- Existing-home sales soar 23.5% in October
- On the House: How many loans are too many?
- Handiwork from 'Mr. Fix-It'
- Top Dollar
- Q&A: What's wrong with cash?
- Pay attention to HOAs
- Staging for the holidays
- On the Market: Priciest homes in the region
- Find a Home
- Search Open Houses
- Search Recent Home Sales
- Sign up for your free e-mail real estate deals
RELATED STORIES
On the House: Real estate woes elsewhere hit home in Philly
Philadelphia and environs haven't been rocked as hard by the housing downturn as many other places. Still, area residents and developers may be invested in those other locales, and that can bring those problems to our door.
Last week, I wrote about a South Carolina family facing $100,000 in subcontractor liens because a South Jersey home builder left the buyers, and the subs, high and dry.
Then, there was the fellow who moved here from Florida and was unable to sell or rent two condos he had bought as investments near St. Petersburg. His lender foreclosed but dragged its feet for more than a year, and the owner, still paying expenses and taxes on the condos, asked how to accelerate the process.
Today's tale, while not as angst-ridden as the other two, offers yet another example of the kinds of problems people here are facing as they and their hard-earned money venture into real estate markets in other parts of the country.
Karen Inverso of Springfield, Delaware County, has - or so they would be considered in better times - an abundance of riches: several building lots in Cape Coral, a sun-splashed resort community on Florida's Gulf Coast.
These days, however, Inverso doesn't think the lots are worth very much. And the data bear her out: One in every 14 houses in Cape Coral-Fort Myers had a foreclosure filing in the first half of the year, Realty Trac reports.
"The taxes have gone down quite a bit due to the decreasing market value of them," Inverso says.
"Are there ways to rid oneself of properties that are no longer wanted?" she asks. "The properties do not have mortgages. We have thought of options, like giving them to someone, but this would give that person the obligation of paying taxes and having a responsibility."
Inverso wants to know whether the City of Cape Coral will take the properties. "In other words . . . is it possible to just 'get rid of properties' - to get rid of any responsibility and liability for them?"
Temple University economist William Dunkelberg, who is retiring to a house he built in Cape Coral on a lot he paid $100,000 for a decade ago, says many vacant lots today are going for $5,000 to $10,000 - if they sell.
Rather than offer her lots to the city, which has an abundance of abandoned lots to care for, Dunkelberg suggests hiring a real estate lawyer.
"I would sell the lots," not donate them, said Jay LaGace, of LaGace & Whitt Partners Re/Max Realty Team of Cape Coral.
"People are buying them," he said. "They just need to be priced correctly. With the downturn in new construction in our area, the only buyers are investors who plan on holding for a few years until the market bounces back."
Cape Coral might be interested in a donation of the lots, said Molly Liebegott of the city's real estate division. "It would depend on the location and any other physical conditions that may exist on the properties," used for road improvements, parkland and storage-well sites.
If the city can't use the land, Liebegott said, the parcels would remain on the Lee County tax rolls. If the taxes were not paid, they would be sold at a tax-deed sale.
Inquirer real estate writer Alan J. Heavens is the author of "Remodeling on the Money" (Kaplan Publishing). His home-improvement columns appear Fridays in Home & Design. Contact him at 215-854-2472 or aheavens@phillynews.com.
