We have a hell of a deal on a 10,000 SF commercial/ Industrial building in St. Petersburg. The price is $349,900. These types of buildings are currently selling at $40/SF. We are offering this one at $35/SF. The owners are very serious about selling.

Delaware Physicians Group to Acquire Cardiac Monitoring Center Shares
A group of Delaware physicians, led by Dr. Allen Davis and Dr. Joseph Pennington, today announced the acquisition of a controlling interest in Cardiac Monitoring Center (CMC), a St. Petersburg based pacemaker and defibrillator monitoring clinic.

The company has a strong presence in the west coast of Florida, the mid-west and mid-south states.  The synergies of the venture will create the opportunity for CMC to expand into the mid-Atlantic pacemaker / ICD monitoring services market.

Current Management and Staff will continue providing the excellent care and outstanding service which they are known for in the medical community.
The company was founded in 1987 and is a St. Petersburg, Florida based Independent Diagnostic Testing Facility.  They provide comprehensive “in home” monitoring for patients with all manufacturers of implanted defibrillators and pacemakers.  One of their notable strengths is that their technicians maintain personal relationships with the patients and go the “extra mile” to provide an extraordinary service to the patients.

Over the years CMC has monitored and assisted in the care of over 20,000 device patients and have grown to monitor patients for cardiologists and physicians throughout the United States.

The transition to the new owners is planned to occur over the coming months.  
Terms of the share purchase were not disclosed.

This transaction was facilitated by Buddy Sauter & Associates.

The most recent Economic Situation Report from Bruce Yandle of Clemson University is available here:

My cousin is Texas is a Stock broker and sent this email to me. It is a little long, but very informative.

"Attached is a very interesting, informative and unbiased report of America's finances seen through an analyst's perspective. The report looks at the United State's Cash Flow, Balance Sheet and Income Statement as if it were a corporation. It's an interesting starting point for rational discussion and understanding of America's budget problems."

About USA, Inc.

The Economic Report for March 2011 is available here.

As usual, it is a good read, written in plain English.

The recovery of commercial real estate in Pinellas and Hillsborough Commercial real estate is gated primarily by our ability to get loans. As loans have become more available (primarily through the SBA 504 program in conjunction with Regions, B of A, Florida bank and other local bankers) we have seen a steady increase in the number of Commercial Property transactions. This began to get some steam about the middle of 2010.

We are even starting to see some conventional commercial realty loans (non-SBA) for those with great credit putting down a substantial down-payment (Regions and Florida Bank).

These loans have all been limited to end user properties and it remains very difficult to get loans for investment properties. Though we are seeing some potential loosening of the purse strings for multi-family projects (again with good credit and a substantial down-payment).

This is but one piece of the economic puzzle for our local businesses.

In any given week, I talk to maybe 15 or 20 small businesses. Some are doing better than others, most look forward to putting 2010 behind them and they all have the same fundamental problem. In 2008 and 2009 as the economy tanked, their banks all curtailed and then canceled their business lines of credit. So the folks who remained solvent had to scrape together enough cash to float their payrolls and inventory. Anywhere between $20,000 and $200,000 depending on the size of the business to replace these lines of credit. This has had a crippling effect on them. Some went out of business. Now that the economy is turning slowly better, they are unable to respond to all of the orders and calls for their services because they do not have the cash to fund the growth, to hire employees, or buy more inventory.

If these guys could get their lines of credit back, it would alow them to slowly start growing to meet the new demand and invest their cash into new facilities to house that growth. Specifically, those that are renting can now buy (prices are low and interest rates are low), and those that own can trade up.

This means more jobs, increasing real estate values (in Pinellas and Hillsborough) and an improvement in our little piece of the world.

Today I had a client tell me that their bank had actually increased their line of credit. The increase was small...and they had to fight for it by threatening to take their banking relationship elsewhere, but they got an increase, enough to grow their business a little bit.

I am optimistic that this is the start of better times ahead for our small businesses.

One of my favorite current writes is Matt Taibbi. I have mentioned his work here before. His upcoming article in the November 25th issue of The Rolling Stone takes on Florida's court system for rapid evictions. It provides nice insight into what is going on and, as always, Matt's writing is exquisite.

Quote from the Article

"Now, months after its first pass at foreclosure was dismissed, the bank has refiled the case -- and what do you know, it suddenly found the note. And this time, somehow, the note has the proper stamps. "There's a stamp that did not appear on the note that was originally filed," Kowalski tells the judge. (This business about the stamps is hilarious. "You can get them very cheap online," says Chip Parker, an attorney who defends homeowners in Jacksonville.)

The bank's new set of papers also traces ownership of the loan from the original lender, Novastar, to JP Morgan and then to Bank of New York. The bank, in other words, is trying to push through a completely new set of documents in its attempts to foreclose on Kowalski's clients.

There's only one problem: The dates of the transfers are completely fucked. According to the documents, JP Morgan transferred the mortgage to Bank of New York on December 9th, 2008. But according to the same documents, JP Morgan didn't even receive the mortgage from Novastar until February 2nd, 2009 -- two months after it had supposedly passed the note along to Bank of New York. Such rank incompetence at doctoring legal paperwork is typical of foreclosure actions, where the fraud is laid out in ink in ways that make it impossible for anyone but an overburdened, half-asleep judge to miss. "That's my point about all of this," Kowalski tells me later. "If you're going to lie to me, at least lie well."

The dates aren't the only thing screwy about the new documents submitted by Bank of New York. Having failed in its earlier attempt to claim that it actually had the mortgage note, the bank now tries an all-of-the-above tactic. "Plaintiff owns and holds the note," it claims, "or is a person entitled to enforce the note."

Soud sighs. For Kessler, the plaintiff's lawyer, to come before him with such sloppy documents and make this preposterous argument -- that his client either is or is not the note-holder -- well, that puts His Honor in a tough spot. The entire concept is a legal absurdity, and he can't sign off on it. With an expression of something very like regret, the judge tells Kessler, "I'm going to have to go ahead and accept [Kowalski's] argument."

Click here for the article in The Rolling Stone

We recently closed on this interesting transaction. The property includes two commercial buildings, a large parking lot and a grassy lot and contiguously located along Central Avenue. The sales prices was $350,000 and the sale was financed by the Seller.