Bull Realty has been hired by several lenders to sell foreclosed properties including the newly-built, foreclosed Shops at Breckenridge Center in Duluth, Georgia for Ameris Bank.

Also in Duluth, the 170,000-square-foot Paragon shopping center was sold by Flagstar Bank in the first week of July for $6.5 million to NDI Development. Mark Joines, a retail investment sales broker with Carter who represented the seller, says that the center, which is 95% vacant, failed partially because it was planned as a two-story shopping center but that it could accommodate an office or school on the second floor.

The Paragon center, which was completed in early 2009 by the Cornerstone Investment Group, was a victim of bad timing and is in a secondary location, says Joines. “It was probably 20% to 25% occupied at most,” he says.

The advantage that NDI has with respect to the Paragon shopping center, says Joines, is that the new owner is familiar with the Asian market, which is dominant in the area. NDI wants to put a grocery store in the center of the shopping center in addition to other Asian retailers, he says.

“The more REOs there are, the more likely lenders are to sell them,” says Joines, “although some banks are taking more shopping centers back and then sitting on them, waiting for brighter days,” he says. “The banks which were quicker to foreclose are more likely to sell properties now. But the ones which held off foreclosing are more likely to sit on them,” he says. Plus, there are still some banks which can’t take the losses, because their balance sheets are not strong enough, says Joines.