July 28, 2008
Condo crazy
 | While some condo developers are sitting pretty, others are going nuts trying to unload unwanted units
By Whit Richardson
When the housing market goes soft, condominiums feel it too. Developers who a few years ago were touting a rich market for condo projects have been left sitting on empty units while the bills roll in. Still, while some Maine condo developments have been hit with foreclosure, others have done surprisingly well. Here’s a brief look at how condo projects across the state are faring. â&Copy;
- In Auburn, Developer Travis Soule recently asked the city council to rescue his Stevens Mill condo project by delaying $65,000 in property tax liens for another year, according to the Sun Journal in Lewiston. Over the last two years, Soule has sold four of the 20 one- and four-bedroom units, which he intended to renovate and sell for between $125,000 and $140,000 each, the newspaper said. He has since dropped the price to between $118,000 and $125,000 and begun renting some of the condos to bring in revenue. “The problem has been the housing market,” Soule reportedly told councilors. “I don’t think anybody anticipated that it would have declined the way it did.”â&Copy;
- Another Portland condo development did not escape foreclosure. Condo shoppers recently had a chance to bid on 13 foreclosed condo units at Back Cove Estates, a 66-unit complex near Portland’s Back Bay, according to MaineToday.com. The condos went for between $129,000 and $165,000. Androscoggin Savings Bank, which held the mortgage to the condos, received nearly $1.8 million from the sale, slightly less than the auctioned units’ $2.3 million assessed value. â&Copy;
- Washington County’s first condo development has seemingly bucked the trend experienced by its contemporaries in other parts of the state. When Cutler Residential Development LLC in 2006 began turning the military housing at the former naval base in Cutler into Cutler Beachwood Bay Estates, skeptics thought it wouldn’t work, according to the Bangor Daily News. But in the past two years, 36 of the 62 townhouse condominiums have been sold, the paper reported. And the condo prices have actually increased. An oceanfront unit that cost $189,000 in 2006 now costs $269,900 -- a 42% price increase, the paper said. The buyers? Of the 36 condos sold, only five were to Mainers, the paper said. The rest were to vacationers looking for affordable waterfront property.â&Copy;
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