It is unfortunate that news media, newspapers included, get so little of a story these days. So many newspaper writers want to write a brilliant piece, only to get waylaid by the desire to scare or give half the story because it sounds better. Case in point:
The home was started and mostly completed by Signature Construction as a home for the owner of the company. That company, like many others in the last two years, was beset with problems emanating from the sub-prime mortgage mess. When buyers can't get loans, or mortgage companies go out of business, homes that were pre-sold immediately become specs. Banks don't like specs.
As I've mentioned on many sites before this post, the problem is not in home builders taking risks, or being fraudulent for the most part. The problem in the last two years was Federal bank regulators coming down on banks and telling them "stop all spec construction, get out of home lending" Once this edict went down in 2007, the home building spiral was in full death dive.
The home is now finally for sale, and I will agree with the agent that in a normal market would sell for roughly $6 million. Here I will have to guess, since it now appears the home has been sold to an investor, the bank must have acquired it through foreclosure to eliminate the liens. But remember that the only reason there were liens in the first place is because the bank wouldn't pay the subs that were owed money. All too often the builder gets blamed for not paying the subs, but the subs get paid from the bank's construction loan as items are finished. In this case, following the orders of the federal government, they stopped construction and used foreclosure process to not have to ever pay those subs.
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