A report from the Los Angeles Times in California. “LeBron James is ready to sell his Brentwood home at a loss. The Lakers star has listed a traditional-style estate in Brentwood Park at $20.5 million — about half a million shy of what he paid for it in 2015.”
From Page Six on California. “Armie Hammer shocked neighbors by moving out of his Los Angeles home in the dead of night this week, Page Six is told. As we revealed this month, Hammer and his estranged wife finally found a buyer for their $5 million home in the swanky Hancock Park neighborhood. The offer came in nearly two months after the former couple slashed the price of their three-story English Tudor home by $800,000.”
From Elite Agent. “Kelly Clarkson is now dropping the price of her Tennessee lake house – originally US$8.75 million – to $6.95 million. Since she’s been gone for a couple of years, the American has clearly opted to drop the price to ensure a sale, rather than let it sit idle. The lake house, in Hendersonville, is less than 30 minutes’ drive from downtown Nashville.”
From Patch Colorado. “A Denver luxury home, at 2605 18th St., hit the market late last year for $7.9 million, but is now listed for $6.5 million. The five-bedroom, six-bathroom house includes a three-car garage and a 1,500-square-foot guest suite.”
The Jewish Voice on New York. “The XI, the stunning pair of curving towers, between the Hudson River and the High Line in Chelsea, is attracting more than just memorized spectators. It is also getting slapped with lawsuits. GCE Belnord, an investor in the ambitious project the XI, sued the developer HFZ Capital for approximately $10 million.”
“As reported by Crain’s NY, the suit, filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, alleges that the developer was supposed to distribute the funds to GCE but kept it instead. In March 2015, GCE invested $68 million into a limited-liability company and the funds were to be used primarily to develop The XI.”
“Developer HFZ has been undergoing a series of financial woes and lawsuits in relation to its signature condo project. In July, Omnibuild Construction filed a lien on XI, alleging HFZ owes it about $100 million for work at The XI. Similarly, in December, Pioneer Window filed its own suit against HFZ, claiming it was not paid for roughly $24 million worth of work it completed on the project, as per Crain’s.”
From The Real Deal. “With its hotels business battered by the pandemic, Ashford Hospitality Trust took a cold, hard look at its portfolio and came to a sobering conclusion: The REIT was simply going to walk away from some of its struggling properties. And the company warned it could soon walk away from even more properties. Ashford isn’t the only investor making that difficult decision. Commercial real estate owners — particularly those in struggling sectors such as hotels and shopping malls — are giving up on their debt-laden properties rather than go through the foreclosure process.”
“It’s reminiscent of the housing crash of 2008, when homeowners who took out big loans suddenly found that their houses were worth less than their mortgages and simply walked away from the properties. There was even a term — ‘jingle mail’ — for owners who dropped their keys in an envelope and mailed them back to the bank.”
“‘It’s really just a rational economic decision,’ said Wendy Silverstein, co-founder of loan-workout company Silver Eagle Advisory Group. ‘They’re not going to be throwing good money after bad.’”
“Silverstein said that when borrowers take out their loans, they have to spell out in writing the circumstances under which they can hand back the keys. Smart borrowers, Silverstein said, make sure they’re covered. But a downturn usually exposes a few that forgot to read the fine print. ‘Every cycle, someone seems to learn that lesson anew,’ she said.”
The Vancouver Sun in Canada. “A tribunal has upheld an Abbotsford strata’s decision to deny an owner an exemption to its non-rentals clause, leaving the owner unable to sell or rent her unit, likely because of ‘massively higher’ monthly fees because of rising insurance fees. Kendra Gerbrandt said her inability to sell her two-bedroom condo last summer, despite ‘thousands’ of online views and 24 in-person showings over 142 days, caused her financial hardship and she applied for the rental exemption.”
“‘Building maintenance and insurance issues, compounded by increased strata fees, made it difficult to sell,’ her realtor, David Smith, a director of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board, said in a report to a hearing of the Civil Resolution Tribunal, an agency that takes lesser cases to reduce court workloads.”
“Smith, whom the tribunal acknowledged as an expert witness, said the unit’s asking price of $197,600 was set at market value for two-bedrooms around 40 to 50 years old in the area and the unit was ‘thoroughly marketed,’ according to the written decision by the tribunal vice-chair, Kate Campbell. But the unit received only one offer, one day after it was listed, and ‘the sale did not complete due to insurance/building issues,’ she wrote, citing Smith’s report.”
“Gerbrandt bought the unit in 2016 for an undisclosed price and put the unit on the market in June 2020 because she got a new job at the end of May that as a condition of employment required her to live in Vancouver. On Aug. 15, she rented an apartment in Vancouver for $1,575 a month. She applied to the strata for the exemption three days later. The strata denied the exemption on hardship grounds because it said she made a ‘choice to live in Vancouver,’ and she could have lowered her asking price and relied on an equity loan until it sold.”