Another Clueless Private Equity Real Estate Investor Leaves 10-Building, 475 Unit Mess In Upper Manhattan; Low Income Renters, Local Pols Now Concerned With Possible Flip To New Speculator

In New York City, Crain's New York Business reports:

• City officials flagged 10 apartment buildings in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan as "at-risk properties" in danger of deterioration and falling into further distress.
  
  The buildings, which house 475 units located at 566 and 570 W. 190th streets, are among several apartment complexes across the city in which owners paid hefty sums at the top of the market in hopes of raising rents but failed to do so and defaulted on their mortgages and left the properties in disrepair. The buildings will fall under the city's Proactive Preservation Initiative, a year-old program designed to monitor properties that carry liens and a high number of housing code violations.
  
  Now, the buildings' tenant associations, city officials and local politicians are expressing concern that another over-leveraged investor may take over the Washington Heights properties.

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• Vantage Properties bought the buildings in 2007. It defaulted on a $44 million mortgage issued by Anglo Irish Bank in August 2010.
  
  A year later, Lone Star Funds, a Texas-based private equity investment group, bought the loan through an auction of Anglo Irish's non-performing and sub-performing loans and began foreclosing on the properties in March, according to the city. Lone Star is now marketing the property for $50.75 million, or more than the current mortgage on the buildings.

For more, see City: 10 Washington Heights apt. buildings 'at risk' (Officials, politicians and housing advocates are lining up against a private-equity group trying to flip deteriorating properties it bought in foreclosure last year).

See also, Pols Join Forces To Protect Rents at Foreclosed Manhattan Apartments.