Trump Towers, Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, 33160 – Sales Exceed $100,000,000

The most frequently asked question we at The Golan Team (786-271-1235) as well as we can guestimate most practicing Realtors are asked is, "Are things Selling?"

The answer is most astoundingly YES!!!

But YES - only at the right price.

Take in point TRUMP TOWERS, Sunny Isles Beach - this luxurious 3 building Oceanfront complex on the Southern end of Sunny Isles Beach almost stalled in sales a year and a half to two years ago when the Developers and their Sales Team were asking around $700+/ft. Those Buyers that had bought Pre-Construction were either walking away from their deposits or renegotiating their purchase prices in order to close. At the same time you had the Banks/Lenders breathing down the necks of the Developers to for repayment on their loans. The Developers started courting the Bulk Buyers. All in all only 157 units had sold out of a possible 813 units had sold. The Buyers started looking for better deals. Inventory was at an all time high. Fast forward 18 months to now, and the situation is clearly different.

The Dezers (Developer Michael Dezer and his son Gil) recently assumed a $265 million loan from a Development Partnership that included the Related Group with Wells Fargo serving as agent for a syndicate of 11 participating financial institutions. The project's three towers (each consisting of 271 units) have a combined 475 units left to sell. The have been 181 sold this year in price ranging from $550,000 - $1.9 million. The average price/ft is now at $414/ft with some units selling as low as $350/ft and others that have been decorated closing near $600/ft. This significant lowering of the price/ft have allowed the Dezers to surpass the $100 million mark in sales to date.

"We are confident our adjusted pricing is what has driven beyond expected results," says Gil Dezer president of Dezer Properties in an interview to Businessweek. "The ability to purchase a unit in a building as prestigious as Trump Towers for $350- $650/ft has generated unprecented response from a broad range of local, national and international Buyers."

He continues, "We have always felt that prime oceanfront property would be a signal of the strength of the recovery, as these types of units are so much of South Florida's appeal...""... and while the residential real estate market clearly has a ways to go to reach full recovery, these initial results have been very encouraging about the state of our industry, at least in Sunny Isles Beach."

At these prices, both end users, 2nd home vacation purchasers and investors are able to rejoin the marketplace and purchase oceanfront property.

If you would like us to send you floorplans of Trump Towers - send us your details to info@golanteam.com SUBJECT - Trump Tower Floorplans.

If you would like to schedule an appointment to view the property in person call us at 786-271-1235.

Related Group beaten out on bid for Corus Bank’s Real Estate Assets

A couple of weeks ago we wrote a blog about Corus Bank (Are Developers Bankers? Are Bankers Developers?…). There were five major bidders up for the Real Estate Assets – Related Cos (parent company of Related Group of Florida (Jorge Perez), Colony Capital LLC, I Star, Lone Star Funds & Starwood Capital Group. Well the latter of all them, Starwood Capital Group and TPG (The Peninsula Group) are the winning bidders for the remaining assets of the now failed and defunct Corus Bank (taken over by FDIC on September 11, 2009).

The FDIC split the banking operations from its real estate holdings. According to The New York Times, the group bid $554 million for a 40% stake in the Corus real estate assets. The FDIC will retain the remaining 60% share. Corus represents the 90th bank to fail this year in the US. The blame is solely made around its loan portfolio that was based almost exclusively around condo projects in the once hot condo markets mostly in California, Florida & Georgia.

As of June 30, Corus held $4.42 billion in commercial real estate loans and $463 million in repossessed properties. At that time the bank reported that almost $3 billion of the outstanding loans were late or unpaid.

In Florida Corus holdings totaled $739 million in 15 different condo or condo conversion loans and a further $51.9m in one repossessed property (Tao project in Sunrise). Before it failed, the bank was able to sell its $44.1 million loan covering 41 unsold units at Onyx on the Bay in Miami and its $127.7 million loan covering 90 units at the Caribbean in Miami Beach. It had also successfully repossessed the 216 unit Aventine in Boynton Beach.

As Luxury Realtors specializing in Oceanfront and Intracoastal properties, we kept a special eye on the demise of Corus Bank as for us some of the bank’s most worthy assests were Jade Ocean Condominiums in Sunny Isles, Paramount Bay in Miami and the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Fort Lauderdale. Imagine these assets and others are now in the hands of the FDIC. Needless to say, the story is not yet over!!!

Out next blog will cover Jade Ocean Condominiums in Sunny Isles including exclusive photos and information.

For all your Real Estate needs in Southeast Florida count on the Golan Team (786-333-6200 or 786-271-1235), Your Luxury Realtors for Deserving Clients”

SOUTH FLORIDA REAL ESTATE BULK DEALS

For the past two years the two buzz terms in Real Estate in South Florida have been “Foreclosure” or “Short Sale”. Buyers looking for deals or to buy below current market value were constantly looking for these two “adjectives” or what The Golan Team calls “qualifiers”. It was amazing there were Buyers out there that literally would only want to see properties with these criteria and then would decide of the choices they saw which one to take.

Now these buzz terms have taken a back seat to the newest buzz in the Real Estate world “BULK SALE”. A Bulk Sale is defined as an investor lead individual or group that purchases a group or Bulk of units ranging in numbers from a low quantity such as 10 units to 500+ units at a discounted rate. They are usually purchasing from the Developer units that either were never sold or were sold and not closed (due to lack of financing) and returned to the Developer. Some of these Bulk Deals are also being negotiated directly with Lenders who are looking to Foreclose on other Developers or on complexes that are in default. The Bulk deals are almost always "ALL CASH" scenarios. After the deal closes there are opportunities to obtain some financing.

According to our research over 1700 units have exchanged hands in the past year to year and a half as “Bulk Sales” in our local area (Dade, Broward, Palm Beach counties). Other smaller deals if included (smaller we classify as 10 or less) can take this number even higher.

Some of the highlight deals include:

1) July 2008 - 50 Biscayne (Downtown Miami, FL) – 146 units sold to a group of investors from Philadelphia (Lubert-Adler Partners LP) who joined Related group (the Developer) in this bulk sales @ $246/ft. ($36.4m) Shortly after closing they sold 10 units $367/ft.


2) January 2009 - Harbour House, Bal Harbour – a consortium of Related investors paid $277/ft for 101 units. Total purchase price was $27m. (Note the Related Group was said to have raised $1 billion in a consortium just to buy Bulk Sale Condo opportunities).

3) July 2009 - A South Florida private equity group, Elcom Condominium LLC paid $2.6 million to purchase 51 new, oceanfront condo-hotel units in the luxury One Bal Harbour complex – Regent (now called Bal Harbour Hotel) and another $12 million for 67,031 square feet of hotel common areas and land. (This equates to approximately $135/ft average for the common area and hotel compared to the average selling price of $1100/ft that the Developer WCI Communities charged Buyers for preconstruction pricing at the One Bal Harbour Regent Hotel project.) Interesting to note, the day after this Bulk deal went through, the Regent Hotel chain pulled out of their contract to run the hotel. There are a total of 124 hotel condo units in the Regent/Bal Harbour Hotel.


Now there are two Bulk deals arising that are of interest

1) WCI Communities – the builder of the One Bal Harbour/Regent Bal Harbour project, is seeking court approval to hold a September 22, 2009 auction for its Pompano Beach condo complex. Currently a New York based company, Chetrit Group LLC is bidding $46.7 million. According to the Miami Herald , WCI Communities and it’s chairman, billionaire investor, Carl Icahn wants this $46.7m bid to be the opening bid at an auction A September 2, hearing has been requested for court approval of the auction proceedings. The Chetrit Group have been huge players in the Real Estate world and have been linked to bids and purchases of such iconic structures as the Sears Tower in Chicago ($840m sale), Roney Palace in Miami Beach (bid was $150m) and various iconic buildings in Manhattan.

2) The Related Group of Florida (whose iconic Condo King head is Jorge Perez easily the most recognizable name in South Florida Real Estate) associate company, New York Developer, Related Cos and the Lubert-Adler Partners LP of Philadelphia (you will recognize their name from the purchase of Bulk units at 50 Biscayne in Downtown Miami) have teamed up to bid on the assets of condo lender Chicago based, Corus Bank. A sale could be weeks away though according to the Wall Street Journal there are up to three other key bidders for these assets. Some of the most prominent condo projects in South Florida: Jade Beach and Jade Ocean Condominiums in Sunny Isles Beach, FL, the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Fort Lauderdale and Edge Condominium in West Palm Beach. All in all the assets could be as high as 6,400 condo units in South Florida.

The Golan Team are working with investors interested in purchasing Bulk Deals particularly on Oceanfront properties and Downtown Miami/Brickell area. We have identified several key opportunities for purchase. If you are interested, please contact us at 786-333-6200 or send an email with your requirements and preferences to debra@golanteam.com