The Sanatoga Post

SANATOGA PA – A new operating general partner, and its affiliated property management company, have assumed supervision of the 232-unit, 20-acre Rolling Hills Apartments complex at 2120 Buchert Rd. in Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township.

The new partner is Rolling Hills-Michaels LLC, a New Jersey-based limited liability company, according to the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA). Its designated property management firm is Interstate Realty Management Company, better known simply as IRM and headquartered in Marlton NJ.

Both are part of the Michaels Organization, a privately-held family of companies that says it specializes in affordable, mixed-income, and military housing.

Rolling Hills' exterior signs were altered last week

The partnership change was approved by the agency board of directors earlier this year (Feb. 10, 2011). It became publicly apparent only last week, however, when signs marking the entrances to Rolling Hills were physically altered to identify the management firm by adding the acronym “IRM.”

It is unknown what effect, if any, the change will have on current or future tenants.

Agency approval of the change was necessary because it provided taxable bond financing of more than $5 million in July 1974 to build the complex, which opened in 1976. As the new operating general partner, Rolling Hills-Michaels LLC needed PHFA’s blessing to assume the existing mortgage, continue to operate the development (legally owned by an entity called Rolling Hills Apartments LP) and maintain its fiscal and physical condition.

Rolling Hills’ previous operating general partner and property manager was Community Realty Management Inc. (CRM), also based in New Jersey. IRM is no stranger to either Rolling Hills or CRM; the two have been involved in tangled legal battles regarding the apartments for several years.

According to the Montgomery County property records database, which was last updated Monday (June 6, 2011), Rolling Hills Apartments LP bought the complex during September 1989 for $11.6 million. The property is currently assessed for $7 million. Most of its units are of the two- and three-bedroom variety (there are a limited number of four-bedroom units) and the majority have only one bathroom, the database shows.

NORRISTOWN PA – Pennsylvania’s governor offered financial help last week for thousands of families to buy homes with affordable loans; to assist thousands more with home closing costs; and to build hundreds of new homes. The assistance won’t be a comfort, however, to 17 Lower Pottsgrove Township property owners whose parcels were scheduled to be auctioned this Wednesday (Dec. 30, 2009) in a Montgomery County (PA) sheriff’s sale.

Gov. Edward Rendell said last Tuesday (Dec. 22, 2009) that the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, the U.S. Treasury, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac had partnered on a $1.2 billion package to:

• Supply 30-year, fixed-rate, low-interest mortgage loans to 11,000 families across the state, or 164 for each of its 67 counties;
• Expand a second loan program that lets up to 2,000 home buyers (29 per county) borrow up to $6,000 each interest-free to help make down-payments and pay for closing costs; and
• Provide $50 million in construction loans to build about 450 new homes (7 per county).

“To kick-start the housing recovery, we need to repair the damage of the past few years and again make it possible for qualified home buyers to get loans,” Rendell said. The partnership, he added, was creating programs that send “the message to existing homeowners and first-time home buyers alike … that now is a great time to buy a home in Pennsylvania.”

Meanwhile, Sheriff John P. Durante has prepared an entirely different program to start Wednesday at 1 p.m. in Courtroom A at the county courthouse in Norristown. Durante’s office is charged with selling hundreds of homes that have been reclaimed by lenders under foreclosure proceedings.

Of the 17 originally scheduled for sale in Lower Pottsgrove, according to the sheriff’s website, only three were still available to bidders as of 9:30 p.m. yesterday (Monday, Dec. 28, 2009). They are located at 1219 Valley Rd., 2348 Brown St., and 20 Creekside Dr., with amounts owed to lenders ranging between $106,000 and $248,000.

Sales of the remaining 14 were either stayed, or postponed by court orders or bankruptcy filings, until as late as Feb. 24 (2010). They are located at 1 Creekside Dr., 1258 N. Charlotte St., 228 S. Park Rd., 485 N. Pleasant View Rd., 3608 Walnut Ridge Estates, 73 Timberview Dr., 2602 Terraced Hills Ct., 1482 Oakdale Dr., 1442 Sanatoga Rd., 1129 Oakdale Dr., 1605 N. Valley Rd., 97 Brookview Ln., 2702 Walnut Ridge Estates, and 244 S. Pleasant View Rd., with amounts owed to lenders ranging from $5,800 to $360,000.

There is no guarantee any sale will occur. Postponements or stays likely were because owners and their lenders are at work on, or completed, agreements that bring a property out of foreclosure or allow it to be sold privately.

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