With Builder in Bankruptcy, Buyers Are Left Out

[RedEarth]

Source: nyt

— Ettore and Larisa Costanzo are showing off their new house, which they love madly. Now if only they could get the keys and go inside, instead of peering in the windows like a couple of Peeping Toms.

The house, on which the couple made a down payment of $88,820, is empty. Their belongings are in storage. They live, unhappily, in a hotel. “It’s very upsetting, not to be allowed in our own house,” said Ms. Costanzo, a Russian immigrant. “Please take our money and let us move in.”

Their builder is Levitt & Sons, a unit of the Levitt Corporation, which ran out of cash in October and declared bankruptcy in November. All work on this planned 460-home development for retirees, grandly named Seasons at Prince Creek West, has ceased. The Levitt employees were laid off, the subcontractors put down their tools, and the Costanzos found themselves in limbo.

The collapse of Levitt, the first big home builder to fail in the current slump, illustrates how the turmoil in real estate is spreading far beyond subprime borrowers who cannot pay their mortgages. Levitt had a fabled brand, decades of experience and enthusiastic customers with good credit, but none of that was enough to save it.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/03/business/03abandon.html?ex=1199941200&en=842f1356c9f142ad&ei=5065&partner=MYWAY

[TomInTib]

1. Wow.. Levitt...

Sh*t, meet fan...

To anyone in the Homebuilding and development biz, this is apocolyptic.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. Yeah.. The old man is dead and who knows how...

it's being managed now, but it's still a shocker when one of the big names in homebuilding goes belly up.

We did see this back during the S&L scandals-- builders heading south when the banks went bust, but it seemed a lot less painful then.

[ixion]

3. this is not going to be pretty...no way, no how...thanks BushCo

I hope you and your buddies are happy. :grr:

[kineneb]

4. time to just break in and have new keys cut

I doubt anyone would bother to throw them out. I don't understand why people are leaving their forclosed homes, sheriff or not. They all should demand the companies forclosing on them produce the original signed paperwork before the proceedings go on. If the company does not have the paperwork, then it does not stand a chance in court. There has already been one ruling on this.

Time for the homeowners to get a spine and start screwing back. Make a Big Stink! Refuse to Leave! Revolt!

Sorry, this mess pisses me off. Besides, empty houses deteriorate quickly. It would be better for the whole country to allow the buyers to renegotiate their loans and stay put. We have a big problem in CA with swimming pools of abandoned homes being breeding grounds for West Nile virus-carrying mosquitoes. What next?