The battle royale between New Jersey firefighter Victor Vangelakos and Fort Myers high-rise developer the Related Group is an ongoing fight.  As we blogged back in July 2009, Vangelakos is suing to get out of his contract and Related has offered to switch him to the projects sister tower.

This story has attracted national attention and gets more interesting now that Cathleen Vangelakos is serving three years in prison for stealing parking ticket payments from the City of Weehawken, NJ.

Based recent resales at some of the other Fort Myers high-rise buildings, this unit has probably lost at least 50% of the value from the $430,000 purchase price.  Our pick for the best Fort Myers high-rise continues to be High Point Place, located in the Fort Myers river District on West First Street.  Resales are currently available at High Point Place starting in the mid $200,000s.

1. Boating – 400+ miles of navigable canals
2. Weather – average annual temperature of 75 degrees
3. Affordable homes – median sales price of $94,000 in 2009
4. Good schools – part of the respected Lee County System
5. Friendly residents – most people are just really nice
6. Short Commutes  – easy access to commercial and government hubs in Fort Myers
7. Beaches – close to outstanding SW Florida beaches
8. Family and Friends – lots of out of town visitors during winter
9. Diversity – everyone is welcome in Cape Coral
10. Sunsets – my favorite is looking over the Spreader Canal

Dramatic developer discounts have jump started sales at the North Star Yacht Club in North Fort Myers.  This community fronting the deep-water Caloosahatchee River boasts twin 12-story high-rise towers.  Outstanding views of the river and Fort Myers are available from the south facing terraces of North Star condos.

Finishes in these units are include granite, Kohler fixtures, GE Profile appliances, 18 x 18 inch ceramic tile floors and floor-to-ceiling windows.  Six Floor plans are currently available ranging in size from 1,757 SF to 2,457 SF.

The long list of amenities at North Star Yacht Club is headlined by a two-story 15,000 SF clubhouse with a health club, business center w/ WIFI, conference rooms, billiards room, bar and catering kitchen.  The pool area at North Star includes includes a spa and 16 private poolside cabanas.  Tennis, a fitness trail, sandy beach, a putting green and a marina boardwalk enhance outdoor living at North Star.  The marina offers deep-water access and can accommodate boats up to 55 feet and offers dockside hookups for water, electric and telephone.

Pricing at North Star starts at $229,000 and nine units are currently available.  View North Star Yacht Club active listings.

An article on Inman News titled, Residential Lots: The Next Big Boom caught my eye today.  The article begins:

Over the past two years, in a number of markets stretching across the West, from Phoenix through Las Vegas to Sacramento and Riverside, investor groups have been maneuvering to acquire finished residential lots that due to the recession ended up stranded without hope like lost pilgrims in a vast desert.

For all my glass-half-full readers, unfortunately there was no mention of Cape Coral or Florida vacant land in the article.

One of the questions that I frequently get asked is when will Cape lots start appreciating again? The simplistic answer is that we need to work through the backlog of existing REO inventory before it will be economically feasible to build again in Lee County.  With over 20,000 properties in the foreclosure pipeline, this process is sure to last at least a couple of more years.  The other key issue, particularly in Cape Coral, is whether or not the community leaders have the where-with-all to attract new businesses and jobs to the community.  It is truly a shame that very little activity and intellectual capitol is expended on job creation by our community leaders.

Palmetto Cove is anchored by a community lake and seven of the buildings in the development offer a lakefront setting.  The Palmetto Cove community amenities include a clubhouse with fitness center, meeting room, and library.  Palmetto Cove also has a community pool and spa.  Each condo at Palmetto Cove also comes with a detached garage.

Prices for completed, new construction 2/2 units currently start at at $102,000.  Condo fees for 2010 remain at $299/mo and includes building insurance; community amenities and landscaping.

The selling price was $3.7M / $288 SF.  Congratulations to selling Realtor Marilyn Kistler of Prudential Florida Realty for closing the most expensive residential property in January 2010.

Honorable mention for 2nd most expensive Lee County home sold in January was a single-family home located at 561 Lighthouse Way, Sanibel.  This gulf access canal-front home in the Sanibel Estates neighborhood of is 3,416 SF and features 5 BR and 4 BA.

The selling price was $1.4M / $410 SF.  Congratulations to selling Realtor Chuck Bergstrom of RE/MAX of The Islands for closing this transaction.

In January 2010, there were four residential transactions in Lee County with a selling price over $1M.

One of the questions that many snowbirds ponder is whether or not to establish residency in Florida.  Boca Raton Attorney Allan Lipman offers a free online audio domicile guide that covers the benefits of establishing residency in Florida.  Lipman is licensed in both Florida and New York and his 10 part free audio guide provides numerous comparisons of the tax handling for both states.  A good listen for anyone pondering an investment in Florida real estate.

Subject
I BUY AND SELL SHORT SALES…

Comments
Hello Mr Mark, I’m an investor and I’m looking for a couple of self motivated and out- going agent(s) that wants increase their commissions by helping us find and buy high end properties in short sale. I have aligned myself with group of short sale negotiators in Fort Myers with years of experience in the short sale field, that will do the negotiation(s) with the lien holder(s) on your client/seller behalf at no cost to you or the seller(s). Once I acquire the property we will put property back on market (with you) giving you the chance to earn a double commission and becoming your seller(s) hero and by that the chances of more referrals and more daels. Please contact me ASAP to set up a meeting and discuss our working along side strategy on helping your clients as soon as possible. Sincerely:(redacted)

It is troubling to me that others have crafted business strategies to profit by taking advantage of others misfortune.  I bet they never mention to the troubled homeowner that a deficiency judgment may very well be hanging over their head for the next 20 years.

I have another use for Snoop and that is to have him spend some 1 on 1 time with Realtors that are knowingly listing homes with Chinese drywall and not disclosing its presence.  The Greater Fort Myers and the Beach Board of Realtors needs to step up and create and enforce specific rules about listings containing or suspected of containing Chinese drywall.

Casa Del Rio, the home of former WCI Chairman and former Ambassador to Portugal Al Hoffman, is on the auction block.  Hoffman was also Chairman of the Republican Nation Committee and his Gulf Harbour riverfront home has hosted fundraisers and been visited by presidential candidates including George W. Bush and John McCain.

Many consider Casa Del Rio to be the finest home in Fort Myers, but is it just too much house for this town?  Casa Del Rio has been on the market since November 2005 when it was originally listed for $17M.  The price was been reduced twice to $14.9M but no takers over a four plus years it was on the market.

The auction is scheduled for March 13, 2010 and will be conducted by Daniel DeCaro Real Estate Auctions.  It is an absolute auction, so the house will be sold.  If you are interested, the 2009 property tax bill on this home was $56,085.73 and HOA fees totaled $2,668/month.

No speculation on a buyer, but my money is on Tom Werner, the Chairman of the Boston Red Sox.  If this does come to fruition, I called it in 2006!

In the state of Florida, banks have five years to file the deficiency judgment and then 20 years to collect it.  To get paid, banks can seize wages and bank accounts and also put liens on other assets.

Lee County apartment occupancy rates in 4Q09 climbed 7.2% to 91.1%, the highest gain in the State of Florida.  Lee County rents for the same period dropped 12.2% to an average of $776/month.  This decline in rental rates was second in the State of Florida, trailing only the Ocala market.

It would appear that many of our residents who have lost their homes to foreclosure are now renting.  With severely damaged credit associated with a foreclosure, many of these residents will be renting for quite some time.  As these leases start to expire, I expect that we will see a significant uptick in demand for lease-to-own arrangements.  These types of arrangements may prove very attractive for investors with skinny or negative cash flow assets.

Distressed real estate and foreclosures dominated the discussion.  The panel fielded calls from local homeowners facing foreclosure and having great difficulty trying to renegotiate with their lenders.

The panel discussion was recorded and is available for replay.

The numbers speak for themselves regarding the ratio of selling price to listing price.  In 2009, 20,480 residential properties were sold in Lee County for a total of $2.7B.  The average listing price was $140,706 and the average selling price was $132,068.  This represents an average selling price to listing price ratio of 94%.  Anyone who tells you that banks are accepting offers at 50% of asking price is just not dealing with reality.

Complete inventories of Estero foreclosure listings, Fort Myers foreclosure listings and Cape Coral foreclosure listings are available on our site.

If enforced, these guidelines should dramatically alter the dynamics of a short sale transaction.  The current modus operandi on a short sale transaction involves bank approval delays that can stretch on for many, many months.  Pending, but unapproved or denied short sale listings are clogging our MLS, and setting unrealistic pricing standards in some communities.

I applaud the Administration and Treasury Department efforts to introduce standards to the short sale process.  Our extensive inventory of Cape Coral short sale listings and Fort Myers short sale listings could sure use some trimming through expediting the decision making process.

The Time article suggest that today’s investors are “good” flippers, as they are helping to clean up foreclosure messes and also are holding longer than bubble era flippers.  The article reports that during the bubble many “cocktail party” investors bought at any price irregardless of whether or not the deal made economic sense.

If you are interested, Samir is now making his home in Pensacola at the Federal Prison Camp.  Samir was convicted of fraud associated with a a vacant land flip in the Daniel’s Corridor of Fort Myers.  His case was one of the most followed stories of the year and the entire region was relieved that justice was served.

The Daniels Corridor area has truly evolved into the “main street” of the Fort Myers region with the recent expansion of RSW and the upcoming development of the new Red Sox spring training facility.

Despite the echos of “we’re back” from many of my peers……which ring hollow up and down the banks of the Caloosahatchee, there is still much heavy lifting to be done in Cape Coral.

We sure are selling lots of properties right now, mostly foreclosures to bottom-fishing, cash-laden investors as well as pre-retirement boomers.  This rush of recent investment is not going to solve the long-term problem here in Southwest Florida, that of economic diversity and the creation of quality new jobs.  I would much rather see some of the stimulus money coming to areas like Cape Coral to stimulate the creation of new companies and industries.  To me this would create sustainable recovery that cannot be realized with the highway projects that are being built all over the country.

The Times reports that law enforcement authorities in Arizona are actively pursuing foreclosure strippers that are posting the goods for sale on Craig’s List.  Stripping a home can be a difficult crime to prosecute as it is civil mater rather than criminal, and can often cost a bank more to pursue than the ultimate return they would realize in a civil proceeding.

Hopefully, authorities here locally will also pursue some of these foreclosure strippers to at least make others think twice before damaging the next home.

A Miami Herald article titled, Real-estate bottom is not when things appear to be better, rang true with me and all these bottom predictions.  The article suggests that despite the uptick in sales and decreasing inventories that we have seen in 2009, we are truly not at the bottom.  The article opines that government intervention is the cause for the apparent market improvement.  Two examples cited include the first time buyers tax credits and court systems that are stalled due to being clogged with foreclosures.

While I don’t think I will truly know the bottom until it hits me over the head, we are continuing to see significant interest in well-priced Fort Myers foreclosures and Estero foreclosures from those looking for a pre-retirement second home.  Tough to argue with a 70 degree day down here when the Northeast is getting slammed with a foot of snow!

The current policy in Cape Coral is to not file liens for things like overdue water bills if the amount is less than $500.  In the scenario presented in the story, the buyer of a foreclosed building in Cape Coral received two water bills for over $800 that had not been recorded as a lien against the property.  Cape Coral’s Mayor John Sullivan vows to fix this issue so that buyers of Cape Coral foreclosures will not be surprised after closing.

A good Realtor representing the buyer would know to call the City of Cape Coral to check on any unrecorded liens.

Where do you stand on this debate?