Apt help

[Justin Gross]

A friend of mine has a 41 unit apt building in Tampa FL. 21 one bedroom and 20 two bedrooms. Was recently in foreclosure. It is currently 50% occupied and some of the units need work. He told me he owes $1,350,000. Looking for investor to short sale property. Currently has $750,000 invested and does not want to loose the property. Just looking at options right now. Maybe a private lender to make a new loan out plus interest? I'm pretty new to this and just trying to help him out and learn. I'm sure I'm leaving some needed info out so just let me know.

Thanks, Justin

[Michael Rossi]

The problem here is that your friend doesn't understand the business. If he did, he would never have gotten himself into this mess. I don't have any confidence that his other buildings are doing "fine". If he truly had 3 other buildings that 1were doing fine, then he would simply use the profits from these buildings to take care of the problem buildings. The bottom line is that the totality of his business is a failure. His options are probably very limited. As the others said, he could try a short sale; deed in lieu of foreclosure, find a wide-eyed newbie (with a lot of money and very little brains) to buy the building from him, etc.

None of this is likely to work. The bottom line is that he paid WAY TOO MUCH for the property and he may not be able to salvage the situation.

Mike