptcy this year. Debts: $1.55-million.

But, as Lepzinski puts it, “when you fall off the horse, you get back up.” He’s still pitching property and urging others to invest in real estate. And as a former employee of Merrill Lynch, he’s also touting his experience as a “private financial adviser.”