Billionaire Jeff Greene

South Florida billionaire and former U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Greene told Fox Business that people will someday look back on 2011 as “the golden day” for real estate investing, and those who didn’t get in will be kicking themselves for missing out while inventory is high and interest rates are “lower than they’ve ever been.”

Greene, who is worth an estimated $1.8 billion, said that in the past year he’s finally begun to get back into the real estate game after seven years of sitting on the sidelines and will “absolutely” be buying more property over the next few months.

Among his recent investments: a distressed condominium conversion site at 62 Wooster Street in Soho, which he bought for $26.27 million in April, and 260 units in a fractured Florida condo where he says he’s currently getting a 9 percent return on his investment now that he’s renting them out.

Adam Adache, President of Adache Real Estate, LLC

By Mark Scott
Smart Business Magazine
May 2011 issue

Adam Adache needed to make a big change at Adache Real Estate LLC. If it was going to work, he couldn’t give in to the panic that was consuming much of the real estate industry.

“You have no option but to make it work,” says Adache, founder, president and CEO at the 20-employee real estate company. “You have to have that mentality. You run a business and a business is always susceptible to a bad economy and things that might happen along the way. You might have to change your business model. But in your mind, you have to be confident that you’re going to make it work.

“If you have that mentality, you’re not going to sit there and think about the worst-case scenario. You’re going to spend time analyzing and really diving into the heart of the problem and finding out what your true obstacles are. That’s when you’re going to make your decision and make your changes.”

The change Adache had to make was a merger of his firm’s project sales and marketing division with its bulk real estate division. The economic crash was leaving a growing number of distressed properties unsold and Adache needed a way to get them off the market.

By merging these two divisions, he thought the firm would be better able to use its resources to cobble together deals that would get the properties sold that were bringing down the rest of the market.
“We convert an offer that is rejected into a new opportunity and that new opportunity is still a revenue-driving opportunity,” Adache says.

The challenge for Adache was he couldn’t just gather everyone together and tell them, “Everything you’ve been doing is bad and it doesn’t work anymore.”

“When you’re coming in to sit down with your staff and tell them that your current model isn’t working, it has a negative connotation to it,” Adache says. “So you have to quickly know how to spin it into a positive. I talked about the successes we had in the current approach. I talked about how we need to make it more successful, which I think is what every company strives for.”

Be open about the obstacles your business is facing and why what you’ve been doing isn’t working anymore. But make sure you follow that up with a discussion about what needs to be done to get things turned around.

“You have to explain, ‘I’m right there with you,’” Adache says. “They have to buy in to the long-term opportunities of remaining positive. The only way they are going to do that is if you paint the picture why we’re months away or even days away from turning the company around for the positive. You have to paint the picture and then get them involved in painting the picture even better.”

As you move forward in the discussion and gather input, keep in mind that you need to be the one who puts together the plan that hopefully gets you out of your funk.

“Give some ideas and a general direction of where you’re going to sail the ship,” Adache says. “Along the way, you can make some detours based on the input of everyone you have. Be open and simultaneously searching for other options while you’re moving ahead, even if it appears you’re moving in the right direction and things are going good. You need a backup plan and a backup plan for your backup plan.”

Most important, keep an open mind and an open ear.

“If you’re too hard-headed and not open-minded enough and you don’t listen to your people, you could crash and burn on whatever you’re doing,” Adache says.

Lay it all out there

Adam Adache is all about projecting a winning attitude and being an optimist when things look bad. But that doesn’t mean he steers away from bad news that his employees at Adache Real Estate LLC need to hear.

“Our company, just like any company, hasn’t been averse to layoffs and the changing market,” says Adache, the firm’s founder, president and CEO. “Fortunately, we’re growing again and we are back on a hiring phase. But we had to make changes. When you have to lay off employees and cut pay, it’s not a positive discussion. In order to get them to buy in to everything, you can’t say, ‘OK, this person is laid off and your salary is cut. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.’ You have to spell out the short-term goals and long-term goals in a plan and explain how you’re going to overcome it.”

You need to find a way to stoke the passion of your people to help overcome this latest challenge.

“They can’t just say, ‘I’m going to do it because it’s part of my job,’” Adache says. “When you’re in business selling a product or service, it’s our belief you have to do it with passion. You can’t do it with passion unless you buy in.”

How to reach: Adache Real Estate LLC, (954) 566-7400 or www.adachere.com

It is obvious that the number of foreclosure properties on the market has dwindled given the foreclosure moratorium and that they will rise again as cases are open once again in continue due process. Still, it is very good news because it shows there is plenty of interest in the local housing market and that the inventory is not stagnant, quite the contrary it continues to be absorbed.

This is the article from the Sun Sentinel, written by Paul Owers:

South Florida home sales rise in February

By Paul Owers March 21, 2011

South Florida home sales increased in February for a second consecutive month, the Florida Realtors said Monday.

Broward County recorded 909 sales of existing homes, up 16 percent from a year ago. In Palm Beach County, 738 homes traded hands, up 32 percent from a year-ago February.

Sales continue to be bolstered by investors paying cash. In fact, all-cash deals nationwide hit a record 33 percent last month, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Still, tight credit and lingering issues with home appraisals are hurting some deals, Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the national Realtors’ group, said in a statement.

“This tug and pull is causing a gradual but uneven recovery,” he said.

Prices, meanwhile, showed resiliency in February.

Broward’s median home price was $167,000, up 22 percent from a year ago and 1 percent from January. Palm Beach County’s median price was $205,400, down 6 percent from last year but up 7 percent from January.

Beginning in January, real estate groups changed the way they report sales and prices in Broward to the Florida Realtors.

The Realtor Association of Greater Fort Lauderdale said the figures now include sales and prices from three other local associations doing business in Broward. These groups haven’t provided their Broward statistics to the state Realtors’ board until now, says Richard Barkett, chief executive of the Fort Lauderdale association.

Barkett said his trade group will factor in sales and prices of these other transactions for each month of 2010 so that the 2011 comparisons will be accurate.

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. —Adache Real Estate, LLC, a prominent real estate brokerage firm based in South Florida, has officially announced the debut of its proprietary CRM software, a cutting-edge technology the firm has been testing and now implementing to streamline leads and manage inventory. The software, called Adache Sales, is integrated into the company’s dedicated websites: AdacheRE.com, AdacheREO.com, and Preconstructionnetworks.com.

Adache Sales is currently being used by the company’s agents to manage a high volume of incoming leads from its websites as well by its development division to manage inventory, leads and sales on entire development projects.

Since so much of the real estate industry and sales process is mobile, Adache also developed a cell phone application for the software, enabling the sales team to access their leads, customers, and contracts anywhere in the world. Principals of Adache can assign new leads to their agents, and developers and project owners can retrieve sales updates in real time, and information can be exchanged among staff.

“Our Customer Relationship Management program is quickly changing the way our industry manages itself and others,” explained Adam Adache, principal of Adache Real Estate. “We first recognized the need to more efficiently manage our leads and listings when we saw the spike in foreclosures. This software can expedite the sales process accurately, and can be adapted to work with other real estate product as well.”

In fact, Ultimate Holdings, a UK-based investor and asset manager that is selling Village at Town Center near Orlando, has sold 60 units in an eight-week period, utilizing the software. The firm retained Adache as exclusive sales agency for the 240-unit project.

“We were overwhelmingly impressed with how well the system manages inventory,” offered James Black, managing partner of Ultimate Holdings, a fund management and property advisement firm based in London. “We believed that a portable, lightning-fast program that makes sure nothing falls through the cracks is a surefire way to improve our bottom line, and we were right.”

“Taking the lead and developing software in a down market just reinforces our commitment to, and belief in, the industry,” Adache added. “When the local market rebounds, we will be well equipped to meet the most demanding needs and offer far beyond what other traditional real estate firms can.”

In the interim, Adache is focusing much of its attention to the international buying market, which makes up all the sales to date at Village at Town Center. As a multi-disciplinary firm, Adache is also engaged in closing bulk sales for developers and helping them acquire properties and resell them.

Headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Adache Real Estate is a technology driven firm that also employs the traditional approach to marketing residential and commercial real estate throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico. The firm also operates an office in Bogotá, Colombia, from where it maintains relationships with multiple brokers and buyers throughout South America, Europe and other regions. In addition the Company has multiple broker partners and affiliates throughout the world. Visit AdacheRE.com or call 954-566-7400 for more information.

• Follow us on:
  Facebook at www.facebook.com/foreclosuressofla
  Twitter http://twitter.com/adachere
  Blog: http://adachereo.com/blog/

By Michael Gerrity
Real Estate Channel
8/25/10 1:35 PM EST

(FT. LAUDERDALE, FL) — South Florida based Adache Real Estate has announced today that they have formed a new platform to handle the growing back-log of rejected bank bulk sale listings.

Adache has merged its Project Sales and Marketing Division with its Bulk Real Estate division in order to facilitate quick transactions on stagnant bulk deals. This temporary merger is designed to facilitate the sale of large amounts of inventory by offering a one-stop solution that includes aggressive marketing and management. In the current economic climate, a significant number of offers are being rejected by the banks and, as a result, bulk inventory has remained stagnant.

“There are numerous bulk properties out there yet many of them are not getting sold,” stated Adam Adache, president of Adache Real Estate. “While banks certainly would prefer to move properties, the trend has been to place unrealistic valuations on bulk sales. Property can no longer be appraised in a retail market context if they are being sold in a wholesale format.”

In response, Adache Real Estate is offering to alleviate the lenders’ and developers’ precarious position by presenting a holistic approach to selling. Adache is even capable of committing capital to effectuate upgrades to projects in scenarios where property owners are cash strapped.

Adache’s modified business strategy has already proven successful: the company sold 62 of 122 total units at Village at Town Center, in Davenport, Florida in just three months. More than 40 of these units have already closed.

The company maintains a vast international network of buyers and brokers in many countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Colombia, Venezuela, and South Africa, among others. The company utilizes proprietary inventory management software to manage a high volume of sales and contracts that are originating from these markets.

“We have the platform and network in place to duplicate this success over and over again,” stated Adache. “The days of order-taking in real estate are gone. You have to actually go out and get sales, which is exactly what we do.”

“Any project that does not have an adequate sales organization representing it nor an aggressive marketing campaign will continue to suffer in this market,” explained Adache. “We look at each project with a very critical eye to determine what it needs to be marketable and then if we like it, commit the necessary capital to improve it and get it sold.”

To further its commitment to the deployment of more comprehensive marketing to banks Adache has hired Jay Robins as Director of Business Development to identify banks and other sellers that may require Adache’s unique set of services, and Adolfo Salgueiro, who previously held that position, was promoted to VP of Operations.

• Follow us on:
  Facebook at www.facebook.com/foreclosuressofla
  Twitter http://twitter.com/adachere
  Blog: http://adachereo.com/blog/

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. (August 2010)

“There are numerous bulk properties out there yet many of them are not getting sold,” stated Adam Adache, president of Adache Real Estate. “While banks certainly would prefer to move properties, the trend has been to place unrealistic valuations on bulk sales. Property can no longer be appraised in a retail market context if they are being sold in a wholesale format.”

In response, Adache Real Estate is offering to alleviate the lenders’ and developers’ precarious position by presenting a holistic approach to selling. Adache is even capable of committing capital to effectuate upgrades to projects in scenarios where property owners are cash strapped.

Adache’s modified business strategy has already proven successful: the company sold 62 of 122 total units at Village at Town Center, in Davenport, Florida in just three months. More than 40 of these units have already closed.

The company maintains a vast international network of buyers and brokers in many countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Colombia, Venezuela, and South Africa, among others. The company utilizes proprietary inventory management software to manage a high volume of sales and contracts that are originating from these markets.

“We have the platform and network in place to duplicate this success over and over again,” stated Adache. “The days of order-taking in real estate are gone. You have to actually go out and get sales, which is exactly what we do.”

“Any project that does not have an adequate sales organization representing it nor an aggressive marketing campaign will continue to suffer in this market,” explained Adache. “We look at each project with a very critical eye to determine what it needs to be marketable and then if we like it, commit the necessary capital to improve it and get it sold.”

To further its commitment to the deployment of more comprehensive marketing to banks Adache has hired Jay Robins as Director of Business Development to identify banks and other sellers that may require Adache’s unique set of services, and Adolfo Salgueiro, who previously held that position, was promoted to VP of Operations.

About Adache Real Estate, LLC

Headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Adache Real Estate is a technology driven sales and marketing firm that specializes in residential and commercial real estate. The firm also operates sales offices throughout the world where it maintains relationships with broker partners and affiliates. Visit AdacheRE.com or call 954-566-7400 for more information.

• Follow us on:
  Facebook at www.facebook.com/foreclosuressofla
  Twitter http://twitter.com/adachere
  Blog: http://adachereo.com/blog/

It’s been a while since my last posting as still lots of goings on in the wild and weird world concerning Chinese tainted drywall.  Since the first court ruling last month, awarding 7 affected families with a multi-million dollar judgment-  a few major battles have been won and some lost as the government and the business sector are still coming to terms with what the realities are, (which I have been writing about for nearly 2 years now).

The positives include Fanny and Freddie ensuing lending rules and mortgage forbearance for those affected to the signing of law from Governor Charlie Christ mandating property county appraisers to re-evaluate the taxes for these properties affected to $0, with the owners only responsible for their land valuations.

To the monumental award for Armin and Lisa Seifart, the Coconut Grove homeowners in the nation’s first jury trial over defective Chinese drywall, who have been awarded $2.5 million in damages from a Miami-Dade County Circuit Court jury.

The damages were apportioned among several defendants, including 55 percent of the damages assessed to Miami-based Banner Supply, 35 percent to Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin and 5 percent to each of the importers and exporters. The damages include $100,000 per month of the nearly three years when the Seifarts’ could not live at home. Attorney Ervin Gonzalez had asked the jury for $4.4 million for his clients, and while the judgment fell short of his expectations it has already sent tidal-waves into the community.

The Miami jury’s award — and now the settlement of the bellwether case in New Orleans — has legal ramifications for thousands of similar cases across the nation.

New Orleans Louisiana, in what was to start the next wave of jury based trials seems to have seen the waves become ripples as the defendants and their representatives are “settling” with the victims and avoiding trial.

The settlement — confirmed late Friday by the Herald-Tribune — marks yet another win for consumers fighting with the tainted drywall’s manufacturers, and came the same day as a jury in Miami awarded about $2.5 million to a Florida couple who fled their dream home because of the material.

While these are all positive strides there still seems to be some legal questioning regarding the law that Christ signed.  According to legal pundits the law as stated only is in effect for single-family homes, and does not cover the valuations of condos, townhomes or villas.  Leaving thousands of affected owners out in the cold as this is debated in the next session of the Florida Congress.

Lastly, and probably most problematic, is in the recent finding that Bacteria Pervasively Contaminating Chinese Drywall Conclusively Identified  which now shows the chemical contamination emitted from the drywall.

Ian Wolinsky is a licensed agent with Adache Real estate LLC in Ft. Lauderdale specializing in distressed Real property and has been working with families affected with this epidemic since it was first documented in 2008.  If you think your home or property is affected, its best to get an inspection performed to be certain, which will determine your next step in the action plan.  If you have any questions he can be reached at his free information website at www.chinesedrywall-solutions.com or by phone at (786) 277-8594.

For a list of all available foreclosures in South Florida, please visit www.adacheREO.com. For commercial real estate opportunities, and real estate bulk sales in Florida, visit us at www.AdacheREO.com/bulk.

• Follow us on:
  Facebook at www.facebook.com/foreclosuressofla
  Twitter http://twitter.com/adachere
  Blog: http://adachereo.com/blog/

Village at Town Center, Davenport, Florida

By Mary Shanklin
The Orlando Sentinel
May 3, 2010

ORLANDO, Fla. – May 4, 2010 – Condominiums are now selling faster in Central Florida than they did at the peak of the real estate market four years ago, when renters, retirees and eager urbanites, seized by condo fever, were snapping them up in Metro Orlando at the rate of 20 a day.

In March, buyers closed on 790 condo units in the four-county metro area – 25 percent more than in March 2006, when real estate agents were celebrating a then-astronomical 630 sales.

With the region’s population basically stagnant and unemployment at or near record levels, the question is: Who is buying all of these units?

According to brokers, industry reports and others, foreign buyers are largely behind the surge.

For example, about 80 percent of the sales these days at the Mosaic at Millenia, a south Orlando apartment complex that went condo in 2004, have been to international investors.

“They are paying all cash, and their primary purpose is to get a monthly rented unit that provides cash flow with the expectation of some appreciation,” said Alec String, a broker with Coldwell Banker NRT Development Advisors in Longwood.

Unlike the deals that drove condo speculators during the homebuying frenzy of the mid-2000s, these sales aren’t based on incentives or inflated promises of rental income, String added. And they aren’t paying inflated prices, either: In March 2006, the median price of the condos sold in Metro Orlando that month was $159,600; by March of this year, the median had plummeted 69 percent to $49,700.

The sharp decline in prices since the market’s peak in 2005-06 is part of the reason Florida accounted for almost one-fourth of all U.S. property purchases by international buyers in late 2008 and early 2009, according to a report by the National Association of Realtors. California was second with a 13 percent share of the foreign market.

Nationwide, those foreign buyers paid a median of $247,100 during the period studied, compared with a median of $198,100 for all buyers. About 70 percent of the purchases were single-family homes, 18 percent were multifamily, and the rest were commercial properties.

In Florida, most foreign buyers hail from the United Kingdom, other parts of Europe, and Canada.

James Black, managing partner of a London-based company, Ultimate Holdings, said the British outfit has raised about $50 million to purchase distressed properties in the U.S., starting with properties in the Orlando area.

In February, Ultimate Holdings purchased 122 units in a 240-unit Davenport condominium called the Village at Town Center, paying a combined $5.38 million. The company has improved the units, which start at $54,000 for a one-bedroom model, and says it has 37 buyers under contract. Most of its customers are from the U.K., Canada and Switzerland.

“We’re a group that has invested in both the U.K. and in multiple locations outside the U.K.,” Black said. “We’re fairly experienced in looking for value …and pretty much the best value lay in Florida, and specifically in Orlando. We were very confident that the bottom has passed, and the belief is that the city can recover.”

Black said Ultimate Holdings is also negotiating to buy an apartment complex on Semoran Boulevard near Orlando International Airport, and it is shopping for deals in Miami and Chicago.

A recent survey by the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate ranked Orlando 12th among U.S. cities for investment opportunities. The group’s 200 members own more than $842 billion worth of real estate globally, including $304 billion in the U.S.

“They really have expressed some strong interest this year, but they’re having difficulties finding bargains,” said Jim Fetgatter, the group’s chief executive.

The last time members felt as strongly about U.S. real estate was in 2003, Fetgatter said. In the group’s fourth-quarter survey, two-thirds of those who responded plan to increase their U.S. holdings this year compared with 2009.

An influx of foreign investors snapping up the region’s distressed real estate is a two-edged sword, said Bob Daday, founder of the 40-member Oviedo HOA Presidents Association.

“People hoping to sell their condos or town homes – it’s good for them that they can sell,” Daday said. “The flip side is that we have 20 rentals in our community, and the difference in how they are kept – between homeowners and investors – is quite obvious.”

The owner-occupied places, he said, generally have manicured lawns and attractive paint jobs, while the rental units tend to give the appearance that the property’s owner doesn’t care.

Village at Town Center, Orlando

By Adam Adache
adam@adachere.com
954-566-7400

After a stagnant two years in Florida’s condo and housing market, inventory is starting to move again as record low prices attract home buyers and once again lure investors and buyers from all over the world. Among the most stagnant has been newly constructed condo projects throughout the state where developers had their hands tied due to projects being linked to exorbitant purchase prices on land mirrored by high mortgage amounts that were prohibiting developers from discounting units. As banks and other lending institutions continue to file foreclosure actions on these projects in record numbers, bulk buyers with “new development money” are buying these once distressed properties for pennies on the dollar and passing the savings along to the public at “foreclosure-style” prices.

Both the bulk buyers combined with lender discounts to developers’ existing mortgages are bringing recently built development projects back in the forefront. Adache Real Estate, through its bulk sales division is working with several buying groups and is helping these groups with both the project acquisition process as well as reselling the units individually for the new owner after the projects are acquired. We currently have offers in to purchase projects in various cities including Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Orlando.

What is interesting is the speed the individual units are being sold after a project is bought out. Some projects are actually experiencing buying frenzies that have not been seen in Florida for quite some time.  The truth is that if it’s the right project at the right price it will sell quickly.

Failed projects all over Florida are being revived by new ownership and the ability to sell at steep discounts. One example of this is the Village at Town Center in the Orlando area, 20 minutes south of Disney (www.VTChome.com). The project consists of 240 condominium units that were originally selling between $200-250,000 per unit during the hot market. Prior to the real estate market downturn the old developer sold nearly half of the project before sales came to a halt. Last February Ultimate Holdings, a British developer and investment company, bought all of the remaining 122 units at the project and are selling the units to the public for an average price of $75,000 per unit. This equates to a 70% discount from where prices once were.

“We are excited about the opportunities that the Florida real estate market has to offer at this time,” stated James Black, a managing partner for Ultimate Holdings. “We have made Florida our main investment focus and are happy to offer quality product at great prices to the public. We believe that the current market offers a time to purchase real estate that we may never see again in our life time.”

Over 40 contracts for Village at Town Center have been written within the first month of sales, mostly from International buyers looking to take advantage of the steep discounts. Most of the units on sale are already rented which guarantees income from the very first day.

For a list of all available foreclosures in South Florida, please visit www.adacheREO.com. For commercial real estate opportunities, and real estate bulk sales in Florida, visit us at www.AdacheREO.com/bulk.

• Follow us on:
  Facebook at www.facebook.com/foreclosuressofla
  Twitter http://twitter.com/adachere
  Blog: http://adachereo.com/blog/