(CHICAGO, September 10, 2012) – this is an excerpt. Read the full article here »
. . . .
Another Type of Service
Builders are also creating new niches for themselves where little to no opportunity existed before. Tandem Developers, condominium experts, founded Catapult Real Estate Solutions with a different goal in mind. Instead of focusing their efforts primarily on development, they would assist banks that found themselves in possession of multiple unfinished condo units and commercial properties.
“I started with bankers that I knew that trusted me and recognized that I had integrity and expertise. I let them know what I was doing, but it took a while,” Paul Dincin, Founder of Catapult Real Estate Solutions, explained. “Fortunately, I started out being well-known as a condo developer, so I didn’t have to prove that I knew how to develop a condo. My experience gave me credibility, and then I built the company from there.”
Unlike with single-family homes, foreclosed condos often come in packages of unfinished units. As a former condo developer himself (as well as a licensed attorney), Dincin had the skills to act in place of the absent condo developers to finish these projects on behalf of the banks that suddenly found themselves in the condo market.
“People look at the bank like they’re the successor developer, but they’ve really just inherited 10 or 20 or 30 units. We come in to get those units sold,” Dincin said. “Otherwise, they just languish and the bank has to dump them for pennies on the dollar. We deal with half sold, half built condo developments in general and resolve all the problems that are stopping sales while trying to maximize the price of the asset for the client.”
Dincin’s company handles things like stalled marketing, new promotions and repricing and rebranding. We also deal with condo associations that may be very disgruntled, as well as any past problems with the former developer.”
Recently, Catapult Real Estate Solutions opened Catapult Realty to provide further assistance to consulting clients struggling with gluts of condos or commercial packages. Instead of relying on an investor coming in to purchase a lot of finished condos, broker Terrie Whittaker, who runs the division, has the option to break lots apart and market individual units toward the individual condo owner.
