Post-boom hangover lingers [South Florida]

Post-boom hangover lingers [South Florida]

The first thing you notice as you drive the hundreds of miles of crumbling roads in this once rapidly growing city is the enormous number of “For Sale” signs.

Every 9th or 10th house is either listed for sale or will be as soon as foreclosure proceedings are concluded.

All told, as many as 2,000 of North Port’s 20,600 homes hang over the market, grossly distorting any semblance of balance between supply and demand, data from the Sarasota County Multiple Listing Service, RealtyTrac.com and Port Charlotte property appraiser Dennis Black shows.

“Drive any block in North Port and you will see four or five ‘For Sale’ signs in every direction,” said Michael Tenn, a Daytona Beach resident still trying to sell the house his grandmother moved out of last year. “Everybody is trying to get rid of property.”

Getting Away by Pressing the ‘Up’ Button [New York]

Getting Away by Pressing the ‘Up’ Button [New York]

“In many of these high-rise buildings,” Mr. Bedoya said, “there are fewer apartments the higher up you go, so it feels a bit more private and exclusive. And the views are certainly something that people value. When you’re entertaining, everyone is always impressed by a lot of lights.”

Prices vary from city to city, but the general rule is that the higher the unit, the more it will cost. In Miami, for instance, “We usually go up between $30,000 and $50,000 per floor,” Ms. Beltran said.

An upper-floor unit also can create some unique decorating challenges, particularly in modern buildings with floor-to-ceiling windows. Leslie Jones, the owner of Leslie Jones & Associates, an interior design firm in Chicago, said, “A west or a south view can be really hard, especially when you’re doing something like a media room, where you want a fairly low light level for most of the time.”

A characteristic of all urban second homes, high or low, is that they give owners an excuse to cut loose or at least have a little fun when it comes to designing and furnishing them.

Fort Lauderdale’s Las Olas Centre sold [South Florida]

Fort Lauderdale’s Las Olas Centre sold [South Florida]

The owner of Chicago’s Prudential Plaza and Washington’s Watergate building said Friday it bought Fort Lauderdale landmark Las Olas Centre, an office-retail property with notable tenants such as Jackson’s Steak House and Huizenga Holdings Inc.

Real estate investment firm BentleyForbes LLC of Los Angeles did not disclose the price it paid. But one property analyst in New York estimated the cost of the prime commercial real estate at $500 a square foot, making the deal the most expensive to date for an office complex in South Florida.

At that price, the center’s nearly 470,000 square feet would fetch $235 million. The property, with 14- and 18-story office towers and ground-floor retail space, stretches nearly two blocks on Fort Lauderdale’s trendy Las Olas Boulevard.

Condo may be on city property [Tampa Bay Area]

Condo may be on city property [Tampa Bay Area]

Developers have spent more than a year constructing a $100-million high-rise condominium and retail complex in downtown Clearwater.

But they may be building on some city-owned property.

And that isn’t good, it seems, for anyone – the developer, the city, a local church, a title insurance company, Clearwater voters and, possibly, the condo unit owners who are waiting to move in.

At issue? A roughly 20-foot strip of land and who owns it.

Ruling favors condo builder

Ruling favors condo builder

Trying to back out of a pre-construction purchase on a condo?

If you’re rich, forget it.

But if you have money troubles, it might be easier to do.

That’s the finding of a Palm Beach County Circuit Court judge, who earlier this month ruled that a buyer could not back out of a contract to buy a $495,000 unit at Marina Grande, a $200 million waterfront condominium in Riviera Beach.

Sinkhole problems driving family toward foreclosure

Sinkhole problems driving family toward foreclosure

Nicole Stotz’s patience is broken.

The same goes for her terrazzo floor and stucco walls. You can see the cracks.

Two years after moving into her one-story home along Pinehurst Drive, sinkhole conditions have caused her abode to show signs of ruin.

“I didn’t want to move before,” Stotz said, recalling her reaction soon after learning of the unsettling terrain under her house. “But now I will never own another home in Florida again. I’m very much done.”