10/08/09 There's a new player in South Florida's condo market

Starwood Capital Group will wield new influence over South Florida's condo market after it won an auction bid for the Corus Bank condo portfolio from the FDIC.

BY MONICA HATCHER
mhatcher@MiamiHerald.com

South Florida's battered condo market just got a major new player.

Starwood Capital Group's deal to acquire a big stake in a basket of condo construction loans and projects of failed Corus Bankshares from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. puts the Greenwich, Conn.-based private equity giant in charge of roughly 21 percent of the unsold condo inventory in greater downtown Miami. That makes Starwood the second largest force in downtown behind Jorge Perez's Miami-based Related Group, which held about 3,000 units at the end of the third quarter, or 36 percent, according to new research from Condo Vultures.

Corus' $4.5 billion portfolio included about $1 billion in loans secured by condo projects in South Florida, almost all in varying states of distress. The rest of the loans back projects elsewhere in Florida and in Las Vegas, San Diego and Atlanta, among other spots.

``Starwood is coming in at a lower cost basis, so as they start to move units, they are going to dictate what the market is,'' said Peter Zalewski, a Condo Vultures principal and a leading local analyst. ``Related has more inventory, but they don't have the price control.''.......

Source: The Miami Herald > Business

http://www.miamiherald.com/business/story/1271817.html

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