FT. LAUDERDALE, FL-Forest Properties Management, a real estate company based in Newton, Massachusetts, purchased the remaining 272 units at the Olivine at the Township Condominiums in Coconut Creek for $22.5 million or just under $83,000 per unit. The property previously closed 100 units with an average sales price of $227,415. The seller of the units was a consortium of lenders led by KeyBank.

The transaction was a short-sale/workout that included negotiations among three different lenders, the former owners and the buyer, says Hampton Beebe, senior vice president of Boca Raton-based ARA Florida, which represented the Prestige Builders Group, the previous owners of the property. 

In 2008, the lenders for Olivine had filed a foreclosure lawsuit against Forest Pointe, 372, LLC, the legal entity which owned the complex. Beebe says that he doesn’t know the exact amount that Prestige Builders owed, but believes that it was not more than $30 million.

The units at Olivine, 95% of which are being rented out, were built in 1988. Forest Properties will continue the rental program, says Beebe. In the mid-2000s, the owners of the complex had planned a condo conversion. After selling 100 units, they stopped in the fourth quarter of 2007, he says. Currently, the average rent at the property is about $1270, says Beebe.

“The expenses at the property are a lot lower than at most conversion properties,” says Beebe. The main lender, Key Bank, hired JMG Realty to manage the property, he says. “It got the taxes and the insurance rates reduced,” says Beebe

The Olivine had been part of a large (PUD) planned unit development built by the Minto Group, Inc. in the 1980s. The property includes a large entertainment complex with a performing arts center, tennis center, swimming pool, a workout facility and indoor racquet ball courts. It is on Sample Road, a quarter mile west of the Florida Turnpike.

“We are seeing more and more buyers getting involved in these kinds of deals today,” says Calum Weaver, director of operations for the private client group at CB Richard Ellis in Miami. “The change in state law, which took effect on July 1, 2010, is making fractured condominium deals easier,” he says. “The bulk-buyer provision in SB 1196, seeks to stimulate condo sales by enabling investors to purchase condo units in bulk (seven plus units) without incurring the legal and financial liabilities of the original developer,” says Weaver.