Free Republic

For the nation's real-estate lenders, the other shoe may be about to drop: condominiums. Already plagued by rising home-loan defaults and foreclosures among overstretched consumers, major markets across the country -- including parts of Florida, California and Washington, D.C. -- are seeing rising foreclosures and bankruptcies of entire condo projects. The problems are emerging as some buyers who signed contracts to buy new condos two to three years ago, when construction was just starting, seek ways to back out as they encounter trouble getting financing in the suddenly dicey mortgage market. Falling prices are forcing appraisals down, so banks aren't...

For the nation's real-estate lenders, the other shoe may be about to drop: condominiums. Already plagued by rising home-loan defaults and foreclosures among overstretched consumers, major markets across the country -- including parts of Florida, California and Washington, D.C. -- are seeing rising foreclosures and bankruptcies of entire condo projects. The problems are emerging as some buyers who signed contracts to buy new condos two to three years ago, when construction was just starting, seek ways to back out as they encounter trouble getting financing in the suddenly dicey mortgage market. Falling prices are forcing appraisals down, so banks aren't...

By VIKAS BAJAJ WASHINGTON — David Franco’s illuminated model of a proposed 10-story condominium tower dominates a sales center that, in spite of the “Now Selling” banner still fluttering outside, is conspicuously closed for business. “We could have waited it out and kept pushing and pushing,” Mr. Franco said about the decision to abandon plans to sell 180 luxury condominiums with floor-to-ceiling windows offering views of the Washington Monument and Capitol Hill. “But it would have taken significantly longer.” After six weeks of failing to lure more than a couple of dozen buyers, Mr. Franco and his partner, Jeff Blum,...

...Since the middle of 2006, the frenzied condominium market here and in several other big cities like Las Vegas, Miami and Boston has collapsed. Once roaring sales have slowed to a trickle, sparse inventory has mushroomed into a glut and soaring prices have flattened out and started falling. In many cities, banks have significantly scaled back loans to condominium builders. Some have demanded that developers sell half or more of the units in a building before even beginning construction. In hopes of salvaging something from their costly plans, hundreds of developers like Mr. Franco are looking to the strong market...

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, July 5, 2006) – Department of Defense ID cardholders are eligible for weekly condominium rentals at 3,500 resorts in 80 countries worldwide. Provided by Morale, Welfare and Recreation and sponsored by Resort Condominium International, the Armed Forces Vacation Club offers space-available condominiums for $299 a week. The program gives Soldiers and other DoD workers affordable accommodations in condominiums that would otherwise go empty, according to Verlin Abbott, RCI director of AFVC. While the program provides low-cost accommodations to vacation resorts across the globe, Abbott stressed that the condos are “space available” only. “Don’t expect to go...

There goes the fast money. Major commercial lenders are withdrawing from financing South Florida condo construction and conversion deals, another sign the overheated market may be too hot to handle. UBS AG is out of the Miami market, confirmed spokesman Peter Casey. So is GE Commercial Finance. Philadelphia-based private real estate investment firm AMC Delancey is still interested in Florida. Just not, for the time being, South Florida. "We are seeing lenders overall pulling the plug," said Dan Kodsi, president of Royal Palm Communities, a developer in Boca Raton.It's not only lenders on the construction end who are newly nervous...

Henry Fishkind, principal of the economic consulting firm Fishkind & Associates, offers his perspective on the outlook for the South Florida economy in 2006. Henry Fishkind is the principal of Orlando based-economic consulting firm Fishkind & Associates. The Miami Herald recently interviewed Fishkind, who used to direct the University of Florida's forecasting program. He offered his perspectives on the South Florida economy in 2006. Q: How do you characterize the housing market in Miami? A: There is a significant condominium bubble in Miami. There are by our account 25,000 condos under construction in Miami-Dade County right now. I believe 18,000...

A joint venture pays $77.5 million for the high-rise Portland Center Apartments and will sell units as early as next spring A team of Portland developers plans to announce today that it has bought the high-rise Portland Center Apartments for $77.5 million in a deal that will convert the three massive towers into condominiums. The purchase of 537 units is believed to be the largest condominium conversion in the Portland area, which has seen a flurry of apartment buildings converted to for-sale units in recent years. It also marks one of the highest Portland-area prices ever paid for an apartment...

GULF COAST REBUILDING RIPPLES WIDELY Reconstruction of the Gulf Coast communities hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina hasn't even started yet, but the effects of the devastation are already rippling through the building industry, in the Bay Area and nationally. The wholesale cost of lumber spiked dramatically this week, as the industry grapples with the loss of several Southern lumber mills. The price hikes -- 20 percent or higher -- have already trickled down to some individual local contractors, who are paying more for plywood sheets, 2x4s and other basic materials. ``There's been a dramatic effect,'' said Dennis Englander, a buyer...

About 8,000 condominium units are under construction or about to start, according to SalesTraq, a Las Vegas real estate information company. It's a building explosion fueled in part by speculators in the torrid real estate market here and the desire of buyers from California and Asia to own a piece of Sin City's action. But like everything Vegas does, this building bonanza comes with an extra helping of glitz: Developers are using Hollywood stars to make their projects stand out from the more than 100 residential skyscrapers proposed for Las Vegas. Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire have purchased units at...

I envy my friends in Washington, D.C. Four years ago, one of them paid $165,000 for a half duplex near Old Town, Alexandria. She encouraged me to buy a place just like hers right down the street, but I hesitated. I wasn’t sure if I was going to stay in the area. I thought the price was a little high. But what do I know about anything. I had no idea that just a few years later, interest rates would rocket downward. I had no idea the federal reserve would pump an unimaginable amount of dough into the economy, or...

Western companies that bucked the U.S. embargo and set up shop in Cuba are shutting down and leaving as Fidel Castro's government rolls back market reforms - just as NewsMax.com predicted it would three years ago. Writing in NewsMax.com in February 2002, pundit Humberto Fontova said: "Liberals insist in Congress, on CNN, in the New York Times that doing business with Fidel is a can't-lose proposition for any American and that moral and material blessings will shower all involved." Then Fontova - author of the new book "Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant" - warned: "The momentum for the long-awaited opening with...

We’ve all been had. The bottom has long since fallen out of the key group that master-minded the Kyoto Protocol credit scheme, but nobody seemed to have joined the dots. It all began with the flight of Canadian Maurice Strong’s Earth Council from Costa Rica as noted by the National Post’s Peter Foster in May, 2004. With no fanfare, the Earth Council landed in CH2M Hill’s Consumer Road Toronto office towers. The Costa Rican government has been pursuing the Earth Council for payment of U.S.$1.65 million, for the wrongful sale of a tract of land it imprudently donated to the...

BARSTOW, Calif. - A plan is in the works to build the West's largest cow town, a nearly 2,000-acre gated community in the Mojave Desert where 600 dairy farmers and their families would live alongside about 90,000 cattle. The plan being pursued by two successful California businessmen aims to reduce agricultural pollution in the town by turning manure into clean, renewable energy to run the cow complex, with some left over for sale to the electricity grid serving Southern California. Estimated cost of the project is $1 billion. "We're talking cow condos, a complete gated community, sharing all sorts of...