Downtown Brooklyn’s Oro condominium, the 40-story tower at 306 Gold Street, has closed more than 200 of its 303 studios and one-, two- and three-bedroom units, bringing the building to roughly 65 percent sold and occupied, according to an announcement today from Rose Associates, which is handling sales. That’s a significant spike from last November, when PropertyShark.com reported that 63 units had closed; even then, it was ranked as the city’s seventh-best-selling building of 2010. It wasn’t always smooth-sailing for Oro, though, which was originally developed by controversial United Homes owner Yaron Herscho. – Sarabeth Sanders [more]

United Homes head Yaron Hershco and 557 Hancock Street (building source: PropertyShark)[Updated 4:18 p.m.] A group of eight African-American homeowners were awarded a total of more than $1 million last
week, after a nine-member jury found that Yaron Hershco’s United Homes committed fraud — yet
cleared him of discrimination — in a wide-ranging property flipping scheme in Bedford-Stuyvesant,
Bushwick and other Brooklyn neighborhoods.

Hershco, a developer of single-family homes and luxury condominium buildings, had been accused in
the federal district court complaint of luring first-time homebuyers to a so-called one-stop shop, where
appraisers, lenders, lawyers and other officials conspired to sell them homes at over-inflated prices until the buyers were on the brink of foreclosure.

The jury decided that the participants in the scheme, including Hershco, United Homes, Allied
Mortgage Banking, Olympia Mortgage and attorney Benjamin Turner must pay punitive damages to the plaintiffs. [more]

Sandra Barkley, who owns a three-story home in Bedford-Stuyvesant, is suing United Homes, a one-stop shop through which she purchased her home. WNYC talks to Barkley, who alleges the company knowingly sold her a house that was in poor condition and overcharged her by more than $100,000. Barkley’s lawyer, Ned Vazire, said that United Homes purchased what would later become Barkley’s home at a foreclosure auction for $153,000 and sold it to her for $200,000 more than that a few months later. Barkley hasn’t made her mortgage payments since 2004, but foreclosure of her home is on hold because of her lawsuit. The Real Deal explored all-in-one real estate companies in the June 2008 issue, and The Real Deal‘s Alex Ulam spoke to WNYC about one-stop shops yesterday.