Repo king scores waterfront Fort Lauderdale mansion

Repo king Patrick K. Willis makes his living snatching other people’s property, but his latest acquisition he paid handsomely for: a waterfront mansion in Fort Lauderdale.

Willis, whose holding company owns American Recovery Service and Skipbusters, paid $12.5 million for the nine-bedroom, 13,692-square-foot home at 2900 Northeast 37th Street, property records show. A Dallas company led by Jean Christine Thompson of Thompson Petroleum was the seller.

Willis’ American Recovery Services, based in El Dorado Hills, California, is one of the largest auto repossession firms in the country. Willis recently sold a Las Vegas home for $10 million, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Willis financed the purchase of the Fort Lauderdale home with an $8.8 million loan from UBS Bank.

The house, on a 1-acre lot, was built in 2005 and previously sold in 2017 for $11.8 million. It hit the market with Sandra Tagliamonte and Madison Collum of One Sotheby’s International Realty about a year ago for nearly $13.8 million.

Matt Bobby of Compass represented Willis, according to Realtor.com.

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The Mediterranean-style estate has 665 feet of water frontage, 10 bathrooms and six half-bathrooms, guest quarters, a rock climbing wall, a waterside grotto and a pool, according to the listing.

Broward County has experienced a boom in high-end waterfront home sales to out-of-state buyers, as has been happening in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. Celebrities including Scottie Pippen and Hélio Castroneves have recently sold their waterfront properties in Fort Lauderdale.