In real estate circles, it would seem a bizarre match – 54 townhouses within an office park along with a selection of Realtors well known for selling luxury single-family homes in Snell Isle.
Will the 3rd time end up being the charm for the Tampa Bay townhouses?
However the Strickland Property Group thinks it could actually do what others never have – find buyers for the townhouses in Back Bay at Carillon.
“The developer thinks this is the right time and so do we,’’ says Oscar Marti, Strickland’s managing broker.
Built to evoke the stately townhouses of Boston’s Back Bay, the Carillon versions are in a 430-acre office park whose tenants include Raymond James and Charter Spectrum. The park, bordered by busy Ulmerton Road and Roosevelt Boulevard, is large enough to once have been touted as a potential site for a new Tampa Bay Rays baseball stadium.
When the 55 townhouses first went on sale a decade ago, 25 sold at prices to as much as $800,000. Buyers liked the high quality as well as the size of the homes, which ranged from about 3,000 to 4,000 square feet and had two-car garages.
And then the market crashed and all but one of the buyers backed out.
RO Back Bay Associates LLC bought the 54 unsold homes and started leasing them. They rented quickly but even with price cuts and costly staging they still did not attract any interest when the company attempted to sell them again at the end of 2014.
Now, with prices dropped further to between $469,000 and $643,000, there are numerous factors in Back Bay’s favor, Marti says.
“One, in 2014, the market was still playing catchup to the recession and that’s no longer the case,’’ he says. “Second, back in 2014, they were quite a lot higher than what we’re selling them for. And third is the fact that there is hardly any inventory, at least any quality inventory, in that price point.’’
The townhouses are priced around $156 per square foot, in comparison to about $190 for comparable properties in nearby Feather Sound, Marti says. And while not everybody would like to reside in an office park, he thinks Back Bay’s location between St. Petersburg and Tampa and near several major employers is going to be another plus.
“We’ve identified a large pool of potential buyers,’’ he says, including “30-some-year-olds now making six figures.’’
Marketing town-homes is actually a departure for Strickland Property Group, which this past year had in excess of $100 million in sales of mostly high-end houses close to downtown St. Petersburg. But Marti, who moved from Fort Lauderdale in 2016 to join the group, says he had extensive experience with rental conversions in South Florida.
“Yes, this is our first foray into this part of the industry, but we come with very good experience and customer service,’’ he says. ‘‘We have five agents that are working exclusively for this development but we have a total of 14 agents on staff and everyone has been brought up to date on exactly what we’re doing here.’’
On a recent evening, Marti hosted a party with wine, beer and hors d’oeuvres for agents from other firms who have been invited to see Back Bay and check out one of the town-homes.
“Since they had room, they should have bumped this out so you could put a couple of bar stools here,’’ Glenn Musto, a Charles Rutenberg agent, said of a wall very close to a kitchen island.
Musto also found the toilet closet in the master bedroom “tight,’’ but liked that the room was on the main floor so residents wouldn’t need to climb the somewhat steep stairs. “That’s good as baby boomers age,’’ he said, pronouncing the home “very nice and well built’’ overall.
As of this week, three town-homes were under contract, all to current renters who were offered price incentives to purchase. Several more prospective buyers are waiting, either to get pre-approved by a lender or to find out how much desired upgrades would cost.
And several individuals from Carillon corporate centers are visiting, Marti says.
“We anticipate that driving up sales.’’
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