This has to be a joke. The single worst urban housing project in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD, the hilarious and horrific "Chateaux on Central" bankrupt condo/castle project in Phoenix, supposedly was taken out of foreclosure by a new lender and will restart. In other words, some fool just bought the "pets.com" of the housing bubble out of foreclosure auction.
Well, that's lovely and all, but dear god tell me there's not one single solitary fool in this world who'd buy one of these eyesores. Even for $100,000, let alone $4 million...
Anyone want to bet the "developer" and "lender" both go belly-up too, with not one single unit sold? Man, I smell a rat. (note - someone in Phoenix keep an eye on this project for us and keep us posted - maybe even go tour the model home and make an offer!)
Chateaux project is revived
Construction of the mini-castles that have been sitting half built on Phoenix's Central Avenue should start again soon.Chateaux on Central got new financing last week, and the foreclosure sale of the property was called off.Mortgages Ltd. is now backing the $65 million development.
Construction of the mini-castles that have been sitting half built on Phoenix's Central Avenue should start again soon.Chateaux on Central got new financing last week, and the foreclosure sale of the property was called off.Mortgages Ltd. is now backing the $65 million development.
And the project's developers are bullish on when they can complete the project and see the first buyer move in.
In November, days after a 30-ton copper turret was lowered onto one of the multimillion homes, Chateaux's lender, Desert Hills Bank, filed to foreclose. Early this year, construction stopped on the property on the northwestern corner of Central and Palm Lane.Then on Jan. 30, Central PHX Partners filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
A foreclosure sale date for the property initially was set for February and was pushed back a few times before being called off.
Scott Coles of Mortgages Ltd. said Chateaux would bring "buyers back to the city."But those buyers will have to have deep pockets. The five-story homes that come with private elevators, wine cellars, maid's quarters, private movie theaters and Viking appliances are priced between $2 million and $4 million.
23 comments:
Anyone want to bet they go condo hotel or quarter share.
That is a type of Timeshare called Fractionals, (buy 3 months and share the other 9 months with other rich people) for the wealthy.
http://www.condohotelcenter.com/
fractionals/overview.html
ARDA (American Resort Developers Association or www.ARDA.org)was here in Orlando last week and I attend every year.
The new trend is for the uber rich Timeshare Developer to buy these condo's that have gone belly up, for a bargin and re-invent them into Condo Hotels or Fractionals.
Their rich clients like good deals as much as the rest of us.
You understand, they can have million dollar homes in International locations for 1/4 th of the cost.
Just sharing, not endorsing.
Anyway, makes very good business planning because the wealth re- distribution is $US Dollars from the middle class moving up to make the rich richer. We have watched it right here for over a year. The successful developers know timeshare buyers are the rich today, not the middle or lower income consumers of by gone days.
Market shift reaction,imo.
Keith, pets.com is ranked really well in alexa: pets.com traffic and it sits MUCH higher than any housing crash blog that I know of...
Who would want that anyway... looks like the Excalibur in Las Vegas, does it come with nightly jousting matches?
Slightly off topic.
I went into our Best Buy today, in San Bernardino, California. The lack of traffic in the store was palpable.
I wonder if the housing crunch is hitting consumer spending here now. If the same thing happens next week, I'm going to short Best Buy.
no inflation here, just 87,000 dollar troublesome condos selling? for a million bucks!
More inventory in Phoenix? Brilliant!
Don't miss the part at the bottom for you anxious home buyers. Don't be a fool, don't buy where the typical dolts buy!
Where are the hottest Valley neighborhoods for home buyers now? Sunnyslope, north Phoenix and downtown Phoenix, according to the real estate search site www.trulia.com.
Same thing here in Tracy,ca Best Buy dead hmmmmm
Whoever buys this thing can melt the 30 tons of copper and sell it for scrap to recover some of their money. Compared to normal condos and townhomes that will become worthless this one is not a total loss.
Come on guys. Members of the SCA need somewhere to live. And some of them might be wealthy anough to afford this...
"Where are the hottest Valley neighborhoods for home buyers now? Sunnyslope, north Phoenix and downtown Phoenix, according to the real estate search site www.trulia.com. "
Would you stop posting your endless brain farts here, you moron!
"I wonder if the housing crunch is hitting consumer spending here now. "
I would assume since fewer and fewer people can "tap into the equity of their home" to buy that big screen. We should be in a full blown recession by mid-summer and we will then see all the white trash, who were living like the rich the last few years, moving into their parents' basement.
Dude. Come on. Anything that gets attention will get paid for.
The rich aren't don't necessarily have good taste, and besides, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I drove by that development last week. It was really joke. The light rail goes rigth by it also. I will try and get more information on it as they work to finish the units.
I wonder if the housing crunch is hitting consumer spending here now. If the same thing happens next week, I'm going to short Best Buy.
They're starting to see a rise in missed payments at places like Harley Davidson Credit, where people were suckered by the "Wealth Effect" to over-extend and get their hog. Of course, Americans are on a spending/borrowing spree the likes of which we've never seen in history. It truly is unprecedented.
As the old mantra goes, "ya' only live once". The outcome of the attitude of "I can always re-fi later" is coming home to roost.
You can bet the new financing agreement was a great deal or this wouldn't have happened. Afterall, look at the $200 million LEND got and the deal they had to agree to to get it... 13% interest rate on the $200 million plus a load of stock warrants exercisable at $10 a share (which at the time were two dollars under the stock price.)
That thing is really ugly and should be demolisheg, it sits in the middle off 125 degree heat. I wish I could short Phoenix.
the thing about those copper turrets is that they will have to hire some webacks to get up there polish them from time to time since copper has a tendency to become tarnished.
What an absolute joke, it's in a ghetto section of Phoenix north of downtown and at the southern end of the Central Ave. corridor. There's an IHOP on the corner that's a known place to buy & sell drugs. There is nothing around as far as good restaurants or anything like that, the only appeal is close proximity to the ballparks. (Maybe they think ball players will buy? Not likely, as it's in a crap neighborhood.)
Anyone who could afford that kind of money will buy in Paradise Valley or Arcadia or Biltmore Circle which are very nice classy areas with tons of amenities for people with money, not in that rathole section of town.
Even more realistically, people who can afford that kind of money generally don't live in Arizona in the first place.
www.scottsdale-sucks.com
They've got to do something with it & the new bank/developer likely got it on a discount to make the numbers work better. Its already approved so that and alot of other sunk costs are not an issue for the new lender/developer. Still makes no sense in the greater scheme of things, but its been that way from the beginning so why let that stop you now? Twisted/contorted & corrupt logic, I agree but its likely the best they can do in an illogical situation that's been created.
pets.com is ranked really well in alexa: pets.com traffic and it sits MUCH higher than any housing crash blog that I know of...
Yeah, except the era of buying and selling things (and paying the rent with) "eyeballs" and "stickiness" ended promptly in 2001.
I have driven by that thing a couple of times - i always wondered what it was. Thanks!
Quick update, Scott Coles, the lender mentioned in the article just wilted under the pressure of keeping up the pretense to his investors that his company was actually making money and killed himself.
Still left to be determined is how badly the bag holding investors are going to be burned.
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