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Oct

19
2009

Beautiful real estate posters for your office

By , Monday, October 19, 2009.

I stumbled across this site last night and just had to pick up a beautiful screen print of Portland's neighborhoods.

Ork Posters prints beautiful neighborhood maps for cities across the U.S., including Seattle, Boston, NYC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Philly, among others. The maps are designed by Jenny Beorkrem from trimtabdesign.com.  more...

Top 10 best investment destinations

By Global Edge, Monday, October 19, 2009.

Global Property Guide has put together a list of the most attractive property investment destinations across the world. Their research team has ranked 77 of the world's largest cities according to the average gross rental yields.

The top 10 destinations are dominated by Asian cities, with Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Manila all making the list.  more...

Boston condo auction a 'complete failure'

By Curbed.com, Monday, October 19, 2009.

Over the weekend, developer Vornado Realty Trust auctioned off 10 luxury condos in The Bryant, a new 50-unit brick building on the border of Boston's Back Bay and South End neighborhoods. Why do we care? Because developers holding on to unsold "shadow inventory" in New York City have been quietly keeping an eye on this auction.

Vornado's hypothesis: that luxury condos can and will maintain their value (value according to the developers, that is) at auction.

So how did it turn out?  more...

Oct

15
2009

Oct

14
2009

Europeans turn their eyes to Florida

By Global Edge, Wednesday, October 14, 2009.

The Herald Tribune, which this week ran a feature on the rise of international buyers purchasing in Florida, found that Western European buyers accounted for 38 percent of the total number of foreigner purchasers in the Sunshine State, with the British the largest segment.

Although there has been strong interest from Europeans over the past 18 months, it was almost impossible for foreign nationals to get U.S. mortgages at the start of Florida's financial crisis, says Patricia Tan, international sales director at Prudential Palms Realty in Sarasota. "But now large lenders like Bank of America are back in the market, even if they do have more stringent documentation requirements than in the past."  more...

Oct

13
2009

No Photoshop skills required

By , Tuesday, October 13, 2009.

PhotoSketch is a mind-blowing project from a group of computer science students in China, who have created software that will take your hand-drawn sketch, search the Web for corresponding images and then stitch them all together into a brand-new composite image.

A video demonstration from their paper shows the software in action:  more...

Brainpower: why mind matters

By Inman News, Tuesday, October 13, 2009.

Dear Editor:

Re: 'Paying for an architect's brain' (Oct. 9)

Your article brings top of mind an illuminating sentiment of my pre-real-estate-career mentor and business partner of 16 years -- a mechanical engineer who said, "Those who are working with their hands (doing) are always suspect of those who are working with their minds (thinking)."

I'd put my money on the "incubation mode" -- the process of indirect analysis and subconscious thought challenging, collecting and sifting random "snippets and bits" from a historical multitude of concepts and ideas -- which is precisely what professionals do that brings HUGE value.  more...

Oct

8
2009

REOs can be comps, too

By Inman News, Thursday, October 8, 2009.

Dear Editor:

Re: 'NAR: Appraisal rules undercut tax credit' (Oct. 8)

I have to disagree with the stance that the National Association of Home Builders takes on the appraisal process. Foreclosures and distressed sales are part of the new market we are in and can't be ignored or dismissed.

As appraisers, we DO NOT use homes going into foreclosure as comps UNLESS those are the predominant (comps) of the local market. We will use comps coming out of foreclosure and listed, via the multiple listing systems, on the open market -- like any other home. If it has proper market exposure time, like every other property we are considering using, there's no reason why we can't use it as a comp.  more...

Real estate's October report card

By John Burns, Thursday, October 8, 2009.
John Burns

While both the media and stock investors believe that housing has bottomed, they are unaware of the massive supply of homes that are already in the foreclosure process that will certainly drive home prices down even further when they are sold. We have been projecting a "W"-shaped recovery for some time, and we are becoming even more convinced that we are right. The shape of the second leg down is almost completely dependent on the level of government intervention that will take place.

For a number of reasons, banks have not been aggressively taking title to homes and selling them, which has resulted in very few distressed sales in comparison to the actual level of distress in the market. This delay in REO sales, along with historically low mortgage rates and an $8,000 tax credit, has helped to stabilize the housing market -- temporarily.  more...

Oct

6
2009

Stimulus in action

By Inman News, Tuesday, October 6, 2009.

Re: 'Wheels of stimulus spinning in place' (Oct. 9)

Dear Editor:

Since taxpayers will ultimately pay the price for the bailouts paid out to the nation's companies that are responsible for this economic tragedy, wouldn't it make more sense for them to repay something they actually receive in return?  more...

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