100% Financing? In Miami? In This Market?

Apparently the answer is "yes", of course with some exceptions. Read on...

BY DOUGLAS HANKS AND ELAINE WALKER
dhanks@MiamiHerald.com

A day after one of the country's biggest investment banks collapsed, Graham Cos. CEO Stuart Wyllie readied for a conference call with lenders over his request for 100 percent financing of a new 270-unit residential building.

He wasn't worried.

''There's still money to borrow,'' Wyllie said, adding he expects to get three or four offers to loan the full $35 million needed to build the new Lakehouse Apartments complex in Miami Lakes. Banks are ``meeting with us and returning our phone calls.''

Wyllie admits he's far less confident than a year ago. But his prediction of a chummy chat with a lender reflects an overlooked element to the current credit crisis: Deals continue to get done, even in one of the nation's most stigmatized real estate markets.

''Credit's difficult now compared to two years ago -- that goes without saying,'' said David Dabby, a real estate analyst in Coral Gables with a number of banks as clients. ``But if a project has good economic characteristics to it, credit is available.''

GRIM CIRCUMSTANCES

This week's demise of Lehman Brothers shocked Wall Street and reinforced the grim circumstances gripping South Florida's economy. The New York investment bank backed a number of large local projects, and its demise sparked predictions of even more pullback by lenders.

But local developers and bank consultants viewed the Lehman collapse as just another eddy in an already roiled real estate industry, where many players are scrambling to survive but some continue to expand.

The planned Village at Gulfstream Park has turned to the city of Hallandale Beach for help building its $1 billion retail and residential complex. Developer Forest City Enterprises has asked the city for financial incentives to pay for infrastructure or to help subsidize retailers' rent.

''This is a unique time economically,'' said Will Voegele, vice president of development for Forest City.

Scott Sime, head of the Miami-Dade office for commercial brokerage CB Richard Ellis, said he's seeing brisk activity in the ''distressed'' sector -- that is, banks and developers trying to unload failed or struggling projects. Among would-be buyers: large investment funds eager to scoop up large blocks of condominiums for pennies on the dollar.

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