Miami Condo Fiasco

So here’s the update. I got a call from a friend…the same one who told me to buy in the first place. He said someone from the Plaza called him and said the ‘units were moving’  that is to say, they were selling. Hard to believe right? Well, for a whole 32 seconds I did…enough time to call The Plaza to find out what the news was. I spoke with a lady who was plump with optimism about unit sales at The Plaza. So I said…well sell mine! So she renewed my agreement to sell and persuaded me to ask for $370k for the unit! How absurd! I can’t even believe I listened to her. A week later I called again and said we had to change the asking price. So we went through all the numbers again:

1. I paid $355k for the unit and deposited $70k
2. With realtor commissions etc… we’ re looking at about $20k

I said I don’ t care about the $70k…just list the unit so I can recover $5k…I don’ t care! Her response… “no…we’re not aloud to do that”. I asked why. The answer was that the other units wouldn’t appraise. Maybe somebody can explain exactly what she meant. Needless to say that kind of pissed me off. I’m not even allowed to lose money!

I’m left to fend for myself and try to give the unit away before May 26. Any takers?

I know it’s been months. My apologies to those faithful readers who were left hanging. The truth is I was just too upset to write about this. The saga continues actually. The deadline is May 26. I got some news about the condo but let me get acclimated to thinking about this topic again. More news soon.

I put together a spreadsheet outlining a recovery plan. It is based on a 5.5% 7 year ARM. That means I would have to sell the unit in 2014. According to much I’ve read, that is when the demand will have exceeded supply. It is also based $5000/year taxes, rent at $1200/month for the first year. Anyway, at the end of 2014, I will have recovered $69215.74 of my initial deposit… ouch. Download the spreadsheet and see for yourself. I appreciate any feedback.

I haven’t updated the blog lately for a couple of reasons. The main one is that this whole thing has taken a toll on me and I needed a break. Time to spend some time with my family and not let this whole thing rent space in my head. The other reason is that the CNBC interview thing didn’t go the way I had hoped. I’ll publish a excerpt from the email I got regarding this (I hope you don’t mind James):

“…our report was to air last night at 9pm, but due to time constraints we could not include your interview in the final piece. My apologies. I thank you again for participating, and I wish we had the time to include all of what we shot and reported. Unfortunately, we rarely have that luxury in broadcast journalism. I wish you good luck…”

Well, needless to say I was kinda put off by that.  After all I used my PTO time from work and faced an hour drive to Miami… and paid too much for parking. But I Diana Olick was kind enough to put a link to my site from her blog. Ironically, I think I got all the traffic from people looking for info on the piece that did air on CNBC. My top keywords lately have been ‘CNBC Miami condos’ and other related terms.

Anyway, it’s time I start really worrying about how I’m gonna pay for this condo, or if I’m just going to walk away. I’m not a quitter but the pressure from my wife to ‘get real’ has been tremendous. Man… this seemed like an idea so crazy that it had to work. Just today I read the news about the guy in NY who saw the girl of his dreams on the subway and found her by making a website and posting a description  and a picture he drew from memory. Pretty inspiring. Anyway, give me some feedback guys.

Those of you who have contributed so far know that when you buy your link I email you my phone number in case you have any issues or just want to chat. Some of my new friends of CF have done exactly that. One of those was James Svoboda. James is an SEO guy in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. He runs Realicity.com and specializes in helping real estate professionals with their search engine needs. Read more »

Today Realtor Robert Keppel joined the family. He is a realtor in Tampa, FL. I took a look at his site and saw some condos for sale. I was surprised to see that listing prices have kept up in Tampa. A 2 bed, 2 bath Condo with 1242 square feet and is located in Downtown Tampa is going for $449,900.

So maybe I’m not so clever huh? So far, thanks to all my new friends, I’ve been able to raise $887.50. That’s because I sold 25 units. Still have 9,927 to go and time is running out.

Another interesting addition today was the Real Estate Investment Club Directory which lists clubs throughtout the nation. I’ve actually attended a few meetings at some of the local clubs. It’s a great place to meet real estate professionals, stay up on what’s new, learn from the pros, and offer your services.

Interesting that BuyVacationCondos.com bought in today. I was actually wondering how hard it would be to rent out my condo to vacationers. As I was reading about the advantages of vacation condos, it made more and more sense. Because rentals are short term, vacationers pay a premium and the condo remains vacant part of the year for you to enjoy.

Today NorthFloridaNewHomes.com joined the family. So I did a little research…to see who my new friends were. NorthFloridaNewHomes.com is a full service brokerage in Jacksonville, Florida. They specialize in new homes and condos. Sean M. O’Brien is the broker. I actually researched him and found his blog (http://jacksonvillerealestateblogger.com/) which was actually quite informative.

So far the friends of CF include title web sites and mortgage websites. I was missing a property appraiser website until today! Amcor, LLC joined today so I went to investigate who they are. Amcor offers appraisal services in Miami-Dade, Broward, Collier, and Monroe county. Visit the website and you will see tons of information about appraisals. In an era of AVMs, it was interesting to see what they don’t provide (very informative website), plus you can order regular appraisals on-line through the Amcor website.

Bob makes a good point that the developer should seriously consider renegotiating the price of the unit. After all, there are probably tons of people who will simply walk away. Wouldn’t it benefit them to negotiate a more realistic price and guarantee income. I would really like to hear from other unit owners. After the CNBC interview, I had a renewed optimism about the unit. The fact that the builders haven’t abandoned projects altogether tells me that there is hope. There is only some much coastal property in the world. Miami is still a very popular destination. If only the builders would work with the unit owners. If you are a unit owner in the The Plaza, please let me know.

I will confess that finding something very exciting to write about mortgages is very difficult. But I wanted to say something about LoanNetwork.com, who bought a link from me before yesterday, so I went to their site and read through some of the pages. To get this out of the way, LoanNetwork.com let’s you find the best refinance loan from several lenders. But what you SHOULD do if you are shopping for a loan, is visit their very informative page on refinancing.

Yesterday I drove down to Miami for an interview with Diana Olick. The taping lasted much longer than I had anticipated but I’m not complaining. Diana interviewed three of us. The other two people (Jamal and Barry) had also purchased condos. Barry seemed pretty eager to tell his story even though he was the luckiest of us three. He and a group of investors had already flipped over 25 units and made several million dollars.

He had been left with two units which will go to closing soon and he is following the litigation route to get his deposit back. Jamal, on the other hand, had purchased a unit in 2005 (at the cusp of the real estate boom) and had to close. I really felt bad for him. He paid top dollar($425,000) for a not so desirable unit (7th floor) and closed with a 30-year fixed mortgage. On my drive back I kept racing through all my answers in my head thinking ‘did I say something stupid?’. I’m sure I did. James Jacoby, who coordinated everything, treated me very well and added that CNBC ‘edits responsibly’. I’m sure it will come out well. The piece airs November 7th.

FSBO.com is actually an old time friend. You may remember I posted about FSBO sites and FSBO.com ranked among the top sites to post your property ‘for sale by owner’. There are so many places to post your property for sale that you need to qualify them or risk spending all your time posting on useless sites. FSBO.com receives over 150,000 unique visitors a month, making it one of the most trafficked real estate sites around. Read more »