Remaining Committed to Real Estate – by Michael Braga

He started by buying duplex apartments in Englewood and renting them. Then he co-founded a company — LeaseOptionProgram.com — to help people with poor credit transition from being renters to owners.

Along the way, the historic real estate boom turned to bust and sent Roman’s businesses into a tailspin.

Renters backed out of lease-to-own contracts as real estate values fell and Roman found himself with too many properties that were not worth as much as what he owed.

The 40-year-old entrepreneur eventually defaulted on five loans totaling $1.67 million. But his experience led him to create a real estate brokerage based on buying and selling properties from owners who have also defaulted on their loans.

Based in Boca Grande, Tarpon Coast Real Estate has opened satellite offices in Englewood and Sarasota. It employs 15 short-sale negotiators and more than 30 real estate agents — not only in Southwest Florida but in Tampa, Orlando, Palm Beach and Miami.

“We’re making good money in this crummy market,” Roman said. “The trick for us is to get into position to make good money when the market turns.”

Roman explained that his new business venture has several components. The first is a private equity fund with a mission to buy properties that have been foreclosed on by banks. 

The idea, Roman said, is to get a bank to respond to a short sale offer — a process that can take as long as six months. If the bank comes back with a price that is low enough.  Roman’s private equity fund will buy the property and try to resell it at a profit.

But if the bank comes back with a price that is not low enough, Roman and his associates will list the property through Tarpon Coast Realty as a bank-approved short sale at the price the bank requires.

“The key is to get the house into play — to find out the bank’s bottom line,” said Eric Greenstein, an agent with Tarpon Coast. “Once we know that, it typically takes 30 days to move a property.”

Joe Marcinkewicz, another agent with Tarpon Coast, said the beauty of Roman’s operation is that agents can concentrate on finding homeowners who want to sell their properties and get out of debt and buyers looking for good deals.

All the time-consuming process of waiting on the phone to talk to a banker who may or may not be able to make a decision on the sale of a property is taken care of by Tarpon Coast’s short-sale negotiators.

“You can’t complete many short sales if you have to sit on hold for 10 hours a week,” Marcinkewicz said. “The negotiation department allows me to do what Realtors do — sell.”

Roman initially thought the foreclosure crisis would end this year. But after talking to bankers, he now thinks it could last three to five years.

That should give him enough time to keep adding agents and growing the company as he figures out how to transition to more traditional real estate sales.

In the meantime, his goal for 2010 is for Tarpon Coast to close one deal a day.

The key is to keep finding distressed homeowners who owe more than their homes are worth and help them arrange a bank approved short sale.

“Everyone who bought or refinanced a house since 2002 is potentially under water on their mortgages,” Roman said. “They can keep paying if they want to, or they can take a short-sale option, which certainly beats foreclosure.”

Having defaulted on loans himself, Roman knows what it feels like.

“You’re not a bad person because you bought a house in 2005,” he said.

Source Sarasota Hearald Tribune 

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20100222/ARTICLE/2221018