The most interesting article today about real estate in Miami is Condo Freefall, by Oscar Pedro Musibay in the Daily Business Review.The columnist says that the Jade at Brickell Bay (in first panel of photo-illustration above), leads the pack with 17 foreclosures - the most foreclosures of any condo this year in Miami Dade County.
Musibay mentions the highest priced condo owner in foreclosure at the Jade: Jose Collazo. I decided to look him up.
He purchased his condo April '06. For $1,430,000. He got a first mortgage from Mortgage Loan Specialists, Inc. in Irvine California, for $1,072,500, adjustable from 7.25% to a possible 12.25%. He also got a balloon second mortgage for $350,000 from the same Irvine company the same day. So he put down a total of $7,500 (his mortgages totaled $1,422,500). Well, that makes a lot of sense. Less than 1% down. Big loss for him, not! Bigger loss for us in the long run!
By March '07 there was a Lis Pendens against Collazo by Citibank. The mortagage was assigned May 14, '07. I don't quite understand these assignments after the Lis Pendens.
The article says further:
Jade’s unwanted distinction signals the housing freefall hasn’t hit bottom, said broker Peter Zalewski, head of Condo Vultures Realty and a former Daily Business Review reporter:
“It’s significant because Jade was the first property to come to market at $500 a square foot and the first generation to come online,” he said. “If the first is in trouble, imagine what’s going to happen with the other ones.”
Musibay reports:
In October, there were more than 54,500 condo units under construction or in the planning stages, according to the Miami Planning Department.
The article states further that through May 4th, South Florida had 13,235 foreclosure filings that added up to almost $3 billion in loans. Miami-Dade had $247 million, Broward $139 million and Palm Beach had $423,155 million. Condos accounted for 17% of all foreclosures.
To read more of Eye On Miami
7 comments:
Why are all the lenders making ridiculous loans out of California. What do they have out there a mortgage lender pod farm?
As a matter of fact, my mortgage came out of California too! All those out of work dot com computer people probably went to work at banks and dreamed up all these sinister mortgage ideas....
Actually correction for Genius of Despair.
Its the car salesman and low-wage workers that found the key to wealth.
QuickLoans President was a car salesman before he built his empire
I stand corrected, it was more of a joke then a fact.
I just keep thinking: Why didn't I think up some scam. I hate that I am ethical to a fault sometimes. Oh, well, I have the karma going for me.
Florida is a boom and bust state. We've seen this before -- it just gets more sophisticated with each round. You got a bank, a hedge fund (legit or phony), possible pension fund all in an underwriting deal financing construction and speculative investors using other people's money (borrowed or possibly laundered)to buy, flip and "maintain the market." Goes back to the Depression (yes that Depression)when the guys met weekly over breakfast to trade deeds and "maintain the market." Actually, as I think about it Disston had a pretty good thing going too. The secret to success is other people's money.
Why is it always the lender's fault? $1.4 Million dollar condo, what kind of payments did you expect to have? The bottom line is: if you can't afford the place, don't buy it. There are many good servicing lenders out there who are taking care of people's needs.
Lenders at one time, did extensive background checks to make sure a person could afford the payments and required a 20% downpayment. They are the ones lending the money they should be sure the person is credit worthy.
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