Big Burke announcement

[VTKilarney]

The only other condos I know of belong to a small place in St. Johnsbury, so the county data really is Burke data.


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[ablb]

The only other condos I know of belong to a small place in St. Johnsbury, so the county data really is Burke data.


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I'm active in 3 condo associations. I believe the only sale was in Burkeside.

 

[halfpintvt]

I am very familiar with property in Burke and I do not know of any property that has had it value raised every year without some sort of improvement or a rolling reappraisal. The State of Vermont does not allow listers to do this. Tax rates have certainly changed in the 17+ years from 1997 to now but I cannot think of any property in Burke that has had it's assessment raised every year except 2009 . The only exception I can think of would be if a parcel is in current use. That could change the taxable land value from year to year. Is your property in current use?

 

[ablb]

My property is a condo at Burke and I'd be happy to show you my tax bills.

 

[halfpintvt]

I have no doubt that your taxes have changed from year to year but I don't think your assessment went up every year.

 

[halfpintvt]

Burke does not re-assess property every year. The Tax Rate can certainly change from one year to the next ($1.98 per hundred one year and $2.05 per hundred another year) but the value of the property does not change every year. Burke had a Town Wide reapprisal in 2006 and another Town Wide Reappraisal this year. In other years there have been rolling reappraisals in certain areas which have resulted in assessment changes, some up and some down. Vermont State law does not allow a town to change property values simply to raise more money that is why tax rates change from year to year. Values stay the same for several years at a time (barring improvements ) but tax rates go up so the tax bill is greater.

 

[VTKilarney]

An interesting tidbit from the latest VT Digger article. The Q Burke hotel will be paid for with $120 million in EB-5 money. Out of the 240 EB-5 investors (at $500,000 a piece), only 66 investors have subscribed.

Where is the money coming from to build out the hotel if they are 174 EB-5 investors short?

And by the way, now that we know that only 66 investors have subscribed, my guess as to the number of investors made a couple of months back was almost spot on. It turns out that my gut was absolutely correct.

 

[Masskier]

In light of the condo valuation talk, I thought that I would take a look at the Vermont Realtors Association Report for May. Year to date, only one condo has sold. That compares to six for the same period last year. Number of days on the market until sale has gone up by 87%. Pending sales are down 85%.

Some additional stats,

There were 5 sales, not 1.


The mean price went from $250,583 to $478,200, a 92% increase and the median price went from $240,000 to $509,000 a 112% increase, during the same time period. This is also the reason why assess values are going up. Even though it was 10 years since the last town wide re-appraisal, it was the past 12-18 months that there was a “pop” in the values.

 

[thetrailboss]

An interesting tidbit from the latest VT Digger article. The Q Burke hotel will be paid for with $120 million in EB-5 money. Out of the 240 EB-5 investors (at $500,000 a piece), only 66 investors have subscribed.

Where is the money coming from to build out the hotel if they are 174 EB-5 investors short?

And by the way, now that we know that only 66 investors have subscribed, my guess as to the number of investors made a couple of months back was almost spot on. It turns out that my gut was absolutely correct.

That's odd


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[VTKilarney]

Some additional stats,

There were 5 sales, not 1.


The mean price went from $250,583 to $478,200, a 92% increase and the median price went from $240,000 to $509,000 a 112% increase, during the same time period. This is also the reason why assess values are going up. Even though it was 10 years since the last town wide re-appraisal, it was the past 12-18 months that there was a “pop” in the values.

That's odd. The realtors association says prices are lower. Why are they missing data?


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[BenedictGomez]

An interesting tidbit from the latest VT Digger article. The Q Burke hotel will be paid for with $120 million in EB-5 money. Out of the 240 EB-5 investors (at $500,000 a piece), only 66 investors have subscribed.

Where is the money coming from to build out the hotel if they are 174 EB-5 investors short?

I wondered the same thing. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I read that!

They've only netted $33M of the $120M sum, which is a mere 28%!

If this hotel complex is even REMOTELY close to completion, that either means that the $120M estimate is completely fictitious b******t, or the company is dipping into its' piggy-bank rather than using EB-5 money.


EDIT: The above would be a really good question for Vermont Digger to explore. Wouldn't it be "interesting" if Jay Peak co's project estimates were often wildly overstated to the upside, while simultaneously fully EB-5 subscribed. Gosh, that would really be something were that the case. Of course, you'd need to be able to fully look into their financials to know whether that's the case or not. Hmmm......

 

[mbedle]

It is important to remember that this EB-5 project includes more then just the hotel and conference center. According to the Resort's March 2014 Business Plan, the total cost of the project is 104.7 million with only 98 million coming from EB-5 investors. The rest is coming from the resort owners. Not sure where the 120M number is coming from, there may be more updated docs on this project.

In the business plan, the hotel and conference center buildout is estimated to cost $48,695,000 EB-5 money and $3,155,000 resort owner money. The Tennis facility, aquatic center and mountain bike park will cost an additional $26,950,000 EB-5 money and $775,000 resort owner money. The remainder of the money consists of utilities & common area infrastructure ($3.3 M EB-5 and 1.4 M resort owner), construction supervision (11.3 M EB-5), Contingencies (3.7 M EB-5), hotel architect & design fees (1.4 M EB-5) and Land (2.5 M EB-5 and 1.4 resort owner).

 

[VTKilarney]

Good point. The contractor estimated the cost of the hotel to be $55 million. So they are $22 million short if you don't include the 10% management fee.

 

[mbedle]

Agreed, but I am not sure where Vtdigger is getting their numbers and how accurate they are. I have yet to find anywhere online that shows the actual number of committed investors. We also need to assume that the number changes from day to day.

 

[VTKilarney]

VTDigger gets their information from FOIA requests.

Any bets on the likelihood that the aquatic centers gets built?

Any bets on the likelihood that the crater in Newport gets a building constructed on top of it?

 

[River19]

The fact that the Qs, Stenger and the 3rd guy are principals in "dozens of companies" combined with the nature of the Phase II complaints feels very ponzi-ish to me. I hope I'm wrong.......

So let's say they come up short on funding for the Tennis. Swimming etc. build outs but cobble together funding to complete the hotel and snow making investments/build, I think the consensus would be that the mountain "resort" is in a better place than before right?

I'm trying to find the silver lining in the fact that this whole EB-5/Stenger/Q mess feels very shady.......I'm waiting for the announcement that Bernie Madoff has been hired on as a consultant to ANC/Q/Jay

 

[mbedle]

VTDigger gets their information from FOIA requests.

Any bets on the likelihood that the aquatic centers gets built?

Any bets on the likelihood that the crater in Newport gets a building constructed on top of it?

FOIA requests are only as good as the data they provide. I have no idea have fast the investor data is updated on the government level (I would think pretty slow). So if the resort is not updating the government with their current investor amounts on regular intervals, the FOIA request don't necessarily reflect the actual numbers.

As far as the aquatic center and tennis facilities, I would guess they won't get built until they can prove the hotel is financially stable (although the three are tied together). Based on the report I read, the profitability of the hotel is projected to be significant because it will operate under no immediate debt. Another thing I noted in the report is mentioning of an indoor biking facility! Link to the report is below:

https://eb5projects.com/system/proj...original/Q_Burke_Business_Plan.pdf?1395475107

 

[VTKilarney]

FOIA requests are only as good as the data they provide.

Oh, please. As for the number of investors is concerned, a reasonable person would give weight to the FOIA documents. I'm willing to listen if you have a better source of data, but so far I haven't seen it.

 

[VTKilarney]

As far as the aquatic center and tennis facilities, I would guess they won't get built until they can prove the hotel is financially stable (although the three are tied together). Based on the report I read, the profitability of the hotel is projected to be significant because it will operate under no immediate debt.

You seriously believe that they will be able to get future EB-5 investors for these projects? Even after all of this negative publicity? There is a reason that there is no activity at the AnC Bio site even though there was a "groundbreaking" in May.

 

[VTKilarney]

I can't find the link to the Burke webcam on their new website. Does it still exist?