Continue Reading Add comment June 30th, 2009 10:25am John
Home prices continued to tumble in April, falling 18.1% from a year earlier — but the change from March narrowed sharply, indicating that housing markets may be starting to turn.
Continue Reading Add comment June 29th, 2009 07:09pm John
As if celebrities didn’t have enough problems–like paparazzi and wrinkles–along comes the housing bust to tarnish their silvery existence. Chicago Tribune real estate columnist Mary Umberger rounded up a bunch of celebs who are having trouble selling expensive homes, including the above-mentioned Mel Gibson, 50 Cent, Tim Geithner, and Richard Gere. Christie Brinkley’s unsold home shows up in a story by Laura Mann of Newsday. That’s the tippy top of Christie’s house, known as Tower Hill, in the photo. It’s been on the market for $30 million ever since 2007. Don’t feel too bad for the uptown girl, though. According to Newsday, she bought Tower Hill in the late 1990s for less than $3 million.
Continue Reading Add comment June 26th, 2009 02:38pm John
Ory Schwartz, senior director of NorthMarq Capital’s Los Angeles
office, has arranged an $18 million first mortgage for Meadowridge
Apartments, a 176-unit multi-family complex located in Santa Clarita,
Calif.
Continue Reading Add comment June 26th, 2009 06:29am John
The combination of a deep recession and widespread law-enforcement funding cuts will most likely spell a banner summer for burglars. If your house makes a good target - it’s upscale, off the beaten path, and in or near a city - an alarm system is your best defense, according to Temple University economics professor Simon Hakim, who studies security and policing. Installing one will reduce your risk of a break-in by two-thirds. To determine what you really need, follow the guidelines below.
Continue Reading Add comment June 26th, 2009 04:15am John
Are banks overwhelmed and understaffed for all the work coming out of the housing bust? On June 24, Ciitgroup said it was temporarily suspending new loans brought to them by independent mortgage brokers as it seeks to fix “quality control” issues regarding loan documentation. Rob Jenson, a real estate agent with the Jenson Group in Las Vegas says he’s been trying for eight months to get Bank of America to approve the sale of house for less than the loan amount, a so-called short sale that banks say they are working more diligently to accommodate. “It’s insane,” Jenson says. “It’s getting worse.”
The house Jenson is having problems selling was originally listed for $795,000 in November. It’s a five bedroom, 4,500 square foot home in the Vegas suburb of Summerlin. Jenson immediately got a full-price, all-cash offer which he submitted to the bank late last year. “It took two to three weeks to get a workout negotiator,” he says. “Then they order an appraisal, additional documents from the seller.” Two months later the bank said okay to $795,000, but by then the buyer had moved on.
That started the process all over again. Jenson brought in another buyer, but this one needed to get a loan. By then the house had fallen in value. The property appraised at only $747,000 and the buyer couldn’t get a mortgage for the higher purchase price.
Jenson said the bank negotiator he’s been dealing with said she’s got 145 files that she is working on at once. “Bank could create some jobs,” a frustrated Jenson says. “They should hire more negotiators.”
Continue Reading Add comment June 25th, 2009 10:56am John
Check out this great Washington Post story from yesterday about the backlog in foreclosures. The human interest is a woman from Glen Allen, Va., who moved out of her house last July and has been begging the bank to foreclose so it won’t be her responsibility anymore. As long as her name is on the title, she’s been going back and trying to keep it neat. She even tried to clean up from a fire that broke out in January. Here’s the final quote in the story:
We could have walked away like everyone else and said, ‘We don’t care.’ But we loved our neighbors and our neighborhood. We hold ourselves responsible.
I don’t know why she fell behind on her mortgage in the first place, but I admire her sense of responsibility at this stage.
Hat tip to Matt Stichnoth at Seeking Alpha.
Continue Reading Add comment June 24th, 2009 11:32pm John
Omega Commercial Finance Corp. has signed a definitive agreement to acquire a majority interest in EcoCalifornia L.L.C., a firm currently in the process of developing a golf resort and housing project in the Fresno, Calif., area.
Continue Reading Add comment June 24th, 2009 05:30pm John
Newly-formed value-added real estate fund KABR Real Estate Investment Partners L.L.C. has purchased a 235,000-square-foot office building at 85 Challenger Road in Ridgefield Park, N.J., from AIG.
Continue Reading Add comment June 24th, 2009 10:38am John
The Mortgage Bankers Association has slashed its estimate of the number of mortgages its members will issue in 2009. One reason: Few refinancings are being done under President Obama’s ballyhooed Home Affordable Refinance Program.
Continue Reading Add comment June 24th, 2009 09:26am John
The apartment market held up relatively well during the early stages of the economy’s descent–but even it is now in decline. And while many investors are shying away, industry veterans Jim Butz and Greg Lamb are jumping in with both feet. The two former principals of leading multi-family developer JPI East have teamed with office and mixed-use developer Akridge to launch Jefferson Apartment Group with the intention of acquiring–and eventually–developing apartment properties in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions.