Interesting idea?

[Christopher Elliott]

I have come across an interesting situation via a coworker. My coworker and her husband bought a condo in a 50+ unit complex. However, the builder/owner was only ever able to sell a dozen or so of the units. To cut his losses he started renting the remaining units out. With a such a small portion of the units owner occupied the owners are having no luck in selling their properties. Bank won't give any new mortgages to the units due to the ratio of owners/renters.

The owners are now suing the developer over a variety of issues but the suit really isn't going anywhere. My thought was the following... Could you pull together enough funds to buy out the 14 owners and turn those into apartments. The positives would be two that I can see. The owners just want out and therefore will accept well below market values. The second is that the units were built in a tax free zone for 10 years. There is roughly 5 years left of no property taxes. 

The negatives would be you would somehow have to deal with the developer and how he is renting the majority of the units out. There is also a condo association where the developer is the major stakeholder as he has 50 units compared to the owner's 12 or so. The owner occupied units are scattered throughout the complex so, there is the complication of shared maintenance costs. The developer is trying to sell the units, so maybe the deal could be expanded and the deal could include whole rows of units so that their isn't a mixture. 

I haven't even bought my first property yet so something like this is out of my league right now, but I know a few people that potentially could get it done. Does this sound like an idea worth bringing up to them? I'm still in the I don't know what I don't know stage so there is probably a bunch of holes I am missing.