Millions of dollars worth of Scottsdale homes hit auction on April 10
National Post Published: Friday, March 19, 2010
International real estate investment company Kennedy Wilson will bring the hammer down on April 10.
Golfers, circle the date April 10 on your calendar. Sophisticated living in golfers’ paradise Scottsdale, Ariz., is about to become much more affordable with 22 luxury lakefront condominiums at Northshore about to hit auction.
Beverly Hills-based international real estate investment company Kennedy Wilson will bring the hammer down on April 10. The anticipated inventory close-out auction opens the door for huge savings on homes at the stylish lakefront community in popular Tempe.
The buzz revolves around exceptionally low starting bids: US$85,000 to US$205,000 on luxury one-, two- and three-bedroom condos with up to 2,168 square feet previously priced from US$238,000 to US$725,000. The auction will see millions of dollars worth of homes moved in a one day.
J. Craig Anderson – Mar. 14, 2010
The Arizona Republic
Another of Tempe Town Lake’s upscale-condominium developers is hoping to close a difficult chapter in its history by putting all its leftover properties up for auction.
WestStone Communities, a Canadian developer, plans to auction off 22 units inside its five-story Northshore condos project, on the north side of Tempe Town Lake in Tempe.
When WestStone was developing the project in 2006, it pre-sold more than 100 of the community’s 134 units for prices as high as $725,000. Since that time, very few additional condos have been sold, despite periodic price cuts that have lowered the smaller units to under $300,000.
WestStone will hold a live auction at noon April 10 at the Fairmont Scottsdale, 7575 E. Princess Drive, in Scottsdale, said Rhett Winchell, president of Los Angeles-based auctioneer Kennedy Wilson. Interested bidders can visit northshore condoauction.com.
Fellow Town Lake developer SunCor has similarly sold off its upscale-condo properties recently by slashing prices.
Winchell said the advertised starting bid on each property is $85,000. Still, he said bidders will have to match an unpublished “reserve” in order to walk away with a condo.
Buyers at most real-estate auctions have to hit a target price, determined by the seller, that is rarely published and usually subject to change during the auction, depending on how well things go.
It’s unlikely that either WestStone or its customers who paid full price are thrilled about the price-slashing auction.
But Winchell said it will provide opportunities for today’s buyers while letting the developer move forward.
“There are costs associated with holding property like this,” he said. “Like most of our clients, they were looking for a way to exit the project.”
Most unsold condominiums at the South Waterfront’s John Ross tower will go on the auction block April 11.
The auction echoes a similar event held to dispose of unsold units at Atwater Place, a sister to John Ross, in 2009. That auction was considered a success after the released units all sold.
Like Atwater Place, the John Ross is a critical component of Portland’s South Waterfront neighborhood. At one point, the city projected the new district would contribute 10,000 jobs to the economy. No new building projects have been initiated in more than a year.
The John Ross auction is jointly sponsored by Portland real estate brokerage Realty Trust Group, and a Beverly Hills, Calif.-based auctioneer, Kennedy Wilson Auction Group.
Neither Realty Trust nor Kennedy Wilson could be reached to comment Wednesday afternoon.
The auction will feature 50 of the 303-unit tower’s approximately 84 unsold units. The minimum selling price will start at $110,000. The auction will include studio, one, two and three bedroom units and a 3,456-square-foot penthouse.
Details will be posted at TheJohnRossAuction.com, but the site was not live as of Wednesday afternoon.
The previous low price at the John Ross was $156,800 for one of the smallest units, a 631-square foot studio, according to a listing in the Regional Multiple Listing Service.
John Ross enjoyed strong sales when it debuted in 2007 but the recession chilled demand for condominiums and the pace eased. That led lender Prudential Real Estate, based in Parsippany, N.J., to take control of the project more than a year ago.
Prudential holds a $32 million note on the building.
A series of price cuts totaling more than 30 percent led to an increase in sales starting in late 2009. It continued with seven sales each in December and January, typically slow times in any market.
As of February, the project was about 74 percent sold out.
In late February, there were 84 unsold units, with the highest concentration of vacant units in the upper floors, where prices are higher. Realty Trust, which has been responsible for sales since the start, said the actual number of unsold units is closer to 74 because of pending sales that have closed.
It is not clear how the units not included in the auction will be treated. With Atwater Place, units withheld from the initial auction were later released for sale in small batches, with mixed results.
The $130 million John Ross was developed by Gerding Edlen Development and Williams and Dame Development. The 31-story building has received the U.S. Green Building Council’s “gold” rating for environmental sustainability. The elliptical design by Robert Thompson and GBD Architects was widely praised.
The John Ross has 21,400 square feet of street-level retail space, partly leased to a bank and a restaurant. The rest is empty.
The auction information office will be open daily at John Ross, 3601 S.W. River Parkway.
TV Interview:Our client, Kennedy Wilson Auction Group was featured in a news story on ABOUT THE MONEY about an upcoming Auction in Seattle, Washington.
TV Interview Our client Brenda Bot, President of Salad Creations Canada discussed how to dress up your Salad and eating healthy salads on March 12th, 2010
The 177-unit Encore, built by Hoyt Street Properties, has 12 closed sales through March 10.1. Portland condo prices down 30% in February from original list prices: The downtown condo market continues to struggle amid the recession, tight lending standards and a supply glut. In February, 13 new condos sold among the major downtown projects. Among those sales, the prices were 30.5 percent below the units’ original list prices, according to sales firm Realty Trust City. The John Ross, which is now headed to auction, posted the most sales in February at 5. New sales in 2010 are averaging $352 per square foot. The for-sale condo inventory – including both new and existing condos – was 27 months in February. That’s more than double the inventory across the Portland market. For all you wanted to know about the John Ross auction, check out my post from this morning.
2. Regulators order Portland’s Albina Community Bank to improve loans, raise capital: Albina Community Bancorp of Portland has entered into a consent agreement with state and federal bank regulators that requires it to raise capital levels and improve the performance of its loans. Albina is the seventh Oregon bank working under state or federal orders.
3. Federal program would pay homeowners, banks to encourage short sales: From the New York Times while I was away: In an effort to end the foreclosure crisis, the Obama administration has been trying to keep defaulting owners in their homes. Now it will take a new approach: paying some of them to leave. This latest program, which will allow owners to sell for less than they owe and will give them a little cash to speed them on their way, is one of the administration’s most aggressive attempts to grapple with a problem that has defied solutions.
4. Jumbo share of mortgage market slipped to 5% in 2009: Five years ago, the jumbo mortgage market accounted for 18 percent of new loans in the United States. But in 2009, the jumbo loan market share fell to just 5 percent, according to trade journal Inside Mortgage Finance. Jumbo loans are those above about $417,000. The volume of jumbo loans fell 6.1 percent between 2008 and 2009 even thought total mortgage production rose 21 percent in the same period. Why the drop? Banks have tight underwriting standards for jumbos because they’re generally forced to hold the loans rather than sell them off. The jumbo RMBS market is also showing rising delinquencies.
5. Commercial and multifamily mortgage delinquencies rise in Q4: CMBS loans that are at least 30 days late rose from 4.06 percent in the third quarter to 5.69 percent in the fourth quarter. A year ago, that rate was just 1.17 percent. MBA vice president of commercial real estate research Jamie Woodwell said: “Continued job losses, consumer restraint and a lack of household growth all sustained the pressure on commercial real estate operations and mortgages during the fourth quarter.” Here’s the MBA report for more.
