It’s a sign of the times when Nicolas Cage’s Bel-Air, Tudor-style mansion is auctioned off and finds no interested bidders. National foreclosure filings are not decreasing and even locally large properties are beginning to feel the pinch.
In the county, the Bailey House at Avemore, a rental community for adults 55 and older, will be auctioned off during a foreclosure sale, on April 27 at 1:30pm, at the front entrance of the Albemarle County Circuit Court.
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Less than a year after its opening, Bailey House is seven months in default on its $17.9 million loan from the Virginia Housing Development Authority. |
The 137,177 square-foot, 92-unit community—comprising a mix of one and two-bedroom units and located at 350 Portico Way on Pantops—is owned by Bailey House LP and is managed by local real estate development firm Stonehaus.
“Stonehaus, as manager, is working with the lender to make this as smooth a transition as possible, and our anticipation is the project will continue to operate as it has,” says Mike Ball, Stonehaus’ chief financial officer. “While the situation is unfortunate, we do think the project is a good project. And we do think it’s a beautiful building, and we think that given time the project will be very successful.”
The property’s lender is the Virginia Housing Development Authority (VHDA), the state’s non-profit mortgage finance agency.
“There are a number of reasons that a group would want to obtain a loan from VHDA, including a lower interest rate and the ability to partner with VHDA to meet the goal of increasing affordable housing opportunities for low- and moderate-income households, underserved minority populations, and people with disabilities and the frail elderly,” says Brian Matt, VHDA’s public relations manager, via e-mail.
The Bailey House’s loan with VHDA, $17.9 million, is in default and has been for seven months, says Matt. If the auction finds no interested bidders, Matt says that VHDA will bid itself.
According to national statistics from Realty trac.com, a foreclosure tracking site, one in every 418 housing units received a foreclosure filing in February 2010. In Virginia during the same month, Realtytrac.com counted 4,403 foreclosures or one in every 750 housing units.
Bailey House celebrated its grand opening last July. Currently, according to Ball, there are six residents living at Bailey House and an additional two leases are scheduled to begin in July.
Ball says that one challenge was the economic crisis.
“In the real estate downturn, seniors were hit particularly hard in two ways. First, most seniors moving into this type of project are going to have to sell their homes, so they obviously had challenges on that end,” he says. “And secondly, with the soft market at one point in time down 40 percent, many seniors saw their net worth decline substantially, and so were not willing to make any sort of lifestyle changes.”
If the economy continues to improve, he says, Bailey House will be able to “lease up.”
Ultimately, “we don’t believe that this foreclosure sale is going to impact any of the projects that Stonehaus manages or develops,” says Ball.
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