Real Estate Ramblings

I attended a conference this week at the Wharton Lauder Institute focused on the financial crisis. I heard several distinguished professors and business leaders discuss a wide range of topics, and many of them touched on real estate as a key part of the current crisis. Professor Joseph Gyourko of...

A bit of good news for Countrywide borrowers - Bank of America (which now owns Countrywide) is paying a settlement to borrowers in certain states (PA being one of them) who meet the following criteria:   * The loan was made by Countrywide   * The loan was secured by an owner-occupied property; in...

Just when I thought that Florida's condo developers had learned their lesson, I came across this article about a new twist on condo living. 'Seniors' (55+) can now buy condo units on a cruise ship that has all the amenities of a typical, land-based Active Adult Retirement Community (AARC) and can...

For those of you looking for a well-balanced, big-picture overview of real estate investing look no further than the current (August 3rd) issue of Forbes Magazine. The special section titled "You Can Still Get Rich in Real Estate" contains four articles covering everything from investing in REIT'...

As prices come down across the board many seasoned real estate investors are migrating to larger properties where they can achieve greater economies of scale. This is leaving fewer professional investors in the market for duplex, triplex, and fourplex properties. As the investor community moves a...

University City is one of my favorite neighborhoods in Philadelphia. One reason is the concentration of great cafes and coffee shops that make it so easy to meet up with old friends over brunch, read a Sunday paper while sipping a cappuccino, or just grab a cup of joe on your way to catch the tro...

News of broad-based home price increases is starting to trickle in, with this report from Integrated Asset Services showing a 1.6% monthly increase in nationwide single family detached home prices for the month of May. The same survey also showed a small gain in April giving some hope that the in...

This article from Realtor Magazine gives a good example of why many sellers are slowly coming around and selling for less in today's market - and it's not just because they're sick of chasing squirrels out of the attic (although that is funny). The old adage "a penny saved is a penny earned" come...

According to this article from CoStar (scroll down to the headline United Western Sells Option Arm MBS for Less than a Penny on the Dollar) a Denver bank recently sold a large mortgage backed securities (MBS) portfolio ($47.3MM original principal balance) for only $378,000 or around $0.008 per do...

In a follow up to a recent article about the Murano condo auction that proved a large pool of buyers are still actively looking for luxury living options in Center City, this Inquirer article points out that while those buyers are out there they aren't paying the inflated prices developers have b...