Are the Risk-Takers Winners- Or Not?

The exit strategy was important in O.J. Buigas’ $13.5 million purchase of Coral Lakes, a Cape Coral community by bankrupt Tousa Homes.

The real estate investor had bought 116 new homes and wanted them sold in 30 days. Prices were slashed, with townhomes offered from $86,000 and single-family homes in the low $100,000s. In four days, 80 homes sold at a level of frenzy that real estate agent Denny Grimes equates to the 2005 boom in the fast-growing Lee County city. In 20 days this past spring, the neighborhood was sold out.

"We happened to believe that selling faster in a falling market is better than trying to trickle it out. You need an aggressive plan to create a price point the public will deem a good deal," says Grimes, president of Fort Myers-based Denny Grimes & Co. "If you sell it halfway through and stall, you’re going to have your hands full selling the rest of it."

That headline-making transaction is among at least two dozen deals in the past year that reflect how some local, regional and foreign investors, builders and developers are taking advantage of low-priced deals in the real estate tsunami.

"While a lot of people say, ‘Oh, they’re vultures, they’re bottom feeders, they’re terrible,’ the truth of the matter is they’re a very necessary and integral part of forming the bottom [of the market], so the correction can proceed," says Jack McCabe, owner of Deerfield Beach-based McCabe Research and Consulting.

WAITING FOR THE VULTURES

Southwest Florida’s devastated housing market has produced a buyers’ market, and those who are willing to take the risk are buying lots, model homes and condo towers. Transactions in the past year have been as low as nearly $6,000 per lot, according to data collected by Naples real estate expert Ross McIntosh.