Look into my eyes ... buy this condo ... now

Southeast Florida real estate consultant Jack McCabe says that some real estate agents, as participants in speculative real estate purchases during the housing boom, are now victims of the housing downturn.

The St. Petersburg Times newspaper reported on a couple of Florida Realtors who thrived during the boom and tossed their money into the market. They are now paying the price. Liz Seither, a multi-million-dollar producer who invested in waterfront property in Clearwater, Fla., is hounded by lenders for millions of dollars in debts. And Anthony Marottoli, another Clearwater Realtor featured in the article, owns two costly condos that he has been trying to unload.

The article states, "Seither's agency is a shell of its former self. The 10 agents she once employed are mostly gone. She survives by managing rentals." As for Marottoli -- he has hopes to work out a deal with the developer of the condo community where he purchased a $1.38 million unit. "He can't afford the unit," the article states.

Because some real estate agents do play the real estate market as investors, that can raise questions about whether any agents have steered their clients to purchase investment properties at the same development -- with the intention to ultimately boost the value of their own investment property or properties at the same development, McCabe said.

"If they're selling their own property that they own, they have to disclose that to a buyer," he said, though he questions whether real estate agents are bound to disclose that they own a pre-sale condo unit, for example, to a client who they encourage to purchase a pre-sale condo unit in the same building.

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