08/27/08

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Condo.com launches division to service struggling lenders

With South Florida's condominium market in sharp decline, the local industry is looking for a new angle on sales. Condo.com, a condominium marketplace with inventory listings valued at more than $150 billion, is stepping up with a new scheme it hopes will spark new deals in this ailing market.

Condo.com has formed a financial institutional brokerage and marketing division to assist struggling lenders with asset management and dispositions. The new division promises institutional lenders a range of services, including asset preservation, pre-foreclosure evaluations, project repositioning, asset and property management and financial restructuring services.

The timing seems viable from both sides of the table. According to a report by BauerFinancial Inc., a Coral Gables-based bank rating firm, more than a quarter of the 36 banks based in Palm Beach and Broward counties had substantial increases in overdue loans from 2006 to 2007.

At the same time, a year-to-year comparison for condos shows 3,207 units sold statewide in March 2008 compared to 4,163 in March 2007, according to the Florida Association of Realtors. That's a 23 percent decline. The statewide existing-condo median sales price in March, meanwhile, was $176,300. It was $220,700 a year ago, a 20 percent decrease. The National Association of Realtors reported the national median existing condo price was $211,700 in February 2008.

Jim Fried, president of Sandstone Realty Advisors, is taking on the director role for Condo.com's new division. He'll lend his experience in the institutional lender arena to expand Condo.com's global platform in the online multi-family marketing space.

"Fried's experience in the last significant market correction, as a principle with Condovest, makes him an ideal partner to champion this new division," says Richard Swerdlow, CEO of Condo.com. From 1991 to 1993, Condovest bought, managed and brokered portfolios of condos from the RTC, FDIC and solvent financial institutions. Swerdlow says Fried is well-versed in all phases of the special situations that occur as a property begins to fail and is eventually taken over by the lenders.

"With so much negativity in the industry it's refreshing to work with a company that takes a positive approach to the market and is designed to help the industry address the complex problems it is facing," Fried says. "Condo.com is committed to providing lenders with a solution that allows property sellers to make the best out of their situation. Our goal is to provide services to the many financial institutions that we work with on a daily basis and that, quite frankly, need our help."