Here’s a quick update on Acqua Vista, a beleaguered Little Italy condo project:
A penthouse, No. 1703, sold last month as a bank-owned property for $595,000. That same unit sold in June 2005 for $983,000.
That’s a 40 percent difference.
Here’s what I wrote about that unit in our look last April at Acqua Vista:
One distressed unit, No. 1703, is a 1,249 square foot penthouse. The owner, Carlos Espinosa, is a real estate agent himself and purchased the unit for $983,000 directly from the builder in June 2005, covering the entire cost with mortgages from Deutsche Bank. He also owns another unit in the building, No. 1701, which he has listed on the Multiple Listing Service for $1.6 million.
No. 1703, the unit in foreclosure, has been listed on the MLS for 250 days with an asking price of $999,000 to $1.15 million. He also listed it on a subletting website, apparently to recoup some of the mortgage costs by charging $2,750 for a monthly rental, $1,000 for a week or $500 for a day. Espinosa received a notice of default on March 29.
Still, as troubled as Acqua Vista is, it’s not the only building in downtown affected by foreclosures.