By Ashley Nickel for Daily Mail Australia

23:34 28 Jun 2022, updated 23:47 28 Jun 2022

• Queensland renovator Nat Redgrave bought a “crack den” for less than $60,000
• He wants to remodel the three-bed home in Charters Towers in two months
• A burned spoon and box of syringes were found in the Queensland home
• The median price for a three bedroom home in Charters Towers is over $207,000

A handyman has tackled the ultimate home renovation project to turn an abandoned ‘cave’ into a white picket fence single family home. He took less than three months to complete the ambitious work.

Nat Redgrave bought a home in the Queensland town of Charters Towers, two hours south of Townsville, and on Monday shared video of the interior being approved.

He asked about investment properties in the area on Facebook and received a message from the home’s former owner.

“I hadn’t seen it, I just wanted to take some pictures,” he told Daily Mail Australia.

“After we bought it, I sat down with a carpenter and his first reaction was, ‘No way mate, you have to cancel this contract.'”

“It’s a doable renovation, just a lot of manual work.”

Scroll down for the video.

Queensland renovator Nat Redgrave bought a three-bedroom “crack den” home (above) in Charter Towers for less than $60,000

Video posted Monday showed the home’s overgrown front yard, burned-out electrical box, dingy interior still filled with the previous owner’s belongings, and dingy kitchen and bathroom.

Mr Redgrave said he bought the three-bedroom home for just under $60,000 and hopes to limit renovation costs to $70,000.

He said he first jokingly referred to the house as a “crack den” but has since found some items that suggest people were using drugs in the house.

“I expected to find a lot from outside the home,” he said.

“I didn’t find much, just a box of syringes and a spoon with a bend and a burnt bottom.”

In a viral video on Monday, Mr Redgrave showed off the filthy interior of the house, the burned out electrical box and the overgrown garden (pictured Monday’s fridge). Mr Redgrave shared photos of what the house looked like after a day of cleaning (pictured). The first video on Monday showed the house was still full of the previous owner’s unwanted possessions (pictured a bedroom in the house on Monday). With the help of friends he cleared out a ton of rubbish Nat Redgrave (above) is determined to convert the Charters Towers ‘crack den’ into a picket fenced family home in just over two months

He said the house is a one-off “cat among doves” in an otherwise beautiful area, adding that locals are excited to see how the eyesore will transform in the near future.

He hopes the home will be “safe, tidy, and pretty” in about two months and will go on the market for about $220,000.

“The house looks crazy, but it has good floors and a good roof,” said Mr Redgrave.

“Kitchen is ok and bathroom is pretty good, just needs a good cleaning.”

“We’re going to put up a picket fence at the front, give it a little nice touch and then it’s ready for sale.”

Several items found in the home suggest the people who previously lived there used drugs, including a bent and burned spoon (above) and syringes. Mr Redgrave said he hopes to turn the house (above) into a “safe, tidy and nice” picket-fence family home with $70,000 in just over two months

Videos of the “crack den Reno” have skyrocketed on TikTok and the hard-working Queensland renovator has racked up over 25,000 followers overnight.

He said he plans to share more of the renovation work, as he’s already torn up the house’s old carpets and removed a lot of trash from the house.

A day after the viral video was filmed, Mr Redgrave shared photos of the house with Daily Mail Australia.

The house (pictured a bedroom in the house on Monday) is expected to sell for around $220,000 following Mr Redgrave’s renovations

Charters Towers is a small town of approximately 11,600 people located 84 miles southwest of Townsville.

The average price for a three-bedroom home in the area is $207,500, according to realestate.com.au, with growth of 8.4 percent over the past year.

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Union Bank struck a deal to sell their tower at 75% of the original list price, setting the first new benchmark. Other towers are waiting in the wings.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

We’ve tracked what older office towers, many from the 1980s and 1990s, are worth when they are eventually sold, either in a foreclosure sale or a regular transaction. Two Houston towers were sold in a foreclosure sale at a price that saw the lenders — holders of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMB) — lose 80% and 88%, respectively. CMBS holders suffered a 100% loss in the foreclosure of the vacant 1980’s 46-story “One AT&T Center” in downtown St. Louis.

Foreclosures are brutal and belong to the extreme. Regular selling is a little less brutal, and we’ve documented a number where investors in CRE bonds have suffered losses in the range of 35% to 50%.

These losses from CRE debt are in addition to landlords’ equity losses. In the big losses in office debt so far, it has been investors who have been on the hook, not banks.

Now we have the first sale in the new era of home office and office downsizing in San Francisco, which has overtaken Houston and Dallas as the worst major office market in the US. There are a number of office towers on the market. One of them, Union Bank’s headquarters at 350 California Street in the Financial District, has found a buyer.

Union Bank, which owns the 300,000-square-foot tower and uses a portion of it, put it on the market as a sale-leaseback, where it would lease back a small portion of the tower. The rest would be free. In 2020 it was trading at $250 million with zero interest rates. In 2022 it pulled the listing. During this time Mitsubishi UFJ sold Union Bank to US Bancorp, the fifth largest bank in the US; The deal was completed in December 2022.

Then, in February 2023, Union Bank re-listed the tower for $120 million.

The company has now entered into a deal to sell the building to San Francisco-based SKS Real Estate Partners and South Korea-based Genesis for $60-67 million, according to sources cited by the San Francisco Business Times. This would be around 75% off the original listing price.

The price of $200 to $225 per square foot will set a benchmark for the value of older office towers in San Francisco. A sense of reality sets in. And it could make other deals possible. Until this sale, nobody knew what anything was worth in this new era, when about a third of San Francisco’s office space is in the rental market.

This tower does not involve debt. There are quite a few office CREs that are owned by corporations that occupy them and may be debt free and are up for sale, including the nearby 550 California owned by Wells Fargo, which originally bought it for $160 million US Dollar then withdrew the listing and will try again in 2023.

So this tower of Union Bank isn’t a story about lenders stuck with huge losses, and it’s not a story about a landlord defaulting on an adjustable-rate mortgage whose interest rate has doubled in two years. These are the problems currently plaguing office CRE.

The Union Bank deal is a story about a bank selling a tower it has owned and occupied for many years that has been depreciated year after year, reducing the book value of the building’s original purchase price. Also, according to The Registry, $41 million has been poured into the building over the years for seismic and other upgrades, as well as various renovations.

This is the easiest kind of deal in a very tough market. And there are a few other deals like this that could happen in San Francisco, including Wells Fargo’s tower, that could further define the benchmark price.

But there are already two massive defaults in San Francisco: PIMCO’s Columbia Property Trust has defaulted on the debt of the 201 California St. and 650 California St. office towers.

The price of $200 to $225 per square foot of the Union Bank tower at 350 California sends shivers down the spines of holders of the CMBS that hold the defaulted mortgages on those two towers. they don’t want to have to sell those towers in a foreclosure; You’ll be motivated to negotiate a deal with Columbia Trust because foreclosures get really ugly in stressed markets.

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But foreclosures are far worse, including a complete wipe out of CMBS investors.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

36% loss. Private equity firm Blackstone has sold two 13-story Class A office towers, the Griffin Towers, in Santa Ana, Orange County, California for $82 million to a joint venture between Barker Pacific Group and Kingsbarn Realty Capital . The towers erected in 1987 have a vacancy rate of 24%.

According to the Commercial Observer, Blackstone bought the towers in 2014 for $129 million. The selling price represents a loss of 36%. And Blackstone got lucky with this deal.

In 2007, at the height of the previous CRE bubble, the towers changed hands for $183.8 million. And in 2010 it sold again for $89.9 million. In Orange County, office vacancy hit a record 23.1% in the first quarter of 2023, according to Savills.

jingle mail. Blackstone has demolished other office towers, most notably a year ago when it abandoned the largely vacant 26-story, 621,000-square-foot 1950 building at 1740 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan to let lenders — CMBS holders — take the one that remained Loss.

It bought the property in 2014 for $605 million. It then borrowed $308 million for it. And by March 2022, the tower’s value had fallen so far below loan value ($308 million) that Blackstone was better off letting CMBS holders absorb the remaining loss, and it washed itself away from it.

47% loss. In Houston, Parkway Property sold the 960,000-square-foot San Felipe Plaza in Uptown to Sovereign Partners for $82.8 million in late March. The tower was built in 1984. Parkway Property finally got the tower when it acquired Thomas Properties, which bought the property in 2005 for $156.5 million. So that was a 47% loss.

The vacancy rate for Class A offices in Houston has been around 30% for years and has fallen to 32.3% in the first quarter of 2023, according to Savills. The vacancy rate had blown up first due to the oil crisis, which began in earnest in 2015, and then due to work from home and associated property shedding. According to the Houston Business Journal, the tower was last valued at $219 million.

37% loss and more? In Manhattan, the Chetrit Group sold the 617,000 sf tower at 850 Third Ave in March. to its lender HPS Investment Partners for $266 million after paying $422 million for it in 2019. That’s a 37% loss in three years after the property.

But this story is not over yet, and the outcome is still unclear. In October 2021, Chetrit refinanced the property with a $320 million loan from HPS, and HPS has now assumed the collateral, which only covers part of the loan’s value. The final loss of HPS becomes clear when the building is sold.

40% discount, 47% loss. Argentic Investment Management, a lender, brought the 1923 Barney’s New York Building to 115 Seventh Ave in March. for around 30 million dollars on the market. The seven-story building is empty. The lender had acquired the building in foreclosure proceedings initiated in September 2020. In March 2022, he took possession of the building for $49.5 million. The defaulted mortgage was $46.2 million at the time, plus costs and fees. If Argentic can actually sell the building for $30 million, that would be a 40% haircut.

The defaulting owner bought the building in 2014 for $57 million, and a sale price of $30 million would represent a discount of 47% from the 2014 price.

Office tower foreclosures are far worse.

88% loss and 82% loss. Finding a buyer for an office tower yields far better results than selling it at foreclosure. For example, in Houston’s Energy Corridor, two towers in Westlake Park were sold in foreclosure. The towers were collateral for CMBS, and investors took the losses on the debt.

Both towers had been built in the 1980s and renovated some time ago, but were losing tenants who moved into the newest and best office towers to hit the market in Houston — the flight to quality that older office towers have in high-vacancy markets sunk .

After all was said and done, including costs and foreclosure fees, CMBS holders had an 82% loss rate at Two Westlake Park in mid-2020 and an 88% loss rate at Three Westlake Park in early 2022. I have discussed this under the time.

Real estate is slow to develop: the entire process took about two years, from the disruption of the towers when the loans were sent into special administration to the actual foreclosure.

100% loss. That’s about as bad as office towers. The vacant, 46-story, 1.4 million square foot office tower, built in 1985 and formerly called One AT&T Center, in downtown St. Louis was sold in a foreclosure sale in April 2022 for $4.1 million .

In 2006, the property was purchased for $205 million and became collateral for a $112 million mortgage securitized with CMBS in December 2006. It made up 98.5% of the BSCMS 2007-T26. The first two letters “BS” stand for “Bearn Stearns,” which the CMBS issued in 2007, a year before Bear Stearns collapsed. At the time of the securitization, the property was valued at $207.3 million.

In 2017, after AT&T, the only tenant, moved out and the landlord stopped making mortgage payments, lenders — represented by US Bank’s Special Servicer Trustees — foreclosed on the building. The outstanding mortgage balance at the time was $107 million.

The specialist contractor eventually sold the tower to New York developer SomeraRoad in April 2022 for $4.1 million. However, according to Trepp, who is tracking CMBS, all proceeds from the sale were eaten up by special service fees and $4.25 million in liquidation costs. It was a classic 100% total wipeout for CMBS holders.

Sense of reality in San Francisco?

One of the worst major office markets in the US is San Francisco, with a record vacancy rate of nearly 33% in the first quarter and counting. In the years 2022 and 2023 there have not yet been any sales or foreclosures. The last sale was in 2021, PG&E sold its 1.6 million sf headquarters complex to developer Hines for $800 million.

But that was in 2021, when the Fed was still QEing and pushing interest rates close to 0%. Those were the crazy days of consensual hallucinations. Everything has changed since then.

So now there have been two massive defaults in San Francisco: PIMCO’s Columbia Property Trust has defaulted on the debt of the 201 California St. and 650 California St. office towers in the Financial District.

Lenders certainly don’t want to end up with these towers as there are already towers for sale within a few blocks on California Street.

Union Bank is trying to sell its headquarters at 350 California and lease back part of it. The tower originally went up for sale last year for $250 million. Union Bank subsequently delisted it and relisted it in February at a 52% discount to $120 million.

And Wells Fargo tried to sell its 550 California Tower in 2022 for $160 million. It withdrew the listing and will try again in 2023. This time it could market the tower at a 67% discount off the original list price, which would cost around $53 million, according to the San Francisco Business Times.

At this point nobody knows what anything is worth. There have been no transactions since the end of the free money era. But with Wells Fargo (-67%) and Union Bank (-52%) cutting prices on their towers, a sense of reality seems to be setting in.

The older towers, from around the 1980s, have the biggest problems.

Houston used to be the worst major office market in the US, with a vacancy rate hovering around 30% for years. Now San Francisco has shot past Houston in spectacular fashion.

And yet new towers were and are being built in both cities. And what ultimately happens is that when the lease expires, companies move out of their old quarters and into the newest and best building, while downsizing, lowering their rents, and leaving the old office towers vacant—the infamous “flight to quality.” “. “, which sinks old office towers. It’s the old office towers that get into trouble, not the new ones.

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You’ve heard from the downtown businesses, which used to host busy lunch crowds and happy hour hordes, for over a year that the area is a ghost town most days. But not just because the companies that are still around let everyone work from home.

Office vacancy rates have been fairly high in San Francisco for many months, but new data for the fourth quarter of 2022 just showed vacancy hit another pandemic-era high at 24 percent, up from 23 percent in the previous quarter. As Socketsite reports, using data from real estate company Cushman & Wakefield, that equates to around 21 million square feet of office space that is vacant.

Demand for office space also continued to decline by around 20%.

21 million square feet, just to think of that number, is the equivalent of many, many empty buildings and whole floors of buildings. With Salesforce Tower’s 59 office floors totaling 1.35 million square feet, that means 15.4 Salesforce Towers worth of offices are currently vacant in SF, Socketsite explains.

Or, to put it another way, you take an empty floor of Salesforce Tower and multiply by 909 – that’s how many office floors are empty, downtown and elsewhere in the city.

Salesforce itself has subleased space it used to fill with its own employees, outsourcing hundreds of thousands of square feet in buildings near its eponymous tower over the past two years.

Commercial real estate firm CBRE noted in December that San Francisco’s office vacancy rate had just hit its highest level since 1993. They actually put the vacancy rate higher than Cushman & Wakefield, saying it was 27.1 million square feet — or the equivalent of 20 Salesforce Towers.

“The problem started with the pandemic,” Colin Yasukochi, executive director of CBRE at the Tech Insights Center, told CNBC. “Before the pandemic, our office vacancy rate in the city of San Francisco was around 4%. That meant 4% of the total space, the millions and millions of square feet of space that we had in the city, was empty. Today that number is closer to 26%.”

Last fall, as the city’s office vacancy rate continued to rise, former city warden-turned-MP Matt Haney began promoting a proposal to convert vacant office buildings into apartments — but that idea likely involves many, many years of wrestling about zoning changes to figure out which buildings would be best for housing, and then the actual renovation and retrofitting of those buildings.

SF-based architecture firm Gensler conducted such a theoretical project for the city of Calgary, as reported by KRON4. They eventually identified a group of buildings from the ’50s and ’60s with plenty of access to light and easily convertible floor panels.

However, an expert speaking to the Chronicle last fall suggested that given current construction prices, projects like this – like the conversion of 100 Van Ness into rental units a decade ago – are not viable in current economic conditions. However, they could become viable if the cost of building materials and local permitting delays “fall off a cliff”.

Until now: SF Tech companies are losing hundreds of millions in office space they can’t rent

Photo by Georg Eiermann

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Although few exceptional hotels offer exactly the same amenities – some have Michelin-starred restaurants while others have multi-story fitness centers – most of the renowned resorts have spas with unique treatments. After all, mineral facials and crystal detox are a coveted luxury that makes every vacation even more beautiful. However, there’s no reason residential buildings can’t offer wellness experiences on par with some of the world’s most enticing hotels. Fortunately, ultra-modern high-rise buildings have established themselves along both coasts in the USA and the rooms have been equipped with exceptional wellness amenities.

With everything including halotherapy salt bays in the Himalayas and meditation rooms with Bianco Dolomiti-honed walls, these residences make a strong case for holistic stays that don’t venture outside – unless it’s a well-tended rooftop garden. From West 28th Street in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood to De Longpre Avenue in Hollywood, these towering towers won’t be around for long.

loner

Photo: Williams New York courtesy of HAP Investment Developers

loner

Located on West 28th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in Chelsea, Maverick is shaking up the historic district. DXA Studio, the architects behind Maverick’s unique design, did not neglect any detail – especially when it comes to the eye-catching facade. Eye-catching white-framed windows, some of which are 1.5 by 2 meters high, have metallic bronze inlays that make the golden hour even more dramatic. The charming Julia balconies blur the line between inside and outside.

Maverick may be a minimalist, design-centric structure, but the real appeal lies in its focus on wellness. There is an 18-meter lap pool on the lower levels of the building; a sanctuary with pink Himalayan salt meditation and massage and steam baths; a fitness center; and a sauna. On the 1,900 square meter roof you will find a summer kitchen with pizza oven, smoker and grill with integrated rotisserie; a dining area covered by a stylish trellis; a beach lounge with sun loungers and parasols and a cozy fire garden for outdoor wine tastings.

The story goes on

Not to mention, there is a lot of emphasis on spirituality and mental health thanks to the Spiritual Concierge, a service that connects residents with a trusted source – a shaman, for example – services like sound baths, hypnotherapy, reiki, and a pre-move blessing .

Fifteen Hudson Yards

Photo: Related-Oxford

Fifteen Hudson Yards

Hudson Yards, a collection of ultra-luxurious skyscrapers with top floors sometimes streaking with clouds, is one of New York City’s hottest new neighborhoods. The residence has an impressive array of amenities including priority reservations and seating in nearby gastronomic concepts (Estiatorio Milos from chef Costas Spiliadis and Mercado Little Spain from Spanish chef José Andrés), in-residence dining, private chef service, certified sommelier Managed wine cellar and wellness offers on site. Overall, Fifteen Hudson Yards is a sky-high oasis celebrating wellness. In fact, the entire 50th floor (the building has 88) is entirely dedicated to wellness, in the form of a 3,500 square meter fitness center.

In addition to the private studio for yoga, stretching and group fitness classes, there is also an extensive water sports center with city and river views. Whether residents opt for the 75-foot, three-lane swimming pool, lounge areas, poolside shower or hot tub, they will look forward to unparalleled relaxation.

Santa Monica Park

Photo: Wittkoff

Santa Monica Park

Santa Monica Park, which opens this fall, celebrates the outdoors on a grand scale – especially at the 1-acre rooftop park, which is divided into four different sections. The first is the Field, an expansive lawn designed for event programs, film screenings, and fitness classes. There’s also an outdoor fitness area with plyometrics, HIIT training, battle ropes, ladder walls, and torque tanks. The second section, the garden, is a complete jungle of trees, flowers and plants and creates a comfortable environment for working from home. The third section, called Oasis, has a heated pool, cabanas, lounge chairs, play area, and private bar. The final section, the farm, includes a curated fruit and vegetable garden, sunset swings, outdoor kitchen and family-style dining area, dog park and care stations. Santa Monica Park residents will likely spend more time on the rooftop than in their homes.

Choir

Photo: align living

Choir

San Francisco’s Chorus is home to the City Ballet and Chorus Hall – a new performing arts venue with 227 seats and front row seats for residents. Complete with panel units, retro-inspired SMEG series, wide wooden floorboards and the first 20G Internet of its kind, the residences are the epitome of upscale living. Aside from the fitness center, which hosts 11 rotating free group classes per week (led by former San Francisco 49er linebacker Corey Lemonier), Chorus’s Reputation is the American Ninja Warrior-inspired workout class that comes with a two-and-a-half meter warped wall and an octagonal arena for performance training with Lemonier.

Originally published on Architectural Digest

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