This story about an Ohio investor who bought dozens of homes in a single neighborhood used to be accompanied by an interactive map, which I also made. I took pictures of every house owned by the investor and linked them to a parcel map of the entire neighborhood. The map also featured more than a decade of sales data. Sadly, the map is not online anymore.

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Main story: Is investor’s ‘Monopoly’ fair game for neighbors?
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By WILLIAM M. HARTNETT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

The letter that landed in Cabana Colony mailboxes last month was direct.

“I WANT TO BUY YOUR HOME!”

Sent by Ohio real estate investor Rick Winnestaffer, the letter promised “full price for your home,” without the need for real estate commissions, last-minute cosmetic repairs or any of the other hassles usually associated with selling a house.

It’s a sales pitch that has proved effective for Winnestaffer, 42, who in just over 10 years has amassed a real estate portfolio of nearly 300 single-family homes in and around Columbus, Ohio - home of Ohio State University.

“Our business model is to buy it, rent it out to cover its costs, then over time it goes up in value,” Winnestaffer said. “Then I can either resell it, or re-mortgage it to have the benefit of pulling some equity out of it in cash.”

But some longtime Cabana Colony residents are worried about what Winnestaffer’s entrepreneurial ambitions will do to their northern Palm Beach County neighborhood, where he has bought or is in the process of buying 38 houses and is aiming for a total of 55. They say the working-class community of nearly 800 homes has made great strides toward rehabilitating a reputation that once prompted real estate agents to steer buyers elsewhere.

“A lot of us are really worried about the number of rental units in the community,” said Dennis Conway, who has lived in the neighborhood for 26 years and is vice president of the Cabana Colony Residents League. “When you have a lot of trashy-looking houses, it brings the neighborhood down. And when you have a lot of renters, you have a lot of trashy-looking houses.”

One point that Winnestaffer and his skeptics in the neighborhood agree on is that Cabana Colony is well-positioned for a dramatic price boom. Bordered to the north by the million-dollar homes of Frenchman’s Reserve and to the south by The Gardens mall and the still-under-construction Downtown at the Gardens project, the neighborhood is full of, as Conway put it, “very moderate homes sitting on very lucrative locations.”

Cabana Colony’s median home sale price in 2004 was $165,000, a 76.5 percent increase since 2000. And although Winnestaffer paid $140,000 for a 1,346-square-foot house on Everglades Road in February 2004, a 1,418-square-foot home down the street cost him $221,000 in January of this year.

“Eventually, they’re going to be $500,000,” Winnestaffer said. “Is that going to be in two years or 10 years? I would love it to be in two, but I’m positioned for the long haul.”

Winnestaffer’s business career started when he was 9 and would mow neighborhood lawns for a few dollars a pop. That hobby became WinnScapes, a landscape design and maintenance company in Ohio with 45 employees and $3.5 million in annual revenue.

Winnestaffer began buying investment homes in the early 1990s, and found the real estate game to his liking. A game, in fact, is exactly how Winnestaffer views it.

“I call it adult Monopoly,” he said. “How much more fun could it be than to drive through a neighborhood, see a house and buy it?”

In addition to the homes in Cabana Colony, Winnestaffer owns two side-by-side, high-end houses near Juno Beach with backyard access to the Intracoastal Waterway. He also owns one house in Port St. Lucie, part of a package deal with one of his Cabana Colony sellers.

Winnestaffer, who says he comes to Florida about every three weeks, uses one of the waterfront houses as a second home. Though Winnestaffer is not planning a permanent move to Florida because he has children in school in Ohio, he said his interest in Cabana Colony is not fleeting.

“When it comes to maintaining the houses, having a real care for the neighborhood and how safe and successful it is, I’m very committed,” Winnestaffer said. “Having millions of dollars worth of real estate in Cabana Colony, I don’t think I can be any more committed.”

Conway does not doubt Winnestaffer’s interest in protecting his investment and seeing property values rise, but he wonders about Winnestaffer’s ability to follow through on his promises as long as he is an absentee landlord.

“He may care, but he doesn’t live here,” Conway said. “The landlord has certain control over things, but beyond that it’s a matter of code enforcement. There’s a point where people can have a junky-looking house and they’re not breaking the law and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

County Commissioner Karen Marcus, whose district includes the unincorporated neighborhood, said there are no legal means by which the county can regulate real estate investors such as Winnestaffer.

“If his intent is to just buy them and maintain them, I don’t know that anyone can object to that,” she said.

Perhaps not legally or on principle, but Mary Sutherland certainly objects to the actual practice of Winnestaffer’s real estate business.

The house on Acapulco Avenue where she has lived for 29 years faces one of Winnestaffer’s rentals, and she said the view is not pretty. On a recent afternoon, dozens of pieces of lawn furniture and faded plastic children’s play sets crowded its yard.

“It looks terrible,” Sutherland said. “No place is perfect, but it just looks terrible.”

Copyright 2005 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
June 26, 2005 Sunday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. 1A
LENGTH: 1393 words