XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.invest.real-estate, fl.general   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns   
   From: ancora@hotmail.com   
      
   An investor-owner took over a condo board, terminated a condo declaration   
   and is now requiring a couple to sell their condo in what one expert   
   called “a private form of eminent domain.”   
      
   In 1992, Howard Fellman bought a condo in Boca Raton, Fla., for $65,000.   
   And after he met his wife, Melissa Sobel, just a few years later, the   
   couple made the condo their first home together. They experienced many of   
   life’s important moments there, sharing their first kiss in the condo   
   complex parking lot.   
      
   The condo fit their lifestyle well — it was just across the street from   
   Mr. Fellman’s family business (a computer training school), they could   
   walk to their favorite bagel spot and they’d marvel at the monarch   
   butterflies that were attracted to the garden. In 2004, right before they   
   had children, they moved out and into a house four miles away, so their   
   twins could grow up with a backyard. But they always planned to return to   
   the condo so they held onto it, renting to a trusted tenant and looking   
   forward to retirement there.   
      
   Now, that retirement plan is at risk. Their condo is one of 176 units in   
   the sprawling development known as Crystal Palms. An outside investor   
   bought 175.   
      
   This puts the Fellmans in a situation that many condo owners are facing: a   
   forced sale. “After that, they basically said, ‘you’re out,’” said Ms.   
   Fellman, 50. “It’s one thing if your property’s being taken for public   
   good. But this is strictly for a private investor’s profit. And it’s like,   
   why does their investment have more value and power than us?”   
      
   Throughout the country, the share of houses being bought by real estate   
   investors —  including large institutional ones who don’t live in the   
   homes and instead renovate, convert or rent them out — is on the rise. In   
   2021, investors accounted for nearly a quarter of home sales, up from   
   around 15 percent for each previous year going back to 2012, according to   
   a Stateline analysis. In Florida, investors bought nearly 116,000 homes in   
   2021, double the amount from 2020. This practice, which disproportionately   
   affects Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, drives up housing costs,   
   displacing people and making starter homes even more inaccessible.   
      
   The Fellmans’ struggle speaks to the uncertainty and risks that come with   
   condo ownership. For many Americans, the prospect of owning a home today   
   seems especially bleak. In 2022, mortgage rates hit a two-decade high, the   
   median home price topped $400,000 for the first time and the percentage of   
   first-time home buyers reached its lowest point since 1981. Condos are   
   often seen as the affordable, low-maintenance way to own a home in this   
   tight market, but as the Fellmans’ story shows, there are limited   
   protections for condo owners.   
      
   “Condos are the bottom rung on the housing ownership ladder, and they’re   
   very important for that reason,” said Evan McKenzie, a professor of   
   political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago who studies   
   condominium associations. “This could be the affordable housing that a lot   
   of people need, but they don’t have the institutional support to succeed.”   
      
   ‘A private form of eminent domain’   
   Mr. Fellman said that the investor, the Pennsylvania-based Scully Company,   
   never gave him a formal offer before the forced termination plan was   
   filed. “On one occasion, at the completion of an annual board meeting, I   
   was asked publicly over speakerphone if we would consider selling,” Mr.   
   Fellman said. “I invited them to call me privately to discuss, but no one   
   ever did.”   
      
   Despite the inkling that the investor might want him out, Mr. Fellman, 57,   
   was confident that things would be fine, since he legally owned the   
   property, and the condo declaration required that 100 percent of owners   
   would need to be on board for the condominium to be terminated.   
      
   But the Scully Company didn’t stop there. Since it owned all the other   
   units, it was able to take over majority control of the condo board, and   
   it voted to lower the threshold of owners required to terminate down to 80   
   percent. Then, in February 2021, the Scully Company voted to terminate the   
   condominium, which meant the Fellmans would be legally obligated to sell   
   their unit to the company.   
      
   Hoping to save their retirement plan and keep ownership of their condo,   
   the Fellmans sued the investor in September 2021. But a county judge sided   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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