After the craze: Condo conversions leave fractured communities

After the craze: Condo conversions leave fractured communities

Michael Jacob was living at the Monterra apartments in Bonita Springs in 2006 when the wave of condo conversions came through.

Jacob, and everyone else in the 244-unit complex, was told by management to leave if they didn’t want to pay the sky-high price to buy – it was the very top of the wave to turn rental apartments into more lucrative condo sales.

Luckily for Jacobs, he and his wife didn’t buy their one-bedroom apartment for owner Tarragon Corp.’s asking price of about $200,000. Prices crashed almost immediately and Tarragon hastily canceled its plans even before the last tenants left.

“Poetic justice,” said Jacobs, who works as an assistant Lee County attorney. “It was just such an outrageous price.”

New state law might help reclaim fees [South Florida]

New state law might help reclaim fees [South Florida]

Many community associations throughout Broward have been struggling during the recession after foreclosed homes were left vacant and some financially strapped property owners quit paying their maintenance fees.

Now the state has stepped in to try to help; a new law allows both homeowner’s and condominium associations to deny nonpayers access to clubhouses, pools, fitness rooms and other shared community property. It also stipulates that foreclosing banks now will have to pay a year’s worth of unpaid maintenance bills or 1 percent of the original mortgage debt.

Even more controversial, the state allows associations to demand renters pay the community fees that their landlords aren’t paying, an attorney told a packed Pembroke Pines town hall meeting on Aug. 11.

Homeowner’s and condo associations now can directly bill renters for maintenance fees, with the property owner getting any rent money left over, said Lisa Magill, a partner in the law firm Becker & Poliakoff, which represents many community associations throughout South Florida.

Professional investors move into flipping foreclosed homes

Professional investors move into flipping foreclosed homes

Hoping there are big profits to be made in the aftermath of California’s housing collapse, professional investors are flocking to the business of buying foreclosed homes at distressed prices.

The investors, primarily private equity funds and groups of wealthy individuals, purchase the homes at public auctions, which are held daily on the steps of local courthouses. They refurbish the properties and try to sell them for quick profits.

Not long ago, the typical home flipper was an amateur tapping a home equity line or savings for an investment property. But professionals have rushed in, partly because of sparse investment opportunities elsewhere.

Pinnacle’s real estate fallout

Pinnacle’s real estate fallout

When Pinnacle Financial Partners got started 10 years ago, the bank’s executives, who had survived many a past real estate collapse, pledged to focus lending on business and industry — not real estate development.

Now, the bank is beset by loan problems linked to real estate and homebuilding plans gone awry across Middle Tennessee, quite the opposite of its original goals.

This much seems clear: A series of acquisitions of suburban banks in the past few years shifted a larger concentration of the bank’s loans into real estate development in fast-growing areas around Nashville, leading to questions about how smart its bank purchases truly were.

The fallout has been severe.

Developer’s Money Woes Evident in Bartow Foreclosure Sale [Central Florida]

Developer’s Money Woes Evident in Bartow Foreclosure Sale [Central Florida]

An anchor building in downtown Bartow is going on the auction block Tuesday in a foreclosure sale, reflecting the financial nightmare plaguing Lakeland developer Jose Reynoso.

He paid $380,000 for the Berkowitz building at 415 E. Main St. in 2006, and spent thousands of dollars renovating it for offices and retail shops.

He bought four more downtown buildings soon after that and funneled more money into those renovations.

As recently as December, he bought two acres of vacant land along U.S. 17 south of Hooker Street in East Bartow for $195,000, and he signed leases with options to purchase two more downtown buildings.

Property tax appeals: South Florida property tax appeals on a blistering pace

Property tax appeals: South Florida property tax appeals on a blistering pace

The annual tax notices going out this month will bring a double whammy of bad news for many Florida property owners — lower values and higher taxes.

But a small minority will get a break by challenging the county’s value of their homes, businesses and land.

Tax appeals have been pouring into government offices throughout Florida, fueled by the real estate boom and crash and a highly profitable cottage industry of tax representatives. So far this year, Broward and Palm Beach counties have reduced property values by more than $2.5 billion as a result of appeals.