From today's Bakersfield Californian:
BY RYAN SCHUSTER, Californian staff writer
e-mail: rschuster@bakersfield.com
The company formerly known as Crisp & Cole Real Estate Inc. is in the midst of reorganizing and downsizing as the local housing market continues to cool.
Local real estate magnate David Crisp has formed a new company, Crisp Real Estate Inc., and operations at Crisp's in-house mortgage company, Tower Lending, have ceased. Crisp's California Avenue offices have closed, plans for new offices have been scaled back and several employees have been laid off.
"It's a result of the downturn in the market in Bakersfield," said Jack Doremus, the former broker of record at Crisp & Cole Real Estate. "People are losing their jobs everywhere."
Crisp declined to address any of the changes in detail.
"It doesn't concern anybody else," Crisp said. "It's my business."
Doremus, who is now sales and production manager at the RE/MAX Magic office in Bakersfield, said he resigned from Crisp & Cole in late March after Crisp told him and five others with high salaries that Crisp could no longer pay them.
"He said, 'I can't make payroll for you guys.' So we left," said Doremus, who said he has remained good friends with Crisp. Doremus said the four others with backgrounds in fields such as human resources and bookkeeping have also landed at RE/MAX Magic.
Crisp's new venture, Crisp Real Estate Inc., was licensed as a corporation by the state Department of Real Estate on April 19.
"Crisp & Cole Real Estate is no longer," Doremus said. "They wanted to form a new company. It's all been switched over to the new name."
Carl Cole, the other half of the former Crisp & Cole partnership, stepped away from the company last year but has remained active in plans to build twin high-rise towers on Cal State Bakersfield's campus. Cole said the towers project -- which has recently shrunk from 32 to 24 stories and is still seeking financing from investors -- will not be affected by changes at the real estate company.
Tower Lending closed its last two loans in March and Crisp is now using another mortgage company, Cole said. Cole said that although he remained the broker of record at Tower, he hasn't had any direct involvement with the company in recent months.
"David was running that company," Cole said. Cole declined to comment on other changes at the company formerly known as Crisp & Cole.
A building that had been slated to become a new home for some Crisp & Cole operations has been put back on the market by Crisp. The approximately 10,000-square-foot building in University Place across from CSUB is listed for sale for $4.5 million. Crisp is listed as the property's selling agent on the Bakersfield Multiple Listing Service property listing.Crisp purchased the building from Bakersfield University Partners for $2.5 million in late April.
As recently as last year Crisp and Cole said publicly that they planned to move Crisp & Cole's California Avenue operations into the University Place property that Crisp purchased and an adjacent leased building on Stockdale Highway. The California Avenue offices have since closed.
The company has signed a 10-year lease with developer Gregory D. Bynum and Associates Inc. on an approximately 5,000-square-foot building next to the property that is for sale.
Greg Bynum, owner of Gregory D. Bynum and Associates Inc., said Crisp & Cole originally planned to use the leased building for Tower Lending. The larger building next door that Crisp & Cole bought was to become home to the company's real estate operations, Bynum said.
Crisp said the leased building is large enough that a second building won't be needed.
"We have enough room in the other one," Crisp said.
Crisp called the change in office space plans "just a business decision" and referred to the building being listed for sale as "an investment."
28 comments:
"Tower Lending closed its last two loans in March and Crisp is now using another mortgage company."
WANTED! Stupid Loan Officers & Greedy Brokers to do Loans for David Crisp and Carl Cole.
BEWARE! DANGER! YOU'LL BE SORRY!
Tower Lending closed its last two loans in March and Crisp is now using another mortgage company, Cole said. Cole said that although he remained the broker of record at Tower, he hasn't had any direct involvement with the company in recent months.
"David was running that company," Cole said. Cole declined to comment on other changes at the company formerly known as Crisp & Cole.
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Two things about this.
First you are the broker of record and you claim no involvement? Isn't that a violation of the State Real Estate License?
Second, the "somone else was running the company" defense is not a good defense! As predicted, by the readers here, these guys will start turning on each other.
after Crisp told him and five others with high salaries that Crisp could no longer pay them.
"He said, 'I can't make payroll for you guys.' So we left,
_____________________________
What happened to all the fancy suits and cars and watches? Maybe you can pay them with that crap?
which has recently shrunk from 32 to 24 stories and is still seeking financing from investors -- will not be affected by changes at the real estate company.
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LMAO!!!
This will not be affected, because it will NEVER be built!
How many of you are hearing the BIG Sucking Sound of the Vacuum here in Bakersfield and Kern County, by our imploding Real Estate Market. Who has looked the F**kedCompany.com? I think the Who's Who List will be quite different two years from now. Maybe all those that moved here from the large metro areas, will move back home when their homes are repo'd (they Never changed their cell numbers anyway!) and Rosedale Hwy. and our other traffic problems might improve Greatly!
"The approximately 10,000-square-foot building in University Place across from CSUB is listed for sale for $4.5 million. Crisp is listed as the property's selling agent on the Bakersfield Multiple Listing Service property listing.Crisp purchased the building from Bakersfield University Partners for $2.5 million in late April." Wow, I see commercial real estate in Bakersfield is still appreciating full steam ahead (Bought for $2.5 mil in late April, now asking $4.5 mil. Who's the appraiser?)
Oh yeah - I forgot to ask: who did the FINANCING of this $4.5 million complex that was worth $2.5 million only last month? I mean, since the guy's lending company is defunct and all. And he couldn't make payroll for his employeess... Maybe he found a subprime lender or better yet one of those cash back to buyer deals.
"Who's the appraiser?"
LOL. I would bet it wasn't Gary Crabtree. :)
When my wife and I were looking for homes, everytime their was a c&c agent we would always feel dirty after the encounter. It was like "big hat no cattle," no substance and an arrogance beyond belief.And of course there would inevitably be a series 7 bmw or mercedes in the home's driveway. All that aside, they would often list homes 20k or more relative to the comps in the area. Great for the sellers but what about the buyers. When we see a c and c listing we drive on by. always.
We're going to see some audacious ... no, INCREDIBLE frauds in commercial real estate. Too much of the financial energy just flipped over to that sector, where the environment for fraud is even worse (since it usually involves politicians drunk on the "economic development" myth). I'm reading more and more instances of comm RE going for millions more in very short periods after buys. (The regulators are as usual asleep at their desks, heads cushioned by bribe money, hence no outright call of alarm exists.)
"David was running that company," Cole said. Cole declined to comment on other changes at the company formerly known as Crisp & Cole.
Huh? What happened to the "David was the dreamer, but I was the guy who figured out how to make it happen" approach? LOL...
Wow, I see commercial real estate in Bakersfield is still appreciating full steam ahead (Bought for $2.5 mil in late April, now asking $4.5 mil.
He's simply following the rule of "buy low, sell high", even if it happens in less than a month! Hey, he's blessed the hallowed ground with the C and C name, so it's appreciated at least 2 mil since then...
Is this guy really trying to 'flip' commercial real estate in May, 2007? Wow, how delusional... One problem with market frenzy is it allows people to succeed who normally wouldn't, and they confuse their success with skill. Ask Casey Serin about this....
Who did the appraisals for Tower Lending?
He couldn't make payroll back in March. Where was the MSM then? When Crisp does the perp walk will the Californian issue an editorial apology?
I wish you all had something better to do then to bash Crisp Real Estate. What about all the other fraud that is going on, nobody talks about that. Everyone goes through hard times, why is Crisp the only one being BASHED?????
Tell us about the other fraud then
and it will be looked into.
I have hundreds of posts here and only a small fraction have to do with these guys.
This is a breaking story on a company that was very out there in the media and now they are running for cover. The are one of many players in this speculative mania we had and so they will be reported on.
Hard times? I thought this mania was to continue for 2-3 more years? How many people were sucked in with that line?
Why is Crisp the only one being BASHED?????
I do so swear henceforth to treat anyone with a $50k watch, $200k car, $2m jet, and $160k salary the same way.
there. Good enough for you sport?
And I was looking forward to a 30th floor apartment. Alas, by next year, it'll be a Shakey's.
Bought for $2.5 mil in late April, now asking $4.5 mil.
He's probably borrowing against the new appraised value to stay afloat.
Wonder if he's laid off the bodyguards yet. LOL.
The bodyguards will be the last to be let go. Why, oh why will not the MSM latch on? He needs bodyguards because he borrowed money from "bad" places. There will be no trial, no civil restitution.
Similar to Casey I get hits from various Fed and State Agencies, however, I see no activity.
I can't understand what they are waiting for.
At the very least the IRS should take a look at this. The income and expenses don't add up
I know what the so-called authorities are waiting for. They're timing the enforcement response. They work for one of the most intense, pro-corporation, pro-wealth executive administrations that has ever sat in the White House. They really can't move forward (even with this preponderance of evidence!) with summary actions against the fraudsters, since that will directly impact their careers once a few phone calls are made. Remember, a fed or state agent is sitting on a now-extraordinary retirement package. This kind of thing has OVERBOUGHT their loyalty to the system. Once the system became completely corrupt, they naturally stopped doing the job that the public thought that they were doing, and started protecting the wealthy crooks as demanded by said corruption.
There may be some enforcement actions taken, but those largely will be used for PR events. Most of the crooks will go on about their business unmolested by law enforcement, happily contributing to the same political machine that fails to arrest them (much less properly build cases).
If there is sufficient public outcry, their surveys of sites like this one can be used to build the now-usual half-assed case to prosecute a tiny minority of the crooks. Those prosecutions will be sacrifices in order to assure the public, and will function to let the bulk of the connected crooks off once again.
We have a deep culture of fraud in the USA now. Every action taken by government is essentially vetted through a process of checking to see if a campaign contributor is harmed by the action. If so, the action is vetoed and never sees the light of day. There is ZERO consideration for the rule of law and real public benefit. It's all about corporate money now.
HATERS!
New blog picks up the First NLC saga:
http://lastnlc.blogspot.com/
I heard they were going to be charging $5NNN rents for the retail space at the towers. That's $60NNN per year. Typically, for a retail project, rents are 12% of sales. So the typical tenant would have to be doing $500 in sales per square foot. I don't know how much business retail stores do in Bakersfield, but I know that retail rents are about the same in Las Vegas. I'd be shocked if a project, located on the CSUB campus, was going to do as much in sales as retail stores in Las Vegas.
I will say, however, that the hotel component makes a lot of sense. The CSUB / Riverwalk / Marketplace area has become Bakersfield's major economic center, and there aren't that many hotel rooms in the area. Everything is either downtown or near Rosedale Highway and the 99.
Homewood Suites is a nice hotel, located only a block away from CSUB by the Marketplace.
From what I can tell, it always seems to be running at 20-30% occupancy (simply based on a drive-by estimate, seeing how full the parking lot is. Some visiting family members stayed there after it opened, so I tend to notice how it's doing). A big chain can absorb some loss of revenue from a new addition to the protfolio.
Of course, all area hotels no doubt hit capacity during graduation ceremonies in Fall/Summer (although I wonder about this: it's not like Cal Poly SLO, where alot of parents live in either L.A. or S.F. or Bakes, and will need to stay in town in a hotel for the events).
Hard to imagine that peak demand is sufficient justification to build a massive hotel tower?
But hey, what do I know? I'm no real estate genius like Donald Trump or David Crisp.... And how does being an agent make one a developer, anyway?
Also hotels seem to cluster around major freeways or places like convention or meeting centers where people have a reason to stay any time of year. Doubt if graduation business could carry a hotel for the rest of the year.
Hello,
I am a first time poster, long time reader of the blog. Thought you may all want to know that Mr. Crisp has been served with a NOD (Notice of Default) paperwork as of yesterday. I am waiting for the local company I use to track foreclosures to send more information regarding which proprty it is. But, according to them, the paperwork was filed yesterday.
The service tracks each stage of the foreclosure process daily, and sends the filings with appended information within 24hrs, they have never been wrong thus far. But I can more information as soon as I get it!
Just thought you would want to know.
Gotta luv those Christians!
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