WCI’s stock decline raises question about it spurning Icahn’s offer

WCI’s stock decline raises question about it spurning Icahn’s offer

Since billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s $22-a-share offer for WCI Communities Inc. expired in May, the luxury builder has seen its stock price fall as the housing market continues to stumble.

Some question whether the company — a developer of waterfront and country club communities — made a mistake when it rejected Icahn’s offer.

“Like other public home builders, the stock has been on the decline. In retrospect was Mr. Icahn’s offer a good one as far as at the time he made it? I would say yes. And in retrospect, would it have been wise to take that offer? Again I would answer affirmative,” said Jack McCabe, a South Florida real estate guru and chief executive at McCabe Research & Consulting in Deerfield.

WCI could see its stock price and value fall further as it continues to talk to possible buyers.

Housing developer’s investors ask federal court to step in [Norfolk Virginia]

Housing developer’s investors ask federal court to step in [Norfolk Virginia]

A half-dozen investors in CM Development have asked a federal court to force the company and its president into bankruptcy in an attempt to recoup some of the millions they’ve spent on properties across Hampton Roads.

If successful, the investors’ move could spell the end of a company dogged by mortgage lenders, city code officials and creditors.

It also could return hundreds of homes owned by the Virginia Beach-based company and its investors to the open market, where city officials say they hope the houses eventually will be renovated and occupied.

Attorneys representing the investors who filed the involuntary bankruptcy petition Friday said they had no choice.

North Port builders see grim future [South Florida]

North Port builders see grim future [South Florida]

Because of the dramatic downturn in the real estate market, home builders are now replacing scrub jays as the most endangered species in this once rapidly growing city.

Ignoring the laws of supply and demand, those builders churned out far more homes than were needed during the boom, and are now sitting on a voluminous supply that is becoming increasingly difficult to unload.

More than a dozen builders have either retreated from the market, shut down or are being hauled into court by subcontractors, vendors and home buyers for failing to complete construction or pay their bills.

For those home builders and subcontractors who continue to soldier on, the future does not look bright.

How to Break Into the Housing Market, Even Now / (HINT: USE OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY)

How to Break Into the Housing Market, Even Now

It was about as far as you could get from Jeff Langholz’s and Karen Lowell’s idea of a dream house and still have four walls and a roof: a ramshackle double-wide on a weed-infested lot in rural Monterey County. A trailer for $169,000. Was this a joke? Had real estate grown so cartoonish that two Ph.D.-packing graduates of Cornell were scrambling to move into a green-shag-carpeted mobile home in a community nicknamed “Prunetucky”?

Well, yes, it had. It was 1999, the beginning of the real estate boom, and with just $7,000 from Karen’s parents for a down payment and prices on the coast edging toward $500,000, the couple realized the Prunedale property was their only way in. So they bought. Three years later, with two kids in tow, they traded up to an 1,100-square foot house on 2 acres on a sunny hillside a mile away.

It was a critical step up. With a white-hot market on their side, they were well on their way to realizing the kind of wealth that real estate brings to those lucky enough to get a piece of it.

FBI inquiry involves area home sales

FBI inquiry involves area home sales

The FBI is investigating a convicted Florida cocaine dealer whose alleged mortgage frauds may involve homes throughout the Montgomery area and may leave investors with more than $1 million in potential losses.

Federal agents received court permission earlier this year to search the offices of a real estate appraisal firm and a real estate brokerage in Montgomery for records of home sales involving Orlando businessman Robert B. Guest Jr.

Acting through several companies, Guest is suspected of buying 100 homes, mostly in Montgomery, obtaining misleading appraisals and then reselling the rental properties within six months at two or three times the price he paid, according to a sworn statement by FBI agent Christopher P. LaCarter.

Efforts to contact Guest were unsuccessful.

Salton City: The boom that wasn’t [San Jose]

Salton City: The boom that wasn’t [San Jose]

Developers still add housing the remote, inexpensive area, despite rising gas prices and mortgage rates

This lakeside hamlet is about as remote as you can get in Southern California and still have plumbing and pavement.

Nestled on the western shore of the Salton Sea, the town doesn’t have a supermarket or movie theater or drugstore. But it has as many as 250 homes for sale, most of them newly built — a huge supply for a place with just 1,440 people.

When real estate values began soaring a few years ago, builders flocked here. Summer temperatures might hit 115 or even 120 degrees and the sea may be too sickly for swimming or sailing, but land was cheap. Builders figured that people priced out of Los Angeles and San Diego would discover Salton City and the other towns in Imperial County.