Free Republic

Real estate experts expect financial and real estate markets to bottom in 2009 and then falter for much of 2010, with continued drops in property values and additional foreclosures and delinquencies, according to the 2009 Emerging Trends in Real Estate report, released this week by the Urban Land Institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers. But there are a few bright spots in this rather gloomy forecast. At the top of the list: Apartments are the best opportunity investment next year, according to the report, which includes interviews and survey responses from more than 600 leading real estate experts, developers, lenders, brokers, and consultants....

The Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office and Hurlburt Office of Special Investigation discovered an explosive device in the back of a truck that had base access after receiving an anonymous tip Tuesday morning. At about 6 a.m., deputies received an untraceable call and alerted Hurlburt Security personnel of the potential danger. The male voice had warned that a man working at Hurlburt Field had explosives on his truck. Hurlburt Field security levels were raised at 10 a.m. when morning searches for the truck came up empty. The caller's partial description eventually led investigators to a man with access to the base...

New flats for elderly people have opened in Bristol - with toilets that do not face Mecca. The Muslim-friendly Very Sheltered Housing (VSH) scheme in Lincoln Street, Lawrence Hill, also includes beds that allow a tenant's feet to point in the right direction. Lincoln Gardens cost more than £6 million, has 55 bedrooms and was put up by the city council and the Guinness Trust on the site of the former Wainbrook elderly persons' home. It includes 19 flats suitable for "tenants from the Muslim community" following local consultation. A council spokesman said: "The toilets in these flats are orientated...

The big boys are coming out to play as prices become more reasonable. Canyon Capital Realty Partners are teaming with former basketball star Magic Johnson and former California State Treasurer Phil Angelides to put together a 2 billion dollar housing fund. The target is not fancy office buildings but instead a much more mundane group, workforce housing. They plan on refurbishing lower to middle class housing and market it to the middle class workers who right now are facing long commutes to get affordable housing. The goal is to buy 10,000 apartments over the next few years. “In high-cost areas...

Chinese rescue workers search for survivors after an explosion partially collapses a residential building in Datong, Central China's Shanxi Province, January 15, 2007. Three people were reported killed with another six injured. Authorities are investigating the cause of the blast. [Xinhua]

One sure sign that a downtown neighborhood is becoming a fashionable place to live—more than just a commercial district—is the number of dogs out and about on the sidewalks. Today, many apartment buildings and individual landlords are developing increasingly lenient pet policies to attract more dog owners to these newly gentrified urban areas. There’s no question that city living offers many on-tap conveniences that make it an attractive alternative to a suburban lifestyle. But how dog friendly is downtown? There is much more to consider when it comes to your pal’s well-being than the landlord’s consent or the homeowner policy...

Nearly every other day, the Seattle Fire Department responds to an apartment house for chronic street alcoholics to administer emergency medical aid to an ailing resident. The $11.2 million housing project, located at 1811 Eastlake Ave., puts to test a unique concept in housing homeless hard-core alcoholics because residents are allowed to drink in their rooms. The 39 aid calls to the building since it opened in mid-December far exceed what backers of the controversial project anticipated. And that raises questions about whether one of the key theories behind the project — saving taxpayer money by reducing visits by homeless...

Last year was a record for the nation's home building industry . The Commerce Department reported Thursday that construction of single-family homes and apartments totaled 2.065 million units last year. The increase of 5.6 percent over 2004 pushed overall residential construction to the second highest level on record, exceeded only by 2.357 million units built in 1972. Meanwhile, single-family home construction hit an all-time high for the third straight year, rising to 1.714 million units, up 6.4 percent from the previous record of 1.611 million homes built in 2004. The record-setting performance came despite the fact that housing activity dropped...

Young, single people usually love the excitement of big cities, from the vibrant nightlife to the noisiness and frenzied pace of urban existence. They love it so much they're willing to pay a stiff price for cramped quarters and communal living. For some, the price is getting too steep. The draw of the bright lights and big cities is dimming now that housing costs have hit exorbitant heights. Some who grew up fantasizing about life in the "big city" are settling in less glamorous cities and even suburbs. "For a lot of young people, especially growing up in the Northeast,...

I was advised yesterday that I've been hired for a 3-6 month contract in Baton Rouge and have been on the phone with extended stay hotels in the area. I've found there is no room at the inn due to Katrina evacuees. I'm in search of a garage/basement apt within 20 miles of downtown Baton Rouge that's reasonably priced. If it's furnished that's all the better..I will need to move in late Saturday, (Dec 17).. I planned on leaving here tomorrow morning (Friday), but it now makes no sense. I've revised my departure to Saturday, Dec 17. Please freepmail me...

For anybody who's lost a bidding war for a house in Seattle, here's a small consolation: Some of the biggest real-estate magnates in the world are enduring the same experience as they try to buy into the region's hot housing market. In what brokers are calling "a perfect storm" of economic circumstances, investors from Australia to Bellevue are pouring money into Seattle-area apartment complexes, breaking sales records and driving up prices because they see rents about to take off. Some $2.1 billion worth of apartments have changed hands in the Seattle metro area this year, triple the level of two...

I hope this post makes sense and is apropos to FReeping. One of the well-qualified women out at the hospital is considering going to work at the Naval Medical Center San Diego. She has two young children and a spouse who is now disabled. Therefore, money is a big factor in her move. She is a brand new proud citizen to the US and this job opportunity is a step up from her present position. Due to the many horror stories about high rental prices, traffic and some bad neighborhoods coming out of San Diego area she has reservations about...

Houston real estate makes comeback Home sales post double-digit gains in July Friday, August 19, 2005 Inman News Houston, Texas The Houston real estate market bounced back in July, as sales and median prices rose to all-time highs, the Houston Association of Realtors reported. Particular strength was seen in the $400,000-plus home market, with a 29.2 percent increase in sales for those higher-end properties when compared to last year, the association reported. Total property sales, which includes single-family homes, townhomes, multifamily homes, country homes, high-rise properties and lots listed on the MLS, totaled 7,680 in July, which was a 10...

LEGISLATION PENDING in Congress that would convert a popular federal rent-assistance program into a fixed grant program has public housing authorities around the country worried - and with good reason. Under the legislation, public housing agencies would be limited by caps in the number of poor people they could help, and unable to move thousands off waiting lists for subsidized housing into affordable apartments. Given the nationwide shortage of affordable housing and other recent funding cuts to federal public housing programs, changes to the rent-assistance program known as Section 8 are sure to worsen the problem and force people to...

City planners in Los Angeles are shocked to discover that people moving into downtown apartments are unwilling to give up their cars and live the way many Manhattanites and San Franciscans do - using the expensive subway, bus system, and taxi cabs for their daily transportation. And now local officials, who just a few years ago stopped requiring developers to build parking spaces in most loft buildings, are scrambling to accommodate automobiles — and their owners — downtown.

Twenty people were indicted by a federal grand jury in Austin this week and accused of running an elaborate real estate scheme in which they defrauded banks and mortgage lenders of about $15 million. Most of the people used their positions in the real estate business to buy dozens of houses and duplexes in and around Austin, create false appraisal and loan documents to fool financial institutions, then sell the properties to an associate at an inflated price, according to the indictment. That associate would then usually default on the loan, and the participants would share the profit with the...

November 29, 2003 Apartment Glut Forces Owners to Cut Rents in Much of U.S.By DAVID LEONHARDT EMPHIS, Nov. 25 — Renting an apartment in much of the country these days can feel a little like waking up on your birthday. Waiting for the tenants in some building lobbies around Memphis every morning are free cups of Starbucks coffee. In the Atlanta suburbs, people who move into one garden-style apartment building receive $500 gift certificates to Best Buy, the electronics chain. In Cleveland, Denver and many other cities, landlords have been giving new tenants gifts worth $1,000 or more: one,...

ZURICH (Reuters) - A man who tried to fight bothersome wasps with insect spray and a cigarette lighter burned down his apartment and two neighboring flats, Swiss police say. A police spokesman said Tuesday the man used a whole can of insect spray on a wasp nest underneath an overhanging roof outside his apartment. When he tried to fend off the angry wasps with his lighter, the fumes ignited and set the flats ablaze. No one in the apartment block was hurt, but the blaze caused more than $350,000 in damage.

OPATCONG TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Everyone agrees that this recently rural township, its sleepy streets fringed by old farms, is a fine place to rear children. And in just a few years, hundreds of children have arrived, each like an invoice addressed to taxpayers. Now the town faces another expense, the legal defense of a new ordinance that will, in effect, keep down the number of families moving in. The courts will decide whether the restriction, limiting new multifamily housing units to two bedrooms, crosses a fine line between zoning meant to slow galloping development and zoning meant to keep out...

Big bucks, tiny apartments By TRACY CONNORDAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Saturday, August 2nd, 2003 The real-estate ad warned, "Think Treehouse or Cruise Ship Cabin," but the size of the apartment - 160 square feet - still looked like a misprint. It wasn't. Barely twice the size of a Death Row prison cell, the itty-bitty studio on Perry St. in the West Village just might be the smallest co-op for sale in Manhattan. It has a twin bed built into the wall, with a cubbyhole at the foot for a small television, a speck of a kitchenette and room left over...