Bottom Feeders, Flippers & Condo Vultures: South Florida’s Got Them All
By Mark Memmott
“Buyer Makes $200,000 Profit In 20 Minutes By Flipping 19 Miami Condos.”
That headline in The Miami Herald gets your attention.
The story says that:
It could be one of the quickest profits made in Miami’s condo market.
All it took was 20 minutes for a bulk buyer to make $200,000 by purchasing 19 units in the new Mi Primera Ilusion Villas Miami condominium and then immediately selling the same condos to another investor, according to a report from CondoVultures.com.
That’s how crazy things are in the condo market in Florida, where a weak economy and over-built market have combined to drive foreclosures up and prices down to the point where bottom-feeders are now seeing if they can swoop in and make some fast money by quickly flipping properties.
But hold on a moment. What’s this “splendidly named” (as Robert says) Condo Vultures outfit? Just a short time ago, All Things Considered host Robert Siegel spoke with the company’s founder, Peter Zalewski.
The company collects data on the condominium markets in South Florida and four other cities — and sells condos too. “Where you want to be in this market place when the market does start to turn … is on the buy side,” Zaleweski says. And his company aims to provide clients with the information they need about that market.
The situation in South Florida now, he says, is that the number of condo foreclosures has begun to slow. After 97,000 condo foreclosures in Miami last year, there will be about a 10% drop in 2010, he predicts.
But, Robert wonders, why don’t the banks that have foreclosed on the properties make more money by selling the condos themselves to whomever it is that the bottomfeeders have been able to find so easily?
Zalewski says the banks basically don’t want to be in the real estate business.
Here’s part of their conversation, starting with Robert:
Much more from their discussion is due on ATC. Click here to find an NPR station that broadcasts or streams the show. Later, the as-broadcast version of the interview will be posted here.
about 5 months ago
Hello!
http://www.allthelyrics.com
about 5 months ago
Downtown Miami looks like Dubai. It is a sea of construction cranes & new high rises. There are some 25,000 newly constructed condos coming on the market in the next two years; that's in addition to the 10,000 or so already on the market. About half of these are in the "downtown" market which is defined as from about NE 20th St south to Brickell Blvd & Coral Way. This should be the greatest buyers' or tenants' market of all time. I know of several condo buyers who can't flip their units & are renting for hundreds less than their carrying costs. What is even better is that Miami now has an excellent downtown mass transit system You can get from anywhere downtown to the Civic center (where most state lawyers work) by metro-mover (free) & metro-rail (1.25 or lower for a monthly pass). Downtown is also close to the causeway so girlfriend will have a short drive to SoBe — preferably against the traffic. Miami's downtown used to be absolutely dead at night; but it now has considerable life & is rapidly moving forward. Still, it is presently a work early in progress & much of the infrastructure is of the "coming soon" variety. If you don't want to live in the construction zone, Brickell is pretty much built up or you can even live in SoBe. As long as you are renting you have the felxibility to change after a year.
about 4 months ago
If you ask this in the appropriate country in Yahoo!answers, Travel, you'll get a lot of answers.
about 4 months ago
The ten gallon, heavens no! Maybe the cories because they like to school, but you want to 6 more fish to a ten gallon! I say nay. You're going to kill your bioload. The plant is perfectly fine though.
As for the 20, I'd say everything except the angels should be ok, but watch you Raphael.