Housing market still troubled [Central Florida]

Housing market still troubled [Central Florida]

Property appraisers’ report reflects slowdown — coastal areas hit hard

Central Florida’s most troubled real estate: low-end condos. Where are values level? Established neighborhoods. What prices are rising? Lakefront property.

That is a synopsis of what lies behind the property-tax rolls appraisers reported to the state by Monday.

Overall the news for Central Florida underscored a trend that began in about 2005, when high insurance and unbridled property taxes curbed buyers’ appetite for coastal properties.

Values rise at condo tower [Denver]

Values rise at condo tower [Denver]

At the new Glass House near downtown, many owners are investors who are quickly selling their units for tidy profits.

A week after Deviree Vallejo and Dan Brown closed on their one-bedroom condo in the Glass House, they put it back up for sale.

Within two days, they sold the unit in the Riverfront Park neighborhood west of downtown for 24 percent more than they paid for it.

“It was a great investment,” said Vallejo, a real estate broker with Kentwood City Properties who has several units listed in Glass House.

Home buyers duped into foreclosure [South Florida]

Home buyers duped into foreclosure [South Florida]

The beige ranch house at 4501 SW 13th Ter. looks much like any other on this ordinary street in the Little Gables neighborhood.

But it’s one of a string of homes bought for more than $7 million in suspicious mortgage deals orchestrated by the former co-owner of a South Beach talent agency and her husband. The deals wrecked the credit of at least five people and sent eight homes into foreclosure, one of them twice and another three times.

The story of 4501 SW 13th Ter. comes amid what police call an epidemic of mortgage fraud that spread during South Florida’s real estate boom, when the money was easy and the deals flew fast. Florida leads the nation in mortgage fraud, which flourishes because of cracks at every stage of the system, according to a Miami Herald analysis based on hundreds of documents and dozens of interviews.

Here’s how it usually works. Small cartels of inside players recruit people with good credit as decoy or straw buyers. They inflate the price of a home to get a bigger loan, sometimes with the help of an appraiser. Then they pay the sellers at their original price, pocket the rest of the money as cash back at closing, and abandon the home to foreclosure.

The $3.6 Million Mortgage [New York City]

The $3.6 Million Mortgage [New York City]

SETH WEINSTEIN is not a guy who likes to run a tab.

He has only two credit cards — one for his personal use and one for business — and he says he pays them in full each month. He even wrote a check the last time he bought a car, a white Volvo convertible.

But Mr. Weinstein, who for nearly the last 30 years has developed office buildings and condominiums in the New York area, and who seems to be allergic to the idea of accumulating debt, was approved for a $3.6 million mortgage last month for the $4 million condominium he is buying at the Century at 25 Central Park West.

$20-million gets it all [Tampa Bay Florida]

$20-million gets it all [Tampa Bay Florida]

Matt Geiger’s mansion is the envy of any bachelor. The sprawling estate boasts several lavish bars, a DJ station and dance floor, hot tubs, a pizza oven and even a cigar room.

Only problem is, Geiger is settling down. The former NBA player recently had a baby with his girlfriend, and another is on the way. So he has put a price tag on the party pad: nearly $20-million.

“It’s not really baby-friendly, ” Geiger’s Realtor, Toni Everett, said of the 28, 000-square-foot house.

The master bedroom and the other bedrooms aren’t on the same floor, and Geiger wants to be closer to his children, she said. But he isn’t moving far. Geiger is building a child-friendly house in nearby Bison Creek Estates, a gated community that he is developing on Keystone Road.

Pembroke Pines condo receives $8 million insurance check for Wilma damage

After long fight, Pembroke Pines condo receives $8 million insurance check for Wilma damage [South Florida]

For 18 months, the patched roofs leaked at the Park Place condo complex while the board of directors tried to get its insurance company to fix the damage caused by Hurricane Wilma.

Southern Family Insurance had offered the Pembroke Pines association only $160,000, according to the public insurance adjuster for the 1,028-unit complex. On Friday, the board’s battle paid off. It received a check for almost $8 million from the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association, the state-created agency that handles claims for insolvent insurance companies,.

“I’m overwhelmed,” said Andy Fuxa, president of Sunrise-based Epic Group Public Adjusters. “It was a 1 ½-year nightmare. Almost 18 months ago, we demanded the money and we got almost what we claimed. It was a happy ending.”

And it shows the value of persistence, he said.