62 condos sold in Miami weekend auction–maybe

The San Lorenzo Tower

Individual buyers bid an average of $121 per square foot – nearly double the minimum asking price but 44 percent below the original construction loan amount – on 65 unsold units in the first auction of a new Miami condo tower in more than three years, says blogger Peter Zalewski, a broker in the upscale Bal Harbour section of Miami.

More than 300 people showed up at the Hyatt Regency Miami Hotel in downtown Miami (and an unknown number of additional investors went online) to participate in the April 10 auction of the units in the San Lorenzo condominium.  The building is a few miles west of the Little Havana neighborhood.

It is unclear how many of the units will actually go to closing

This is one ‘play’ in which nobody forgets a line

Patricio, my doorman, on the Upper West Side.

When the contract with 30,000 union employees of 3,200 buildings in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Manhattan is due to expire, you can count on the situation unfolding as it has periodically over the years.

There always is a drumbeat of dire consequences issued by Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union.  Then comes a strike authorization vote.  Meantime, property managers and boards of directors gear up for the worst.

It’s a like a play in which everyone has a part and has all the lines memorized until the curtain rises.

In fact, the worst sometimes happens,