Old Naples real estate is seeing a resurgence, especially the waterfront.

“It’s an amazing market right now,” Naples hotelier and developer Phil McCabe said. “It really is very encouraging. I think it defies the recession that you hear about out there.”

McCabe built three single-family estates in Old Naples on the west side of Gulf Shore Boulevard on spec, meaning he didn’t have buyers. He recently sold one in an all-cash deal for $5.5 million.

“It was decorator ready, meaning it didn’t have any flooring, trim or hardware,” he said. “The bathrooms weren’t finished. The buyer will probably put another $1 million into the house.”

He built his homes between Central Avenue and First Avenue South. The other two are getting lookers and he expects them to sell soon.

Nearby, a two-story waterfront estate, stretching more than 12,000 square feet on the south side of Central off Gulf Shore Boulevard, sold in September 2009 for $17.5 million. It was marketed privately so it never showed up in the Multiple Listing Service, or MLS. It sits on 1.37 acres.

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Back in March, Naples Realtor Bill Earls quietly sold a six-bedroom, two-story mansion in Port Royal for $22 million.

Million-dollar homes continue to move in the posh neighborhood that sits between the Gulf of Mexico and Naples Bay. Sales have picked up during the past six months.

“There have been a lot of big sales lately,” said Earls, a broker with John R. Wood Realtors.

Sometimes, these luxury homes are sold privately, meaning they’re never marketed for sale in the multiple listing service, or MLS. These sales can happen under the radar, generating little attention in the media or anywhere else. You may never even see a for-sale sign in the yard.

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A federal judge’s recent ruling, that outlines the recommended protocol for fixing problems caused by defective Chinese drywall, provides, among other things, a gauge homeowners can use to evaluate contractors’ proposals, according to an attorney representing homeowners.

Allison Grant, a Boca Raton attorney who represents hundreds of Chinese drywall victims, notes that the April 8 ruling by Judge Fallon in the Multi District Litigation set forth a specific remediation protocol which goes beyond simply replacing the drywall.

“The protocol includes the removal and replacement not only of all of the drywall but also wiring, insulation, plumbing and the HVAC system and more,” she said. “This is a comprehensive protocol that homeowners should review before selecting a contractor.”

Ross Boisselle, a director of Chinese Drywall Experts, a Naples-based company that specializes in remediation, said he is pleased with the ruling.

“The federal judge’s ruling has special significance here since almost 60-percent of all the reported Chinese drywall cases occur in Florida,” Boisselle said.

“We actually go above and beyond the steps recommended in Judge Fallon’s ruling,” Boisselle said, “and we have from the beginning. We’ve applied for a patent for our mitigation techniques and safety protocols. We also can offer homeowners other options, such as assisting with relocation during the remediation, moving and storage.”

To date, Chinese Drywall Experts has provided remediation for more than 250 homes throughout Florida.

According to Judge Fallon’s ruling, “The evidence supports the conclusion that the appropriate remediation for the … homes includes the removal of all drywall, all electrical wiring, the entire HVAC system, and many other items such as appliances, carpet, cabinetry, trim work and flooring. The scope of this remediation is supported by both the scientific and practical evidence presented.”

Fallon noted that corrosion caused by Chinese drywall (CDW) damaged most components that contain copper or silver. Selective removal of only CDW is not feasible or practical since it isn’t possible to tell exactly where in a particular home the CDW exists. At the same time, he noted, it isn’t feasible or practical to try to store, clean or protect carpet, cabinetry or flooring during the remediation process, and trim work and baseboards will also likely be ruined or damaged during the process.”

“The remediation process is quite extensive,” Boisselle noted, “but we document our work and offer an option to return the home to its exact original design, down to the window treatments. Or we can remodel to the homeowner’s specifications.”

Boisselle noted that the complete documentation of the project and evidence preservation that Chinese Drywall Experts provides is acceptable in future litigation. “Many homeowners want financial remuneration for their drywall problem, but they don’t want to wait years to resolve the difficulty and get back to living comfortably in their homes.”

Courtesy of Naples News

Collier County had 387 new foreclosure filings in April.

That was down from 478 in March and 757 a year ago, according to the Collier County Clerk’s Office.

So far this year there have been 1,933 filings. The busiest month of this year was in February, when there were 601.

Last year, there were 8,203 filings – setting a new record.

Courtesy of Naples News

Foreclosures filed in Lee County in April fell to the lowest number in almost three years as home prices started to stabilize and sales caught fire.

There were 1,008 foreclosure lawsuits filed in Lee circuit court, the lowest since June 2007 when there were 968, according to statistics released Monday by the Southwest Florida Real Estate Investment Association.

April’s number was down from 1,198 in March and 1,931 in April 2009.

Meanwhile, the number of foreclosed properties sold on the courthouse steps was larger than the number of new foreclosures for the second month in a row. There were 1,190 courthouse sales in April, down from 1,412 in March and 1,221 in April 2009.

“We’re starting to burn through the inventory,” said Jeff Tumbarello, director of the association. “At some point it has to end – it can’t go on forever.”

There are also indications that a lot of foreclosed houses are being sold directly by lenders without being listed with a real estate agent, he said.

Gary Tasman, executive director of Cushman & Wakefield’s Southwest Florida Alliance Office, said the foreclosure numbers are encouraging but that there have also been increasing numbers of large commercial foreclosures as well.

“Those large projects getting foreclosed are going to drain the positive news to some extent, but it’s the process that has to happen,” he said.

Families continued to be hit hard, with almost half of April’s foreclosures for homesteaded residences.

The number of foreclosures in the county started to increase at the beginning of 2007 as prices for homes continued to plunge following the collapse of the residential real estate market in early 2006.

In other real estate news, contractors pulled permits to build 30 single-family homes valued at $5.1 million in unincorporated Lee County in April. That compares to 51 in March and 39 in April 2009, according to the county Department of Community Development.

Permit numbers weren’t available for Cape Coral or Bonita Springs on Monday, but Fort Myers had 18, Sanibel had one and Fort Myers Beach none, officials in those municipalities said.

In the unincorporated county, 12 permits were issued in April for new commercial buildings valued at $7.6 million compared to $796,000 in March and $2.7 million in April 2009.

Courtesy of News Press

A piling machine spits smoke as it pounds concrete blocks into dirt south of the Edgewater Beach Hotel.

Twelve multimillion-dollar homes are going up – all at the same time – on the east side of Gulf Shore Boulevard in Naples. It’s a rather unusual sight these days.

“Everybody is curious to see something going up in Naples,” said Paul Drake, a principal broker with Rothchilds International Realty.

His company is handling the sales, marketing and management for the project, called Naples Casamore. A sales trailer opened at the site about a month ago after the developer broke ground.

The pilings, which will help keep the homes from sinking or shifting, are a first step. The machine driving them into the ground is loud, but efficient. The noise echoes off buildings nearby with each strike.

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The Florida Attorney General’s Office has beefed up its lawsuit against Bonita Bay Group, adding new allegations of fraud.

The revised complaint is based on depositions of David Lucas, chairman of the Bonita Bay Group, and a chief restructuring officer, who recently left the company after helping to turn its finances around.

“We have previously addressed similar allegations in isolated claims by certain of our resigned club members,” said Brian Lucas, vice chairman of Bonita Bay Group, in a statement. “The claim rests on fundamental errors of fact and law that we will address in court,” he said.

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Last fall, the local real estate economy and an ownership dispute between the developer of Mediterra and its homeowners stalled home sales at the North Naples community.

Two events in December brought new life into the community. First, on Dec. 4, the membership purchased the assets of the golf and beach club from the Bonita Bay Group. Less than two weeks later, London Bay homes purchased the remaining 50 single-family and villa homesites in the community and assumed sales and marketing activities at Mediterra.

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Oasis, a high-rise condominium in downtown Fort Myers, has fallen into foreclosure.

On Tuesday, Bank of America filed a multimillion-dollar foreclosure action against the developer and its subsidiaries in Lee Circuit Court.

The developer is The Related Group in Miami.

Oasis has drawn national attention because of media reports about a couple who are the sole residents in Tower One, which has 200 units. The second tower at Oasis is only about 25 percent occupied; there are fewer than 60 residents.

Five towers were planned, but three were never built.

Betsy L. McCoy, a vice president and associate general counsel for The Related Group, couldn’t be reached for comment.

Several lawsuits have been filed against TRG Oasis Ltd., a subsidiary of The Related Group, by purchasers who never closed on their condominiums. Some were filed on the east coast because that’s where the developer is based.

Miami attorney Robert Cooper represents 20 buyers who never closed and want their money back. He said the foreclosure could be good for his clients, who put up more than $1.8 million in deposits.

He plans to file a motion to intervene in the foreclosure case. He believes his clients have the legal right to get paid back first.

A Florida Supreme Court ruling in a foreclosure case a few years ago that involved a building that was never finished supports his arguments, he said.

In the lawsuits against The Related Group, the would-be buyers contend they didn’t get what the developer promised so they should be entitled to get their deposits back.

They say brochures and other marketing materials for the project were misleading.

“There is supposed to be a marina,” Cooper said. “There is supposed to be all kinds of things that never happened.”

He said about $1 million of his clients’ money was used by the developer for construction. With so many other liens on the property, they couldn’t even have closed if they wanted to, Cooper said.

“I think with this foreclosure it makes it more of an open-and-shut case,” he said. “The issue now is going to be the fight between my clients and Bank of America.”

Courtesy of Naples News

The Aqua condominium tower in North Naples has blooming flowers, a sparkling fountain and an enviable view toward the Gulf of Mexico.

Behind the facade, though, wends a trail of unfinished business.

The project was mired in controversy when Collier County commissioners voted to rezone the 10-acre site at the corner of Vanderbilt Drive and Wiggins Pass Road in March 2005.

Five years later, the deal that the project’s Tampa-based developer struck to ease the community’s heartburn over Aqua remains unfulfilled thanks to the recession, bankruptcy protection and loose county requirements.

“It looks once again like the taxpayers, the citizens, have been left in the pile of rubble that was left there,” said Commissioner Frank Halas, who cast the sole vote against the project in 2005. “It’s not exactly what we had in mind.”

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