News about properties and real estate
Post-Katrina real estate booming
The 2,200-square-foot house promises three spacious bedrooms and two-and-a-half baths — a bargain at $175,000.
Except for the fact that the home, located in one of this city’s previously elegant neighborhoods, has been gutted to the studs and has no drywall, no wallboard, no fixtures.
“Home was flooded by Katrina,” reads the advertisement posted by the listing agent at one of the city’s largest real estate firms. “Ready to turn into your dream home.”
Retirement community’s new owner says no to condos [South Florida]
Everything’s going condo, it seems, so residents of The Carlisle Palm Beach figured their luxury retirement community was next.
Owner HealthTrust America was said to be turning the Carlisle into condominiums, but that was before HealthTrust sold the 310-unit complex near The Ritz Carlton to Senior Resource Group of San Diego in November.
Apartment project [Central Florida]
New Orange Court to rise downtown Construction is scheduled to start on the site of the former Orange Court Motor Lodge in Orlando.
Demolition began Friday as a first step in the development of a $36 million apartment/retail complex on the site of the long-gone Orange Court Motor Lodge in downtown Orlando.
Nat Barganier, a vice president for the Houston-based company behind the project, said Friday that construction could start in June on Camden Orange Court.
On posh Jupiter Island, hurricane threat simply a part of life
Most snowbirds are gone. There is no bustle of activity on the narrow two-lane road serving as the connection between this enclave of wealth and the Martin County mainland. The only signs of life are an occasional dog-walker, jogger or resident in a golf cart.
Summertime – and hurricane season – loom on Jupiter Island, a secluded 17-mile strip where Atlantic Ocean waves gently lap one side, and the warm breeze pushes toward the Intercoastal Waterway, sparkling on the other.
Real estate wrangle snares homeowners
Asset freeze halts construction
To understand the impact of real estate investor Solomon Dwek’s multimillion-dollar financial troubles, look no further than Sam and Terry Nowell.
The Ocean Township couple thought they had a solid deal to sell their Monmouth Road home to Dwek. Less than a week after they put it on the market for $569,000, Dwek, 33, made a cash offer, sight unseen, for the property.
The Nowells then contracted to buy another house in the township, and that home’s owners then bought another house out of state.
Then the domino effect set in.
City’s auction goes online [North Florida]
For years, those who wanted delinquent tax certificates waited for the week in May in which they could invade the county courthouse and bid Wall Street-style for those certificates pertaining to properties all over Duval County. The process was the 4-5 day auction in which delinquent tax deeds were sold to the highest bidder. Often, things got loud and heated and the auction took on a stock exchange look and atmosphere.
“There was all that hollering and screaming,” said Alvin Crooms, manager of property taxes and occupational licenses for the Tax Collector’s Office.