KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Wednesday May 19 Housing and Economic stories

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New Tahoe Ritz-Carlton hotel in default - (www.rgj.com) The Ritz-Carlton Highlands at Lake Tahoe took the first step toward potential foreclosure after its lender filed a notice of default against the owner of the high-end property. Placer County records show that Bank of America filed the default notice on the luxury property on March 31. The notice states that the borrower is late on almost $19 million in payments for the Ritz-Carlton Highlands, with loans totaling about $157 million. The 400,000-square foot luxury resort officially opened in Dec. 9 and cost $300 million to build. A notice of default can be filed in California when a borrower is 90 days behind in payments. Once a default notice is filed, the borrower has another 90 days to work out an agreement with the lender before a notice of sale can be filed on the property.

Redmond, WA Condo Association Votes to Mass Default - (Mish at globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com) 80+ proud owners in the Riverwalk at Redmond Washington condo complex have had enough and are ready to bail, en masse. I received news of this event from Matthew who writes ... Hi Mish, I am good friends with an owner in the Riverwalk at Redmondcondo complex and I also used to rent there, which is how I got wind of this story. It turns out the developer sold out the complex, dissolved his LLC, and is living somewhere in the Caribbean. Meanwhile, unit owners are in the hole by as much as 50% of their purchase price, not counting needed repairs of as much as $50,000 per unit. There are major defects that require about $4.1 million in renovation work to address underlying ‘envelope’ issues that cause leaks and mold issues in 11 units. The consultants said the exterior on the entire complex had to be replaced. The home owners association (HOA) discussed five alternatives.

Bush Family Buys Hideaway In Marijuana-growing Area Of Paraguay - (www.trufax.org) WMR's Paraguayan sources have confirmed that George W. Bush recently bought 42,000 hectares (over 100,000 acres) of land in Paraguay's northern "Chaco" region. The land, near the town of Chaco, sits atop huge natural gas reserves, according to sources in Asuncion. Moreover, the land deal was consummated in a dinner meeting between Bush's daughter Jenna and Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte. Although Jenna, who was in Paraguay under the cover of a 10-day UNICEF trip to visit child welfare projects, put the Bush family seal of approval on the land deal, the actual legal papers were worked out by Bush family lawyers and business representatives. Jenna Bush is supposedly working for UNICEF in Panama City. The Bush land is close to a new U.S. military installation, the Mariscal Estigarribia Air Base. It is also nearby a huge tract of land purchased by Sun Myung Moon that sits astride Latin America's largest water aquifer, the Guarani aquifer. According to earlier Madsen reports, Bush and the Carlyle Group are also the owners of major tracts of land along the proposed US super-highway linking Mexico and Canada, land that will be worth hundreds of millions more when the highway is completed. Related: See Neo-Con Escape Plan to Paraguay? below.

Paraguayan President Sends 1,000 Troops To Area Where Bush Bought Land - (www.latindispatch.com) Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo sent an additional 1,000 troops and police Monday to the country’s borders with Brazil and Bolivia to track down an armed left-wing guerrilla group. The country’s congress granted the Lugo administration special powers to hunt down the Paraguayan People’s Army (EPP), a group linked to Colombia’s FARC guerrillas and who are blamed for an attack that killed four people last week. “The concrete objective is to allow the military to undertake armed operations, which wouldn’t be possible without (the special powers),” Lugo said, according to Reuters. The constitutional order from the Paraguayan Congress declared a 30-day emergency for a five-state region where the EPP is suspected to operate and allows Lugo to order arrests and the transfer of suspects without court approval. Earlier this year Paraguayan soldiers were deployed to this region to aid local police forces in combating the EPP, who are also allegedly involved with marijuana cultivation in Paraguay.

Chicago renters could get security deposits back in foreclosures - (www.chicagobreakingnews.com) Thousands of apartment dwellers who stand to lose security deposits because of building foreclosures would get their money back under a proposed ordinance a City Council committee approved today. Mayor Richard Daley's proposal would require all lien holders -- typically banks -- in foreclosure cases to pay back security deposits to tenants who are pushed out of their homes. Under current city law, the landlord and not the lien holder is responsible for paying back the security deposit. That often doesn't happen, said Ellen Sahli, first deputy commissioner of the Community Development Department. Last year, more than 8,500 rental units were affected by foreclosures, according to city statistics. Ald. Bernie Stone, 50th, proposed an amendment that would have given landlords 14 days to remedy alleged landlord-tenant ordinance violations related to security deposits. But the amendment failed after critics said it would encourage landlords not to comply unless someone filed a formal complaint during that period.

U.S. Households Lost $100,000 From Crisis - (www.bloomberg.com) The financial crisis and recession cost U.S. households an average of about $100,000 in lost wealth and income, according to a study by former Treasury Department economist Phillip Swagel. From June 2008 through March 2009, households’ stock holdings fell $66,000 and real estate dropped $30,000, according to the study released today by the Pew Economic Policy Group. Each household also lost an average $5,800 from unemployment and lower earnings from September 2008 through December 2009, the study said. While stocks have rebounded this year, the fallout from the crisis was broader than the price of the government’s $700 billion bank rescue or $787 billion economic stimulus package, the study said. Swagel said the losses probably won’t be recouped until 2011 at the earliest. “You want to avoid these crises,” he said in an interview. “Once you get into it, even if you do everything right, it’s still tremendously costly.”