Hat tip to Kwaping for sending this along from Lily at theU-T:
The new owner of the recently sold “Razor” house in La Jolla is a 47-year-old real estate investor from Palm Beach, Fla., with ties to the telecommunications industry, based on information from the listing agent, public documents and other sources.
Donald A. Burns bought the property for $14.1 million in a short sale that was finalized on Tuesday, said agent Bob Hurwitz of the Hurwitz James Co. in Beverly Hills. A spokeswoman for the buyer said Burns was traveling Thursday, and she declined to comment on the transaction.
“The guy is a sophisticated real estate investor,” said Hurwitz, adding that the sale was the most “complex and convoluted” one he’s ever completed in his 31-year real estate career, given all the players involved.
The first asking price for the designer home, the main asset in a bankruptcy case, was $45 million. But that figure plummeted in recent years along with the market and after two failed attempts to auction the oceanfront home.
The original owner, Jimmy Donald Cooksey Jr., filed for bankruptcy in February 2009. Records say Cooksey was discharged from the case in September.
Public documents show what the new owner paid is lower than liens on the home, which totaled about $22.7 million. Burns, who expressed interest in the home about seven months ago, initially offered more than $16 million but in October dropped it to $13.9 million. He won out with his new bid after negotiations that resulted in concessions from some of the lienholders.
Here’s a sample of Burns’ negotiating skills in an Oct. 20 letter addressing Leslie Gladstone, the trustee in the Cooksey bankruptcy case:
“This new offer is lower than my first offer because the lack of other qualified buyer offers over the last months of heavy advertising proved that my past offer was above the Fair Market Value of the property,” he said.
Burns continued to say: “The First Mortgage Holder (Bank of America) will need to ultimately decide if it wishes to own this property, or if they would like to achieve their maximum recovery now and be free of the expense and liability of owning a property that has been the white elephant for four years.”
A court record dated Dec. 7 shows Gladstone agreed with Burns’ argument on the distressed home.
“This immediate relief is appropriate because Bank of America will foreclose on the Property if the sale does not close prior to December 31, 2011,” said Jeffry A. Davis, attorney for Gladstone.
The property, the work of renowned San Diego architectural designer Wallace E. Cunningham, is unfinished and has never been occupied. The new owner plans to work with Cunningham to complete the design.
Recent news coverage reveals that Burns is not new to high-profile real estate deals.
Earlier this year, a penthouse in a SoHo building where actor Heath Ledger died was sold for almost $18 million, based on a story by Real Estate Weekly. That report and a separate article in The New York Times say Burns bought the building seven years ago before turning it to a condo project. (Burns actually attached the Real Estate Weekly article with his second offer letter to prove he was a qualified buyer.)
Aside from real estate, Burns is involved in the telecom industry. Public financial records show he is a board of director of magicJack VocalTec Ltd., maker of a device that plugs into landlines and lets people make domestic and Canadian calls for free, the company promises.
It looks like they will keep their policy more vague too – from thewsj.com:
The Federal Reserve could signal it is likely to keep short-term interest rates near zero into 2014 or beyond, to bolster the fragile economic recovery.
Fed officials have grown increasingly uncomfortable with their August statement that they are likely to hold short-term rates exceptionally low at least through mid-2013. Some believe low inflation and high unemployment could warrant low rates for longer.
Updating the view on rates has become an important part of Fed discussions about how the central bank explains its goals and policies to the public. Officials could agree at their next policy meeting Jan. 24-25 to a broad revamp of their communications.
When the Fed revises its communications approach, there is a good chance it will cease offering a fixed date for the timing of rate increases. Instead, officials could signal their intentions by publishing a range of their forecasts for rates along with their quarterly economic projections. Some officials see this approach as one that would be easier to update and would better link the Fed’s guidance with its outlook for the economy.
Hat tip to daytrip for sending this along, from thelatimes.com:
Reporting from New York—Slips of paper are pasted to the broken door of the corner row house, violations for the garbage piled near the front steps. The stench of trash wafts up the dark interior stairway, where an ashtray filled with cigarette butts sits like an abandoned potted plant on the second-floor landing.
Nobody lives here, at least not officially.
But as you climb the narrow stairs to the top floor, a door opens into an airy apartment that is home to Tasha Glasgow, who is part of a largely invisible population of squatters occupying vacant homes across America. Given their clandestine lives, it’s impossible to say how many people are squatting in this country, but with more than 1.3 million homes in foreclosure and hundreds of thousands of people homeless, advocates say it’s safe to assume the number is growing.
“You have these abandoned dwellings that are sitting there vacant, sometimes for many months,” said Patrick Markee of the Coalition for the Homeless in New York, where shelters are reporting record numbers of residents. “It’s not an issue of whether squatting is right or wrong. The fact is that people are desperate for places to live, and they’re going to do what they need to do.”
You’ve never seen a kitchen photo, have you? Hat tip to JS for sending this in, from theU-T:
A luxury bankruptcy home in La Jolla once featured in TV commercials has been sold for almost a third of its original asking price of $45 million, based on details from the property’s listing agent on Wednesday.
Beverly Hills-based Bob Hurwitz said “The Razor” property, considered by designers as an architectural marvel, has closed escrow. The buyer, an East Coaster, paid $14.1 million in cash, added Hurwitz, of the Hurwitz James Company. More details are expected to be released on Thursday.
Public records show about $34 million was spent building the 11,000-square-foot estate, which has never been occupied. Construction began in 2002 and was completed in 2008. The original sale price was set at $45 million but has consistently been slashed according to the market and even more when it became a bankruptcy property.
The Razor house, 9826 La Jolla Farms Road, was originally set to be sold at a Sept. 27 auction, but that was canceled because there were no qualified bidders.
The auction was then rescheduled to Nov. 10, with the starting bid shaved to $13.9 million from the $16 million set in September. The property again could not be sold because none of the bidders came close to what the bank would accept, at least $17 million, according to the listing company.
The oceanfront home is the bankruptcy estate of Jimmy Donald Cooksey Jr., according to public records. It is the work of San Diego-based architectural designer Wallace E. Cunningham, named one of Architectural Digest’s Top 100 Designers.
The N.A.R. released their exact mis-remembering of home sales data over the last few years:
They appear to be paranoid that their reputation might be slipping, because they added this gem:
Home buyers and sellers will not be affected by any revisions to NAR’s existing-home sales data. Median home prices remain the same, and the data has no impact on consumers who want to buy or sell a home in today’s market.
Their reasons for MLS sales count and Benchmark Divergence?
Fewer FSBO home sales and more REALTOR®-assisted home sales (e.g., no net increase in home sales in a case where 80 MLS sales and 20 FSBOs shifts to 90 MLS sales and 10 FSBOs).
More Homebuilders seek REALTOR®-assistance in listing properties on MLSs (More MLS count even though there is no increase in existing home sales).
Flipping of a home (re-sell within 12 months). Re-benchmarked figure excludes the second sale, while they are counted as twice in MLS count.
Enlarged MLS geographic coverage. Some of the home sales are not an increase in home sales but are just due to enlarged sampled areas.
Double counting as one single property is listed in two or more MLSs.(Example: a home in Colorado Springs is listed in MLS in Colorado Springs and is also listed in MLS in Denver.)
They are right that home buyers and sellers won’t be affected, because they gave up long ago that anything relevant would come from N.A.R. But I don’t know how the median price isn’t affected – they took out 737,000 sales and the median price just happened to be the same? Maybe they don’t even know how a median price is calculated?
