Bill Gates and 13808 Fairlane Court in Wellington, Fla.From the South Florida website: Microsoft’s Bill Gates, the wealthiest person in America, will pay $600,000 to rent a house in Wellington this year, according to a report by Gossip Extra. The rental is for a six-month period from December to May, sources said. The house, which is located at 13808 Fairlane Court, has five acres and is within walking distance of the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center, a winter polo haven. The
7,352-square-foot home is listed for sale at $12.9 million. [Gossip
Extra via Sun Sentinel] [more]

Number of closed banks by month

The number of U.S. national bank failures fell to five in May 2011 after a sharp jump to 13 in April but more closures are expected throughout 2011, according to a monthly bank failure report by
Trepp, released today. The May figure is the second-lowest count since July 2010, only outpacing three failures in March.

For the group of five failed banks, commercial real estate loans comprised $152 million, or 76 percent, of the total $201 million in nonperforming loans. Meanwhile, construction and land loans made up of $109 million or 54 percent of the total, while commercial mortgages comprised $44 million.

The residential real estate loan category was also a factor, with $31.4 million in non-performing loans, or 16 percent of the total non-performing balance. TRD [more]

From the South Florida website: On the heels of Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Howard Lorber announcing a Miami expansion to a new office at the 1111 Lincoln project in South Beach, The Real Deal met with Elliman’s SOBE Luxury Homes brokers Christian Kawas and Ivan Hernandez at one of their listings, 1900 Sunset Harbour in Miami Beach. We talked to the brokers about the improving South Beach market, how downtown Miami is performing better than people think and the way they work with their Elliman counterparts in New York. [more]

From the South Florida website: It’s that time of year again, when the temperature falls and the northern snowbirds come down South to roost. Brokers say they’re seeing increased movement in the snowbird sector early on in the season especially from Canadian buyers, with the season already a few weeks underway.  “We’re certainly seeing increased activity, with more buyers coming through,” said Bill Yahn, the Corcoran Group’s regional senior vice president for South Florida. “It’s manifesting itself in all the markets we serve.” While snowbirds — Northerners who have second homes or long-term vacations in Florida for the winter — tend to look for homes in a fairly broad range of prices, right now it’s the higher end that’s seeing the most interest. [more]

3309 Devon Court

From the South Florida website: New Heat superstar LeBron James has a contract to buy a villa in the Hughes Cove enclave of Coconut Grove, according to Page2Live at the Palm Beach Post. “It’s not officially done (the deed transfer) just yet, but he has a definite interest in it,” said Miami realtor Peggy Brin. She had the listing, but the home has been off the market for months. James reportedly approached the owner of the home, David Lipman, in August, despite the fact that the home was no longer listed. The four-bedroom, five-bathroom house was listed once for $7.65 million.

[more]

Alex Rodriguez (left) chopped the price on his Coral Gables mansion (right).

New York Yankees slugger Alexander Rodriguez is opting for a major buzz cut on his ritzy ranch in Coral Gables. A-Rod listed the waterfront estate for $14.9 million last October and just dropped the price to $9.9 million, a local broker said. And if he can’t find a buyer, he’ll take a renter willing to pony up $25,000 a month. In yet another sign of sunny Miami’s downwardly spiraling real estate
fortunes, Rodriguez is hawking the Biscayne Bay mansion for less than
the $12 million he and his estranged wife, Cynthia, paid in 2004. Comments

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