Free Republic

Human Rights Watch said Thursday that an Israeli strike on an apartment building in Gaza City last October was an “apparent war crime,” citing no military rationale behind the attack after a months-long investigation. The Oct. 31 strike killed at least 106 civilians, including 54 children, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its report. The report “found no evidence of a military target in the vicinity of the building at the time of the Israeli attack, making the strike unlawfully indiscriminate under the laws of war,” the group said. “Israeli authorities have provided no justification for the attack.” The findings...

San Francisco's residential property market has hit troubled waters as a major investor landlord announced the sell-off of a large section of its rental empire this week. Landlord Mosser Companies defaulted on a 2018 loan for $88 million that was underwritten by its 459 rental units across 12 buildings in San Francisco. The company's creditor has now hired real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield to sell the multifamily home properties, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

New resources will encourage zero emissions conversions and transit-oriented development that increase housing supply and cut climate pollution Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing new actions to support the conversion of high-vacancy commercial buildings to residential use, including through new financing, technical assistance, and sale of federal properties. These announcements will create much-needed housing that is affordable, energy efficient, near transit and good jobs, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, nearly 30 percent of which comes from the building sector. Office and commercial vacancies across the country are affecting urban downtowns and rural main streets. A new blog released today by...

A decision by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors this week to delay a 10-townhome project in Nob Hill, in part from concerns over how shadows would affect a neighboring park, raised fresh doubts among housing advocates and political leaders that the city can break old habits and meet an ambitious, state-mandated goal to build housing. The move “raises serious doubts about the viability of SF’s housing element,” state Sen. Scott Wiener wrote on Twitter, referring to the state’s requirement that San Francisco build 82,000 new units during the next eight years. Mayor London Breed said Thursday that the supervisors...

The week of last Thanksgiving, Michael Larkin, a business owner in Hamilton, Ohio, picked up his phone and answered a call. It was the local police, and they wanted footage from Larkin’s front door camera. Larkin had a Ring video doorbell, one of the more than 10 million Americans with the Amazon-owned product installed at their front doors. His doorbell was among 21 Ring cameras in and around his home and business, picking up footage of Larkin, neighbors, customers and anyone else near his house. The police said they were conducting a drug-related investigation on a neighbor, and they wanted...

Russian National Defense Control Center head Mikhail Mizintsev warned on Thursday, during a briefing, that Ukraine continues to store its ammunition and weapons in residential spaces, as well as in "educational institutions and other social infrastructure for military purposes." Mizintsev underlined that while the Ukrainian military is doing this, proper evacuation of civilians from the aforementioned spaces is not being carried out.Furthermore, Mizintsev noted that on the territory of Donetsk People's Republic, the militants of nationalist battalions are "systematically firing at the positions of the Russian army" so as to provoke the latter to "return fire."

Institutional home purchases are pricing potential homeowners out of the market. Homeownership has customarily been one of the core and fundamental pillars of the American dream. The financial benefits that accompany homeownership are plentiful and include the ability to accumulate wealth, access to credit, the accumulation of long-term savings over the cost of renting, and the potential reduction in housing costs through mortgage interest deduction. Home, and other asset ownership conventionally improves the well-being of families by empowering them to increase their prosperity and delegate wealth to future generations. SNIP In the first quarter of 2021, one in every seven...

Vira Hyrych was killed when her apartment was struck by a Russian missile in Kyiv. Radio Freedom photo The body of Ukrainian journalist Vira Hyrych was pulled out of the wreckage of an apartment building in Kyiv on Friday, a day after two Russian missiles struck the city. Wary Kyiv residents gathered on April 29 at the scene of the missile strike in the Shevchenkivskyi district, where the first two floors of a newly opened 25-storey apartment building were largely destroyed. Read more: One month after liberation, Bucha’s morgue is the city’s new nucleus Two powerful explosions rocked central Kyiv...

On May 3, 2020, without warning or public comment, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio began dumping into luxury hotels near a Upper West Side residential neighborhood what would ultimately become a 730-man army of broken, derelict, homeless adult men in various stages of disintegration and crisis. On July 27, the mayor sent the most aggressive of these men—283 in total—to the Lucerne Hotel for quarter.In response to Covid-19, the mayor moved the men from downtown homeless shelters, where they had access to critical social services, to the hotels, where services are illusory. The Department of Homeless Services...

A protest in Portland’s east side escalated early Saturday morning after an hours-long standoff between demonstrators and police. Officers used stun grenades, pepper spray, impact munitions and physical force to push a crowd of 300 protesters away from a police building on East Burnside Street. Police detained multiple people as they advanced through residential streets. The response by police followed a barrage of eggs thrown by protesters at officers. Police had declared the gathering unlawful more than three hours earlier and repeatedly warned people to leave. Early in the night, police arrested a photojournalist and accused him of trespass. Portland...

The Obama administration has started its push to expand low-income housing into “higher opportunity areas.” The Department of Housing and Urban Development last week announced a “landmark” settlement agreement with Baltimore County that will serve as a catalyst to “promote housing mobility” and “address residential segregation.” The goal is to move low- and very-low-income people out of the city and into the suburbs. …

Smoke wafting from wood fires has long provided a familiar winter smell in many parts of the country -- and, in some cases, a foggy haze that has filled people's lungs with fine particles that can cause coughing and wheezing. Citing health concerns, the Environmental Protection Agency now is pressing ahead with regulations to significantly limit the pollution from newly manufactured residential wood heaters. But some of the states with the most wood smoke -- including Minnesota and Wisconsin -- are refusing to go along, claiming that the EPA's new rules could leave low-income residents in the cold. Missouri and...

As the polls become less skewed closer to the election, so too will the RCP average. In fact, I predict the RCP average will reflect a Romney lead before election day. When both the RCP average and the UnSkewedPoll.com average show Romney leading before the election, which is going to happen, we'll know two things. The polls are fairly accurate, because the pollsters care more about their credibility as the election is near, and that Mitt Romney is going to win the election. I stand behind both predictions. Those three polls released yesterday

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Loans sold to government-controlled mortgage giants Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FMCC) will be deemed "safe" under new rules designed to encourage responsible lending practices, according to a summary of a proposal developed by federal regulators.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Home prices are falling across most of America's largest cities, and average prices in eight major markets have hit their lowest point since the housing bust.

There is an interesting study that has been done back to the 1930’s. It has to do with the median price of a house divided by the price of gold. Whenever that price reaches 100 we reach a bottom. ( SEE GRAPH TOP LEFT. DOUBLE CLICK ON THE PICTURE IF YOU NEED IT LARGER) Since Phoenix has been one of the hardest hit places in terms of housing prices, you’ll find this a very interesting exercise.

Saturday morning a live WWII era hand grenade was found amid piles of debris in the backyard of a central Austin, Texas residence. Area neighbors found the grenade while removing the remnants of a collapsed garage as part of a community outreach/ assistance program for elderly property owners. Local authorities were notified, the area blocked off by police, some nearby residents evacuated and the Austin Police Department bomb squad brought in to identify, contain and dispose of the munition. The grenade was safely detonated by the APD bomb squad in a nearby empty lot at 50th Street and Harmon Avenue...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Sales of new homes dropped 8.3% in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 795,000, the slowest sales pace since June 2000, the Commerce Department estimated Thursday. Sales are now down 21.2% in the past year, with no sign of a bottom in the crippled housing market. Read the full government report. "This is just hideous," wrote Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics. "This is more evidence that it's going to be a long and -- for a lot of people -- a painful process," said Mike Schenk, economist for the Credit Union...

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...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!