Real Estate Directory

BK Countrywide and get $19million

Countrywide Financial Corp.'s  has sold to BOFA. So Angelo Mozilo who is considered by many the chief architect of the Housing Crisis, will get $19 million in stock next week as part of the takeover by Bank of America Corp.

"It's perverse for Bank of America to reward the principal architects of the bad business practices that caused this housing crisis," Sen. Charles Schumer.

Mortgaging Semantics

Turns out that those of Islamic faith cannot get a loan. According to their faith they are not allowed to pay interest.  So they could not buy a home.  Now it seems there are banks willing to lend under these circumstances. The way they do it is that they own the home like a lease to own for several years. The bank, not the borrower, buys the house. The borrower makes installment payments to the bank for a period of years, at the end of which he or she gets the title to the house.The market has increased by about 15% in the last couple years as large banks like including Citigroup, HSBC, and Deutsche Bank, have developed programs to serve the special needs of Islamic finance.

Sounds about the same deal to me. Except I wonder if the borrower gets any kind of write off.

Newspaper Revs Plummet

NAA Reveals Biggest Ad Revenue Plunge in More Than 50 Years

  The newspaper industry has experienced the worst drop in advertising revenue in more than 50 years. This according to new data released by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), total print advertising revenue in 2007 plunged 9.4% to $42 billion compared to 2006 -- the most severe percent decline since the association started measuring advertising expenditures in 1950.

Much of the newspapers are showing robust returns online. The NAA reported that online revenue now represents 7.5% of total newspaper ad revenue in 2007 compared to 5.7% in 2006. However, the web is not making up for the offline losses.

"Even with the near-term challenges posed to print media by a more fragmented information environment and the economic headwinds facing all advertising media, newspapers publishers are continuing to drive strong revenue growth from their increasingly robust Web platforms," John Sturm, president and CEO of the NAA."

Incomes Rise In Feb.

Income went up  in February as inflation worries subsided slightly.

The Commerce Department reported that February personal income rose 0.5 percent, exceeding a forecast of a 0.3 percent gain made by analysts polled before the report.

Stock index futures briefly added to gains after the report, while the dollar and U.S. government debt prices rose.

Prices Still Drop, But Sales Volume Up

The national real estate market saw an increase in sales volume by 2.9% in February, shocking economists. However, home prices or values continued its national averaged drop, especially in California and Florida.

"We're not expecting a notable gain in existing-home sales until the second half of this year, but the (February) improvement is nother sign that the market is stabilizing," Yun of the National Association of Realtors said.

Dollar Makes Canadian Invasion

Canadians account for more than half of all new home purchases in California, Texas and Florida? Our Dollar is weeeak and theirs is stable.

Add in some lower prices and our homes look like good deals to the Great Northerners.  A broker interviewed in Sarasota he get 20% of his calls  from Canadians lately

Commercial Investment real estate

Pricewaterhouse Coopers Korpacz Real Estate Investor Survey  says,

“Even though the underlying fundamentals of commercial real estate are still sound, there are noticeable cracks forming in the foundation … As a result, there is a palpable sense of uncertainty among investors we spoke with and surveyed this quarter.”

The report is concerned with the following areas:

Retail: “Regions with significant population growth report relatively strong results, including West Coast markets such as Orange County, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco and San Diego, as well as certain infill areas such as Suburban Maryland and Northern Virginia.”

Warehouse: New York City, San Diego , Los Angeles, Orange County California are of concern because the high costs per square foot.

Apartments are Hot!

Investments in Apartments are hot. There are more renters and they have to live somewhere.

The National Multi Housing Council says it’s about demographics. Apartments look like the place to be for real estate investors thanks to a growing demand for rentals, says the organization representing the industry’s largest firms.

Investing in commercial properties

There are many avenues to take when investing in commercial properties.  Investment grade real estate run the gamut from large industrial parks that are usually financed by a several investors to small vacation cottages for rent by the seashore.  Commercial real estate varies but is now a strong consideration in this environment.   

Commercial real estate stable

Commercial real estate investments are stable following a record year in 2007, this is according to the latest COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE OUTLOOK of the National Association of Realtors(R).

NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun says that the commercial real estate market is holding essentially even.

"We are seeing no significant changes in vacancy rates or rent growth, so the fundamentals in commercial real estate still seem to be respectable," he said. "Under normal circumstances, near-full occupancy coupled with positive rent growth would be of strong interest to investors, but we are not seeing that. The credit crunch has filtered into the commercial real estate market."

Investment in commercial real estate in 2007 was $427.2 billion, up 39.2 percent from the previous record of $306.8 billion in 2006; that total does not include transactions valued at less than $5 million or investments in the hospitality sector, based on analysis of data from Real Capital Analytics. NAR projects the investment dollar volume this year could drop by 30 to 40 percent, comparable to 2006 levels.