I guess you would be fine with them starting up the Wayside Hedge Fund or becoming direct home lender as long as it made money for the cause? This is a dangerous precedent if this goes unmonitored.

And the “what if” about JCTC is just that, a potential scenario.

And oh yeah, let’s start taxing all non-profit organizations that “conduct business”. Again, this isn’t the America I know.

The true test of legitimacy will come with a mortgage lender stepping up to fund the deal. I don’t know a lender who would finance a 1963 antiquated hotel riddled with asbestos and a shot HVAC system for $10M in this market. Maybe in 2006-2007 when they would sell the loan off to the Capital Markets, but not today.

The system is obviously being gained, the only question is who is going benefit and who is going to get shafted. The attempt appears to be for Gus, Wayside, and Mosely to benefit, and the taxpayers to get shafted. As a taxpayer, part of me hopes the deal blows up in their faces, but unfortunately then, the homeless are going to get shafted.

1) They are a non-taxed charitable orgainization. Every other reale estate investment company has to pay huge taxes, so why sho they be exempt. How much tax revenue is not going to be collected because they purchased the property instead of a private investor?

2) If the adjoining college has to pay more for the property because Wayside and Gus brokered a side deal to run up the price, once again the tax payer gets the short stick again.

3) If it’s “just business” as you say, then they should be taxed like one.

Whether Wayside is flipping or not, that’s their business. Do we question any other organization’s internal financial decisions in public (outside of companies seeking government bailouts)?

As long as everything is legal, I think we should just let the players in this situation work it out amongst themselves. It’s just business.