Ft Myers: 32 stories condo building /1 tenant (Miami, Cape Coral: sales, apartments, foreclosures)

[2goldens]

Fla. highrise has 32 stories, but just 1 tenant


Online article here (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090801/ap_on_re_us/us_lonely_highrise - broken link):

[TedTLPN]

That's a VERY scary story. I hope they somehow get some neighbors, or one of the companies involved pulls their head out of their butts.

[Honeycrisp]

I saw him interviewed, it has to be like the 'twilight zone', very creepy, hopefully they can work out a compromise.

[hiknapster]

I saw the headline, earlier today, but thought it was Miami.

Wow.

We use to have someone on this forum that did sales for those condos. She acted like they were going to be the best thing since sliced bread. We kept telling her the area was going to crash.

From the above article:

The Cape Coral-Fort Myers metropolitan area in Lee County has some of the worst economic stress — a combination of foreclosures, unemployment and bankruptcies — in the country, according to The Associated Press' monthly analysis of more than 3,100 U.S. counties.

You see this a lot. People that, no matter what you tell them, have it in their head that Lee County will be their paradise.

"We wanted to believe," Cathy Vangelakos said. "We were looking for what we were offered."

[TedTLPN]

Originally Posted by hiknapster

I saw the headline, earlier today, but thought it was Miami.

THAT headline will be 'Dozens of unoccupied Condo towers demolished'. I took some really haunting pictures of the Miami Sky line last Christmas. There were at LEAST 3 Condo buildings that I don't think will ever be occupied.

[Mrs. P]

Same thing in Charlotte NC, downtown. Actually there, people put down payments and purchased condos. Builder went belly up.

So not only did they not get their condo, they are unable to get their down payments back...which to me is even worse.

Why is that building so empty?

Would it cost the builder MUCH MUCH less, to price the units ridicuously cheap to move them? I assume the taxes being paid on the building must be tremendous.

Why not sell them for dead cheap? Or turn them into apartments, which is what one of the unsold condo buildings in Charlotte is going to do.

AND be reasonable on the rents? They could fill that place up.

[Compression]

Originally Posted by Mrs. P

Same thing in Charlotte NC, downtown. Actually there, people put down payments and purchased condos. Builder went belly up.

So not only did they not get their condo, they are unable to get their down payments back...which to me is even worse.

Why is that building so empty?

Would it cost the builder MUCH MUCH less, to price the units ridicuously cheap to move them? I assume the taxes being paid on the building must be tremendous.

Why not sell them for dead cheap? Or turn them into apartments, which is what one of the unsold condo buildings in Charlotte is going to do.

AND be reasonable on the rents? They could fill that place up.

Good ideas, but everybody involved has to "play ball"..

Builder can only price so "cheap" before they loose money on the building costs anyway, so why incur additional cost, by administering closing of the deals at a loss?

Rent them for apartments at a loss, and you cannot afford to handle the inevitable maintenance costs, and pay a maintenance staff, not to mention pay the taxes...

Local municipalities are not going to offer any types of tax deferments, or reductions without some kind of concession of equal or greater value from the owner of the property, even spread over a period of time.(The greatest incentive here, may be a promise to implode the building, by a certain date, to avoid it becoming a 32 story crackhouse)

In the end, I suspect that tons of foreign money will arrive to save some of these properties. For those that arent rescued, it will be cheaper in the long run to simply strip the interiors of anything of value, set the charges, and push the plunger.........

I see this happening with some of those big regional shopping malls as well.

[hiknapster]

Originally Posted by yachtcare

(The greatest incentive here, may be a promise to implode the building, by a certain date, to avoid it becoming a 32 story crackhouse)

I am willing to bet that, soon enough, that building is going to turn into a crackhouse. They've already had someone bang on their door and throw chairs into the pool. The family is sleeping with cellphones by their heads. They better get a gun or two. There's no security and they are going to start coming in. Oh, yeah. Count on it.

[SWFL_Native]

Don't really feel all that bad for the family.. The builders offered to let him stay in the building closed to the river in a comparable unit to what he already has. He refused this solutions as he's paying his dues for the amenities. But the other building is exactly the same, it makes no sense. I live right down the road and that place has a ton of people in the other tower. If he really cared he would have taken the alternative. This just smells like a guy wanting a payout for his lousy investment.

[hiknapster]

Originally Posted by SWFL_Native

Don't really feel all that bad for the family.. The builders offered to let him stay in the building closed to the river in a comparable unit to what he already has. He refused this solutions as he's paying his dues for the amenities. But the other building is exactly the same, it makes no sense. I live right down the road and that place has a ton of people in the other tower. If he really cared he would have taken the alternative. This just smells like a guy wanting a payout for his lousy investment.

Probably true. Who contacted the paper? Him, I'm sure.

He better hustle before the company files bankruptcy.