Hey Readers! I’ve been comin across some crazy stuff the past few days from a few different blogs around the web which I just had to share with you. Check em out below…
'It's a slow repair' for condo market as experts look to 2013
If you are a condo investor, owner, builder, Realtor or anybody else with a vested interest in rising condo prices, the market probably won't appear stable … Read More…
Sales of single-family homes in Saratoga County fall 29 percent in July
June 30 was the last date buyers could come under contract, and now they must close on the sale by Sept. 30. Janet Besheer, a real estate broker/owner at … Read More…
Proponent Of New Real Estate Fee Exempts His Own House
Forbes has learned that Alderman took steps last year to exempt his own home near Austin, Texas, from the fee before he put it up for sale. … Read More…
That’s all the news for today guys, so until next time, thanks for stopping by.
King-sized mansion in Novi to hit auction block – Yahoo! News
By Robert Snell, The Detroit News
One of Metro Detroit’s most expensive homes — a Novi palace worth at least $18 million before the real estate market crash — is facing foreclosure and scheduled to be sold at auction Tuesday.
Once one of the region’s grandest displays of wealth, the 13,777-square-foot mansion on 19-plus acres instead could become a symbol of the bust — and languish on the market for years, real estate experts say.
The estate is packed with princely perks: five bedroom suites, a bowling alley, steam room, wine vault and a media room with a herringbone leather floor. Outside: $5 million worth of landscaped waterfalls, a pool with a 60-foot-long water slide and a par-three golf hole.
• The Detroit News photo gallery of the Novi mansion
“It’s like going to Disney World,” said real estate agent Chris Knight, who has sold the home twice. “It’s a phenomenal, one-of-a-kind special property. Waterfalls, ponds all over the place, streams. Lots of Venetian plaster walls. Imported this, imported that …”
The home is owned by an entrepreneur who built an empire of laser hair removal clinics, but is coping with a web of money problems. Tucked behind security cameras and a remote controlled gate at the end of a gated street, the house is on a boulevard of million-dollar homes plagued by the same foreclosure problems as the rest of Michigan and the nation.
The Turnberry Estates subdivision off Eight Mile, near the Meadowbrook Country Club, consists of about 17 houses that sold for $1 million to nearly $10 million in the past few years. Its homeowners include business executives, a restaurateur, a real estate agent and two former Detroit Lions: Charles Rogers and Robert Porcher, who recently moved out.
Downturn sinks all boats
A third of the subdivision’s homeowners have either faced foreclosure in the past two years or had mortgage problems, public records indicate.
Since March 2008, one house was lost to foreclosure; three were scheduled for sales but avoided them; and two foreclosure sales are pending — including Rogers, according to the Legal News. The former No. 2 NFL draft pick faces a sale Aug. 31 after defaulting and owing $1.17 million, according to a Wednesday notice in the Legal News.
Throughout Metro Detroit, 719 properties worth at least $1 million have received foreclosure filings since January 2009, according Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc.
The number of $1 million-plus homes facing foreclosure could indicate wealthy owners are treating homes like any other bad investment, and dumping them, experts say.
“If you’re in that stratosphere, you do look at it like an investment,” said Bob Taylor, president of the Michigan Association of Realtors who is a real estate agent in Birmingham.
“It will ruin their credit, but they’ll still have plenty of money in the bank and they can go ahead and buy something else.”
But none of the properties in Metro Detroit, perhaps, is as opulent as the estate at the end of Turnberry Boulevard.
Entrepreneur Rich Morgan, 44, bought the mansion in 2007 for a song: $9.75 million.
Too rich for current market
That was nearly half the $18 million it cost to build the house in 1998 and a fraction of the $25 million that some real estate officials estimate as the true cost after land acquisition and design costs.
The home is fit for a titan, featuring “safe rooms” to keep out crooks, a 10-car garage and two specialty rooms catering to wine tastings and cigars.
Morgan was the third owner in two years, buying the mansion from investor Patrick Tortora, who had bought it from Larry and Judy Wisne. The couple, whose family owned the now-shuttered Tribute Restaurant in Farmington Hills, sold it in 2005 in a divorce settlement.
The same year Morgan bought the mansion, his company was sold. He founded American Laser Centers, a Farmington Hills-based provider of hair removal, cellulite reduction and skin rejuvenation, in 2002.
Morgan returned to the company, which has more than 170 locations nationwide, in 2008 and still serves on the company’s board. He did not return multiple messages.
Since buying the home, he’s seen a raft of financial problems. Farmington Hills law firm Trott & Trott says Morgan and his wife defaulted on the mortgage and owe more than $3.07 million, according to a notice published in the Legal News.
He also owes $199,763 in delinquent property taxes and four states have filed tax liens against him totaling $574,986, according to public records.
Given the housing market and the estate’s location far from millionaire enclaves of Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills, there may be few prospective buyers, Taylor said. “The number of prospective purchasers, we’re not even talking about the top 10 percent, or 1 percent,” he said. “We’re talking the point of a needle.”
The opening bid at foreclosure sales typically is the amount owed to lenders, and the lenders usually end up with the property, according to the Michigan State Housing Development Authority. In Morgan’s case, he could redeem the home within six months by paying the same amount as the top bid.
“Lenders in Michigan will wait typically until the redemption period has passed before marketing the property for sale,” said RealtyTrac spokesman Daren Blomquist.
Knight, the real estate agent, visited the home recently. He’s a friend of Morgan’s and said the home is in better shape than ever.
But Knight said it could be a tough time for a $10 million home to hit the market.
“There’s a number it would be gobbled up at,” he said, “and a number that it would sit forever.”
