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Santa Maria Penthouse Back on the Market – $14.9M

October 11, 2010 by Lucas Lechuga

Santa Maria PH4901


As you may recall, Penthouse 4901 at Santa Maria was a bank-owned foreclosure that came onto the market this past May at an asking price of $12.9M.  Later that same very day, the status of the listing changed to "closed sale" and showed a purchase price of $11M, or $1100 per square foot.  Earlier today, I noticed that the amazing, 10,000 square foot penthouse at Santa Maria was re-listed last month, on September 10th, at an asking price of $14.9M, or $1490 per square foot.  There's no question that Penthouse 4901 at Santa Maria is one of Miami's most coveted luxury penthouses.  It will be interesting to see how long it remains on the market before garnering the interest of another buyer.  I'll be sure to keep the penthouse on my radar and report the sales price after it closes.

View additional pictures and listing information for Santa Maria PH4901.

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Juan

I went to a party there once and I can honestly say it was the nicest condo I’ve ever been in

Joe

This was a fishy deal back in the spring and it continues to be fishy. I hope someone at the bank is asking some questions.

Poor and Unemployed

It is easiest way of marketing without having to pay for it. It also sets a perception that it is worth that much.

Hugo P

It’s amazing how this website has changed.

Before there used to be a lot of interesting discussions here, now it has become just another brokerage website.

You deserve it Lucas, but just wishing you hade kept the essence a bit more

Frenchy

Hi Hugo, have you bought an apartment condo in Aventura yet? I remember you on here a long time ago talking about it.Have you heard from Renter Tom?

Joe

It’s funny how people keep complaining about the lack of discussions here. It takes two sides to have a discussion, but the bulls made it a point to run off the bears, so here we are. I used to enjoy Renter Tom’s commentary and links, etc., but I don’t blame him for not posting anymore.

Poor and Unemployed

Lucas

Any word of wisdom on the foreclosure mess? Are you seeing anyone trying to move back into their very own apartments like the guy on CNN trying to move back in to his $3.8 million house with his lawyer.

Joe

Except for maybe one case in a hundred, this new foreclosure scandal is just nonsense being drummed up by liberals and lawyers (but I repeat myself).

Anyone who thinks their mortgage is going to disappear because some piece of paper was lost or wasn’t notarized properly needs to get serious. All the foreclosure moratorium will do is delay the day of reckoning and keep the U.S. economy and r.e. market in the dumpster.

Joe

Remember, paying your mortgage is an affirmative defense to a foreclosure action. Going into court and saying, “No, your honor, I haven’t paid my mortgage for the last 17 months, but this piece of paper should have been signed by Person B instead of Person A” isn’t much of a defense. At best, it’s a delaying tactic.

Poor and Unemployed

Joe, Joe, Joe From WSJ “………… Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) engaged in a heated exchange last weekend on the issue with Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.) on “Fox News Sunday.” Mr. Cantor said that imposing a moratorium, as Ms. Wasserman Schultz urged, would shut down the housing industry. “People have to take responsibility for themselves,” Mr. Cantor said. “We need to get the housing industry going again. We don’t need government intervening in every step.” Ms. Wasserman Schultz responded: “Eric, you are not from a state where there are thousands and thousands of people being ejected from their… Read more »

Joe

Yes, it’s a total joke. The amazing thing is that even with millions of people not paying their mortgage, the economy is still in the tank. You can be sure the deadbeats are spending the hell out of their “free” money. I miss living in Miami, but I’m happy I’m living outside the U.S. right now. If I was working and paying taxes in the U.S., I’d be going nuts. I can’t believe all we’ve had are a few protests in D.C. The working people might be making a little noise with the Tea Party, but with 45% of American… Read more »

scrivener

Poor and Unemployed: Although I share your frustration with the pin head borrowers/dead beats/morons/(IDIOTAS!) who took out these mortgages and incurred these debts, you miss the point. The mortgage agreement is a matter of state law, not federal. While the Democratic majority would have you believe that the federal government can solve all of society’s problems and has the power to do so, a closer and more informed look at Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution reveals otherwise. This is going to be a long, ugly, draw-out process. But, much like the flu or dysentery, it must run… Read more »

gables

scriv, i think you might be targeting the wrong folks with your shorts. many of the financials are only servicing the mortgages. most of the mortgages have been sold off into securities. now there is an outside chance the banks may have to buy back some of those mortgages-but i really don’t think that will happen. pension funds and hedge funds own a large chunk of these securities. also the fed and china have purchased alot of the government backed securities. but not quite sure how you can short those entities. fannie and freddie were major contributors to the bubble.… Read more »

Poor and Unemployed

Scrivener Gables is right on money. Banks are mainly the servicers in this problem. Fannie and Freddie (Or Uncle Sam – or you and me) are the one holding the bag. I am sure there are lot of smart people are out there in Washington. Here is a simple calculation. Two million homes in default. If each were to pay average $1000 monthly rent – that would be $2,000,000,000. In a year that is $24 BILLION. This can be recaptured by throwing these people out just like our courts throw poor people out of homes when they are late in… Read more »

Poor and Unemployed

And we are debating about ending Bush era taxcuts! Too expensive for this country! Rich people get richer.

Everybody is EQUAL but some are MORE EQUAL. What a country! What a President!

scrivener

Gables & Poor and Employed: Fair enough. Maybe I am going after the wrong target. But…maybe not; particularly if Fannie and Freddy require the banks to buy back their loans because they were not properly securitized. If lenders are required to buy back the loans that were shifted to Fannie and Freddie – – and Gables, you are right, they may not have the capital to do so and maintain profitability – – then the lenders will take major financial hits. The shell game orchestrated by the present administration and Congress – – where by noncollectable mortgage debt was, only… Read more »

gables

poor and unemployed, your vision seems to get too clouded at times with politics to offer clear financial advice. don’t let your political bias influence your financial views. that is not a good path to prosperity long term. the majority of money is not made by ideology. scriv, my overall view is all of the money and effort spent over the past couple of years has been to help banks regain a strong financial footing to stabilize our financial markets. if the government were to turn around and force all the banks to take back those loans, that would have… Read more »

gables

and scriv, completely agree with you on the legal costs if fraud and/or fault is found in the securitization process. but the SEC is in charge of overseeing this, and as of now I have not seen much action on their part. if the SEC does not take action, i think it will be very hard for the buyers of these securities to take any successful action as well. buyer beware?

Meakes Me Think

Joe -“but the bulls made it a point to run off the bears, so here we are. I used to enjoy Renter Tom’s commentary and links, etc., but I don’t blame him for not posting anymore”. Gee, I seem to remember it the other way around. The bears ran off the bulls(remember what you guys did to AJ?). RT promised he would run off to Canada because this country was goind down the drain. Let’s just hope he is a man of his word. Now if only the rest of those who promised to leave this country would keep their… Read more »

Papercut

This condo looks like a lobby of 900 Biscaune. I just been there, and the similarity is obvious.

scrivener

“Bank Of America Getting Crushed As NY Fed And PIMCO Join Mortgage Putback Parade nteresting! Shares of Bank of America (BAC) are getting crushed on headlines that the New York Fed and PIMCO are about to jump on the Bank of America mortgage putback bandwagon. It’s particularly surprising to see the NYFED jump in on the action, since that means they’d be actively working to weaken Bank of America. PIMCO is private, so their only interest is making more money. It makes sense. All told, the parties may be looking for as much as $47 billion in reimbursements for soured… Read more »

gables

you can short BAC to about $10, but it probably cannot go down much further from there. I would back up the truck and load up on shares at that point. that bargain would be almost as good as when it was sub $5 a share in the depths of the crisis. remember it has already fallen from $18 earlier in the year. FYI BAC paid nearly $2.50 a share dividend before the crisis. you can bet it will pay at least half of that within the next 2 years. how would you like to own a stock paying you… Read more »

Poor and Unemployed

Gables, Scrivener – I do not offer financial advice. This is the worst administration this country has ever seen. This whole episode of robo-signers is just to energize the flock and get them to get off their a$$ and vote. They want the banks to stop foreclosures and scare / prevent the buyers from buying the foreclosed homes. They need time to create inflation, which will hold the home values, make the old debt go away. People who have money will lose, people who have debt will win. Perfect solution to wealth distribution. They have tried and have succeeded in… Read more »

Papercut

Lucas,I know. That penthouse looks just like 900Biscayne lobby. At least on this pic. Just my opinion, of course.

gables

haha! conspiracy theorists of the world, unite! P&U, you do realize the fed exists under two mandates-maintain price stability and ensure full employment (or growing economy). that is why they exist. they are doing exactly what they are supposed to do. deflation is a huge negative-more so than inflation. you may not like their actions-if so change the laws regarding the fed’s responsibility. last i saw, inflation was near 1%-too low for growth. and your $100 loaf of bread is nothing more than your imagination. my daily costs have actually dropped in the past two years. i bet yours have… Read more »

Dave

Gables on U&P

Thanks for cutting through P&G’s politcal agenda and clarifying the facts. It’s refeshing especially during election season.

Joe

gables — The robo-signer issue is a lot more than making banks “dot the i’s and cross the t’s.” Lawyers are going into court and getting judges to agree that anything less than the original mortgage document and/or original title is unsatisfactory for purposes of foreclosure. This is so absurd it’s beyond comprehension. Imagine if you had to keep the original title to your condo in your pocket at all times, and then, if you lose the title, or put it in the washing machine by mistake, or some guy spills coffee on it, your right to your home evaporates… Read more »

Meakes Me Think

Joe, you need to get the facts straight. Maybe you were stuck in Mexico “working” during the bush years but that is no excuse for posting blatantly false info. You choose to simply ignore Bush advocacy of home ownership in his push for the “ownership society”. You also choose to ignore the fact that Most sub prime loans were issued by unregulated independent mortgage companies and investment banks who were not regulated by CRA. The CRA has been law since 1977 but you and your right wing hacks find it politically expedient to blame this policy for the cause of… Read more »

Poor and Unemployed

OK Guys! What is QE2? Is it Queen Elizabeth II they are talking about or about printing money and giving it to WH to give to unions? Just because a girl gets raped once, that does not mean the next guy who comes along has the right to rape her. What was your opinion of the Miami real estate market in 2005? How many people did you tag as conspiracy theorist back then? Hell everyone was beating drums of Miami real estate and how it could never fall! How quickly we forget about the people who lied on the mortgage… Read more »

Joe

“No income housing” is awesome. Well done, P&U.

It’s amazing to me that we’re years into this r.e. meltdown and economic recession but most people still seem to think it’s cyclical rather than structural. The people and government of the U.S. have spent billions upon billions of dollars yet we’re still at zero inflation (or even deflation). Think about that for a second.

When the cable news programs show the riots in France and Greece, they should splash a “Coming Soon” graphic on the images, just like a movie preview. Those problems and harsh realities are indeed coming soon.

gables

Joe, have you forgotten about the Bush home “ownership society” and its great good for our country? Now you tell me, if the Republican’s controlled the WH for 8 years, and the Congress for 6 of those years, and did nothing to fix a problem you say they were aware of-what in the heck were they doing all those years? you said “At least 95% of the r.e. meltdown was the result of extending huge loans to people who had no business getting loans, which was a 20-year pet project of the Democrats that has come home to roost in… Read more »

Miami2009

Nice to see the blog picking up again. I visited Miami and this time spent some time in the Brickell area. I actually felt is was a nice contrast to the touristy SOBE scene. Just wondering if anyone can tell me how I can find out how well a building’s HOA is doing? In particular Emerald at Brickell. Will the association give me info directly? Gables I believe you were looking in this area as well. Any thoughts?

Poor and Unemployed

Gables, I hope you heard Shaun Donovan’s interview on CNBC this morning. – “All this is about making sure that the some of the banks do everything possible to keep people in their homes” Great news! So we have no foreclosures, no REO, no sales and no jobs! “Then I looked at the real data, and it tells a completely different story. Again do not let ideology confuse you with the facts.” ———— Where is real data? Glass is half full or half empty? According to data, we are not even in recession. Home sales are up and milllions of… Read more »

Joe

gables — Yes, I remember the “ownership” society that Bush liked to endorse. But I don’t recall Bush, or anyone in his administration, endorsing the issuance of $650,000, interest-only, no-down-payment mortgages to bus drivers. In fact, I remember quite the opposite, but as with Social Security reform and Medicare reform and Katrina, etc., Congress and our other “leaders” didn’t want to take charge, make tough choices, and risk a public backlash. They just wanted to keep the gravy train running, and now here we are, pretending it’s a big mystery how we arrived at this desolate economic destination. Also, I… Read more »

scrivener

Poor and Unemployed:

QE2 stands for “qualitative easing,” round 2. Alternatively, think of it as “qualitative easing 2.0”

scriv

gables

Joe, banks did not put themselves and investors into bad financial positions because of duress from the government. that is a huge copout where you try to make the dems scapegoats. banks got us into this mess because they are greedy and did not follow the rules. government oversight was negligent, i fully agree, but they did not put a gun to the banks head and say make this loan. there was a big scam going on by the banks, people buying homes and regulators. you need to remember to spread the blame around. and again, i point out this… Read more »

gables

P&U, can’t really follow your rant. the data i refer to is related to inflation-it is not occuring. and yes, the real data did point to a RE collapse-which is why i did not buy-even when i had a 50% mortgage match from my employer in 2006. home prices (in MIA) far exceeded income-hence the bubble. it was rather obvious to me at the time.

Joe

gables — You are revising history in a truly troubling way. It’s simply ludicrous to flatly blame “the banks” for the r.e. meltdown given that they couldn’t have extended the damn loans in the first place but for massive GOVERNMENT complicity. Do you really believe the banks would have been extending these putrid loans if Fannie and Freddie weren’t buying all the garbage paper the banks were writing? Again, I’m not some big pro-Bush, pro-Republican apologist, but the facts are the facts. Just like Bush tried to reform Social Security and got obliterated in the media, he tried to reform… Read more »

gables

the banks, and mostly mortgage brokers, were not properly underwriting these mortgages according to the rules fannie and freddie defined. now F&F failed in their part to check that the underwriting was correct to be sure. but the initial parties knowingly conducted sustantandard due diligence because they knew they would not have to hold onto the mortgage. they committed the improper action first, and F&F did nothing but enable it. but don’t blame the bar for the alcoholic walking out drunk. or do you want to live in a nanny state where the government tells you what you should and… Read more »

Papercut

Joe…you are funny. Banks own the government in this country. If you have a dog you probably have no clue which side is the head and which is the tail. “Banks were made to do it” is the most hillarious thing I’ve ever read.

gables

and there are many banks who moved through the RE and financial crisis with very few problems-because they stayed out of the broker and securitization game being played. yes they had to live off of smaller profits-but they chose to be not greedy and the result was not being bitten. banks could make money outside of this RE game-but many chose to participate in the game because it appeared to be a one-sided risk-reward scenario. in the financial world its called chasing yield-and typically does not end well for the last man holding the bag.

Joe

gables — So Fannie and Freddie shouldn’t have bought the paper, but somehow it’s still all the banks’ fault. That’s rich. We have a president of the United States who actively pressured banks to give loans to high-risk borrowers throughout the ’80s and ’90s, but somehow the whole r.e. implosion was entirely the banks’ fault. —— Papercut — Nice try, but I didn’t say the banks “were made to do it.” I simply pointed out the FACT that bank underwriting standards were under assault from the government and liberal interest groups dating back to the ’80s, and things snowballed in… Read more »

gables

joe, you said “So Fannie and Freddie shouldn’t have bought the paper, but somehow it’s still all the banks’ fault. That’s rich.” Yes. It takes two people to complete a deal. Either side can say, nope this is not correct. contrary to the media portrayal, the banks were not forced into making any type of loans at all. integrity and ethics should play a role in business. And i fault the banks far more than F&F in this case. And for full disclosure, I own alot of banking stocks so i have a vested interest in protecting them. but they… Read more »

gables

Miami2009, i have not had much success obtaining HOA information. although i will admit i have not looked that hard since serious purchase opportunities never really materialized. i really liked emerald-almost rented in the place a few years ago. the HOA costs seem excessively high-and rumor has it mortgage fraud was rampant. but the view from the pool deck atop the building is amazing-although rather windy. my preference is coral gables over brickel-but to each their own.

Poor and Unemployed

Some of you guys have a very selective reading! Too much noise and very little substance. Those big fat cat bank shareholders enjoyed losing their life savings, 401K’s and now they blame the poor deadbeats for not letting them lose more. With all their fancy 401k and their savings they think they own the world. They call me deadbeat but I have the boat, and a expensive cars not to mention the mansion I live in without paying my mortgage! What do these bank shareholder have to show? Good Credit1 Ha! Ha! Ha! Show it to Obama and he may… Read more »

Makes Me Think

Joe, seriously you really need to get you head checked. Are you saying the government made the banks give 729K loans to lettuce pickers with a 14K annual salary. The government made banks accept vastly over valued appraisal on run down shacks not suitable for an out house? Dude you are really out there. The truth is that sub-prime mess started with wall street bankers and their packaging of the junk and selling it to their clients all around the world. They sold it as AAA securities and clients couldn’t get enough of it. Independent Mtg Companies would give anyone… Read more »

Joe

gables — You seem to be drawing lines wherever you feel like it. You say it “takes two” to complete a deal, but you assign all the blame to the banks and not much to Fannie and Freddie (despite the fact Fannie and Freddie, if they had done their jobs, could have prevented most of the crap loans from being made in the first place). Then you switch gears and say the banks don’t owe put-backs to investors, despite what you call unethical activity by the banks. This makes no sense. Are you seriously saying that the banks’ unethical activity… Read more »

Joe

Makes Me Think — No, you get real. You and gables need to check your facts. As I’ve said repeatedly today and as just about every analyst now agrees, Fannie and Freddie could have preempted 90% of the r.e. mess by simply refusing to buy the first waves of crap paper issued by the banks. The MBS craze didn’t take off like wildfire among private investors until **AFTER** Fannie and Freddie had fanned the flames by encouraging and buying bad paper. Had Fannie and Freddie not bought the first waves of the crap — which gave it the appearance of… Read more »

Joe

Makes Me Think said: “As gables said if the Govt. forced banks to write those garbage why is it that some banks and savings institution had very little of that garbage on their books. Did they get some kind of exemption?”

— You’re dreaming. Please name some major banks that weren’t heavily involved in the r.e. boom/bust. A few smart ones might have jumped off the train right before it crashed (i.e., dumped the bad paper), but for you and gables to claim that a large number of major banks/financials totally sat out the r.e. boom is utter nonsense. It’s fiction.

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