The Guam Economic Development and Commerce Authority is preparing to sell off over a dozen foreclosed properties in Guam and several CMNI leasehold properties that are not producing income.
Gerald S.A. Perez administrator at the authority told the Journal that over the course of time the authority has acquired various parcels of property. This was a result of defaults on loans and mortgage deeds that have been used as security.
“We are stuck with a bunch of these properties. We are not in the real estate or land business so what we have done is issued a request for proposals and retained a realtor to sell these off of our books ” he said.
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Perez said the authority had been sitting on the assets which were not generating any income. He and his team of managers at the authority decided the best thing was to package the inventory and give it to a realtor who would put it into the multiple Realtor listings service. “Another option we considered — since we own these properties — is to joint venture with a private developer and put them to use that way but we hesitate to do that ” he said.
A number of the parcels he said are “not desirable and either are steepsloped or landlocked. These properties were acquired by default on GEDA loans and we have to do something with them because then GEDCA can use the money.”
Perez said it would seem that previous management at the authority accepted these less-than-desirable properties on what he called questionable loans. “In going through the paperwork it seems there was a lot of screwy things done and now it’s our job to straighten things out.”
Perez said he does not want to dwell on the activities of the past but rather “to move the authority forward and turn non-income producing assets into revenue-generating possessions.”
GEDCA is hesitant to move forward on development of housing projects on various parcels because Perez said the board of directors feels that should be the job of the private sector.
In the village of Maina GEDCA holds title to a group of adjoining properties ranging in size from five square meters to 790 square meters.
Perez said “The parcels are contiguous and it may be worth it to the authority to hire a surveyor to consolidate these into a useful large parcel. These could be used for developing a housing project because they are located in an area where it might have some demand ” he said. “I have to do something with these because I just can’t let these valuable assets just sit there. I want to have these work for us rather than sit idle.”
The authority has about a dozen different parcels on Guam and two or three in Saipan.
Because people of non-CNMI descent cannot own land in the Northern Mariana Islands those parcels are leasehold properties. Perez is unsure how the authority will handle that situation but it will move forward with ridding itself of the properties. “Over the course of time we have developed an inventory of property that is just sitting idle and doing nothing. What we want to do is put them to productive use — like selling them because at the end of the day we have to survive on revenues we generate.” MBJ
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