A report from WTPV in Florida. “WPTV has obtained new information that gives us a closer look at what prompted St. Lucie County inspectors to evacuate a Jensen Beach condo complex last week over safety concerns. Four days later, residents still don’t have a timeline for when they’ll be able to return to their home. ‘Some heated conversations, understandably so,’ homeowner Eric Johnson said. ‘They would just tap them a little bit with a hammer and the concrete would just fall overexposing raw rebar that was very badly corroded. A lot of people still don’t know exactly what’s exactly going on. A lot of people are angry because this is their investment, their asset, this is their house, their home, everything all tied into one.’”
“But residents still have one big question. ‘How much more is this going to cost me?’ resident Christine Chico asked. Chico said she doesn’t know how much more she can take. ‘How much money can I keep throwing into this?’ Chico said. ‘I’m retired like many in this community. This is a retirement dream. A retirement usually means fixed income.’ It’s a dream that homeowners say may be put on hold. ‘If I can stick it out until it’s repaired, maybe the value will come back but right now, good luck,’ Chico said.”
Fox 26 in Texas. “No homeowner wants to hear they have no insurance in the height of hurricane season. Residents who live at the Walnut Hill Condominiums in Pasadena say they got that bad news on July 31. ‘I was flabbergasted and so was everybody else,’ says condo owner Rosalinda DeLeon. ‘This is a really bad deal,’ said condo owner Dan Percell. ‘It’s bad for the homeowners, it leaves us vulnerable.’ The Walnut Hills homeowners must pay their homeowners association fees or face losing their property. Part of that fee is supposed to pay to insure the outside of their property, ‘We pay a maintenance fee every month that is supposed to include that,’ Dan said.”
“It was cancelled last April, but residents found out July 31. ‘They haven’t made an insurance payment since February,’ said condo owner Michael Courtney. ‘So where has $48,000 a month went for the last five or six months. The previous management company came in, and said in a couple of weeks we’re going to be out of here, and by the way, you all are in debt. You haven’t paid your insurance in months,” Dan said. Pegasus Management tells FOX 26 they just took over on June 1 and asked homeowners last month for a pay increase, but homeowners voted it down. ‘Well, we’re going to ask everybody to pay an extra $500 a month on top of their maintenance fee,’ said condo owner Carole Lane. ‘That’s a mortgage payment. Everybody said no.’ ‘We’re finding out we’re victims of somebody else’s mismanagement,’ said condo owner Ken Pullig.”
NBC Bay Area in California. “Katie Lucas’s San Leandro backyard is supposed to have the grandparents’ new ‘tiny home’ by now. Instead, she has just a shell of a house. ‘It should be a finished home,’ she said, sobbing. ‘With my mother-in-law and my grandma here.’ Katie hired and started paying Anchored Tiny Homes in 2022. ‘We’ve paid $211,000 so far,’ she said. But this April, work stalled. And Now? ‘They are at a complete halt,’ Lucas said. Katie says subcontractors told her that ATH stopped paying them. ‘That’s when I lost it,’ she said, ‘Because when we were invoiced, we paid [ATH] right away.’ Katie says she questioned Anchored Tiny Homes, but it stopped communicating.”
“‘I just feel so cheated,’ said Girija Subramanya in the South Bay. ‘I don’t know where my money went,’ said Maria Djapounova in Walnut Creek. Djapounova says workers stopped showing up to her home two months ago. Despite paying $109,000, so far, her ADU is barely more than studs. Alan Miller in Oakland faces a similar bind. ‘We basically had a large plywood box in our backyard. And nothing more,’ he said.”
“Down in Cupertino, Girija Subramanya explains what she has to show for her money: ‘Nothing. Zero.’ Subramanya says she paid $32,000 for designs and permits that stalled. ‘I just want my money back,’ she said. ‘I’m so pissed off.’ NBC Bay Area talked with other homeowners in Newark, Redwood City, Pleasant Hill, Saratoga, San Jose, and Hayward who tell similar stories. ‘We’re all holding the bag,’ Miller said. A few folks, like Djapounova, told us subcontractors are threatening to put a lien on their home if they don’t pay the invoices they say Anchor Tiny Homes didn’t pay.”
From 12 News. “Now that the July doldrums of the Arizona housing market have passed, real estate experts are looking forward to stronger sales. Realtor Kelly Schmidt tells 12News things overall are still ‘stagnant’ and he’s waiting for signs of a new trend. ‘For example, I’ve got a single-family listing at 29th Ave. and Bell priced at $395,000,’ Schmidt said. ‘A couple months back it would have flown off the shelf. Recently I’ve had only two showings and no activity.’ New rules involving the home purchasing process kick-in on Saturday, August 17. ‘Changes going into place will put more on the buyer being able to negotiate,’ said Schmidt. ‘What I’m telling buyers is, now is a good time because the longer a home sits, the greater the opportunity to propose a better offer.’”
The Independent. “A TikTok-famous real estate flipper whose videos have racked up more than 3 million views is now facing federal charges over accusations he sold unwitting clients wildly lucrative ‘investment opportunities’ in properties he never actually owned. ‘Everyone wants to make more f*****g money,’ Teddy Miller, the self-proclaimed ‘Wolf of West Virginia,’ says in one recent clip. ‘And you should want to make more f*****g money. Because life’s too short to be a fucking p***y.’ However, Miller’s less-than-subtle sales pitch hid an even more brazen con, prosecutors say. That included fleecing untold numbers of marks via a get-rich-quick scheme that prosecutors allege only served to enrich one person: Miller.”
“On Monday, a criminal complaint against Miller, 34, was unsealed in West Virginia federal court, charging him with one count of wire fraud. Miller, who does not yet have an attorney listed in court records, appeared Monday afternoon before a US magistrate judge in Charleston, West Virginia. He was ordered detained pending a preliminary hearing. His strategy was easy, and virtually risk-free, as the feds say Miller promised potential clients they’d get at least a 20 percent return on their money as he fixed up distressed properties and rented them out.”
“Miller’s social media profiles showed a young, wealthy, lavishly tattooed newlywed living a luxe life, traveling across the globe in search of adventure: ‘Here’s Teddy shooting a machine gun in Vietnam! Here’s Teddy scuba diving in the Philippines! Here’s Teddy and his bride in matching Gucci outerwear at the Louvre!’ But the FBI says it was all a fraud.”
From Bisnow. “With the presidential election now less than three months away, many commercial real estate executives are rallying around one of their own. Former President Donald Trump, who still owns a large property portfolio through The Trump Organization, is seen by many in the industry as the best option to help supercharge the economy and lift the commercial real estate market out of its recent doldrums. John Catsimatidis, a New York billionaire who owns a real estate portfolio, a grocery store chain and an oil refinery and hosts a radio show, has been a vocal supporter of Trump. ‘The only weapon the Fed had was to raise interest rates tremendously,’ Catsimatidis said. ‘The real estate industry is in deep shit; the office market’s in deep shit because [Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell] raised them and hasn’t lowered them yet, which is stupid.’”
“Lisa Jones, who spent 22 years leading Charlottesville, Virginia-based development firm Pavilion Properties before selling its portfolio in 2019, contributed $100K to Make America Great Again Inc., a super PAC backing Trump. ‘Spending, the border and inflation are going to destroy us,’ Jones wrote in a statement to Bisnow. ‘Trump policies of energy independence, building a wall and lowering spending and regulations are our only hope.’”
The Globe and Mail in Canada. “Residential property developers are facing rising insolvencies as they struggle with higher borrowing and construction costs – and industry experts warn the trend is likely to worsen as interest expenses remain elevated. Sam Mizrahi’s luxury downtown Toronto condo tower The One has been one of the highest profile projects to default on its loans, with lenders owed $1.6-billion. And dozens of other developers have faced similar pressure from their lenders or have filed for bankruptcy protection. Some of the current problems in residential development can be traced back to 2017 when home prices were rising quickly in Toronto and demand exploded for new condos. Developers quickly expanded, including less experienced builders who were able to sell out preconstruction projects as waves of mom-and-pop investors flooded the market.”
“This all added to the costs. Developers had to carry their mortgages for longer. Building materials were in short supply. And when the Bank of Canada raised interest rates, developers had to pay much more for their loans. Now that mortgages are more expensive, some preconstruction condo buyers are not able to qualify for the loan needed to close on their purchase, which is contributing to the malaise in the sector. ‘A lot of lenders did that to the best of their ability. They entered into forbearance agreements, accepted some missed payments and basically worked with the borrowers,’ said Jeffrey Berger, managing director with restructuring and insolvency firm TDB Restructuring Ltd., whose company is working on between 10 to 15 insolvent real estate projects. ‘Two or three years passed, and then it became clear that this was the new normal and things were changing and these loans had to be dealt with in some manner,’ he said.”
“Developers used to be able to pass on their higher costs to buyers but prices have jumped so much that buyers will not buy the new condo units. For those who have already bought investment properties, the purchase price is now at a point that an overwhelming share of new condo owners are burning cash because the rent they can charge is not enough to cover their mortgage payments and other expenses. For example, in the Toronto region, the asking price of a preconstruction condo has nearly doubled from 2017 through this year to around $1,345 per square foot, according to data from Altus. That puts the price of a 550-square foot condo at $740,000.”
ABC News in Australia. “Anne Cahill Lambert and her husband were excited about starting the next chapter of their lives after selling their family home in Canberra’s inner-north and purchasing a new city apartment. But three years on from the move, Ms Cahill Lambert said she was still dealing with defects in her apartment’s bathrooms and balcony. She said after ventilation problems were identified in her apartment’s bathroom, she was advised to keep the window and door open while showering. ‘Which is just lovely having a shower and so forth, particularly in the middle of winter, ‘Ms Cahill Lambert said. ‘Then it was identified there were lots of problems in the 320-odd apartments that are in our building complex and so a major project was undertaken to identify the defects. To date, we’re knocking on the door of about $400,000 going out to lawyers and other professionals.’”
“Ms Cahill Lambert said some of her neighbours had been unable to sell their properties. ‘Potential buyers are frightened they’re going to be up for more legal fees and so forth before they actually get their apartments fixed,’ she said.”
Radio New Zealand. “A group of neighbours are frustrated after buying homes off the plans they claim were delivered behind schedule, unfinished and with additional costs. Homebuyers on Rongomai Street in the Auckland suburb of Helensville say they have been left out of pocket by property development company Eco-Smart Homes and its director, Ritesh Mani, who was accused of similar behaviour by another homeowner in 2022. But Mani says the Helensville project suffered serious setbacks which included, he says, a builder stealing more than $300,000 from him before leaving the country.”
“Amit Kumar bought a home and land package from Eco-Smart Homes in June 2022. A payment for the land was made up front, and the rest of the payments were to be done in steps for different stages of the construction. But work on the home didn’t start until ten months later, Kumar says. He complied with six out of seven payment instalments, but says the home remains unfinished – including landscaping and flooring work still to be done. ‘This whole scenario has put a lot of pressure on my business and on my mental health, my life as well,’ he said. ‘I have tried literally everything to get these guys to finish my house but they are not ready to budge.’”
“Junius Dimasuhid, 45, bought a home and land package from Eco-Smart Homes in 2020 on the same street. Dimasuhid was paying rent alongside his mortgage from early 2022 and said the delays in construction created a financial strain on his family. When he finally moved into his home, in November 2023, he said there were still issues with the property. Dimasuhid is also being asked to pay the $36,500 infrastructure growth charge to Watercare. He said the IGC wasn’t mentioned to him before he signed the contract. ‘It’s supposed to be the developer who pays that because we’ve contracted them to do the work. As of now, I can’t pay that, it’s too much. I don’t have that kind of money.’”
“Claire Cherry, 37, bought a home off the plans in July 2022. She moved into her home in December 2023 and upon contacting Watercare discovered she needed to pay the IGC. The developer had never mentioned the fee, she said. Cherry said she hasn’t been able to contact Mani since March, and that the ordeal has been ‘extremely stressful.’ ‘It’s been a really disappointing experience, and I think there’s a lot of loopholes that he’s been able to play in,’ she said. Her home also hasn’t received a code compliance certificate due to the outstanding IGC costs. ‘It’s turning into a bit of a nightmare if I’m honest,’ she said.”