- FHA relaxes rules on condo sales
- $310,000 condos in Van Nuys, CA go for $62,121 per unit
- $150M One Hawthorne is only new tower to open this year in San Francisco
- Denver's Residences at Ritz-Carlton in Chapter 11 after only one sale in three years
- Buyers from India make up 20% of all realty sales in Manhattan
- The Phoenix at Clarendon Metro in Arlington, VA sells all 181 units
- 30 Buyers at Trump Tower Tampa sue Donald J. Trump
- Brooklyn developer barred from selling condos in New York state
- Phoenix HVAC contractor wins job at billion-dollar Costa Rica project
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) -- Condo buyers and developers just got the break of the year. The Federal Housing Administration is relaxing rules that will allow lenders to offer more loans with less-strict qualifications.
Now borrowers can make down payments that equate to only 3.5 percent of the sale price, instead of the 20 percent, 40 percent and even 50 percent that some lenders have been requiring.
Meg Burns
"We're coming in and saying we'll approve the projects and back them so you (the bankers) will feel confident and comfortable lending in this environment," Burns says.
The 75-year-old FHA doesn't make loans itself; it only insures lenders against borrowers defaulting on the loan.
"This might be an entrée for traditional and conventional lenders to return to the marketplace," Peter Zalewski, a condo market analyst and principal with Bal Harbour, FL-based Condo Vultures, tells The Miami Herald.
Grant Stern, owner, Morningside Mortgage Corp., Bal Harbour, FL, also tells The Herald, "This should really help some of the stalled project if they can get their buildings approved...A lot of these buildings looking to sell out the rest of their inventory should be able to get FHA approval to close out the projects."
Sonterra Homes
"This is one of the larger broken condo deals to close in the San Fernando Valley (this year)," says Ronald Harris, a senior vice president of investments in the Los Angeles office of Marcus & Millichap.
"These units were selling for as much as $310,000 each in 2007."
Gidi Cohen of Cohen & Associates in Chicago was the buyer. An undisclosed Chicago-based lender was the seller.
The unit mix comprises 31 studios, 61 one-bedroom/one-bath units, six two-bedroom/one-bath units and one two-bedroom/two-bath unit.
(SAN FRANCISCO, CA) -- Developer Ezra Mersey, a former Tishman Speyer executive, plans to open a sales office in January for One Hawthorne, the first luxury condo community completed in San Francisco in 2009.
Mersey will have the field to himself. No other comparable projects are expected to be built in San Francisco until 2013, according to local construction sources in a position to know.
Prices are expected to range from $500,000 for a 550-square foot junior one-bedroom to $3 million for a 2,200-square foot penthouse.
The 25-story, 165-unit tower is being developed by Mersey's 16-year-old Jackson Pacific company.
"Drastic price reductions of 20 percent to 30 percent, led by Tishman Speyer's 656-unit Infinity condos, have brought San Francisco from a glut of inventory to very little in less than a year," according to the San Francisco Business Times.
(DENVER, CO) -- Talk about bad timing, bad location and bad luck. Developer Charles Biederman built his $75 million, 25-unit Residences at the Ritz-Carlton three years ago near Arapahoe Square, a Denver neighborhood that was supposed to have been ripe for redevelopment. But it never happened.
Now the developer has placed the luxury condo project into Chapter 11 after only one unit was sold.
The condos were priced from $500,000 to $3 million, a reduction from the initial asking prices of $800,000 to $4 million. The units are sized from 1,140 square feet to 5,550 square feet.
The foreclosure filing involves only The Residences at the Ritz-Carlton and not the 202-rom Ritz-Carlton Hotel, in which Biederman is also an equity partner.
The condos are located on floors 15 through 19 of the building at 1881 Curtis St. The property was formerly an Embassy Suites hotel.
(NEW YORK, NY) -- Corporate buyers and individual executives from India are accounting for about 20% of all realty sales in Manhattan these days, according to Raphael De Niro, managing director of New York City-based Prudential Douglas Elliman and son of Hollywood actor Robert De Niro.
"India and China are now replacing the buyers from Eastern Europe," Raphael De Niro tells Propertywire.com. Bargain prices are the magnet.
Prices of condos and apartments in Manhattan are down 20 percent to 25 percent from their peak in 2007, he says. For example, the average price per square foot for a Manhattan East Side condo is $1,249 compared to $1,319 for a comparable South Central Mumbai unit.
Another Manhattan brokerage, Brown Harris Stevens, says a luxury Manhattan condo today goes for an average $1.65 million to $3.93 million. A comparable Mumbai unit will cost $3.3 million to $6 million.
(ARLINGTON, VA) -- The Phoenix at Clarendon Metro, a mixed-use complex of retail, residential and the new main Arlington County Post office, has sold all its 181 condo units, according to McWilliams Ballard president Christopher Ballard.
McWilliams Ballard marketed the project for developer Keating Partners.
Prices range from the mid $300,000 for a one bedroom, one bath unit to over $1 million for a two-bedroom, two-bath and den unit.
Ballard says The Phoenix was built and sold "during a troubled real estate market." He says the project "blends the best of city living by having the convenience of Metro nearby with all the modern conveniences of condominium living.
(TAMPA, FL) -- It's old news to New York City developer Donald J. Trump but to 30 condo buyers at the 52-story Trump Tower Tampa their joint Hillsborough County Circuit Court lawsuit is for real.
The buyers are seeking millions in judgments against Trump. Their suit alleges negligence and fraudulent misrepresentation by Trump. The suit alleges Trump promoted the project in videos and news releases and gave the impression he was a partner in the development.
Trump Tower Tampa
However, Trump's lawyer, Alan G. Garten, says the suit is meritless. Similar pending suits have been filed against Trump in Miami and Baja, CA.. Trump contends they are all without legal merit.
"Mr. Trump was not the developer of the project, did not enter into contracts with any of the buyers and did not receive deposits from any of the buyers," the lawyer says in a prepared statement.
"Mr. Trump licensed the use of his name to the developer, Simdag/Robel LLC, to brand the project - no different than any other luxury real estate brand" on the market today.
(BROOKLYN, NY) -- Mendel Brach, once considered an up-and-coming commercial real estate developer in Brooklyn, NY, has been barred by the state of New York from selling condominiums and apartments in New York.
The Attorney General's office in New York alleges Brach fraudulently obtained a zoning variance from the city of Brooklyn to build a 72-unit, nine-story development on Spencer Street in the city's Bedford-Stuyvesant section. The normal height limit in Brooklyn for comparable projects is five stories.
In a prepared statement, Brach says he has personally spent more than $1 million to correct structural defects in the Spencer Street building and is working with the Attorney General's office to continue correcting the building.
Brach has also agreed to pay $10.9 million to the development's residents. Brach had told the city of Brooklyn, when applying for the project's permit, the building would house faculty members of a local yeshiva.
(MANUEL ANTONIO, COSTA RICA) -- Legacy Air, an eight-year-old heating, ventilation and air conditioning Phoenix, AZ-based contractor, has won a multi-million-dollar contract at the billion-dollar Jade Condo Hotel Residences & Beach Club in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica.
Bouma International is the developer. The first phase of the 240-unit project is expected to be completed next month.
"Legacy Air has been a strong contractor partner for Bouma in the U.S. and we were pleased they agreed to come to Costa Rica with us," says Stefan Pulm, Bouma's executive director.
"We have had great success within the commercial construction business domestically, so this is a logical way for Legacy to grow," says Legacy president Jay Parker.
The Jade site is one mile from Manuel Antonio National Park and about five miles from Quepos, considered the sport fishing capital of the world.
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