Because of all the financial turmoil, only 15 out of the nearly 400 homes which were planned at Waterlace were built. Nothing else was built there--no pool, clubhouse or tennis court, says Rob Jordan, president of the Jordan Company, an Atlanta-based brokerage and real estate consulting firm, which represented Security Real Estate Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the FDIC, in the sale of the property, which closed on March 30th.

Security Bank of Macon, Georgia, was the lender which foreclosed on Waterlace and was taken over by the FDIC, says Jordan. The agency then asked Jordan for help in selling the property once the bank had failed. "The property had a lot of issues, such as the two dams on the site," he says. There were concerns about their integrity and whether or not they were up to code, says Jordan

"We had to make sure the buyers understood what they were looking at," says Jordan. "If people find out later (about flaws), they might drop the contract or the seller may have to drop the price. The fewer gray areas you have, the better the chance of closing," he says.

Jordan, who specializes in REOs, says that his firm has experience with the fallout from earlier real estate crashes and knows how to capitalize on that knowledge. His father started the company in 1967 and he himself worked at SunTrust and Wachovia Banks in the 1990s. All of this knowledge helped him hook up with the FDIC early in the cycle, he says.

Because of his relationship with the FDIC and related entities, in the first quarter of 2010, Jordan's company closed on $15 million worth of REOs, including the Waterlace property. Reynolds Development paid $5.3 million for Waterlace, a bargain compared to the original developer's bank loan, which was $18 million, says Jordan.

Reynolds Development, which has developed other luxury properties, is a good match for Waterlace, says Jordan. The company is the developer of the Reynolds Plantation, a luxury community on Lake Oconee about 90 minutes from Atlanta.

"Waterlace is a good property," says Jordan. It has favorable demographics and a 50-acre lake in the middle of it, he says. "It was developed with a grand plan back in the boom. It got partially developed but then the music stopped," says Jordan.