Real Estate Ramblings

James Yoakum | Brown McKinney Real Estate | 215-825-2250 1906-8 Monument St., Philadelphia, PA Side-by-Side shells gutted and ready for a quick rehab near Temple University. 4BR/0BA Townhouse offered at $90,000 Year Built 1915 Sq Footage 1,824 Bedrooms 4 Bathrooms 0 full, 0 partial Floors 2 Park...

If you're thinking of buying or selling real estate in Philadelphia it's very important to understand the closing process and all the moving parts and closing costs associated with completing a real estate transaction. This video should answer many of the most common questions, but feel free to c...

Traditionally home sales in a given year peak in the summer. This common trend is driven by better weather for home-shopping, more relaxed work schedules for many buyers and sellers, and a desire to move during the summer while kids are out of school, avoiding mid-year school transitions. 2010 ho...

I guess we can finally start calling the slots parlors that have opened in Pennsylvania over the past few years casinos - they will begin offering table games such as roulette, poker, blackjack, and craps, in addition to their slot machines, by the end of the year (See article here). Whether or n...

One sign of our current financial times has been the shift of lending power (for real estate and other types of loans) from the too-big-to-fail national banks and financial companies to smaller regional lenders. In the Philadelphia area regional players such as Beneficial Bank and Susquehanna Ban...

According to this Philadelphia Inquirer article major crimes were down across the board in Philadelphia for 2009. To me this is the one area in which Mayor Nutter has had undisputed success and he and police Commissioner Ramsey deserve a pat on the back. Since 2007 the big headline grabber - homi...

According to this article in the Philadelphia Business Journal the Philadelphia region should see a lower unemployment rate over the course of 2010, but job gains will be slow. Drivers of job growth are expected to be the health-care and education sectors as well as the two new casinos that are s...

Philadelphia got an early Christmas present with the release of two pieces of good economic data this week. First off the Pennsylvania unemployment rate for November dropped 0.4% to 8.5% - a full 1.5% below the national average. While the state-wide job count continued to decline, jobs were creat...

You may have heard that as of last week, Philadelphia's 2008 estimated population was revised upwards by 93,000 people to 1,540,351. This is obviously a good sign for the city, not least of all because it should boost confidence among entrepreneurs and business owners thinking of investing in the...

In my post earlier this week I discussed Five Reasons Serious Investors Should Use a Buyer's Agent. Hopefully that convinced you that there are benefits to consistently working with a good buyer's agent to identify and purchase investment properties. That still leaves the question of how to ident...