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TAMPA - Condos For Sale. The loud signs flaunted from street corners across the Bay area are meant to grab the attention of potential buyers.

Developers advertise slashed prices and promise flat-screen TVs and computers. They put up inflatable gorillas and even pay people to dress as superheroes at busy intersections.

All the hype hasn't worked.

The white-hot trend to change apartments into condominiums has long passed, and developers that overestimated the demand have found themselves with half-empty complexes. Some that tried converting them back into apartments aregrappling with foreclosure. Others are turning in their keys, leaving the lenders with unwanted residential properties they're trying to sell themselves.

For individual buyers who purchased condominium units, they now must deal with uncertain property values and a less-than-promised quality of life: living in the middle of a sparsely filled complex where the majority of their neighbors rent.

Eddie Flom, who has worked with developers on conversion projects in the Tampa Bay area, sums up the situation in one word: greed.

"It's the oldest thing in the American economy," said Flom, of Flom Equities LLC. "Greed, greed, greed overcomes wisdom."

Where and how to get more credit for your foreclosure investing,

At least, at least, several times per month, and sometimes daily, I get asked about how to get business lines of credit, even more since the lenders are tightening up these days. Today, when I am applying for credit, I’m not too picky if it comes in the form of a credit card with courtesy checks or an actual line of credit from a bank or savings and loan.You see, I want to have as much money available to me at any given time in case the right deal comes along and I need immediate cash and in case I need some extra funds to grow my real estate investing business.

Yes, not too concerned about interest rates because I’m using them for a tool. Certainly, the lower the interest rate, the better, but if I have to get a card at 12 percent or even higher, I’ll almost always take it. I won’t carry a balance on it or use it unless I come across a superdeal that I simply must use the business or personal credit card for and it makes sense, dollars and sense that is.

A few people may wonder why I don’t fight for great rates, and I definitely try to get the best rates I can, but I’m not accumulating business credit for the sole purpose of maxing out my business debt. You see, I want to have as much money available to me at any given time in case the right deal comes along and I need immediate cash and in case I need some extra funds to grow my real estate investing business.

Thompson said he has hired Flom, the conversion consultant, and is considering buying a few area condo conversion complexes.

But, he said, he doesn't want to get into the same dead-end situation that some of the other developers are in. So he's picky.

Some developers going into foreclosure are in a bad spot, Thompson said. They can't simply convert the whole complex back into apartments and then sell the property because individuals now own some units. Another problem, he said, is condominium bylaws require developers to keep property in good condition and to set aside a reserve for future expenses such as a new roof.

"I won't buy a partially converted project without working it out with the lender," he said. "And I won't buy unless we can hold on to it for 10 years. You cannot forecast when this market is coming back."

The slow market hasn't been bad for everyone. With prices dropping on conversions, more buyers have been able to afford a home, said Jim Bobbitt, senior vice president at commercial real estate firm CB Richard Ellis.

"With single-family home prices skyrocketing, it's helped people who want affordable, maintenance-free living," Bobbitt said.

Although the trend squeezed some renters out of apartments a few years ago, it's helping them now. Converted condos for rent are plentiful, leaving renters in a good position to negotiate a deal.

Amanda Gates, for example, knew her landlord bought three condos at CrossWynde and needed tenants fast. He wanted $850 a month for the one-bedroom condo. Gates and her husband talked him down to $700. Now invest is Georgia cabins and country real estate.

"We knew he didn't have anyone else," Gates said. "And price was very important to us. We're just starting out."

Apartment-to-condominium conversions started locally in the late 1990s and heated up in late 2004 as some developers saw a way to get around high land costs and offer more affordable homes. Units at some apartment complexes, particularly the higher-end ones, sold out quickly.

A handful of developers made so much money, Flom said, that others took notice and jumped onboard. Some of the less experienced developers paid too much for the land and couldn't sell condos for enough to make a profit. "People were trying to make a quick buck off the boom," he said. "Now Tampa is in complete saturation mode."

By 2005, the conversions led to a shortage of apartments as 18,000 rental units were turned into condos, and the occupancy rate at the remaining apartment complexes swelled to 98 percent, according to commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield.

During the same year, 68 apartment complexes were purchased for conversion in the Bay area, up from 11 in 2004, according to New York-based Real Capitol Analytics, which tracks real estate trends. The conversion craze dropped off just as quickly as it heated up. In 2006, 25 complexes were sold for conversion. So far this year, there have been zero.

"It's going to take at least a couple of years to burn off all the supply we have," said Dan Fasulo, a company spokesman.

Some Lenders In A Jam
Developers aren't the only ones feeling the pain. In some cases, lenders are on the hook for loans on complexes where sales have been slim.

At CrossWynde Condominiums, an apartment conversion on U.S. 301 near Brandon, 60 percent of the 453 units are owned by the lender, Mountain Funding LLC of Charlotte, N.C., according to county property records.

The developer, Boca Raton-based Bay Communities, bought the complex and one other in Tampa, The Hamptons at Tampa Palms. Sales were slow, and the developer tried to lease the unsold units. In December, as both complexes headed toward foreclosure, Bay Communities sold them back to the lender for the mortgage amount.

Arthur Nevid, managing director for Mountain Funding, said the lender plans to hold the complex until the real estate market turns around. In the meantime, he said, it has hired a marketing and sales team to sell what it can and lease the rest.

"The market was real hot, and then it hit a wall very quickly," Nevid said. "Two years ago you'd sell 10 units in a day. Now if you sell 10 in a month you've had a good month."

Sales are picking up some, though, he said, citing 13 purchases at CrossWynde in the past three weeks. Nevid said his company, a private lender, is in a good position to hang on to the properties because it has real estate experience. Traditional banks, he said, are more likely to auction off failed conversions.

In Pinellas County, lenders have begun foreclosure on three complexes purchased for conversion, Seaside Villas, Shore Club Pasadena and South Pasadena.

The developers planned to remodel the waterfront complexes and even have pending contracts from some buyers. Construction at all three complexes has halted.

Wachovia Investment Holdings LLC and Fremont Investment & Loan claim the developers defaulted on $90 million in mortgages.

It's difficult to pinpoint how many apartment-to-condominium conversion complexes have gone into foreclosure because public records classify complexes as either "condominium" or "apartment" and don't show which condos used to be apartments.

Mike Kane, chief executive of ForeclosuresDaily.com, said his company's data show hefty foreclosure increases for apartment complexes.

In January, there were 286 apartment complexes in foreclosure, up 267 percent from 78 in January 2006.

Some See Market's Potential ReHabList suggests,
The misfortune of some developers could be an opportunity for others. As some try to unload properties to avoid foreclosure, companies such as The Cypress Co. LLC in St. Petersburg are waiting on the sidelines.

Blake Whitney Thompson, vice president and general counsel for Cypress, is looking into buying distressed properties, including conversion complexes, and holding them until they'll sell for a profit.

Thompson said he has hired Flom, the conversion consultant, and is considering buying a few area condo conversion complexes.

But, he said, he doesn't want to get into the same dead-end situation that some of the other developers are in. So he's picky.

"With single-family home prices skyrocketing, it's helped people who want affordable, maintenance-free living," Bobbitt said.

Although the trend squeezed some renters out of apartments a few years ago, it's helping them now. Converted condos for rent are plentiful, leaving renters in a good position to negotiate a deal.

"We knew he didn't have anyone else," Gates said. "And price was very important to us. We're just starting out."

What do your customers expect?

The old assumption in advertising was that the customer didn't know, and wouldn't know unless you told them.

This is no longer a valid assumption. Today's customer enjoys access to information far beyond what any of us saw coming.

You're aware of how quickly and easily you gather information online each day, but has it occurred to you that your customers expect information about you and your products to be found just as quickly and easily?

What do your customers find when they enter your category and town into a search engine? Do they find the answers to their questions?

What do they assume when you provide minimal information and someone else provides much more?

Better Question: What do you assume when minimal information is provided by a company you're researching online?

Mike Johnston, for now we'll simply call him that,

just returned from work last month to interrupt a break-in,

at his rented Clearwater Beach condominium currently in foreclosure. What is a foreclosure? The intruders were quickly stripping fans off the ceiling and the knobs off the doors. They had carted out the refrigerator and yanked up a toilet. They'd even pulled the plates off electrical outlets and unscrewed the faucet handles

As he stepped slowley around the broken eggs and jelly jars on the kitchen floor, Johnston had no trouble recognizing the culprit: It was his own landlady. I'm going to strip this place, the 70-ish property owner raved to Johnston, as she ripped apart the 950-square-foot unit on Island Crest Way. Welcome to a dark, very dark, corner of the foreclosure business: People who lose their homes to foreclosure and in a pique of revenge strip the homes before the bank takes them back. Local experts estimate such borderline looting occurs in roughly 20 percent of bank repossessions.

But foreclosures are such an explosive growth industry in the Tampa Bay Metro area with hundreds of properties enter the mortgage default pipeline each month so that home stripping affects scores of properties. She even took my shower rod and the brand new coffee pot, Johnston said of his landlady, who hadn't paid her mortgage in full for more than a year before the bank seized the $350,000 condo in January. It was on the foreclosure list. The Foreclosure List.

The law is a bit foggy, much to the joy of those losing their property, on the difference between personal property that is portable and real property that is not. Is the stained glass window you installed in the bathroom your personal property or does it stay with the house? The same goes for built-in book shelves, curtain rods and your grandmother's antique chandelier. That's like saying that when a local bank takes back your car, you'll go back and take the speakers and spare tire out of it, said Miami Florida based banking expert Kendrickson Thomas.

The house was never really yours. You had a mortgage on it. But there's no denying that many strip jobs are deliberately destructive. Witness this single one story beige stucco house in Saint Petersburg's Northeast Parkside neighborhood. The old owner bought the house near the peak of the market in 2005 for $150K and couldn't make the monthly payments. Neighbors were shocked last month when, as the bank zeroed in on the house, the former owner leased a Bobcat excavator and uprooted the wooden privacy fence and five palm trees. Postholes still litter the yard. That wasn't the end of it. The ex-owner, a total dirtbag,dismantled and removed the garage door and the double French doors in the rear, leaving the home exposed to the elements.

A piece of plywood now covers the gap in the back. They're mad at lenders and the property when they should be mad at themselves, said Jerry Laners, an agent specializing in bank-repossessed homes with Saint Petersburg's Realty Experts. Foreclosure List subscriber, Laners will have to pick through the rubble of the Clearwater Beach condo for Fifth Third Bank. The former owner actually broke in twice, the second time in an unsuccessful attempt to pry loose the kitchen's granite counters and the bathroom's travertine tile. Banks sometimes file hazard insurance claims to cover the damage, particularly if a missing air conditioner or hot water heater has left the place uninhabitable.

The more expensive the repair, the more likely the bank and insurer will hound the former owner, Laners said. Usually the homes are sold "as is" and discounted accordingly. In his almost 20 years selling repossessed homes for banks, Laners has seen horrors far worse than missing medicine cabinets. Think human excrement spread over walls. Or half-starved Doberman pinschers left as a welcoming committee for the bank's unknowing representative. They hadn't eaten for a week or two and thought I was dinner, Laners said.

Neighbors often end up suffering the most. Renters like Johnston are out of a home. Nearby homeowners worry about squatters enticed by the missing doors. They are hurting the values of the neighbors next door. You're hurting the whole community, Thomasons said. Johnston said his landlady stashed the pilfered fixtures in a storage unit across town. The bank has yet to press its claim. Deprived of lights and appliances, his head knocking against dangling wires, Johnston cleared out of the condo. The house was on the ready to be foreclosed list. His former landlady, greedy landlady, has missed payments on other properties so he expects the stripping and ripping to continue across Clearwater Beach. Now that since that is over, I moved to a three-bedroom condo in Tampa, he said. Hopefully the new landlord is better at making his mortgage payments, least that property also lands up on the foreclosure list.

Within a few years if it doesn't become a foreclosure or so the value of the real estate will increase. Therefore if you plan on living in the home for a decade or so, you can expect to make a good profit when you decide to sell. When it comes to real estate investing there are always a few risks involved. This is why it pays to shop around and truly examine a particular area or subdivision before making a purchase. Obviously you want to value of the property to increase over time and not plummet. Bad thing to have your prised investment foreclosured.

2007 Forclosure Serach