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Nobody Sell Your Unit, No One Leave

A report from Boston.com on Massachusetts. “Anyone who’s paid even just casual attention to the Boston residential real estate market knows that home values continue to rise, and out of that a phenomenon has emerged: the $1 million one-bedroom, one-bathroom condominium. ‘Some of them just stay vacant because they’re an investment property, and people have parked their money there. And they’re waiting for it to be worth more money so they can turn around and sell it,’ said Cassidy Norton, media relations director of The Warren Group.”

“‘They keep building these giant luxury towers,’ Norton said. ‘Part of it is a blessed increase in supply that we are not seeing in other sections of the market, and part of it is that real estate just continues to get more expensive.'”

From Bloomberg on New York. “Manhattan home prices fell in April by the most in almost a decade. And buyers have pounced. ‘Sellers are finally getting that many of their price expectations were not realistic,’ said Grant Long, senior economist at StreetEasy. ‘They’re lowering their prices to a point that’s attractive to buyers.'”

From Arlington Now in Virginia. “The Arlington County Board denied developer Penzance permission to extend construction hours on a luxury condo project in Rosslyn. Susan Miller, a 30-year resident of the Atrium, said she has ‘never seen anything like the horror that this project has brought to this community that we are in,’ citing noise and dust and dirt that permeate her balcony.”

“‘I apologize and thank the community on behalf of the county for what sounds like pure hell for some of you, and I can appreciate that that’s no fun,’ said Board member Erik Gutshall, after listening to their testimony. ‘So stick with us. Nobody sell your unit. No one leave.'”

From The Real Deal on Florida. “A handful of condos in Miami were frozen by the U.S. Department of the Treasury as part of an Argentinian drug trafficking and money laundering scheme that centered around the online sale of illegal opioids in the U.S.”

“In recent months, federal authorities have uncovered a number of high-profile money laundering cases tied to Miami real estate. In March, the FBI announced it was opening a new task force in Miami to focus on corruption in South America. A TRD investigation last year found that developers and real estate agents have minimal obligations to perform due diligence on their buyers or the source of their money.”

From The Buffalo News. “One of the nation’s largest commercial banks is now trying to foreclose on two of Robert C. Morgan’s apartment complexes in upstate New York – including the Raintree Island Apartments in the Town of Tonawanda – even as a federal grand jury indicted Morgan and his finance director on mortgage and insurance fraud charges.”

“Similar papers were also filed Wednesday in state court in Onondaga County, targeting the Brookwood on the Green apartments in the Syracuse suburb of Liverpool because of default on a $16 million loan from Arbor Commercial Mortgage in February 2014.”

“The foreclosures come as Morgan faces both the criminal charges and a separate Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit accusing him of securities fraud for allegedly operating a Ponzi scheme. That follows a multiyear investigation by the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office in Buffalo, along with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

“The U.S. Bank filings also come six months after another lender, SteepRock Capital of New York City, filed its own foreclosure cases against both properties, where it had provided secondary ‘mezzanine’ loans for Morgan. SteepRock also cited fraud following an independent’ audit of financial statements that showed Morgan Management and its companies ‘consistently overstated revenues and operating income’ for the properties.”

“Attorneys for SteepRock even alleged that the Morgan companies ‘outright lied’ to the lender about key financial metrics for each of the properties to convince SteepRock to make loans that it otherwise would not have. U.S. Bank, in its filing, also sought to emphasize that its rights to the properties trump any other claims.”

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This Post Has 40 Comments

  1. https://commercialobserver.com/2019/05/landlords-we-need-to-talk-greenstone/

    ‘So—not mincing words—why are so many landlords still asking for rents they have no chance of achieving?’

    ‘Saying, “For the right tenant, I’ll make a deal” only works if you have an opportunity to get into negotiations with tenants in the first place. This position could be justified if there was an underlying strength in the marketplace. However, with respect to retail, the huge gap between the asking rent and the taking rent is causing unnecessary stress and a ripple in the space-time continuum. Retailers will simply not waste their time when the asking rent for a space is not even close to realistic. The landlords’ stance is a self-inflicted wound.’

    ‘Let’s do the math. If the most successful retail concepts in the world deliver sales around $5,000 per square foot, then these particular retailers can afford rents approaching $500 per square foot—provided you can lure them. However, you can count on one hand the number of retailers who approach that volume. Yes, many retailers have significant margins and marketing budgets to absorb high rents. But, as we’ve all witnessed lately, the number of flagship stores has plummeted as e-commerce grows. So, unless you own blue chip properties, which maybe represents 2 percent of all retail space (and I’m being generous), you’re smoking a substance that’s currently illegal.’

    1. I like the cut of his jib…

      While a lot of the people he is talking about are going to go “why are you using such crass language?” to deflect having to look into the maw of the void, it calls out the ugly they don’t want to see (sometimes in the mirror) without having to resort to profanity.

      Looking forward to more and more people using such language to describe the shitshow unfolding… 🙂

  2. ‘Some of them just stay vacant because they’re an investment property, and people have parked their money there. And they’re waiting for it to be worth more money so they can turn around and sell it’

    Last I heard, the downtown Boston lux condos are down 14%.

    1. Sellers who are unwilling to price to market value can easily keep their homes on the market indefinitely.

      Slash now, or be priced in forever.

      1. oh, but some of them are so levered that their hand will be forced at some point and they have to liquidate… of course that will be the ‘worst possible time’ for them.

        1. You have a great point:

          Excessive leverage combined with falling prices leads to underwaterness, unrealistic asking prices, delayed sales, and eventually, financial collapse and capitulation.

          1. $helter.$hack.$hasta value$ i$$ues can be ea$ily rectified with a $imple increa$e in intere$t rate$.

  3. ‘Attorneys for SteepRock even alleged that the Morgan companies ‘outright lied’ to the lender about key financial metrics for each of the properties to convince SteepRock to make loans that it otherwise would not have’

    You know, if I was gonna loan millions of $ I would probably have my own evaluations done.

  4. In March, the FBI announced it was opening a new task force in Miami to focus on corruption in South America.

    Hey FBI, when are you going to focus on the corruption in New York City and Washington D.C.?

    1. That’s different because “shut up!”.
      The elites and administrative/deep state have a different set of laws/rules. “Laws are for little people.” Your betters said so. “Let them eat cake” and so forth. “Peasants, know your place.” Of, by, for the people. Uh huh. None dare call it swamp.

      1. And the last few years have made it even clearer to the general populace (including ‘the deplorables’) just how deep that festering pool is.

        It was dangerous around here to say what I thought during the runup to the 2016 election. I expect to be even more dangerous in 2020, and even more shocking when it’s over.

        1. A standing threat to personally attack anyone whose political views disagree with one’s own has always been an undercurrent of American politics, but in today’s turbocharged, hyper-polarized battle between extreme right and left, those in the middle of the political spectrum find themselves in No Man’s Land, perpetually caught in the political crossfire.

          So far as I am concerned, both the Democratic and Republican parties suck, stand for no ideals, and should be abolished.

          1. “stand for no ideals”

            What about the $ocial standing$ of two humans who love one another?

    1. 18 for sale in 22151 w only one home for sale in my hood of over 1000, homes as Trump fails to cut fed work force

  6. RE student loan debt mentioned in the last thread, saw some old friends from Football Factory State University today that I haven’t seen in twenty years.

    They are married, both full-time instructors at a community college in another Midwestern state, and have over $200,000 of student loan debt.

    They are 43 years old…

    2. I would think at 200k they would be holding a PhD which would eventually work out for them. If not hop on over to India for some indefinite elephant rides or pray someone in office wipes it away.

    3. Dang. Halfway through their “working years” and they are still saddled with that much debt.. talk about going through life with a permanent handicap.

    4. Their loans may be forgiven. I have a friend who is on the 10-year minimum payment forgiveness plan by working for a government institution. I can’t remember the ins and outs of those programs, but they do exist. You get on an income-based repayment plan and work for a non-profit, NGO, or qualified government agency and your loan is forgiven. My friend is doing this strategically. He bought a house to reduce the minimum he needed to pay back for his loan because somehow that works with the governments loan forgiveness program.

    1. These articles, these statistics, are so recurring, it’s almost like a pattern now, isn’t it?

      What say, dear REALTOR? And my chorus of “real journalists” that are currently living some really real journalism down at the bread and soup line? (This is actually a thing, there is a bread, soup, fresh clothing and toiletries line at Civic Center in Denver every day at noon.)

      Some of these guys come out of jail and want to work, not to go back to jail, it’s not all junkies down there. There just happens to be alot of homeless people in Denver, many of whom are working or want to work…

    2. And that first chart that shows the supply of cheap homes totally omits the fact that the majority of those sub 250K and sub 100K homes are nowhere to be found close to any of the job centers and hotspots…

  9. So tonight HGTV is showing Fixer Upper dated 11/2017… didnt the hosts quit already? Why show re-run from 2017?

    1. “So are the farmers who went deeply into debt to buy overpriced agricultural land$.”

      What’$ the difference between borrowing a $1,000,000.86 +++ for land$ & equipment implement$ & crop input$ @ 1.75% … verses … @ 8.10%?

      Willy’s a still akickin’ & showing up @ Farm.Aid $upport gatherings.

      Type 1980 1985
      Federal fund$, effective rate 13.35% 8.10%
      Prime rate charged by bank$ 15.26% 9.93%
      Di$count rate 11.77% 7.69%
      Eurodollar deposit$, 3-month 14.00 8.27

  14. I have been monitoring house prices in the Sacramento suburbs – specifically the Roseville-Rocklin area. Many homes came on the market as spring season started, but only now I have started noticing price cuts on the 400K-500K homes. They are still very small, like less than 1% but it looks like the slide that barely began in 2018 has now resumed.

    1. The flame burns the edges first, or in our case the higher priced homes first. Checking with Z, that price band appears to be the lower middle of homes in Roseville. There’s going to be a ton of resistance to admitting the whole segment is softening, so sit back and wait and watch as sellers get more nervous.

      1. ” …so sit back and wait and watch as $ellers get more nervou$. ”

        No worrie$! … A $oft landing$ is in Thee card$

  15. Yepper$, encap$ulated by the photo byline:

    Caesar$ Entertainment Corp., moderate$ an evening with Bill and Hillary Clinton’$ at Park Theater at Park MGM in Las Vega$

  16. Meant to post ∆ to rms:I

    No young interns willing to lube slick willy’$ cigar$? Sadne$$.+

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