So it goes when you're down on your luck. And Robert Falor is down on his luck.
Although this roly-poly, baby-faced real estate developer is hardly a household name, he cut deals with plenty of people who were. Deftly working the celebrity circuit, while claiming to be developing more than $1 billion worth of properties around Miami and Chicago, he snared newspaper plaudits as the "condo-hotel king."
Today, the king's realm is nearly bankrupt. In Miami Beach, two hotels in the high-gloss South Beach neighborhood that he planned to market under Nicky Hilton's name became the haunts of squatters rather than stars and were auctioned in the spring. Another Miami Beach hotel, the Royal Palm, also slipped from his grasp, in 2007 - as did relationships with his partners in that deal, Peebles and Gerber.
Former business associates assert in lawsuits that Falor, 40, pretended to own property that he did not own, used business funds for personal toys like luxury cars and a private jet, and otherwise mismanaged his finances.
He now says he is so short on cash that he doesn't have a personal bank account or any property, according to court documents. Yet records unearthed by his mother's lawyer showed that a company associated with him was paying $8,000 a month to rent a 12,000-square-foot Normandy-style manor in the Chicago suburb of Riverwoods.
While every financial bubble spawns a new crop of wheeler-dealers who exploit the mania, Falor's former investors and business associates say he stood out because of his almost flawless appreciation of the currency of celebrity. Riding the crest of the real estate boom from 2004 to 2008, he found banks, investors and buyers clamoring to work with him, even though little in his background suggested that he could deliver on his promises.
Do you think he should at least get a cash advance loan? Hhmm, the next question is how large the amount will be. This is really a sunset in his life though. Well, you can read the whole story of this at Hotel developer lands in red ink, despite boldface names by Christine Haugney of New York Times.
