The Daily Soak - August 20

Buyer's Remorse: Condo Ruling Should Stem "Gotcha" Lawsuits

A Miami judge's recent ruling against a group of condo buyers could set an important precedent for South Florida and other U.S. markets suffering housing boom hangovers. The U.S. district judge threw out 29 lawsuits filed by condo buyers in the high-profile Opera Tower in Downtown Miami. The plaintiffs filed under the federal Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act, a measure intended to prevent "outrageous fraud," claiming the size of the swimming pool and the tile depicted in the advertising materials differed from what was actually delivered. The attorney representing Opera Tower presented the developer's case, "Folks are simply trying to get out of their contractual obligations because the market's gone soft. They're trying to flyspeck everything, find any way out of the contract because the market's changed." Apparently, the judge agreed and ruled in favor of the developer, but the measure doesn't guarantee remorseful buyers will stop walking away from their deposits. Only time will tell.


$100K Condos? 171 Tampa Units To Be Sold At Bankruptcy Auction

When Key Developers unveiled The Place at Channelside in 2005, the eight-story project was touted as a chance to buy in "the Channel District, Tampa's latest, most vibrant renaissance neighborhood." By 2007, only 74 units had been sold, and many of those buyers began filing lawsuits hoping to back out of their deals. Now a bankruptcy judge has ordered the sale of the entire portfolio of 171 remaining units. And here is the best part for an interested buyer: the minimum reserve price for all of the units is only $17.25 million. That translates into $100,877 per unit for condos that range in size from 600-square-foot studios to a 3,600-square-foot penthouse. That's amazing considering discounted 2/2 resale units can be found on Zillow for $300,000. St. Pete Times business reporter James Thorner sums up the opportunity,"Let's face it: Whoever can come up with $17-million is going to make a ton of money. The 2.1-acre site comes with ground-floor shop space, a parking garage and other extras."


We Now Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming...

Or at least we hope so. I received the following e-mail Monday evening from one of our loyal bathers, Bill Myers: "I very much enjoy the HousingBath site and appreciate the amount of work you put in to it. However, lately when I visit using IE6, IE7 or Firefox, the site locks up my computer." Bill went on to explain how he ran a series of diagnostic tests to no avail. And, sure enough, when I opened the site traffic report Monday night, it showed site visits dropped like a rock over the weekend. Long story short, it ended up being a blogger.com bug that Google (hopefully) worked out over the weekend, and I apologize for any locked up computers out there. I now check HB.com on three separate browsers to be safe, but there's still no substitute for getting immediate feedback from you at info@housingbath.com.