313 East Park--now we begin.

The foundation trench has been dug at 313 E. Park and the concrete should be poured by early next week.















This lot is 21.375 feet wide. Hard to imagine you could fit a house in there. With the exception of 416 E. Duffy, this is the narrowest lot we've worked on, but of course that was an existing house that we renovated, as opposed to a new construction. That said, this will be a surprisingly spacious home, extremely open and, when you walk in the front door, will literally be able to see 50 feet straight to the end of the house through the great room, past the dining room and into the kitchen. The exterior will be very similar to 528 E. Duffy--in fact the house is the same except it it one foot narrower.

















Because the houses are so similar we're using the same rendering for both, but I'm starting to think this house will be yellow and not green because the neighbors to the east and west are a shade of green, and you know, it's just not that easy being green.


Here's a house done in Woodland Cream. I'm kind of liking it. Any thoughts?

Just Listed - 611 East Park Lane

Do you have $5000 in cash? How would you like to put down $5000 on an FHA mortgage and pay $998 a month to live in this very cool two-bedroom, two-bath cottage? 1/3 of a mile to Forsyth Park, across the street from Dixon Park, and 2 blocks to SCAD’s Anderson Hall.

To Sell an Apartment, No Detail Is Too Small

My trusty girl Friday, Laura Hyatt, isn't sure how you spend $700 on a bath mat and fluffy towels, but the greater point is that you sometimes have to spend money to make money. I can't tell you how many times I've seen sellers be unnecessarily cheap or uninterested in relatively inexpensive spruce-ups.

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By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY
Published: February 21, 2011

On a recent Thursday morning, Jamella Swift, a Citi Habitats broker, was trying to anticipate every detail that would prevent a buyer from purchasing the two-bedroom condo she was selling in Bedford-Stuyvesant. She put a full-size bed in the bedroom so buyers wouldn’t think the room was too small. She dragged in a Lucite coffee table to create the illusion of a larger living space and set up three floor lamps to supplement the recessed lighting. Ms. Swift hoped that the $5,000 she had spent would help her land $395,000 to $425,000 for the apartment.

Ms. Swift learned how much details could detract from the value after representing a couple who was ready to buy an apartment for more than $7 million. The apartment had a rainy, musty smell that Ms. Swift thought the selling broker could have fixed by buying a dehumidifier. Ms. Swift’s client backed out.

“It could have been a done deal,” Ms. Swift said. Brokers say small moves can alter the ultimate sales price of an apartment by 5 to 10 percent. The calculations are irrational, and buyers are usually unaware they are doing it. But chipped plaster or broken bathroom tiles can knock $500 to $5,000 off an offer, $1,500 floating walls can add $50,000 to $70,000, and a $10,000 paint job easily adds $50,000 to the price, according to an informal survey of city brokers.

Some more recent examples they provided of real estate math:

Clutter: Subtract 5 to 15 percent. Douglas Heddings, founder of the brokerage Heddings Property Group, watched two West End Avenue apartments that were exactly the same come up for sale at the same time. One apartment, where the sellers cleared out all of their spare toys and books, sold quickly. The second, more cluttered apartment lingered on the market for more than a year and sold for 15 percent less.

Fresh towels and throw pillows: add $25,000. Geraldine Onorato represented a client selling a two-bedroom where the buyers received offers for no more than $450,000. Ms. Onorato spent $700 on a fresh bath mat and fluffy white towels and brought in an offer for $475,000.

Dirty rugs: subtract $5,000. Before Ivy Paterni, an agent with City Connections Realty, brought to market a one-bedroom apartment at 5 Tudor City, she knew buyers would focus on the off-white living room rug that had grayed with time. “Nobody wants to buy a home that at any point in its history was dirty,” Ms. Paterni said. She bought a sandy white $400 rug at Northeast Floor Covering, bought some extra plants and had the seller repaint the apartment neutral cream. She is listing it for $499,000 and estimates that without these changes she would have had to list it for $494,000.

Regrouting tile: add $100,000 (to a $3 million apartment, that is). Deanna Kory, a Corcoran broker, advised the seller of an eight-room apartment in the West 80s to spend a few hundred dollars on regrouting. “If you see a bathroom that needs a lot of grouting, you think it needs to be ripped up,” she said. She estimates that grouting, along with moving around furniture and adding lighting, will bring in at least $100,000 more for a $3 million apartment.

New fixtures and appliances: add $250 in rent. Chris Mercogliano, a local landlord, was shopping for a tenant for his $1,800-a-month two-bedroom apartment at 508 East 78th Street. He spent about $1,600: new outlets and light switches ($100), tiles for the kitchen and dining area ($500), four new light fixtures ($40), blinds for three windows ($75) and a new stainless steel stove, microwave and refrigerator ($1,000). It rented for $2,050 a month.

New lights: add $32,500. Michael Akerly of Rutenberg Realty had been trying to sell his two-bedroom apartment at 15 Broad Street for a year for $949,000. He received an all-cash offer for about $800,000 and a second offer for $885,000. He took it off the market, rented it for a year and paid a professional lighting designer $150 for advice. He spent $2,000 replacing his chandelier and ceiling fan with two large drum lights. In two weeks he had an offer for $917,500.
Replacing cabinets: add $107,000. Frances Katzen was recently selling a one-bedroom apartment in Murray Hill, at 245 East 35th Street, that she advised her client to list for no more than $310,000. After he spent $20,000 on new kitchen cabinets and paint, she listed it for $429,000, and it went to contract for $417,000.

An expensive shoe closet: worth every dollar. Michele Kleier of Gumley Haft Kleier has found that when buyers walk into a closet filled with Christian Louboutins, they are likely to pay more of a premium than what the seller spent on her shoe collection. She advises sellers, “You can buy 25 pairs of designer shoes, put them in your closet, and they’re going to get more than you spent on them.” That’s because, Ms. Kleier said, “people want to step into your life.”

View original article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/nyregion/22appraisal.html?_r=1

Insider Secrets for the 5 Stages of Buying Your First Home

This article is a bit long, but if you’re a first-time buyer, or even a repeat buyer, this is well worth reading. It comes from Tara-Nicholle Nelson, who blogs for Trulia. We live in an era where a Facebook post of a few sentences is the extent of our attention span, but if you’re actually making what is probably the largest investment of your life, you might want to actually spend 3 minutes to read a little further. Tips include “the market is the least important factor you should consider when deciding whether and when to buy a home,” “Working with a mortgage broker referred by your real estate broker or agent may save you money,” and “your family and friends can cause you to lose your dream home.” I love that last one—it seems right now everyone has that expert in the family, the person who has owned maybe one home their whole life but knows much more than the agents who sell 25 a year.

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Buying a home is not a discrete event; it's a process - a sequence of events that happens over time, sometimes over as long as several months or even years! While general guides to buying a home are a dime a dozen, I'm excited to share with you some insider secrets you may not have heard elsewhere - one for each stage involved in buying a home. Here's to helping you make the best decisions at every phase of your homebuying process!

Stage One: Deciding Whether It's The Right Time to Buy.
Insider Secret: The market is the least important factor you should consider when deciding whether and when to buy a home.
Why: Everyone knows affordability is at an all-time high. Home prices are low, and so are interest rates. But trying to time the market is a fool's errand; many who get caught up in that game of trying to make sure they buy at the absolute bottom will end up losing out on very, very favorable conditions.

Continue reading at: http://www.trulia.com/blog/taranelson/2011/02/surprising_insider_secrets_for_the_5_stages_of_buying_your_first_home?ecampaign=anews&eurl=www.trulia.com%2Fblog%2Ftaranelson%2F2011%2F02%2Fsurprising_insider_secrets_for_the_5_stages_of_buying_your_first_home

Just Listed - 507/509 East Duffy Street

Here's another new listing that I think will sell quickly. 507/509 East Duffy is a clean, spacious duplex one block from SCAD's Anderson Hall. At 2,500 square feet, this is the kind of place that's a great owner-occupied duplex, or you could turn the whole place into one great single-family house. This is a quiet neighborhood five doors down from Dixon Park, with an active neighborhood association. The proximity to Forsyth Park (1/3 of a mile) makes it ideal for a young family and the one block to SCAD's Anderson Hall makes it perfect for a SCAD student looking to hop on the shuttle. There's also off-street parking, which is always a bonus downtown.

New roofs for all

Well, you already saw the new metal roof at 521 East Charlton. Now 510 East Waldburg has a new roof, too,...















as does 528 East Duffy. And as you can see, 528 East Duffy has windows now. Windows are always good.





















The electrical rough-in is complete at 521 East Charlton














and 528 East Duffy (are you keeping track of all this?).















And 521 East Charlton has the privacy fence going up on the side,














not to mention the front picket fence—an idyllic little place.














I’m starting to think $150,000 is totally giving the place away, especially since a neighbor in the lane that was listed for $275,000 just went under contract.

America's Ugliest Homes

I'm quite sure I could put together a list of uglier homes just in the Savannah area, although I would never do that because I wouldn't want anyone to be insulted. On the other hand, maybe I could do it with just bank owned properties, because we don't mind if we insult large faceless institutions. Any suggestions?

View article here: http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/real_estate/1102/gallery.ugly_american_homes/

Zzzz

This Old House is a good magazine and can be an excellent resource (and web post material), but this is not their most exciting moment. Granted, I’m not overseeing every renovation all day long, but I certainly hope my job sites are a little more active than this. Is anyone actually watching this?
http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/tv/house-project/webcam/0,,20428159-3,00.html

They Said it Couldn't Be Sold

Soon you’ll be seeing a whole new 119 East Park. This had become known as one of the hardest buildings in downtown Savannah to sell, having been on the market for years. I took the listing in November and had it under contract in about 30 days. Nice to make a sale, but even nicer to know that a derelict building on a visible corner will soon be renovated. That helps everyone. Looking for a project? Looking to sell a property? You know where to find me.

Charlton Cottage Update

An update on 521 East Charlton and a remembrance of things past. The Charlton cottage is now reframed and just waiting for the electrician and plumber to start running the new stuff. Then we’ll go in with insulation and drywall, cabinets, paint, fixtures, etc. Seeing Charlton in its skeletal form made me think of the frame of a ship—we were in Barcelona last summer and went to the Maritime Museum (http://www.mmb.cat/) there. Maritime museums are fascinating because ships have played such a crucial role in history—think war, trade, exploration—all of which was primarily driven by ships until the last century. What’s this have to do with a house? Well, the Barcelona Maritime Museum had a display on how wooden ships are built, and again, the bones of the ship have some relation to the bones of a house. Best maritime museum I’ve ever been to? Vasa Museum in Stockholm. A 17th century Swedish warship was recovered from the Baltic Sea, having sunk just after it was launched on its way to Poland. It’s the only intact ship of that era in existence and it’s amazing. Check out some of the sculptures adorning the ship: http://vasamuseet.se/en/The-Ship/Sculptures/. Unfortunately, we won’t be adding that kind of ornamentation to 521 East Charlton.

Housing Bubbles Are Few and Far Between

Robert Shiller is the co-creator of the Case-Shiller Index which tracks all sorts of real estate data. They predicted sharp declines in the housing market a few years before the actual declines came, which I guess gives them points for being right and demerits for being two years too soon. This is a look at the history of real estate bubbles to see if there is any precedent for how this one will play out.

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By ROBERT J. SHILLER
Published: February 5, 2011

WHAT’S the outlook for home prices over the next decade? It’s not easy to tell. We need to confront the basic fact that near the beginning of the 21st century, the market for homes in much of the world suddenly became more speculative than ever.

This enormous housing bubble and burst isn’t comparable to any national or international housing cycle in history. Previous bubbles have been smaller and more regional.

We have to look further afield for parallels. The most useful may be the long trail of booms and crashes in the price of land, particularly of farms, forests and village lots. Those upheavals may give some insights into the present situation, and some guidance for the next decade.

In the 19th century and most of the 20th, speculation in land was a powerful phenomenon. There was little speculative activity around homes, however, which were usually viewed as rapidly depreciating assets whose value was to be found almost entirely in physical buildings, not the land beneath them. Eventually, the buildings were expected to be torn down and replaced, so there was little bubble psychology for housing on any large scale. People generally didn’t think about housing as an investment.

But they knew that land was fixed in quantity and would last forever, and many believed that as the economy grew and more people were born, there would be ever-increasing demand. The speculative imagination could be easily fired by reflecting on the huge population that would consume the food from this land or settle on it in future years.

There have been many highly localized land price bubbles in the United States over the last couple of centuries, although bubbles over large areas have been rather rare. Those with the biggest national impact were in the 19th century, when speculators found opportunities that had been created by government land sales and by shifts in land prices set off by construction of canals and railroads. Stories of fortunes in land speculation captured the imagination, and led to bubbles. (That is typically how bubbles form, by titillating the public imagination.)

Two such land bubbles stand out. The first, in the 1830s, was associated with federal distributions to state banks and the loss of fiscal restraint that had been imposed by the short-lived Second Bank of the United States. People began to think farm prices could never fall. As an article in a publication called The Cultivator said in 1836: “Who ever heard of a man buying and selling a farm at the same or a lessened price? It is so well understood that the seller is to have more than he gave, that it has almost become a settled principle in the purchase of real estate.”

The bubble burst with the Panic of 1837, and was followed by the first great depression in United States history, from 1837 to 1843.

A second bubble, in the 1850s, was encouraged by an 1852 act of Congress making land warrants tradable. It burst with the Panic of 1857. Some historians — notably James L. Huston of Oklahoma State University — say they think that the resulting tensions escalated sectional animosities and helped precipitate the Civil War, which ended the depression.

The entire 20th century appears to have had only one farmland bubble of national significance — it occurred in the 1970s. Its causes were complex, but it seems to have been accompanied by a newly common belief that the human population would soon become excessive. A widely cited Club of Rome report in 1972 predicted famines induced by overpopulation. In any case, that bubble burst after the Federal Reserve clamped down on credit in the United States, effectively producing the recessions of the early 1980s.

So land manias have been rather infrequent, many decades apart. They suggest that the recent housing bubble is a similarly rare event, not to be repeated for many decades.

But, of course, the relevance of this long history isn’t entirely clear. In contrast to the 19th century, when the business cycle proceeded without much constraint, we now have the Fed and an active government housing stabilization policy, both of which mitigate the cycle’s more extreme effects. And now, the Dodd-Frank law has created a Financial Stability Oversight Council, which is supposed to go even further to prevent instability.

Ultimately, bubbles are impossible without extreme public enthusiasm. Opinions about housing seem to change in rather trendy ways, but investor enthusiasm for housing has now been down for more than five years — a decline that started well before the collapse of the housing bubble in 2007.

With Karl Case of Wellesley College, who developed the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices with me, I have been surveying opinions of home buyers in the United States on and off since 1988. We have found a fairly steady downtrend since the early-to-mid-2000s in a number of speculative attitudes. On questionnaires, people are less likely to report that they think of housing as an investment, or to express the view that real estate is the “best investment.”

As an investment, in fact, they are more likely to see housing as risky. Although they still have solid expectations of home price increases over the next 10 years — a median of 5 percent annually, in nominal terms — those expectations have been declining and are not nearly as extravagant as they were before the market peak.

IT will take a while for the housing market to recover fully. Still, many people continue to think of housing as an investment, and so it does seem that we are in danger of encountering another whopper bubble someday. Even so, both the history of land bubbles and the slowness of shifts in public opinion suggest that such bubbles will be fairly rare.

Add the new policy restraints, and a new national housing bubble looks even less likely anytime soon.

Robert J. Shiller is professor of economics and finance at Yale and co-founder and chief economist of MacroMarkets LLC.

View original article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/business/06view.html?_r=1

Go Figure

If you've ever looked at an "artist's rendering" of a planned development and wondered where all those happy little people came from this article will answer that for you. And in a local Savannah shout-out, one of the quoted experts is SCAD Professor Tim Woods. Tim is also known in town for the Loci House http://www.locidesigngallery.com/, a modern/modular house that he has built and promotes.

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By ROB WALKER
Published: February 4, 2011

As a genre of visual communication, the architectural rendering is underscrutinized. When we see one — in a business meeting, on a real estate sign, accompanying an article about a public-works project — we understandably focus on the merits of what’s depicted, not the depiction. Recently, however, I happened to spend a lot of time looking at such drawings, and found myself drawn to a recurring feature that, strictly speaking, had nothing to do with the suggested structures: the little human figures who inhabit the rendered world.

The apparent purpose of these figures is to provide sense of scale — in fact one architect friend of mine refers to these figures as “scalies.” That is no weirder than the more-official names given to these denizens of hypothetical environs, including “people textures” and “populating images.” In general, they are a happy and healthy lot: they jog past environmentally responsible retail, stride in smart business attire toward gleaming office structures, hobnob in the former back alley magically converted to green space.

But where did these uncanny little citizens come from, and what are they really up to? I figured I’d ask Geoff Manaugh, proprietor of the delightful Bldgblog.blogspot.com, devoted to such themes as “architectural speculation” and “urban conjecture.” In the past, Manaugh told me, people were often completely absent from architectural representation, so letting figures into the frame humanized and presented buildings in a social context. “The funny thing is how it has become its own subgenre,” he continued. “You can take the most random rendering and just stick in a few people — someone listening to an iPod, somebody reading a newspaper, maybe a couple holding hands, some guy playing an acoustic guitar. Suddenly it’s meant to make the entire building beyond critique; it’s already part of our city.”

In a sense, then, people textures became a form of rhetoric, whether they seem drawn to the buildings they’re placed near or even if they seem oblivious to them in a way that suggests a new structure is a natural part of the streetscape. “You tend not to see people spraying graffiti or a homeless person sleeping in the alley,” Manaugh observed. “Or rats.” Every so often, student projects will play with the form — Manaugh recalls examples involving people textures in gas masks or having sex or urinating on the street. Obviously that’s rare in more-professional contexts, where the norm is an anonymous pedestrian with no attention-hogging features.

There is a small people-texture industry. Realworld Imagery sells CDs containing, for instance, 104 “Business People,” for insertion into renderings, for about $150 a disc. A site in Britain, Falling Pixel, offers, among others, “120 Casual People” (which sounds like a passable indie movie) for about $70. Marlin Studios, in Arlington, Tex., also sells textures, and its founder, Tom Marlin, explained the business to me.

He found his way into the field by way of creating video games and learning how to incorporate photo-realistic surfaces and textures borrowed from real life. Packaged digital bundles of images of trees and cars and the like turned out to be useful tools for architects who want to add pizazz to renderings. A developer trying to get financial backing for a shopping center, Marlin explains, might tell the architect, “I need to see the parking lot full of cars, and I want hundreds of people walking around.” His visualizations are two-dimensional moving computer animations, though soon Marlin plans to release three-dimensional figures who walk or gesticulate in repetitive loops. Many of the people textures he sells were created in long, single sessions in which scores of individuals in neutral day-to-day costumes (a blazer and tie; jeans and T-shirt) are photographed against a green screen and sign an all-purpose image waiver. While a certain amount of variety matters — scalies can be young or old and come from diverse ethnic backgrounds — the most important factor is making sure any individual isn’t so remarkable as to distract from the scene as a whole (or dressed in outfits that will quickly look dated). The idea is to sell the same scalies over and over.

Marlin’s biggest rival is most likely the architect who simply creates his own populating images, maybe grabbing pictures off the Web and altering them. Tim Woods, a professor of architecture at the Savannah College of Art and Design, advises his students on proper deployment of people textures (racial balance is important, for example). He says it has lately been the case that some will use recognizable figures. He showed me one of his firm’s renderings, in which Anderson Cooper relaxed happily in front of a modified-shipping-container home. If that seems absurd, Woods reminded me that the point of a rendering is not to depict a reality; it’s to persuade viewers — whether clients or investors or the public at large — to go along with an architect’s vision and let him or her make it reality. They may not seem to have much on their minds, those orderly little scalies, but it turns out they have a lot to say.

View original article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/magazine/06fob-consumed-t.html

Five Beloved Myths of the Mortgage Market

More commentary on the aforementioned Fannie/Freddie topic with this analyst pretty much saying that life would go on without Fannie and Freddie.

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By AGNES T. CRANE
Published: February 6, 2011

America’s mortgage market almost sank the world economy. But rather than rushing to fix it, the government has blown two deadlines for proposals. The ideas are finally due as early as this week from the Treasury, and those recommendations will frame the debate. But the danger is they will be based on dogma that should in fact be seriously questioned.

Proposals have been circulating ever since the previous administration seized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2008. Most agree that both entities should be wound down, one way or another. But whether government should still have a role subsidizing housing finance is still up for grabs — or rather, few seem able to resist the idea that it should, even if it is a smaller one. The trouble is that financial types have become accustomed to a government safety net, and few of the constituencies involved are willing to challenge America’s core housing myths.

MYTH 1 Significant reform will kill the housing market. Many fear any major overhaul of housing finance will slam a still tottering housing market.

THE REALITY If America scraps its current system tomorrow, that’s what will happen. At a minimum, removing the government subsidy should nudge mortgage interest rates higher, potentially knocking home prices down further. But Britain took more than a decade to phase out tax deductions on mortgage interest. Homeowners, would-be homeowners and mortgage lenders can adapt to even a potentially wrenching change if there’s a five- or 10-year transition period. The United States needs to get started on a plan.

MYTH 2 The American mortgage market is too big for the private sector to handle alone.

THE REALITY The $10.6 trillion mortgage market is huge, and Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee roughly half of it. But the size of the market — and the secondary market in securitized mortgages, and so on — was part of the problem in the years leading up to the 2008 crisis. The market is already down from its $11 trillion peak, but it is still nearly twice as big as in 2001. With the national average home price down more than 30 percent from its highs and millions of homeowners in danger of foreclosure, it’s clear only a smaller mortgage market is really sustainable.

Fully private-sector mortgages would be more expensive, but at the right price banks will lend. Studies conducted before the financial crisis suggested that government backing saved homeowners only 0.15 to 0.4 percentage point on their mortgage interest rates.

MYTH 3 Investors would stop buying mortgage bonds without government guarantees. Bill Gross, bond guru and co-head of Pimco, certainly has said he wouldn’t want to buy mortgages. Mr. Gross and others in his industry have grown used to the government guarantee. It reduces volatility and saves them some time-consuming analysis.

THE REALITY There are plenty of deep-pocketed investors looking for good investments and with the capacity to figure out their value. Again, interest rates would have to be a bit higher, and the securitization market would probably be a good bit smaller. But what existed before the crisis was unsustainable.

MYTH 4 The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is part of the American dream.

THE REALITY It’s true that the current standard American mortgage — one with a relatively low rate of interest fixed for 30 years that can be refinanced at almost no cost — would probably be harder to get. Yet high home ownership rates in other countries prove this structure isn’t necessary to enable people to buy homes. A longish transition period would allow mortgage borrowers to get used to less generous home financing. And that’s preferable to having them pay much more down the line through their tax bills if investors need bailing out.

MYTH 5 Government subsidies promote homeownership.

THE REALITY This doesn’t seem to be the case at all. Homeownership rates in the United States from 1998 to 2008 averaged 67.8 percent, just ninth highest out of 17 developed nations, according to a study from the University of California, Berkeley. Moreover, the study found that American homeowners paid significantly higher mortgage rates, roughly 1.5 percentage points more, than those in Europe. That means that even if homeownership is a worthy policy goal, subsidizing mortgages is not the way to do it.

View original article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/business/07views.html?_r=1

Fannie and Freddie phase-out plan due

This is the first of two articles I'm going to be posting today on Federal "dis-involvement" in the mortgage market. Among the many problems in the mortgage end of the housing market in the bubble years, the repercussions of which we are still facing, was that the government entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were pretty much horribly mismanaged. And you don't have to be a Tea Party supporter to make that statement--that's pretty much a concensus opinion. One of the arguments for reducing government involvement is that the mismanagement costs taxpayers more than the savings they received by having the government backing these entities. In other words, loan costs were kept artificially down by Fannie and Freddie, but that caused the necessity for a bail out, which pretty much cost everyone the same money they had been saving on their mortgages. Naturally, it's impossible to say dollar for dollar what cost more, but as the federal government is going through a budget reduction phase Fannie and Freddie are certainly going to be in the conversation. My own opinion is that it probably will not change the real costs of owning a home, but again no one will really know until some changes are implemented and the system has time to adjust. More opinions on this in my next post, from the New York Times.

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By Ben Rooney, staff reporterFebruary 9, 2011: 8:20 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The Obama administration will issue a proposal later this week recommending the gradual elimination of government-sponsored mortgage backers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a White House official said Wednesday.

The highly-anticipated "white paper," which is expected to be released Friday, will include three different options for reducing the role government plays in the mortgage market, the official said.

While the paper would mark an important development in the debate over what to do with Fannie and Freddie, a final decision by Congress is not expected any time soon.

After being rescued by the government in 2008, Fannie and Freddie have presented a major conundrum for policymakers in Washington.

The problem is that phasing out the two publicly traded companies could raise borrowing costs for homeowners and jeopardize the fragile housing market.

At the same time, Fannie and Freddie represent a major liability for taxpayers, who are on the hook for about $150 billion in federal aid the two institutions have received.

The issue has become politically charged, with some Republicans blaming Fannie and Freddie for contributing to the recent housing bubble. Democrats argue that the institutions help promote home ownership, especially among low- and middle-income Americans.

Given the political challenges involved and the threat to the housing market, any winding-down of Fannie and Freddie is likely to take place over a period of years.

A representative for Fannie Mae declined comment. Freddie Mac representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The three options in the administration's white paper were outlined in published reports Wednesday.

The most conservative of the three options would involve no government role in the mortgage market beyond existing federal agencies, such as the Federal Housing Administration, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The two other options relate to the government's place in the secondary mortgage market, previously filled by Fannie and Freddie. Under one option, the government would backstop mortgages during times of "market stress," while the other recommends that the government be involved at all times.

In addition, officials could also reduce the maximum loan limit for mortgages that Fannie and Freddie are allowed to buy, and encourage them to raise the fees they charge banks to guarantee mortgages.

Other options that could be discussed in the white paper are gradual increases in the minimum down payments on government-backed loans, and an accelerated reduction in Fannie and Freddie's loan portfolios.

View original article: http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/09/news/economy/fannie_freddie_phase_out/index.htm?hpt=T2

10 Bedside Tables That Aren't: Repurposed Bedside Storage

Keeping in mind that the following comes from the Apartment Therapy website which is geared toward small space design, while some of these are very cool looking you kind of wonder about their functionality. And my mother would die at the sight of the first one which pretty much looks like a trash can next to the bed. Thoughts?

View the article: http://www.re-nest.com/re-nest/bedroom/10-bedside-tables-that-arent-repurposed-bedside-storage-138033

What You Get for ... $520,000

The New York Times has a regular feature on what kind of homes you can buy in a given price range around the country. The most recent featured on the $520,000 price range. The article follows, but I thought I’d add a little something locally, in Ardsley Park, where one of my favorite houses is listed for $535,000. It’s not my listing, but of course I’d be happy to represent you as the buyer. I just love the proportions of this home. Many homes from this era don’t really have the kind of spaces that make sense for today’s living, but this house does. Plus it has a master on the main floor and a pool. Great house!




























































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By MIKE POWELL
Published: February 2, 2011

WASHINGTON, D.C.

WHAT: A duplex condo with two bedrooms and two and a half baths

HOW MUCH: $515,000

SIZE: 1,325 square feet

PER SQUARE FOOT: $388.68

SETTING: This apartment is one of nine units in a 1916 building. The neighborhood, Adams Morgan, is in Northwest Washington, and mostly residential, with a cluster of bars, restaurants and shops at the intersection of 18th Street and Columbia Road, about two blocks away. The nearest Metro stop is a half-mile away.

INSIDE: The apartment was renovated five years ago, when new bathrooms and a kitchen were installed. The main level is completely open; the living area has a wood-burning stove. Upstairs, both bedrooms have en-suite baths. The master bedroom also has a wood stove, as well as a walk-in closet and a bathroom with two sinks; the other bedroom is slightly larger and has a double-width closet. The unit comes with a parking space.

TAXES: $4,728 a year; $222 a month in condo fees.

CONTACT: Boucie Addison, Washington Fine Properties (301) 509-8827; wfp.com.

NEW ORLEANS

WHAT: A one-bedroom two-bath condo in the French Quarter

HOW MUCH: $524,000

SIZE: 1,479 square feet

PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT: $354.29

SETTING: This condo is in an 1830s building in the French Quarter. Some of the Quarter’s most famous bars and restaurants —Antoine’s and Café Du Monde — are nearby. So is Preservation Hall, a jazz and blues club. Downtown, the city’s central business district, is about a half-mile away.

INSIDE: This duplex apartment, on the third and fourth floors of a four-floor building, was renovated about 10 years ago. On the main level is the kitchen, a living room with 12-foot ceilings and a dining area. Off the living room is an iron-railed balcony. Original details include two decorative fireplaces, hardwood floors and crown molding. Upstairs is a master suite with vaulted ceilings, a walk-in closet and a bathroom with a marble shower. The condo comes with a parking spot.

OUTDOOR SPACE: The living room opens to a balcony overlooking St. Louis Street and the French Quarter.

TAXES: $4,236 a year; $452 a month in homeowner’s association dues.

CONTACT: Richard Jensen, Latter & Blum/Realtors, (504) 812-0010; latter-blum.com.

PORTLAND, ORE.

WHAT: A house with three bedrooms and one and a half baths

HOW MUCH: $524,900

SIZE: 3,514 square feet

PER SQUARE FOOT: $149.37

SETTING: This 1910 house is in Kenton, a neighborhood in north Portland. According to the listing agent, most of the homes in the area were built in the early 1900s. Within a couple of blocks is a commercial district, with restaurants, a post office, a library, a supermarket and coffee shops. The MAX Light Rail stops four blocks away. Downtown Portland is a 10-minute drive.

INSIDE: Most of the original details in this house, including woodwork, hardwood floors and leaded-glass windows, were restored by the current owners, who have lived in the house for about 25 years. On the main level is a formal living room with a brick fireplace, and a dining room with a curved bay window. Off the kitchen is a den with a half-bath. Two of the bedrooms are downstairs; the master bedroom is in what was formerly the attic. It has a beamed ceiling, two skylights and a walk-in closet.

OUTDOOR SPACE: A wrap-around deck at the front of the house; a yard in the back.

TAXES: $4,425 a year

CONTACT: Gene Moore, Re/Max equity group, (503) 880-4363; equitygroup.com.

View original article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/greathomesanddestinations/03gh-what.html?_r=1

13 Relaxing Spa Bath Retreats

By: Tabitha Sukhai, This Old House online

The key to the feng shui of this clutter-free space? Smart storage. Clever places to stow towels and toiletries—including the two large hidden drawers on either side of the sink—means the sleek vanity can remain free and clear. This masculine design, complete with bold walls and angular details, shows that relaxing spa baths aren't just for the ladies.

Continue reading at: http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/photos/0,,20435093,00.html?xid=kbnewsletter-110203-spa-baths

In Spain, Incorporating the Landscape Into the Design

Again, no offense to Peru, but Ibiza does have a certain international cache and again, it's western Europe so this price seems a little more justifiable to me. Cool house, too-- check out the trees in the living room and no, if the ivy growing outside your house in Savannah has infiltrated the stucco and come inside, that doesn't have the cool factor, that's just bad maintenance.

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By JESSICA DONATI
Published: February 2, 2011

IBIZA, SPAIN — When Enrique Polanco, an art fair promoter in Madrid, decided to build a second home on this island some 100 miles from the Spanish mainland, he said he set out “to escape from real life in Madrid.”

It’s no wonder he took his inspiration from the fictional character Peter Pan and named his home Never Never Land.

The design, created by Andrés Jacque, an architect with his own firm in Madrid, took two years to create. The primary objective was to have as minimal impact to the surrounding landscape as possible.

So the home, which sits on a steep slope, was set on stilts, following the contours of the land, as opposed to cutting into the slope to make a flat plot. In addition, no trees were felled during construction. Instead they were incorporated into the interior of the home, with tree trunks running through the floor and ceiling and popping out the roof.

“The building site manager thought it was a ridiculous, romantic idea to make his life more difficult,” Mr. Jacque said, referring to the challenge of incorporating the trees into the design.

Construction began in 2007 and took two years and 500,000 euros (about $685,000) to build the five-bedroom home, where Mr. Polanco now spends weekends and free time between art fairs.

The house is split into three units, or cabins, as Mr. Polanco calls them: one houses the kitchen, living room and main bedrooms; the other two are for guests. The aim was to create the feel of cabins in the forest, independent from one another, but linked by common living areas, Mr. Polanco said.

The cabins are constructed of metal frames topped with concrete to keep them cool in the summer.

The railings were painted yellow-green — “the color of the youngest leaves in the valley surrounding the home,” Mr. Polanco says — while the frame and stilts raising the cabins above the ground were painted purple, to convey a sense of fun, he added.

All three cabins have enormous glass windows, exposing the inside to a breathtaking view of the woods tumbling down to the beach.

The windows were bought in Madrid and driven to Valencia in a truck, where they were loaded onto a boat for the island. “Some materials and furnishings were impossible to find here,” Mr. Polanco said. “That’s the hardest part about being on an island.”

Inside, the walls are painted sky blue. “We even got a machine to measure the blueness of the sky, which we tried our best to replicate by mixing paints,” Mr. Polanco said.

The space below the home continues the theme of Never Never Land, with a recreational room complete with a ping pong table, a dart board, large speakers for when Mr. Polanco holds parties, and access to an infinity pool.

Next up for Never Never Land is the installation of another infinity pool, but with a built-in wave machine.

Be sure to check out the slideshow of additional photos on original article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/greathomesanddestinations/03gh-location.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1296743936-2wcmcfOxas1UuBL7bkyx9Q

House Hunting in ... Peru

It always fascinates me to see some of the high prices in other countries. I never got a chance to comment on the Portugal post about the Lapa district, which is described as one of Lisbon's most affluent areas. Prices are high there, but I can kind of understand it as it is western Europe and it's a historic district, which obviously is something that I value. Now, no offense to Peru and its lovely people, especially since I spent a very enjoyable vacation there a few years back, but after being in Peru it's hard for me to visualize any place there that would fetch a million dollars. It just goes to show there's wealthy people everywhere and it's all relative. I suppose when the market was hot here in Savannah or at Tybee Island people looked at certain properties and thought that there was no way anything in Savannah should be worth $1,000,000. So please Peruvians, don't go there, because I already said it myself.

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By VIRGINIA C. McGUIRE
Published: February 2, 2011

A FOUR-BEDROOM HOUSE WITH A THREE-BEDROOM COTTAGE IN CHORILLOS, PERU

$900,000

This property is part of La Encantada de Villa, an oceanfront gated community with a country club, outside Chorillos a town 20 minutes from Lima with a large international community.

Both structures were renovated last year; among the improvements were closets and paneling made of Peruvian jungle hardwood and reclaimed pine. In the main house, the living room has double-height ceilings and a stained-glass window. The carved mantelpiece over the dining room fireplace is over 100 years old. The house has one bedroom upstairs and three on the main floor.

The master bedroom is in the cottage at the back of the property. The master bath is en-suite, and the floors and walls are lined with pink ceramic tile. Both houses are decorated with antique stained glass, plaster ornaments and local textiles. The pool area is landscaped with bougainvillea and palm trees.

Jorge Chávez International Airport is a 40-minute drive.

MARKET OVERVIEW

Growth in Peru’s real estate market has remained steady over the past five years, despite the global economic downturn, said José Antonio Olaechea, managing partner of Estudio Olaechea, a law firm in Lima. He said that although high demand and a low housing supply were pushing prices up, stagnant wages were preventing out-of-control growth. “We are not yet in a bubble,” he said, adding that government programs to promote homeownership have help bolster the market.

In addition, the shortage of land available for development has spurred apartment and office conversions of many older houses, said Nella Ponce, the director of Peru Sotheby’s International Realty in Lima.

Growth is especially strong in Miraflores and Barranco, affluent districts along Lima’s Pacific Coast. New homes in Miraflores sell for $2,000 a square meter ($186 a square foot, at 10.7639 square feet to the square meter). Recently homes in a sold-out development in Barranco sold for $2,500 per square meter.

Second homes along the private beaches outside Lima cost $1,000 to $1,500 a square meter, Ms. Ponce said. In Chorillos, once a second-home destination but now largely a bedroom community, property sells for $1,500 to $2,000 a square meter. The house profiled here costs $1,125 a square meter, slightly less than average, because the nearest beach is rougher and not ideal for swimming.

Mr. Olaechea says prices are expected to rise by 10 percent in the Lima metropolitan area in 2011, versus 9.5 percent in 2010 and 12 percent in 2009.

WHO BUYS IN PERU

About 40 percent of the country’s foreign buyers are from Argentina, Mr. Olaechea said. Fifty percent are Chileans, Bolivians, Colombians and Brazilians; most remaining foreign buyers are American.

BUYING BASICS

Generally, there are no restrictions on foreigners wishing to buy property in Peru, unless it is within 50 kilometers (about 30 miles) of the border.

Additional costs include a title check, notary fees and deed registration (around $1,500). Foreign buyers must apply for a real estate transaction permit from the Department of Immigration; permits cost $200 to $300, Mr. Olaechea said. Transfer taxes are 3 percent of the purchase price, according to Víctor Manuel Saldaña, the general manager of Alfredo Graf y Asociados, a real estate company in Lima.

Real estate in Peru is almost always priced in United States dollars, Ms. Ponce said. WEB SITES

Peruvian government: www.peru.gob.pe

Municipality of Lima: munlima.gob.pe

Tecnología (online news site): tecnologia.com.pe

LANGUAGES AND CURRENCY

Spanish; Nuevo sol (1 sol = $0.36)

TAXES AND FEES

Property taxes are a $1,200 a year.

View original article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/greathomesanddestinations/03gh-househunting.html?_r=1

10 Foreclosure Hotspots

It’s never a good thing for one’s city to be included in any article naming cities with fast-growing rate of foreclosures. It’s also especially troubling when the picture that CNNMoney.com uses happens to be a house you’ve sold a couple times. Let’s start with that house—it’s a spectacular brick Second Empire house—a double house, actually, built that way in 1873. In 2006, both sides of the house were for sale. I had the left side of the house listed and another agent had the right side of the house listed. My clients (and now very good friends) saw both sides and decided to buy the right side of the house. We had a long negotiation with the owners and finally got about $100k off the purchase price. The market was still hot at that time and we thought that was a pretty good discount. I don’t have to tell you that the market turned south, but they’re still in the house and love it. Naturally, they would have liked to have paid less. As for my left side of the house, as the market turned, we were not able to find a buyer, despite a number of price reductions. Finally, in late 2008, we had a good offer--$735k. At the time, the seller owed about $755k. He had been making $4000 monthly payments on an empty house for two years, so that’s another $100,000 that he ate. He asked the bank if they would accept the offer as a short sale. The bank took about six months to respond to the short sale request, and eventually the buyers lost interest and moved on. And then the bank said they wouldn’t eat the $20k. So my seller stopped making his $4000 payments. We continued taking offers, which the bank continued ignoring. And nearly a year later, in early 2010, the bank finally took the property back. When it was listed in early spring of 2010, the asking price was $565,000. Naturally, I had a list of people who were interested, and I quickly got it under contract at full price. So the bank ate nearly $200,000 and devalued the property. Of course, CNNMoney happened to have used a stock Savannah photo, and couldn’t possibly know the story behind this house, but I do. And it’s the incompetence of the banks that put them in bad positions to start with. On a totally different note, the paragraph describing Savannah’s foreclosure market does mention that homes like this in the Landmark Historic District are not really causing the foreclosure jump. The sub-$100k houses are coming on the market, and the article is right—it’s investor stuff. And we need to look at the bright side of this article—there are indeed great deals to be had for buyers. In fact, I happen to have just gone under contract on one of those foreclosures, the restoration of which may be part of this blog in the future. Looking for a good deal? As always, feel free to contact me.

View the CNNmoney.com article: http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/real_estate/1102/gallery.latest_foreclosure_hotspots/index.html?hpt=C2