Boca firm trying to buy 30 properties from Sizeler [South Florida]

Boca firm trying to buy 30 properties from Sizeler [South Florida]

Sizeler Property Investors Inc. is no stranger to bruising shareholder fights. Only last year, the Louisiana-based real estate investment trust with a West Palm Beach office jumped into the ring with dissidents looking for seats on its board.

The new battle it faces is just as fierce, and the stakes are higher: Too small to continue as a real estate investment trust, Sizeler is holding a going-out-of-business sale. On the block are 30 of its retail and apartment properties.

Boca Raton’s Compson Holdings Corp. jumped at the chance to buy all 30. It offered $15.50 a share or about $332.5 million.

Un-Real Estate [Yellowstone WY]

Un-Real Estate [Yellowstone WY]

“Is the Jackson Hole real estate market hot?” Ron Miller ponders the question. “I can’t answer that. There are niches. With my condos at the Village, I’m swatting buyers off. But my place at Indian Trails, I can’t find a buyer.”

Miller, the responsible broker for the Jackson Hole Real Estate Company, has hit his stride in real estate investing – basically, buying and selling properties he never intends to occupy. “I’ve had to teach my wife not to get attached to our properties,” Miller admits. “A lot of people hold on to their property and never realize the gain. They leave it to their kid. They don’t know how to sell. Some people buy a property and say, ‘I’m just going stay here ’til the day I die.’ How boring is that? I don’t think I’d want to do that. Life is too short. I’m always looking for an exit strategy.”

And it’s always a grand exit when Miller gets out. “My return on investment is phenomenal,” Miller says. “When I buy a property at no money down and sell it in a year for a $200,000 gain, that is a huge return on investment. Like, not 10 percent, not 20, not 50, not a hundred… Let’s just say, in an appreciating market like Jackson, it is not impossible to make a 1,000 percent return on investment. I’m here to tell you I’ve done it.”

Unsuspecting Internet buyers paying thousands for unbuildable lots

Unsuspecting Internet buyers paying thousands for unbuildable lots

Old-time swamp peddling has gone high-tech, thanks to Internet-auction sites such as eBay.

The pitch – speculation on near-worthless Florida real estate – is decades old. But today, a new generation eyeing property for investment or retirement is buying land that’s miles from civilization, has no roads or utilities and sometimes is underwater.

Known as “paper subdivisions,” these undeveloped tracts are the remnants of developers’ unfulfilled dreams – if not outright scams – in Florida’s Osceola, Polk, Volusia and Brevard counties. Buyers are paying thousands of dollars over assessed value for a lot that can’t be built on in a subdivision that does not officially exist.

Protections failing time share buyers

Protections failing time share buyers

Sales unchecked by complaints, lawsuits

South Carolina has more time shares than every U.S. state except Florida, but the agency that regulates the industry has been hamstrung by budget cuts and now only has one person assigned to time share complaints.

Despite 32 pages of laws on time shares, South Carolina’s system of consumer protections is failing aggrieved buyers – people who thought they were buying a product, rather than paying their way into a tricky system of bidding and swapping and scrapping for service.

Buyers in a bind

Buyers in a bind

After struggling home builder Jade Homes suddenly closed its doors last month, buyers of about 75 homes found themselves in difficult straits.

Ali Alshalkmi is a Tampa businessman who bought 10 homes at a total cost of about $3 million for himself and members of his extended family. He deposited $200,000 with Jade last year.

Three of the homes were never begun and seven others are in varying stages of partial construction.

Mortgage closing costs are sky-high in Florida

Mortgage closing costs are sky-high in Florida

State’s fees are behind only New York, Texas, Hawaii and Ohio.

For the second year, New York has the highest mortgage-related fees in Bankrate .com’s annual closing-costs-comparison survey. New York’s high title and settlement costs lifted the state well above No. 2 Texas. The Lone Star State was followed in the top five by Hawaii, Ohio and Florida.

Home buyers in Missouri pay the lowest closing costs, according to this year’s study. The Show Me State” was followed by Michigan, New Hampshire and Montana. Wyoming, which was last year’s lowest-cost state, was fifth-lowest this year. The difference between New York and Missouri was $1,174 in this year’s survey. That’s a hefty sum to first-time buyers who typically scrimp to save for a down payment and closing costs.