Emerald at Brickell 2 Bedroom Tower Suite Short-Sale – $499,000
March 14, 2008 by Lucas Lechuga
This 2 bedroom/2 bath tower suite short-sale at Emerald at Brickell slipped through my radar since the middle of February because the listing agent failed to include the correct zip code with the listing. This short-sale condo is listed at $499,000, or about $395 per square foot. It has direct views of Biscayne Bay and Key Biscayne.
The next best priced tower suite condo at Emerald at Brickell is listed at $699,00. It is slightly bigger but is still listed at over $140 per square foot more. If the correct zip code (and correct spelling of the development) had been included, I suspect that this condo would have been under contract by now. It fell off my radar and I'm guessing that it fell off the radar of many other Realtors and buyers.
No way. I would hold for under $200/sf. Their maintenance cost its too high. Besides the worst its still yet to come.
lucas
how do you figure that this is a good price?
LUCAS: Let’s make a competition… First Person to drop a comment on your next post gets a FREE lunch with you….
Property: 218 SE 14 ST TS105
Sale Information:
Sale Date: 1/2007
Sale Amount: $950,000
Assessment Information:Year: 2007
Market Value: $455,800
Assessed Value: $455,800
Total Exemptions: $0
Taxable Value: $455,800
2007 Taxes $ 10326.19
Can anybody look up orginal sale price on MLS?
One 2/2 in 2006 went for 495,000, 1bed went for high 300,000. Cannot understand humongous difference in prices from one year. 2008 Unit 1208 a 1/1 826 sq. ft. sold for $700,000. Yet 2306 1/1 is listed at $299,000.
Way over priced………………..especially compared to other short sales in this particular building.
Lawsuit Charley,
What other short-sales are you referencing? This is the best priced 2 bedroom in the building and it’s a tower suite with a direct view of the bay. The even numbered units in the building don’t have a direct view of the bay. The one bedroom units that are listed have a horrible view.
Mr. Flamingo,
Deal! But if the next person to leave a comment resides in another state or country then you have to pay for their airfare. Deal?
Wild Bill,
The MLS doesn’t show the original sales price when it is sold through the developer. You’ll find that on the county website. It’ll take at least 2 hours to find that info though.
Original purchaser paid $536,600 on Sept. 2006. He found a cash buyer and sold it Feb. 2007 for $950,000. That’s ~185% return per annum on a 2007 sale. Now the unit is for sale for 47% less a year later.
Now that’s what I call timing! Let’s hear from that guy!
Could fraud have been involved here?
perez – If it was a “cash buyer”, then it wouldn’t be a short sale.
There are 2 mortgages on this:
OR 25374-1371 – $760,000
OR 25374-1398 – $190,000
TOTAL: $950,000
Yes – it looks like fraud to me. 2007 was already a crappy year for real estate sales. There is no way something would legitimately sell for more in 2007 than in 2006.
No wonder car sales are down. With all this fraud, a bet a LOT of money went to buy big expensive vehicles. Now that’s stopped.
Fraud written all over this puppy.. Cash? give me a break.. Do the math people, this is a clear example of fraud. Fraud on the way up and I am now wondering about fraud on the way down.
Waverly #704 had been listed for sale just above $500K.. All of a sudden the property was quit claimed to Resurrection Equities. Now the Management is telling me the unit was sold as a short sale just below $350K.
The unit was never offered on the open market at that price and the Lender would never allow this crap.
The unit is all of a sudden offered for rent at below market as well.
C’mon Miami Dade Fraud Task Force, get your heads out of your a$$ and start protecting consumers.
Remember the old days when you had to have a down payment and show where it came from. Guess “Underwriting” has been on vacation for a few years.
The owner of this unit looks like they were involved in a bunch of properties. They would buy a unit, finance it 100%, and then later quit-claim it (using a self-made quitclaim deed) to someone else.
What’s the idea behind the quitclaim deed? I’ve seen this in other mortgage fraud cases, but I didn’t understand it. What does that do for the owner of the property? I know it likely isn’t legal to deed property to someone else without paying off the mortgages (unless you’re adding or subtracting a name, like a marriage or divorce). Anyone have any insight on this?
BFG, thanks for correcting my mistake, it was not a cash deal. The owners last name was spelled differently on the mortgages than on the deed, and I didn’t find the mortgages.
This doesn’t appear to be a case of an unsophisticated buyer overpaying. This owner has about 5 other properties, and has been buying and selling for many years in the area.
This may be a good case study. Could someone check the MLS and see what the asking price was prior to the Feb. 2007 sale for $950,000?
I would speculate that someone using a quit claim deed does so in order to transfer the property without paying off the mortgage. Either both the seller and buyer are involved in fraud or just the seller with a really dumb buyer. I think this type of thing was mentioned recently in the Chicago Tribune. Needless to say, it can make the foreclosure process a bit more complicated with competing ownership interests, combine that with what company really holds the mortgage note and it could be a long drawn out affair. I am for putting these types of fraudsters in prison and make them work off their debt at $5 per hour.
I can give you a quit-claim deed for any property you want….even the Brooklyn Bridge….since I don’t warrant that I actually own any interest in it.
In the alternative, it could be, but doubt it, that X&Y were part of a Company. X is out so X quit-claims his interest, whatever it may be, to Y. Also used in divorce situations, etc.
It is a HUGE red flag however.
I recently looks at leasing a brand new $1.8M condo on the beach (listing price). I looked up the owner (who apparently live in South America). He was not the original owner of this brand new condo. X bought the condo and has a $1M mortgage. X quit-claimed his interest to Y but the mortgage remains (and the mortgagee (lender) may be unaware of the transaction) and Y would like to lease to me. I don’t think I am going to lease. I can lease it for $4K/month yet I am told it costs Y $14K per month. There could be private financing going on here, I don’t know. But it is a concern. I couldn’t find any other shady transactions with X and Y so it may just be a private arrangement?
Here’s what’s happened with the lender.
http://ml-implode.com/imploded/lender_HomefieldFinancial_2007-04-12.html
But I haven’t found the actual forclosure action, is it not in foreclosure?
Buyer Tom,
Check public records to see if they are paying their mortgage and are current with their HOA dues. If not, the unit could go to foreclosure, and people will be knocking on your door.
BUYER TOM…..I can smell drug money in that condo from here.
Hey – Where can I look that information up on? Link? Thanks.
I was looking at this one (unfurnished) where I’d have to buy furniture for the 2,500 s.f.+ unit but can lease at 1/3 the cash cost. Or a professionally decorated and furnished brand new 1,600 s.f.+ unit turnkey at 1/2 the cash cost. I’m supposed to sign a lease on the smaller one soon….but would really like the larger one, but I guess I don’t really need that much space and the later is turnkey with brand new dishes, linens, etc.
Sideliner – I didn’t get that impression from the realtor. There is a $1M mortgage note still and they had moved in their own furniture with wedding photos (the large unit) and were a bit distressed about not being able to get more than say $4K a month for it. But who knows?
My concern really is default. But who knows I could be naive.
Off Topic:
Allow me to share an email I just recieved from Mercedes Benz of Coral Gables…
Dear Valued Customer,
Due to a recent opportunity to purchase a select number of lease returns, Mercedes-Benz of Coral Gables is currently offering unprecedented specials on these Certified Preowned Mercedes-Benz automobiles (most of which have low mileage and are in perfect condition).
Additionally, in conjunction with Mercedes-Benz Financial, we are able to offer qualifying clients an interest rate as low as 1.9% on selected models (an all time low rate) as well as a Certified Preowned Warranty up to 100,000 miles.
This is a truly unique promotion that won’t last long. If you are interested in taking advantage of this special opportunity, please let me know as soon as you can because the situation will change as the inventory becomes depleted. Of course, this offer is based on approved credit and is offered to us for a limited time.
Wow…Looks like all this free money wasn’t free after all. So many “wannabees” in this town are finally getting back to reality.
Range Rover sent me an offer like this.
Mike K: Premium car sales are hurting and they are offering super deals right now. The 100K warrentny they are offering … well on my M3 convertible, it cost me $6K (warrenty + maintenance) to get that. The fact that they are offering super deals WITH warrenty and 1.9% financing is awesome. Too bad I am not in the market for a new car.
On a related note, I have friends in SOCAL who are waiting for hot deals on high end Mercs, bimmers and porsche. There are a lot of people who bought these cars using home equity and will have to sell or have them repossessed. I have been checking prices on eBay and I dont see any noticable reduction in prices.
A thought for all you of (fellow) conspiracy theorists. If I were a broker who wanted some time to have a no co-broker sale (and have no MLS commission share to pay) I’d misspell the condo name and scew up the zip code, too. This is all supposition, of course, and I’m making no allegations. But such a broker could tell the seller, truthfully, that the condo was listed on MLS for a month, and there was little or no interest. His/her Uncle Louie could then make a truly lowball offer. Again, I know nothing more than what I just read on the blog, but two mistakes put Lucas off the scent, and I can’t believe that a broker would miss both “typos”. Anyone could blow a zip code, but emerald is a common noun that any spellchecker should flag.
With 25,000 Miami Condos coming on line over the next two years, I don’t know about you lot but the smart money is holding out for $125.00 per foot.
According to a cnn.money.com article, “Wholesale Access has estimated that all these changes (in the mortgage market) mean 30% to 40% of borrowers who could have qualified for a CONVENTIONAL mortgage a year ago can no longer do so.” (emphasis added)
I don’t know about you, but that makes it very clear that many more people will go into foreclosure…..many many many more…. since people won’t be able to sell or refinance.
For all you guys with some free time, you can run circles around the Mortage Fraud Task Force.
perez is already doing some good work…
The following site will give you the current unit owner if you have an address you suspect:
Once you know the current owner you can look up how it was financed, previous owners, etc. here [I don’t know why it is currently down]:
Then you just play connect the dots. It’s amazing how quickly the patterns reveal themselves. In general, the most expensive flips in any given building are going to involve the same names.
No idea what the cops are up to…
And with respect to MCZ/Centrum on a recent post here. Googgle “builder bailout” then go snoop around the sales on their porperties in Aventura.
Since the Dade clerk’s site is down, feel free to play in Broward…it’s just as dirty…
Their website’s a little better; there are actually links from the results of a specific property search to historical deeds.
By the way, folks who are defrauding banks tend to make it a “best practice” to spell their names as many different ways as possible when recording documents. perez– not a shocker that the mortgage was not recorded with the exact same name.
Also, if properties are being flipped through LLCs, etc. you can usually get some info on the corps at sunbiz.org
…but you can’t put anyone in jail. D’oh!
BTW… all of you eggheads on here should be reading this blog:
http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/
again, unless you are a family that wants to LIVE in these properties or can afford to keep it as a 2nd home w/o having to rent them out – the best time to start buying any of these units is when you see 3 consecutive months of declining inventory due to sales, not properties being taken off the market. this is a very simple concept … but gets muddled up when you mix in human emotions and sales tactics on the masses.
there is such a lockdown right now in the credit markets that the only way you can buy properties is to be a ‘cash buyer’. even high credit quality right now is questioned.
back in the “VUE ON BRICKELL” topic that lucan posted, i mentioned (comment #48) to keep an eye on BEAR STEARNS. this was approx. 2 weeks ago and they would’ve gone bust on friday if not for the fed’s bailout. there is no reason to buy anything right now until things clear up. real estate is not bouncing anytime soon. having said this…there WILL be a great time to buy up everything…we’re just not there.
….one more thing to think about: if the markets are placing a tremendous risk premium on AAA rated municipal bonds, what shot does illiquid real estate have (again, from an ‘investors’ pt of view).
if a muni market can get locked up, you’d be nuts to buy any real estate…once liquidity returns to the liquid mkts…then maybe it’ll trickle into illiquid mkts…
What was the asking price in early ’07 of this unit which was purchased from developer for $536,600 in ’06, then resold in ’07 for $950,000?
Since lender who loaned 100% has gone out of business, who has authority to approve a short sale?
If this is a fraud, why hasn’t a foreclosure action been initiated, I find it hard to believe that the buyer has been dutifully paying this big mortgage payment on this way overpriced unit.
lucas
i don’t think you can establish that this is a “deal” in any sense of the word. if anything, this past friday’s events are just more steps toward a major shakeout which will not trickle down to the south florida real estate market, but instead, will drown it.
BREAKING NEWS:
Bears Stearns gets acquired by JPMorgan Chase for $2 per share. Bear Stearns closed at $30 per share on Friday and was trading in the fifties Friday morning. This is a huge story.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/16/news/companies/jpmorgan_bear_stearns/index.htm?postversion=2008031619
Yep – Saw that, not a surprise except for the share price. It could have been worse, BS could have been a condo flipper that bought in 2006!
The bigger news is the Feds emergency rate cut. My concern has been that the Fed is a tad behind the curve. I would prefer that they be just ahead of it instead…
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/fed-cuts-discount-rate/story.aspx?guid=%7B3D168510%2D4A22%2D4F0B%2D9E52%2DECE3672E3E9F%7D
Buyer Tom,
The share price was a HUGE surprise to me. It traded as high as $159 per share last year. To me, this means that Bear Stearns went bust. Their name and their client-base is worth at least $2 per share, in my mind.
Another story below. Unsurprisingly after the latest cut in the discount rate and the fire sale of BSC, the US Dollar tumbles:
http://dailybriefing.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/03/16/bear-sale-fed-moves-send-dollar-tumbling/
$2 is pretty surprising, but when you can’t meet your obligations….$2 is better than nothing. I’m glad I didn’t own any of it directly…. A lot of smart people can’t fix a bad balance sheet when there’s a run on the brokerage. This will cause real fear. We’re in for pretty nasty little recession that will clear out a lot of leveraged people and firms. No wonder gold has been going up and up….the real estate safe haven is gone and so is the strong dollar. I blame it all on the Realtors® (just kidding 🙂 ).
Well, our exports will go be going up………but do we make anything anymore? LOL
this isn’t really big news…bear was going down, it was just a matter of when. the price isn’t so much of a surprise when you consider bear is sitting on $30 billion of level 3 assets.
With more rate cuts to come and more Florida condo price reductions coming too, it will be a great time to buy in 2010! (yes, I know the Fed rates aren’t directly tied to long term mortgage rates….but the rate cuts are indicative of the global recession to come which will reduce commodity prices, etc. and with inflation down the rates will be lower for long term borrowing). Don’t try an catch that falling knife…….
BT
2010? try 2015. as for the fed doing more, i’m not sure what else they can do. lowering the discount rate and fed funds rate doesn’t do much when it’s no longer a liquidity issue but instead, a collateral issue. if people don’t have faith in the underlying collateral, then they won’t extend credit. i don’t really know how the fed can stabilize asset values when the market is insisting that they trend back to their fundamental values.
Crazy. 52 week high in excess of $150/share is one thing. But BSC had market cap of $6 BILLION on THURSDAY. This just turned into $236 million. Poof!
I’m glad I decided to rent…….
jcrimes – I agree, it could be 2015 by the time the real estate prices hit bottom…but I sure hope it doesn’t drag out that long….
A radio show this afternoon was talking about the price of gas. They were talking about why the price of gas has been going up. There hasn’t been a decrease in supply or an increase in demand so what’s going on? The answer is that the value of the US Dollar has been going down. It now costs US oil refineries more US Dollars to purchase the same amount of oil. Their increased cost gets passed onto consumers, hence the increase in prices at the pump.
Everything will eventually balance out in the long run, however. There will be more foreigners visiting the US because goods and services will be relatively cheap. People residing in the US will be less likely to travel abroad because goods and services abroad will seem very expensive. Foreign countries will increase imports from the US because our goods and services will be a bargain, in relative terms. The US will be less likely to import foreign goods because the prices will seem expensive.
The big negative, however, is that foreign countries, if they feel that the US Dollar will continue to drop, will be less likely to invest and open new businesses in the US. We do not want investment dollars in the US to dry up.
it’s actually frustrating. i want to buy but (1) i want a good deal and (2) i don’t want to get burned. problem is that the timing of these criteria look to be several years off. amazingly, i own an investment property but still can’t buy a primary residence.