Monday, June 29, 2009

Uptown Foolishness

The guessing game of the day:

Exactly when will buyers in the unfinished phase (phases?) of the Theatre District Lofts receive their earnest money back?

It's been over a year.

Looks like the lawsuits are starting to pile up concerning this little fiasco.

Just asking...

3 comments:

The North Coast said...

Funny you should post on this particular development and the disaster it is for people who placed a deposit.

Friend of mine happened to be a friend of the developers, whose office was on Winthrop right next to Chase Bank, and he trusted these people infinitely. He placed a substantial deposit on a 2-bed about 3 years ago when the project was announced, and when the housing market started to unravel in 2007, he asked me should he keep with it.

I counseled-no, I frantically urged him to get his deposit back, while the developers were still ostensibly in business, and visible in their office every day. I said, it is not going to get built, it's over, the market is unraveling, the financing is drying up. Thankfully, after much hesitation and indecisiveness, he pulled his deposit.

It's really never good to commit real money to a house that's still a paper rendering. If the market is so "hot" that you're afraid you'll miss out because people are already bidding up and flipping the places when there isn't even yet a hole in the ground, then the market is overheated and crazy, and you'd best back away, anyway.

The Woodlawn Wonder said...

Northy,

What's the skinny on this developer? It seems like he's starting to get sued by vendors concerning some of his other business concerns.

*Cough* Kinetic Playground *Cough*

The North Coast said...

I think these guys have faded into the proverbial woodwork. Good luck to their creditors.

My friend, last I saw him, said he hadn't spoken to them since he got his deposit out of the deal. But their office on Winthrop is vacant now.

Their vendors are probably just stiffed. But I'm sure that these guys aren't the only developers stiffing them. And if they get stiffed by enough people, they will in turn stiff THEIR creditors.

Falling dominoes.

There are many like them. The developer and commercial foreclosures and defaults are just beginning. We haven't seen the half of it yet.

AND, there are still more home foreclosures in front of us than behind us, if the record high Notice of Default for April was any indication.

Woody, I never for the world thought it would be this bad. In 2005, we all knew that we'd set ourselves up for the mother of bubble-burstings, but nothing like this.