One year ago, there was much hope amongst the Mid-Atlantic residential development community that 2009 would be the year to buy land.  The theory was that after four years of watching the housing market erode, distressed owners of property--from banks to builders--would finally be under pressure to sell and transaction volumes would increase.  At the end of 2008, big builders like Lennar and private equity groups like Blackstone were raising new funds to capture what many thought would be a flood of discounted development property.

Instead, 2009 has been a year of waiting and workouts.  There have been relatively few foreclosures in our region and distressed deal flow has been more of a trickle than a torrent.  Recent indicators suggest that the endurance of sellers is beginning to wane.  For instance, Home Expert reports that residential resale volumes are up year-over-year in the Philadelphia region.  In the last few months, we have seen many land sellers return to the market with more realistic price expectations.  Still, the ultimate disposition of these assets is ahead of us.

In anticipation of this, we have formed a new land brokerage business, Arcadia Land Realty, LLC to help banks maximize their recovery from the sale of troubled residential land assets.  The enormous complexity of these troubled projects--from lapsing permits to incomplete site improvements to deteriorating local politics--demands an expertise in both brokerage and development to achieve the best result for clients.  Read below to learn about this new venture with our partner, land broker, Charles S. Anastasi.