TAMPA - With a premier address and waterfront views, ParkCrest Harbour Island was irresistible to many investors, who repeatedly bought and sold units since it opened two years ago. Now, dozens of owners want out, and there are signs some can't pay their bills.

Sixteen of the 336 units are in some stage of foreclosure, and 67 of the condos are for sale, according to public documents and a database used by real estate agents. An additional 41 units are listed in the database as leased or for rent.

"This is excellent anecdotal evidence of what's happening in the Florida housing boom and the bust we're now in," said Jack McCabe, a real estate consultant in Deerfield Beach.

The foreclosures are precursors of what's to come, he said.

Over the past couple of years, developers have built dozens of condos in the Sunshine State's downtowns, and McCabe estimates that 70 percent to 80 percent of the sales were made to speculators. Many of those buyers planned to flip their units for a profit but now can't sell them and are running out of money to make monthly mortgage payments.

Dozens of residential condominium projects have been proposed for downtown Tampa, but just two with heights of nine stories or more have been completed. The other project is Parkside of One Bayshore, at Platt Street and Bayshore Boulevard. It also had a lot of investor activity, but has had only one foreclosure.

As the real estate market slowed, some developers dropped their plans, but others are moving forward. Eight condo towers are expected to open downtown this year.

'Investors Are Overextended'

Of the 16 foreclosures in ParkCrest, five are a result of owners not paying condo association fees. The rest are being foreclosed on by the financial institutions holding the mortgages.

None of the owners in foreclosure could be reached for comment. It is not clear how many of them are investors, but three own two units each.

"I tend to think the overall trouble in the condo market is because investors are overextended," said Jim Pyburn, president of the ParkCrest Harbour Island Condo Association. "I'm optimistic that this will get better, but that doesn't help the people who are in dire straits trying to sell their units."

Pyburn said other condo owners are on the verge of foreclosure for not paying monthly fees. The fees vary depending on unit size, but a 1,300-square-foot condo runs $573 a month in maintenance fees, he said.

ParkCrest Harbour Island, along the Garrison Channel in downtown, opened in March 2005. The building was originally planned as an apartment complex, but the developer, Tampa-based CKT Development Co., decided during construction in 2004 to convert the project into condominiums. Within six weeks, the building was nearly sold out, the company said at the time.

Investors have converged on the building since the beginning. There are 397 total sales in the building listed in the Multiple Listing Service, the database used by real estate agents. Some of the units have sold multiple times.

Developers typically sell units themselves and don't use the listing service, so many of the sales listed in the database are resales, said Emmy Purcell Reynolds, vice president of Tampa real estate company Henry Purcell Inc.

Reynolds said she has taken clients to see units in ParkCrest three times and isn't surprised by the amount of foreclosures.

"The apartment-condo idea may have been good in its infancy, but developers oversaturated the market," Reynolds said. "The units themselves [in ParkCrest] don't feel like condos; they feel like apartments."

Of the 67 units on the market, 15 have been for sale less than a month; 10 have been on the market for more than 200 days and two have been waiting for a buyer for more than a year, according to listing data.

Forty-three units have sold through the listing service since this time last year. Sellers who didn't use a real estate agent aren't included there. In July 2005, the Tribune reported 66 units were for sale.

There are so many units on the market that the ParkCrest condo association has decided not to allow lockboxes to hang on the doors. Instead, the lockboxes, used by agents to gain access to units, go in a cabinet.

"If you walked in a building as a buyer and saw 67 lockboxes, you might be a little intimidated," Pyburn said.

Association Foreclosures Rise

Michael Brudny, a lawyer with Brudny & Rabin in Oldsmar, is representing the condo association at ParkCrest. Brudny said the firm represents 400 condo associations in the Tampa Bay area and that foreclosures on behalf of associations are on the rise.

"It's the only remedy associations have when people don't pay," Brudny said, noting that some condo owners face losing their property over as little as $2,000 in assessment fees.

For some condo investors, the foreclosure process is a way to buy time to come up with the money, he said.

"Sometimes investors get in a cash crunch …" Brudny said. "At the last minute, they pay to avoid the foreclosure."

But if they can't, others are watching and waiting to buy units at a discount.

McCabe, the real estate consultant, said he is advising these investors to wait for better deals. "In my opinion, it's still a little early. After the current snowbird season is over, I think we'll see lenders take back properties from developers and foreclosures will go up dramatically."

Reporter Shannon Behnken can be reached at (813) 259-7804.