Archive for May 20th, 2008
Continue Reading May 20th, 2008
The public radio show This American Life had a great program on the housing bust on Sunday. It was called the Giant Pool of Money and it detailed how Wall Street’s search for higher yields translated into the foreclosure crisis the country is presently experiencing.
None of this will be new to readers of Hot Property, but the stories told here are amazing. There’s the borrower in Ohio with poor credit and who never made more than $45,000 a year but nonetheless got a mortgage for nearly $500,000. As he described it: “I wouldn’t have loaned me the money. I know criminals who wouldn’t have loaned me the money.”
There’s also the tale of the mortgage salesman at a boiler room type outfit in New York who tells of first class treatment in night clubs, $1,000 bottles of Champagne with sparklers on them, and hobnobbing with celebrities. Not surprisingly both of these people are now fighting foreclosure on their homes.
For folks who really enjoy listening to things online, Congress is holding hearings at 2PM eastern time tommorrow on the impact of foreclosures on local communities.
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Continue Reading May 20th, 2008
Mervyns, the mid-tier department store chain in California and the Southwest, plans to open five new store locations, sell certain other store locations, and launch an e-commerce Web site, the company announced today. Read more »
Continue Reading May 20th, 2008
Denver’s Ohlson Lavoie Collaborative has been chosen as the architect of record for the design of the 8.1 million-square-foot Cairo Financial Center on 15 acres in Cairo. Read more »
Continue Reading May 20th, 2008
San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co. has big expansion plans, and the company has just tapped New York City’s PBS Real Estate Advisors to spearhead the endeavor. Read more »
Continue Reading May 20th, 2008
Duke Realty Corp. announces that Bob Grossi has been named vice president of development and leasing for its East Region, with primary responsibility for overseeing the redevelopment of the former General Motors’ assembly plant site in Linden, N. J. Read more »
Continue Reading May 20th, 2008
Zealous Trading Group Inc. has just announced that it will relocate its headquarters from the tony streets of the Century City submarket in Los Angeles to Tustin in Orange County, courtesy of a three-year lease at 15461 Red Hill Ave. Read more »
Continue Reading May 20th, 2008
Vulcan Inc. today announced the opening of Borealis Apartments, a new workforce housing project in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood. Read more »
Continue Reading May 20th, 2008
The massive explosion on Monday took place at the site of the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel, a 1,190 facility under construction. Read more »
Continue Reading May 20th, 2008
It’s official. Just one week after news emerged that New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s deal with Tishman Speyer for a proposed $1 billion redevelopment of Manhattan’s Hudson Yards had collapsed, the MTA has awarded a joint venture consisting of Related Cos. and Goldman Sachs the developments rights for endeavor. Read more »
Continue Reading May 20th, 2008
The University of Southern California Lusk Center for Real Estate has named Richard Green a director and lusk chair in real estate. Read more »