Top 5 Distressed Condo Sales Closed in July 2009
August 10, 2009 by Lucas Lechuga
- Brickell on the River North #805 - 1 bedroom/1 bath (820 square feet) - This unit sold for $128,000, or $156 per square foot, on July 30, 2009. Short Sale
- Brickell on the River North #1611 - 2 bedroom/2 bath (1,117 square feet) - This unit sold for $190,000, or $170 per square foot, on July 10, 2009. Short Sale
- The Sail on Brickell #2704 - 2 bedroom/2 bath (942 square feet) - This unit sold for $137,900, or $146 per square foot, on July 31, 2009. Foreclosure
- Solaris at Brickell #1903 - 2 bedroom/2 bath (1,064 square feet) - This unit sold for $185,000, or $174 per square foot, on July 24, 2009. Foreclosure
- Imperial at Brickell #1505 - 3 bedroom/2 bath (1,732 square feet) - This unit sold for $350,000 or $202 per square foot, on July 29, 2009. Short Sale
I hope we keep these posting’s …all about REALESTATE …..NOT politics sex and other nonsense such as recipe’s…if you want recipe’s …watch the BAREFOOT CONTESSA!!!
It looks like some ASSHOL* is posting under MANY different ALIAS’S on here again.I am sure you are aware of these IDIOT’S LUCAS.Don’t worry about a low life time waster that couldn’t afford a cardboard box.WE ARE ALL WITH YOU LUCAS…..KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK. There are people that appreciate your hard work and effort on here. Thank you
Do be honest, I’m not impressed as not one of these deals is below $125.00 per sq ft which is the bench mark to avoid a falling knife.
Lucas,
Empirically, have you noticed if it’s getting easier to push through short sales? About 6 months ago, I thought the prevailing wisdom was they are a total waste of time but it seems like more and more short sales are going through now. Also, is there any way to tell if these successful short sales have been mostly bank pre-approved short sales?
some of those deals are not bad. unless the HOA goes into a freefall, several units are probably justified at the prices around $150 sf. Not expecting many deals nearing $100 sf, unless we have an additional collapse in the economy.
JL,
Overall, my answer is yes but it still depends on the bank that you’re dealing with. I’ve found that Bank of America still takes forever to respond but most of the others haven’t taken so long anymore. JPMorgan Chase recently responded within 3 weeks which was pretty surprising.
I do think for foreclosures, this is still a high $/sqft. These are reasonable prices in general for a condo compared to a couple years ago. I would expect that a foreclosure (most require some amount of work) to be <$150/sqft. I have been saying for over a year that average $/sqft (house/condo) in Miami for resale should be ~175/sqft and foreclosures 15-25% less than that.
This is definitely good data, thanks Lucas
Elvis should stick to bag check out at Publix for where does he come up with the bench mark of $150 when we are already way below that. Peter Shift set the bench mark at $125 per sq ft three years ago and we are now at or below that.
Invest in a property at $150 and you will be already below water at closing. I hope you snow birds (boring Canadians) and sun birds (South American peasants) brought your snorkels and lots of extra air tanks because you are going to need them.
We savvy Americans Psycho’s know when the time is right to buy. Just ask Patrick Bateman whom I ran into last week at the Dorsia, he assured me that $125.00 per sq ft was in fact the cut off mark, so enthusiastic was he that he produced a meat cleaver to emphasize his point.
Flat Iron Steak anyone?
How come only Brickell is on sale? That too 2nd tier buildings in Brickell. In all the deals posts that Lucas posted, I have not seen a single flat with direct water view in Brickell, Park West or Pace Park on these deals.
Wild Bill,
Thanks for clarification. Now it all makes sense. They are still paying the taxes on land value which is approx half million per year. So I guess they will start paying taxes on individual flats once the TCO is issued.
Shwin,
Thanks for the update on 900. Are you planning to sign up for the rent to buy scheme? If you do, will they credit your rent for the past few months towards the downpayment?
I 100% agree with you on tort reform. Some times I just want to run away from this country, not because I am afraid that I will cause an accident or do some such thing but living has become almost impossible as you have to fucking insure every action of yours in this country and it is becoming cost prohibitive. No other country in the world do you live in such fear at every minute of your life. I am in the entertainment biz. Like the docs being socked out of business as they can no longer pay $200K insurance premiums, we can no longer insure bars/clubs and taverns. We are right now fighting a scammer bitch trying to get free money from one of our establishment, claiming a fall (a total lie). If we give in , one claim on the records and no insurance company will touch us.
The best (or the worst ) part is that the fucking lawyers taking that bitches case know that the ho is totally lying.
jcrimes, please tell us that you are not one of them, ambulance chasers.
Kramer,
That is too much ($600) bill per month. Do they keep their entire house at 65 degrees and their pool at 87 degrees 24/7? I don’t understand how the FPL bill can be so high?
is it my name that gets my post removed?
anyway, my point was, miami needs better security to attaract investors, it has sun and beach and guns. one component is the problem….. NY is safe as can be in manhattan, Miami does that for main areas and it would be much better. just 2 streets of South beach it starts getting dangerous…. no police… gang bangers….
ps, dont know about internal state of USA, but Obama stopped USA being the enemy of the entire world and is trying to undo a mess W spent 8 years making after Clinton gave him a booming economy….
Sounds like the Mondrian might be in trouble…loan came due August 1 and they are having to rework the debt instead of repaying it off.
AJ
my legal career was never in the realm of ambulance chasing. was a corporate m&a type.
however, the ill that tort reform is supposed to cure is way overblown. as i said before, blame the state court system for failing to keep up with the times.
The Mondrian should be in trouble.
Hotel: Not many people come to Miami and want to stay on West Avenue and rely on cabs for the beach/restaurants/clubs. Its too far from the action at that price point.
Residences: Sure, sell me a 500sf studio in a building constructed in the late 70’s that was formerly known as Mirador Apts and Forte Towers prior to that. In the famous words of the Stupidest Woman on Earth (Sarah Palin), the Mondrian is “lipstick on a pig”.
Drew
Mondarian was banking on the idea that folks with boats would stay there b/c of the marina. Frankly, I find the business model laughable.
Regardless, once the hipness factor fades (the Friday happy hour is still ridiculously awesome and the Sunday pool party is supposed to be the new “it” place), the place will become second rate. However, I don’t think the property will fold. The current owner of the property is ridiculously wealthy (unlike some other developers) and will carry it for some time until he gets a palatable exit strategy.
JCrimes,
Any news on NoBe?
ahh, yes..”the marina model”: kind of like the now apparently defunct Watson Island developers who planned the mega yacht deepwater marina whereby Miami would rival Monaco for yachting enthusiasts. Instead on Watson Island we just have the Miami Children’s Museum, whatever the hell is in there.
lara
i haven’t heard anything. the lack of sales in peer buildings (bath club and mosaic) has to make the bank’s stomach reel. this particular market segment – intro luxury is getting crushed (once you factor in SIB, hollywood and hallandale). it also has to be equally painful the bank to know that there is still significant construction expenditures that must take place inside the structure before you get the CO. the end strategy is to partner up with a developer. only problem is that there are really no developers down here who are ready to take this project on (these guys are trying to survive right now).
regardless, i’m convinced this will be one of the best deals (if not the best) coming online in the next year or two. sure, you may have to spend a little more upfront on finishing out the unit (any developer will cut costs and do the bare minimum to get the CO). but the price should be reflective of that reality. on the back end, you have ocean front property in mid-beach in a new building at a steep discount.
For the record, I made a little joke about Sarah Palin in post #20 that was mysteriously edited out of the comment. Lucas, you’re setting a dangerous precedence by selectively editing parts of postings. If that’s your game, then you’re better off redacting the entire post rather than cutting/pasting so that the posted comment may not be what the original writer intended to communicate.
I don’t know what is more ridiculous: you arbitrarily editing comments with no notation in the comment that you’ve done so, or the fact that you found a joke against Sarah Palin so offensive to warrant removal from the site.
In the very least, you should let your bloggers know that you have given yourself the authority to manipulate these comments as you wish and they shouldn’t be alarmed when their posts differ from what they orignially typed.
Drew,
That’s a flatout lie. I don’t even remember reading a comment about Sarah Palin. I’ve only deleted comments with profanity directed towards others on this blog. For the record, I’m not a fan of Palin but keep making up lies Drew. It would have been so much easier for me to delete your comment than to have to pull off the side of the road and waste 5 minutes of my day. For that I thank you Drew.
Well then who did it????? One of your site adminstrators???? Why would I lie about something like that? Either you’re lying to me or someone with access to your site is editing comments without your knowledge.
Drew,
Your Sarah Palins comment #17 is still on board. I just read it. Unless you wrote another Sarah Palin comment in another post.
jcrimes,
I knew all along that you are not a tort lawyer. But I am glad you confirmed it too.
My friend who is from Harvard and Georgetown and a corporate lawyer himself always used to say “only the dregs become tort lawyers after they cannot be good at any other kind of law. These scum are the ones that come to general public’s mind when they think of lawyers and it gives a bad name to all lawyers”.
kramer,
You mind find this interesting:
This is a welcome news. They reduced the investment threshold from $1 mil to 500K which most rich people have in other countries. Basically America is selling green cards for half a million dollars. But if Miami is benefiting from that , I am all for it.
AJ
i wouldn’t be so harsh on tort lawyers. they fill a role, just like white collar lawyers do at white shoe firms. and frankly, tort lawyers, when they hit big, hit bigger than any other lawyer including the masters of the universe at wachtell, simpson or sullivan.
JCrimes,
Thank you for your response. I guess we’ll watch what’s going to happen.
Lucas, apologies.
A flurry of comments and multi-tasking at work led to my mistake. If you want feel free to remove my post #22 to avoid confusion. Sorry bout that
Drew,
Apology accepted.
Lucas, I have a real estate 101 question: If a unit is advertised for sale as a short sale, is the asking price negotiable or one fixed by the bank?
jcrimes,
more often than not, tort lawyers take any case that comes to them even if they know that the case has no merit or when the litigant is blatantly scamming and lying. I object to such unconscionable behavior especially as I am at the receiving end of such scam. All that these lawyers are thinking about is their 33% cut of the proceedings. They just don’t care if they are harassing innocent people.
I think they will not win this case against our establishment. But the amount of harassment and headaches this case is causing is not to be dismissed lightly. Are there some Erin Brockovich type lawyers out there? Yes. But most tort lawyers are blood sucking leeches.
Anyone know anything positive or negative about Oceanview/Ocean reserve in SIB?
Looks like they just raised HOA fees.
Aj, you’re right, all lawyers are scumbags. Now DJ’s on the other hand…
Hi lara re #34
I believe this is a 40 year old rental that catered to retirees originally and was then gussied up like the proverbial Sarah P related animal-lol and remarketed as condos.
The maintenance could be high if the building INCLUDES ac electric and hot water in the HOA fee so you would need to receive a high rental to cover it.
I have lived in buildings engineered that way and dampness /humidity was an ongoing problem in the unit.
While prices might have fallen sharply you would have to find a great bargain to hope to make $ on the upside if/when the RE market turns.
The “action” -if we are still alive to see the next BIG upswing-will be in newer buiildings
not retreaded places.
Meantime you are competing for a renter who can likely find something nicer for a similar rental outlay.
Caveat emptor?
sorry AJ, but it generally doesn’t work that way. as a tort lawyer, you have to be very careful with the cases you take. the opposing side will fight, draw you out and force you to take a massive financial risk. thus, most tort lawyers will be pretty careful in what cases they decide to take. typical life span of a case from the date of filing suit to the end of appeal can be years…and in that time you’re not getting paid shit. yeah sure, you have the car accident guys that do the PIP bullshit, but that’s a creature of a horrible Florida state law.
something i should have mentioned before…most big firm lawyer types (including your friend) secretly admire tort lawyers. yeah, the big firm lawyers went to better schools and have more impressive credentials on their resume, but at the end of the day, all that matters is the scratch in your bank account. and good tort lawyers CRUSH the corporate types in that department. and work less in getting there.
a comment re: these sales
it seems that mid-tier stuff in brickell is moving toward the $150 sq/ft range. presumably that puts first tier stuff (excluding the bristol towers and santa marias of the world) below $275 sq/ft. if you think about it, prices have nearly dropped in half from peak brickell prices (sales closed and not asking).
Jamie,
Yes, the asking price of a short sale is negotiable. However, in most cases, the bank is completely unaware of the asking price when it is set. If the price looks too good to be true then it is highly unlikely that the bank will accept even a full price offer.
jcrimes,
yes, it is tragic that the tortillas rake in big bucks. But so are so many dishonorable professions.
As far as your statement “typical life span of a case from the date of filing suit to the end of appeal can be years…and in that time you’re not getting paid shit” maybe true. But in most cases like the one my establishment is fighting, The plaintiffs lawyers are throwing a case and hoping it would stick. What they are hoping is that we would avoid headaches and decide to settle. But we are not settling. This is when they might realize that it is not worth their time and drop the suit which has no merit in the first place.
But I am a stubborn bastard and I am willing to take it to the next level. But what about so many ordinary small biz owners who are not very legal savvy nor has the resources to fight? They might settle. That is exactly what these SOBs are hoping. And unfortunately they succeed most of the time.
So your argument that they will only accept an iron clad case is not true. They may stick their neck out for an iron clad case and draw it out to conclusion but at the same time they accept any con that walks into their office and try to intimidate ordinary people into settling a non merit worthy case.
AJ – Don’t you have liability insurance to take care of this customer injury case? If the insurance company wishes to settle and make the payment, let them — in fact depending on the insurance contract language you may be obligated to allow the insurance company to settle, for them it is a simply business decision about $$$. If you are a stubborn bastard then you will soon part with a lot of money in legal fees if you’re paying this yourself. If you don’t have business liability insurance (and of course millions of personal liability coverage too), then you have silly exposures for being in a business that serves alcohol. You also need to make sure the business entities are set up correctly to shield against any possible personal liabilities and of course to separate one business from another so if one falls it doesn’t take down the others and of course yourself. Personal liability is a biatch. Good luck, but you have certain premises liability since you have a physical place of business that people come to…it is what it is.
Exactly RT, I don’t know what the hell AJ’s talking about. If he has insurance, they pay for the defense costs and settlement/judgment. I’d imagine if he has a general liablity policy he probably has $1 million limits. If he doesn’t have insurance, well then that’s his bad and it will teach him an expensive lesson about being properly insured.
If I ran a business with exposures such as serving alcohol, I’d have a lot more than $1M in my business liability policy or I’d have no capital in the business and be just a passive investor using a legit shell company as the partner or member. Otherwise, $5M-$10M would be more like it since one good alcohol car wreck and poof. But then again, I don’t think AJ requires his tenants to have a renters policy nor am I confident he has sufficient insurance for being a landlord either…..AND he brags about only having one mortgage on only one four properties which means those assets could easily be attached and used to pay off a judgment. Ouch.
It seems that a lot more short sales are closing these days in Miami.That’s good news to see people avoiding foreclosure. I have some questions about this process and you all seem to know how things work down in Miami.
-Is Florida a recourse state? If so, do banks usually pursue the deficiency of the seller when approving short sales? I’ve done a lot of searching and found that its less likely if its the seller’s primary residence and there is only 1 loan. Any truth to this?
-Are short sales moving along any faster these days?
-If you agree on a price with the bank, how long does it usually take to get everything in writing, and how long usually to close?
-Do short sales or foreclosures result in reassessed property appraisals for tax purposes?
I’ve been searching all over and have had very little success. If anybody has any insight or personal experience, I would really appreciate it!
Thanks,
dave
Dave,
I might be able to give you a little info since I’m actually closing on a short sale one week from today.
In my case, the bank is not pursuing a deficiency judgment against the seller. He lives in California, so this obviously isn’t a primary residence. He also has substantial assets from what I’ve been told, so I’m not sure why the bank is agreeing to it in the first place, but I’m not complaining. The seller had two loans on the property, both with Chase Bank. The second lender (even though through the same bank they were treated sperately), finally approved the sale yesterday (although the seller is contributing a pretty hefty amount to pay them off ).
It was anything but fast. Althouh we finally got the approval yesterday, this was 4 months since I put the offer in. The waiting sucked. The first lender approved about a month ago, and then more waiting on the second.
We didn’t agree ahead of time on any price with the bank. In fact they hadn’t approved of the short sale (or even knew about it), when the property was listed as a short sale. I guess that might be why it took so long. I’d imagine if the bank pre-approved it would have been much faster.
Anyway, I got the place for about 40% less than what the seller paid for it, so both he and the bank took a big hit, but I’m happy. I consider it to be a good price for property taking the market into account. The assessment should be based on the new sale price, so taxes should definately be lower.
Hope this helps.
Yes. Thanks DJ that was a huge help.
Did the bank ask for a seller contribution, or how did that figure into things?
Yeah from what I understand, he owed too much on the second loan and the bank knew he had assets, so they asked for a contribution. They asked me to kick in some extra cash too and I was like fuck that.
haha good call. well good luck next week!
RT and DJ,
You cannot operate with out liability insurance in the state of New York. Your thinking is exactly what the scumbag lawyers are hoping for. And in 90% of the cases they get what they want. They arm twist the owner into settling by coughing up money.
You have no idea how the Restaurant/Tavern (the name for all bars and nightclub) insurance business happens in New York.
Firstly there are just a handful of companies underwriting the bars/nightclubs. They are extremely nervous about these kind of situations.
If I go to my insurance company, they will settle and then immediately drop me. The other 2 or 3 companies will either refuse to cover me as there is a claim or they will charge me an astronomical premium, making no sense to keep the doors open any longer. That is why most businesses with a claim sell off and reopen with a different corporation name. I am not going to do that for a biz that has been established for 7 years. So I will fight these small time crooks (the lawyers) who are no different than the local Mafia in extortion and shake down. Thanks for your advice anyway to tell me to go to my insurance company. I am not going to do that.
AJ,
Find out where the lawyers live and hire some kids to drive by blaring Tiesto day and night.
PI lawyers are a hideous bunch. Definitely a pariah in the Legal Profession.
DJ: did the “second” bank ask for contribution as a condition to approve the short sale or because legally the owner has to pay back the loan (cross collateral with his other assets)?