Foreclosures open doors for some buyers

Oceanfront property, once the preserve of a select, wealthy few, is within reach for buyers willing to take on foreclosed property. Don Suozzo recently paid $290,000 for a 2,240-square-foot condo in Highland Beach. Its previous owner paid $782,000 for the unit in 2005, but lost the condo to foreclosure. During the first eight months of 2008, 18,065 properties in Palm Beach County went into some stage of foreclosure, according to the Palm Beach County Clerk and Comptroller’s Office. That’s more than in the previous two years combined. Klaus Carl, an agent at Keyes Co. in Boca Raton, recently paid $175,000 cash for a foreclosure west of West Palm Beach that sold for $355,000 in 2006. Carl has a tenant there who’s paying $1,650 a month.