Corrective measures for wary property investor

After buying former Philadelphia Phillies slugger Ryan Howard’s uber-opulent Belleair Shores mansion for $16.5 million, property investor Ben Mallah now has one heck of a house payment to make.

The burden, on paper at least, lessened a bit last month when Mallah’s Largo-based company, Equity Management Partners, sold two hotels — the oceanfront Mayan Inn in Daytona Beach and the Hawthorne Suites on International Drive in Orlando — for nearly $25 million. The firm made about $7 million in profit from the deals.