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Saturday, March 31, 2012

CurbedWire: Cool Small Spaces; Preserving Boston; Condos in San Fran

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Monday, March 26, 2012, by Sarah Firshein

finalist-3-david-ims-onespace-007880.jpgPhoto via Apartment Therapy

THE INTERNET—On Thursday, Apartment Therapy will kick off its 8th Annual Small Cool Contest in hopes of finding the best small space in the country. [Apartment Therapy]

BOSTON—There's a new campaign underway to preserve an icon of Boston architecture: the triple-decker. Curbed Boston has more. [Curbed Boston]

THE INTERNET—CB2 has launched its outdoor-furniture catalog. [CB2]

SAN FRANCISCO—The guys over at Curbed SF compiled a solid list of the best places to buy a condo in San Francisco right now. [Curbed SF]


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Rising Mortgage Rates May Not Hurt Housing

It was barely a few weeks ago that mortgage rates were sitting at record lows.

The idea of rates over 4 percent on the 30-year fixed seemed a distant memory.

And here they are now at 4.05 percent on the Bankrate.com overnight, thanks to the recent rise in Treasury yields.

The housing market, it seems, just can't catch a break. Or can it?

As the economy improves, the job market improves, and that is a key driver for housing. But on the flip side, as the economy improves, investors finally crawl out of the Treasury bunkers, driving yields higher, and mortgage rates generally follow the 10-year Treasury.

"We will definitely see a freeze up in refi’s immediately but the decision on a purchase still won’t be impacted until rates get at least to 4.5 percent I believe," says Peter Boockvar at Miller Tabak. "Assuming a $200k mortgage, going from 4 to 4.5 percent in mortgage rate adds about $60 per month to one’s payments, and while an extra $700 per year matters, I’m not sure if it’s a deal breaker."

While rates have moved a good quarter of a percent in the past few weeks, most analysts don't think they'll go much higher.

"Mortgage rates were too high anyway ,relative to the 10-year Treasury, so I don't think you will see a parallel shift," says FBR's Paul Miller, who spoke to several bankers today. They told him mortgage volume is good, which helps keep rates competitive. "But it does take time for this stuff to flow through the markets," he adds.

And then there could be one other phenomenon, as described by Freddie Mac's chief economist Frank Nothaft: "When rates tick up, you may see some potential home buyers who have been sitting on the sidelines, suddenly they may get up, as they are concerned that maybe this is the beginning of a trend, and they don't want to miss out on these 60-year low mortgage rates. In the near term it can encourage buyers."

Questions?  Comments?  document.write("");document.write("RealtyCheck"+"@"+"cnbc.com");document.write('');And follow me on Twitter @Diana_Olick


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[In The Media] Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart” 3-20-12

Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Tuesday, March 20, 2012, 10:32 PM
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Was invited to be on Bloomberg TV’s Street Smart today with Trish Regan to talk about the outlook for Manhattan housing prices with particular attention paid to reduced bonus compensation. Always fun to go to BB.

True (funny) story just before I did the interview:

I was getting mic’ed up and makeup applied while waiting for my turn on the set when I looked up and standing in front of me was Patrick Doyle of Domino’s Pizza holding a large pizza box as a prop for his appearance (It must have been warm because it smelled great).

I introduced myself and he couldn’t have been nicer, and a bit self conscious standing in a newsroom holding a pizza box. I immediately remembered his latest commercial – my kid’s and I were commenting on it last weekend while watching March Madness. I quipped to him that I had a few ideas that could make me CEO – he cracked a smile and then proceeded to do a great interview – check out his closing line in the commercial so my story makes sense.


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Scaling Starchitecture: Newspapers are a dying breed, which...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Monday, March 26, 2012, by Sarah Firshein

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? Previous: Introducing Curbed University Around the Curbed Universe

? Next: A Starter Home in the Hudson Valley Enclave of Tuxedo Park


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[In The Media] Yahoo! Finance’s The Daily Ticker 3-22-12

Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Friday, March 23, 2012, 8:40 PM
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Had a fun discussion with Aaron Task and Dan Gross over at Yahoo! Finance’s The Daily Ticker.

Dan Gross wrote a column based on the interview called: Should Fannie Mae Sell Foreclosed Homes in Bulk to Hedge Funds? Dan asks the question:

What could go wrong? Well, as Aaron Task and I discuss with Jonathan Miller, president and chief executive officer of appraisal firm Miller Samuel and proprietor of the authoritative Matrix real estate blog, pretty much everything.

From the heavy comment volume on the post, I’d say the take for Yahoo! Finance readers to Dan’s question was: NO


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AD Editors' Choice: With the 2012 Architectural Digest Home...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Monday, March 26, 2012, by Rob Bear

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? Previous: Portuguese Modern; Mad Men Decor; Tebow to Jersey; More!

? Next: Golfer Phil Mickelson Lists His Mediterranean-Inspired Estate


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Friday, March 30, 2012

Housing Hype: Recovery Turns to Relapse?

Housing was charging back. Spring sprung early. Sentiment among home builders doubled in six months. Any talk that the fundamentals might not be supporting the sentiment was met with harsh criticism. And then suddenly it wasn’t.

A slew of new housing data last week disappointed the analysts and the stock market, and all of a sudden you started to hear concern that maybe housing wasn’t exactly in a robust recovery.

From home builder sentiment to housing starts, to home builder earnings right through to sales of newly built homes, there was not one hopeful headline in any of it (except perhaps if you invest in rentals, as multi-family housing starts made more gains, but that is a contrary indicator to housing recovery).

And then an email from a Realtor in New Jersey: “Just reviewed March buyer clicks, Google’s analytics on all the sites we monitor – March is turning out to be the weakest month since last October re: Buyer interest..”

Now we start another week with another disappointment. Pending home sales, a measure of signed contracts for existing homes, not closings, fell half a percentage point month-to-month.

That may not seem like a big deal, but the analysts were looking for a small gain. No doubt the Realtors will point to the solid 9% gain from a year ago, but so much of that gain is based on a change in the foreclosure pipeline.

Last year the foreclosure process stalled. The “robo-signing” mess brought everything to a standstill, and that left investors with little to buy on the distressed side. Foreclosures began ramping up again in the late fall, and that led to a surge in investor buying. Was that the “recovery” we were seeing?

Investors are still rushing into the market, with distressed sales making up a near-record 48.7 percent of sales in February on a three month moving average, according to a new report today from Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance.

Investors are now a full quarter of the market, and they are increasing their activity in short sales (when a lender allows the home to be sold for less than the value of the mortgage).

Don’t get me wrong, investors buying up the distress is necessary to cleanse the market, but it is not real recovery. Mortgage originations are at a 12-year low, despite record low rates. Normal, “organic” home buyers, move-up owner occupants, are not flooding back into this market. Rents are still rising.

Mortgage analyst Mark Hanson runs some disturbing numbers to back up his contention that Q2 will disappoint: “Investor sales volume up 37 percent  year over year for a whopper 69 percent of all year over year existing home sales gains. First-timers are starting to look weak in Feb. The gains in first-timer and repeat sales can easily be explained by historic rates and weather and can easily reverse in a single month.”

That may be why the home builders, who had been on a streak of gains in confidence, suddenly stopped moving this month. KB Home [KBH  Loading...      ()   ] , which builds lower-priced homes, also came in with wildly disappointing earnings and an 8 percent drop in new orders. Sales of new homes also disappointed, which one analyst called, “puzzling.”

“If new homes are not selling, then why are builder confidence and single-family housing permits moving up, and why is the S.& P. home builder index up 80 percent since last October?” asks Patrick Newport at IHS Global Insight. “Time will tell if builders and investors have gone out on a limb.”

Several other analysts started to question the strength of the recovery as well, with some just hoping that perhaps a warm winter had pulled some demand forward from spring. Despite a miss on existing home sales in February, the headline pointed to, again, big gains from a year ago.

Yes, we are ahead of where we were, but as we’ve noted so many times here on this page, rising foreclosures will put added pressure on this market, and we may not be out of the woods yet.

“Despite an extraordinarily mild winter, home sales just plod along at a pace last seen during the mid-1990s,” notes Mark Zandi in his monthly report from Moody’s Analytics. “Thus, the underlying pace of home sales may not yet be strong enough to support a long-lasting upturn by home prices.”

Tomorrow we get the monthly reading on the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index. This index hasn’t been improving nearly as much as home sales, but the ever-hopeful housing lobby keeps blaming that on the fact that prices always lag sales, which is historically true, but what in today’s market has followed history?

Home prices are still falling not because of some lag, but because this housing market is running on sales of distressed properties at the very low end. The rest of the market is still stalled.

Questions?  Comments?  document.write("");document.write("RealtyCheck"+"@"+"cnbc.com");document.write('');And follow me on Twitter @Diana_Olick


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Shameless Self-Promotion: The Curbed SF Newsletter Is So Stoked About This Weather

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Thursday, March 22, 2012, by Sally Kuchar

You can visit Curbed as many times a day as you want. But did you know we can also come to you? That's right, ladies and gents! Sign up below to receive the complimentary Curbed SF Newsletter, a beautiful daily summary of the hottest stories of the day. You can also add more Curbed to your life via Facebook and the Twitter.

Sign Up For the Curbed SF Email Newsletter:

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Sandra Lee Wire: Food Network star and New York...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Friday, March 23, 2012, by Sarah Firshein

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? Previous: Philanthropist Edgar J. Bronfman Lists His Country Retreat

? Next: Records


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On the Market: Inside Miami's Utterly Bonkers Manmade Water Fortress

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Friday, March 23, 2012, by Sarah Firshein

Some properties are so outrageous that the souls who run real estate blogs hope and pray that they will eventually come on the market. This is one of them: the low-lying water world that Miami architect Charles Sieger (known for multi-million-dollar residential high-rises) built for himself smack in a land-locked Miami neighborhood. Now that moat-surrounded castle is for sale for the first time since its completion in 2007 with a list price of $10.9M.

As if to reveal the Sieger's deepest personal obsessions, everything about the property is painstakingly symmetrical, from the quite-obviously manmade lake to the diamond-shaped courtyard to the pair of concrete gazebos (accessed by stepping-stone paths) jutting out to either side of the house. The eight-bedroom, eight-bathroom, 10,100-square-foot interiors have a bright, airy, double-height living room, but the ornate wrought-iron rail running around the second story creates a moody, almost Gothic feel (as do many of the furnishings). And if Stonehenge and the Roman Forum were to have an extremely modern baby, it would likely resemble that sculpture garden out back.

If you're thinking that this place would look pretty rad in a hip-hop video: brilliant! The Sieger Residence featured prominently in Birdman's 2010 track "Fire Flame." Here, watch:

Birdman: Fire Flame

· Totes Ma Goats: Architect Charles Siegel Lists Epic Lake Castle [Realtor.com]
· Birdman - Fire Flame [YouTube]
· 25791 SW 167 Ave., Miami [Realtor.com]


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quicklisting : Noe Valley Victorian, $2,395,000

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Thursday, March 22, 2012, by Austin Pollock 1566-Sanchez.jpg

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Thursday, March 29, 2012

Weekend Topic Suggestions

In my next life, I want to be Simon Johnson.

Break Up the Banks
It makes no sense to keep bailing out bankers while demanding austerity for everyone else.
By Simon Johnson|Posted Friday, Dec. 23, 2011, at 1:26 PM ET
Former Washington Mutual CEO Kerry Killinger
Photograph by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

Santa Claus came early this year for four former executives of Washington Mutual, which failed in 2008. The executives reached a settlement with the FDIC, which sued them for taking huge financial risks while “knowing that the real estate market was in a ‘bubble.’ ” The FDIC had sought to recover $900 million, but the executives have just settled for $64 million, almost all of which will be paid by their insurers; their out-of-pockets costs are estimated at just $400,000.

To be sure, the executives lost their jobs and now must drop claims for additional compensation. But, according to the FDIC, the four still earned more than $95 million from January 2005 through September 2008. This is what happens when financial executives are compensated for “return on equity” unadjusted for risk. The executives get the upside when things go well; when the downside risks materialize, they lose nothing (or close to it).

At the same time, their actions and similar actions by other bankers are directly responsible for both the run-up in housing prices and the damaging collapse that followed. That collapse has impacted nonbankers negatively in many ways, including the loss of more than 8 million jobs.

It is also leading to austerity: Taxes are increasing and government spending is falling at the local and state level around the country. A difficult fiscal conversation still lies ahead at the federal level, but cuts and contractions of various types seem likely.

Some people argue that Americans need to tighten their belts. That’s an interesting discussion, particularly at a time with unemployment is still above 8 percent (with recent declines largely the result of many jobless workers’ decision to stop looking). Precipitate austerity is hardly likely to help the economy find its way back to higher employment levels.

But what about government support for the big banks? Is this contracting in the light of our current fiscal pressures? Unfortunately, it is not. Much government support remains, implicitly through allowing banks to be “too big to fail” and explicitly through various kinds of backing provided by the Federal Reserve.

The rationale behind supporting big banks is that they are needed for the economy to recover. But this position looks increasingly doubtful when the banks are sitting on piles of cash while creditworthy consumers and businesses are reluctant to borrow.

The same situation exists in Europe today, where the reality is even starker. Banks are receiving ever-larger bailouts, while countries that borrowed are cutting social programs and face rising social tensions and political instability as a result. Countries like Greece, Italy, and arguably Portugal overborrowed and now their citizens face severe consequences. But the bankers face no consequences whatsoever for overlending.

To be sure, some major European financial institutions may now face difficulties, and perhaps some of their executives will end up being fired. But does anyone think that the people who ran European banks into the ground will leave their positions with anything less than considerable wealth? There is no real austerity—now or possibly in the future—for leading bank executives.

The protesters of “Occupy Albany” issued a powerful consensus statement recently, which reads in part:

The interests of those who purchase influence are rewarded at the expense of the People, from whom the government’s just power is derived. We believe that this failure in our system is at the core of many interconnected issues we face as a society, and its resolution is key to a just future. We therefore demand true democracy, decoupled from the corrosive influence of concentrated economic power, and we call all who share in this common goal to stand with us and take action toward this end.

Big banks represent the ultimate in concentrated economic power in today’s economies. They are able to resist all meaningful reform that could really change their compensation schemes. Their executives want to get all the upside while facing none of the true downside.


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Sold Stuff: The Miami Beach penthouse-cum-"traditional Thai home...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Tuesday, March 27, 2012, by Sarah Firshein

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Linkage: San Fran's Steamy Circular Bed; Inside a Houston Theater

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Bits Bucket for March 26, 2012

I don`t even know where to tell you to point the U-Haul alpha. California, Florida, New York, Oklahoma, Virginia etc. You guys told me all the crime happened where I live.

U.S. Violence | January 8, 2012

Cartel violence is here: Teen tortured, beheaded in Oklahoma…press silent

Dave Gibson

Bethany, OK - On December 21, Bethany Police Chief announced the arrest of Francisco Gomez, 31, who has been charged with multiple drug trafficking charges and is believed to have knowledge of the grisly murder of 19-year-old Carina Saunders.

Gomez’ co-defendant, Jimmy Lee Massey (aka “Big Country”), 33, was already in custody. Both are allegedly members of a drug/sex trafficking ring operating in Oklahoma.

According to an affidavit, Massey has admitted to kidnapping another woman and forcing her to watch as Saunders was tortured to death on October 9, 2011. Massey also told investigators how the young woman’s body was then dismembered.

On October 13, Saunders’ remains were discovered inside a duffel bag behind the Homeland grocery store at NW 23 and Rockwell Avenue. She had been beheaded and could only be indentified through dental records.

Though the mainstream press has failed to report on the growing cartel and Latin American gang violence in this country, beheadings and torture killings are nothing new.

Continue reading on Examiner.com Cartel violence is here: Teen tortured, beheaded in Oklahoma…press silent - National drug cartel | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/drug-cartel-in-national/cartel-violence-is-here-teen-tortured-beheaded-oklahoma-press-silent#ixzz1qG4OyJwH

“The MS-13 thrives on violence—violence directed at suspected rivals, as in the Hamilton murder and Timberline Park shooting, violence against its own members, as demonstrated in the Gomez murder, and violence directed at innocent, hard-working Long Islanders, as demonstrated in the armed robberies charged in this indictment,” stated United States Attorney Lynch. “Today we mark the latest product of the tenacious investigations conducted by the FBI’s Long Island Gang Task Force.” Ms. Lynch extended her grateful appreciation to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office for its assistance in this case.

2 MS-13 gang leaders in New York convicted of murder
Defendants killed innocent young man in case of mistaken identity

NEW YORK - A federal jury convicted two leaders of the international street gang MS-13 Monday of murder in-aid-of-racketeering and other charges, following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Oscar Fuentes, 30, and Julio Chavez, 25, both of Huntington, N.Y., were convicted following three hours of deliberation by the jury. Fuentes, also known as La Mara Salvatrucha, was the state leader of the New York MS-13 chapters; Chavez was the leader of the Huntington chapter of MS-13.

The jury convicted both men of committing the May 2007 murder of 21-year-old Maurice Parker in Flushing, New York, and using a firearm in furtherance of the murder. Fuentes was also convicted of possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The evidence at trial established that, in the early morning hours of May 18, 2007, the defendants and other MS-13 gang members drove through the streets of Flushing, armed with a gun, and looking to shoot rival gang members. Around 12:30 a.m., they saw two young men, Maurice Parker and his friend, standing outside a store at 41-80 Bowne Street.

Parker’s friend was wearing a red sweatshirt - a color often worn by members of the rival Bloods street gang. Chavez and a second gang member jumped from the vehicle driven by Fuentes, ran up to the two men, and Chavez shot Maurice Parker six times, including three shots to the head. Maurice Parker died at the scene.


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CurbedWire: Happy Birthday, Mies; Art Linkletter's Place For Sale; More!

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Tuesday, March 27, 2012, by Sarah Firshein

modernviews.jpgIllustration of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House by architect Tadao Ando; via The Philip Johnson Glass House Blog

EVERYWHERE—Modernist master architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe would have been 126 years old today. Happy birthday! [The Philip Johnson Glass House Blog]

BEL-AIR, CALIF.—The midcentury-modern home of the late TV host Art Linkletter has hit the market for $10.25M. Designed by Philmer J. Ellerbroek, the five-bedroom was featured in Arch Digest in 1959. [Realtor.com]

THE INTERNET—Trulia has just launched its Housing Barometer, which measures indicators of the housing recovery: new construction starts, existing-home sales, and the delinquency-plus-foreclosure rate. February's data shows construction starts only 22 percent of the way back from their April 2009 low; home sales 48 percent back from their Nov. 2008 low; and delinquency/foreclosure rate 32 percent back from its Jan. 2010 high. In total, the housing market is about a third of the way back to normalcy, with 100 percent not expected until late 2015. [Trulia via AOL Real Estate]


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Bits Bucket for March 22, 2012

The City Was Offering Up to $70,000 at 0% Interest
Elizabeth Salaam, March 21, 2012

On October 12, 2011, my husband and I signed two hours’ worth of paperwork and forked over a $2450 earnest-money deposit on a four-bedroom, four-bath townhome in Chula Vista.

For years, we’d fantasized about escaping the constraints of our 860-square-foot, $1300-a-month condo rental in City Heights. Now, our three-year-old daughter would be able to move out of our closet (yes, our closet) and into her own room, and our cologne-obsessed 13-year-old would have his own lair, two floors down from the other bedrooms. Along with 1850 glorious square feet and extra bathrooms, we’d have canyon views and a two-car garage that led into the house: no more lugging groceries in the rain. And — oh, yeah — mortgage and property tax combined would add up to $1147 (not including HOA fees), $153 less than our rental.

In the parking lot outside the real-estate agent’s office, I sent a text blast to family and friends: “It’s ours. We’re in escrow!”

My husband sighed. “It’s not ours yet, Lizzie. Anything can happen between now and the time we close.”

I dismissed the comment with a wave of my hand. Despite his previously discouraging experiences with sellers (one deal fell apart the day escrow was due to close), my optimism would remain intact. I’d heard about the hassles of purchasing a home through first-time-homebuyer incentive programs, but this place was meant to be ours, and I believed that everything would go swimmingly.

Twenty days later, our listing agent Joe sent us a Notice of Termination.

I panicked, let loose a string of profanities, and went into fight mode.

Our agent later told me that, for a 60-day escrow like ours, 20 days wasn’t too terribly deep into the process. But we’d been at this longer than the length of the escrow, and the future of our down-payment assistance was uncertain. We were relying on it to help with the purchase, and I feared we might not get another chance.


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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Rookie Roosts Week: Condos: Where To Buy Right Now

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Monday, March 26, 2012, by Sally Kuchar

3-24-12condosales.jpgAs if we all have the luxury or time to spend the next 6 months to a year bouncing from open house to open house, entering bidding wars, and becoming best friends with our real estate agent. And while that seems like heaven to some folks, there are plenty of us who simply don't have the time or patience for that kind of home hunting. No, some of us just want to buy a brand new condo in a brand new development and get on with it. With that in mind, we've put together a handy map of where you should buy right now, right this instant. Every residential tower or complex on this list is new to the market, meaning there are plenty (plenty!) of units up for grabs that no one's lived in yet. Some of these are so fresh that they officially haven't hit the market yet (we're talking about you Millwheel and 299 Valencia). But fear not, they will be within a month. Our map features buildings from Pacific Heights to the Bayview and from South Beach to the Mission. Units range from the low $300,000s to the penthouse prices of $2.5M. Almost all of them have building amenities like roof terraces and private parking. Happy hunting!


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Better Homes & Gardens Mason McDuffie Embraces Trulia to Build Relationships with Consumers

Last week, we had the privilege of speaking with Ed Krafchow, Chairman and CEO of Better Homes and Gardens Mason-McDuffie Real Estate and an influential member of the real estate industry.

Ed was in our offices to celebrate his firm’s partnership with Trulia. He sees many commonalities between our two firms, as do we. “In our work with Trulia, we are building a consortium of agents, brokers and consumers to come together in the best interest of the consumers,” Ed said. “We believe helping consumers get the information they want is the right thing to do for consumers. With its reach, Trulia will provide our listings with extensive exposure. For these reasons, I am excited about working with Trulia.”

As part of the agreement, Better Homes and Gardens Mason-McDuffie Real Estate will receive prominent placement and brand exposure for its property listings on Trulia.

Krafchow says the industry is entering a third phase in the real estate business. In the first phase brokers owned the business, in the second the agent owned the business, and “in this third phase, I believe consumers will come to own part of the business,” he says.

Watch the video to see Krafchow’s complete remarks.

Popularity: 1% [?]


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Rookie Roosts 2012: Decoding the Word "Starter" Around the Curbed Universe

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Tuesday, March 27, 2012, by Sarah Firshein

shutterstock_54012055.jpgPhoto: James Steidl/Shutterstock

Friends and readers of Curbed often marvel at the verbiage of listings: what "charming," "quaint," and "architectural" truly imply. Here now, a Brokerbabble Glossary decoding what the expression "starter," or "starter home," actually means within the following Curbed markets. Take NYC, for instance, where brokers "love to apply the 'starter home' tag to studio apartments in South Queens, because nothing says you're on your way like 300 square feet and a two-hour subway ride to anywhere." Here, look:

New York · Boston · Hamptons · Philly · DC · Atlanta · Chicago · Seattle · San Francisco · Los Angeles


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Linkage: Portuguese Modern; Mad Men Decor; Tebow to Jersey; More!

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On the Market: Very Big and Very Grand In Forest Hill

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Friday, March 23, 2012, by Sally Kuchar It's not uncommon to find a plethora of big abodes in Forest Hill, where the average list price is $1,195,000. It should come as no surprise then to find that 225 Magellan, a 5-bed, 5.5-bath home, has just landed on the market with an asking price of $3,295,000. The Tudorish home was built in 1933 and was designed by starchitect Edward E. Young. The listing tells us that it's a "one of a kind property that demonstrates style and examples of art deco interior, as well as other impressive architectural features throughout." We're going to have to agree. Look up, down, to the right or left, and there's something going on. For instance, the giant rotunda entry has travertine floors and a terrazzo staircase with iron and bronze railings. The atrium rotunda (how many rotundas does it take to make a house a home?) has a marble fountain with European figures. And wow, how about that bathroom? Larger than most studio apartments here in the City, we're sure. Other property highlights include a dog run, wine cellar, library, and "original peacock glass stained window."
· 255 Magellan [Redfin] 255 Magellan Ave, San Francisco, CA

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Follow Us on Pinterest and Google+: If you just can't get enough...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Friday, March 23, 2012, by Sarah Firshein

Screen-shot-2012-03-20-at-8.19.08-AM.jpgIf you just can't get enough of Curbed in the burgeoning universe of social media, a reminder that Curbed is now on Pinterest and Google+. On both these accounts, expect to find a carefully curated selection of gorgeous images and top stories. Don't be shy. This will be fun. [The Management]

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? Previous: On the Market

? Next: Inside Miami's Utterly Bonkers Manmade Water Fortress


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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Foreclosures: Last year was a record-setting year...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Wednesday, March 14, 2012, by Sarah Firshein

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? Previous: For East Coast Vacationers, a Buckminster Fuller Dome Home

? Next: Follow Us on Pinterest and Google+!


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Charging Now Easier Than Ever: Mayor Lee was on the scene...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Tuesday, March 13, 2012, by Sally Kuchar

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? Previous: Buckets Of Rain; Homeowners vs. Investors; Mavericks Festival Still On; More!


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Bits Bucket for March 15, 2012

Helpful advice for Goldman Sachs: Beware the ides of March.

March 15, 2012, 6:44 a.m. EDT
Beware the Treasury-banking complex
By Kurt Brouwer

The New York Times just published an opinion piece by Greg Smith, formerly of Goldman Sachs (GS +0.33%). In it, he stated that Goldman Sachs used to be a firm that cared about its clients, but not anymore.

He wrote:

To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money… The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.

While I sympathize with Smith’s heartfelt piece, I think the problem goes much further than just how Goldman Sachs treats its clients. I believe the problem is the relationship Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms have with the U.S. Treasury and other government agencies.

The U.S. Treasury-banking complex

When he left office, the late President Dwight Eisenhower gave an extraordinary speech that included a warning about the military-industrial complex, which represented a combination (military contractors and the Defense Department) that had attained too much influence over policy.

Here is an excerpt from his 1961 speech that I have altered by exchanging his term military industrial complex for my term Treasury-banking complex:

…In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the [Treasury-banking complex]. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes…

Unfortunately, I think we have already let the Treasury-banking complex get embedded in our system. The big banking institutions are so well-connected in Washington that they can manipulate the rules and regulations to fit their needs. By the way, I’m not talking about local and regional banks, but rather the very big banks such as Citi (C +0.65%), Goldman Sachs and Bank of America (BAC +1.36%).

These banks and their executives donate millions of dollars to politicians in Congress and elsewhere. In addition, there is a revolving door between executives of top banks such as Goldman Sachs, Citi or Bank of America and the U.S. Treasury, along with other government agencies. Think Hank Paulson or Robert Rubin, both of whom headed the U.S. Treasury after careers on Wall Street. Some pundits have even speculated that being the Secretary of the Treasury is a demotion from being chief executive of Goldman Sachs.

Fair weather capitalists

Essentially, the big banks are ‘fair weather’ capitalists. Banks get the profits when things are going well. But that all changes when they get in trouble. At those times, we hear the plaintive cry that they are ‘too big to fail’ and that taxpayers should absorb the ill effects of the leverage and risk banks took.

Instead of relying on an overworked regulatory system, I believe we need to mandate transparency. If a firm employs high amounts of leverage (borrowed money), then it should be required to spell that out. If it cannot do so, then maybe it has become too complex to manage. Assuming banks release transparent financial reports, from that point on, let the buyer beware.

No government guarantees for high risk banks

Further, if a banking institution wants the benefit of FDIC guarantees for bank deposits or ‘too big to fail’ designation, then it should have to operate in a very low leverage, low risk manner.

Instead, if a Citi or Goldman or a Bank of America wants to be a high flying, free wheeling firm, then it can do that too. But, its investors need to know that their capital is at risk, not ours. Greg Smith closed out his opinion piece by writing this:

…Weed out the morally bankrupt people, no matter how much money they make for the firm. And get the culture right again, so people want to work here for the right reasons. People who care only about making money will not sustain this firm — or the trust of its clients — for very much longer.

Suggesting we need to weed out morally bankrupt people sounds good, but that would be difficult, whether we are talking about Wall Street or Washington.

At a minimum, we need to reduce the influence of Wall Street on Washington. Maybe Greg Smith will spearhead a movement to do so. That would be great, but I won’t be holding my breath.


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The Ball And Chain

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Three hundred acres planned for 249 luxury-view homes high in the foothills of Corona were purchased in foreclosure for $3.5 million. Steve Cameron, president and founder of Foremost Communities, said the project was one of the most sought-after in the Inland Empire and was ‘well worth the wait.’ He said as recently as 2006 there were offers for the land in the range of $50 million to $70 million. Development of Sierra Bella will begin in about two years, Cameron said. The lots will be sold to builders for construction of single-family houses that are expected to sell for $700,000 to $800,000, he said.”

“Maricopa County, Ariz., which includes Phoenix and ritzy Scottsdale, was one of the hardest hit during the U.S. housing crisis with property prices plunging more than 55 per cent from their peak. And that’s got the attention of sun seekers, says Scottsdale realtor Diane Brennan, who specializes in selling homes to Canadians. ‘It’s been the second busiest year ever,’ says Brennan, who moved to the U.S. from Alberta a few years ago. ‘We are getting a lot of multiple offers and in one case 43 offers on one home.’”

“The hottest segment of the market is investor-buyers. Winnipeg residents John Erik and his wife Cheryl Albrechtsen, purchased a vacation home in Scottsdale last June. They paid $572,500 for their 3,700-square-foot home with five bedrooms and three bathrooms. Similar homes changed hands at the peak of the market for nearly twice that amount. ‘The economy will come back, so it was a good investment opportunity,’ said Erik about their decision to buy.”

“Owing more than a year’s rent and facing foreclosure sales of more than $4 million in property March 28, the developer of the University of Wyoming Plaza is in financial trouble. Owing more than a year’s rent and facing foreclosure sales of more than $4 million in property March 28, the developer of the University of Wyoming Plaza is in financial trouble.”

“For one tenant, the news came as no surprise. Grand Newsstand owner Mike Scott closed his plaza location in November, but continues to pay rent as he hasn’t found someone to sub-lease. He said GALP manager Fred Croci came to Laramie promising prosperity, but only delivered high rent. ‘He said it would be prosperous, that he’s going to finish the plaza within two years, is what he told me,’ Scott said. ‘Right across from my store where those foundations are (in the plaza), those condos were going to be started years ago. That meant everything to me, because those were going to be retail lofts, big city lofts with retail underneath and the condos above.’”

“In a 2009 interview with the Laramie Boomerang, Croci said the 16 loft apartments slated for development would be a ‘hot commodity’ done in time for part of the 2009 UW football season. But those ‘big city lofts’ never materialized.”

“Two out of every five houses, 75,000 properties, are vacant in Collier County. Florida’s 1.7 million empty houses are ball and chain for the state’s economy. Rep. Kathleen Passidomo, a Naples real estate attorney, said her bill, HB 213, will prod lenders to move ahead with cases and help lift 368,000 Florida foreclosures off dockets and onto the market.”

“Florida’s banking lobby fought the bill from the outset because of its biggest consumer protection: a provision that reduces from five years to one year the length of time lenders have to seek payment for the outstanding loan balance over the value of the home. Others say HB 213 will do nothing at all. The banks don’t want to move forward. Homeowners in default have often moved on or are content to live in the house for free.”

“‘It’s been a good thing, staying without paying,’ said Debbie Minick. In September 2009, her husband died and she stopped making payments. Finally, on Feb. 14, her foreclosure became final. She has until April to move out.”

“Roger Rinaldi said his troubles began when a mortgage loan officer falsified his application for a $164,000 loan on a three-bedroom home in Bristol in Kenosha County in 2005. Rinaldi said the loan officer listed a $15,630 bank account that didn’t exist, a college degree he didn’t earn and a job — sales manager — that he didn’t have. ‘I didn’t find out about that until two and a half years into the loan,’ Rinaldi said.”

“The lender’s actions allowed him and his wife to secure a $1,776-per-month loan the couple could not afford. Rinaldi also alleged the broker raised the interest rate to 8.5 percent from a promised rate ‘in the 7s’ just before the couple, who were moving from Illinois with their three children, closed on the mortgage. When the Rinaldis stopped paying, HSBC Bank, operating on behalf of Wells Fargo, sued for foreclosure in 2009. The lender then levied a series of fees totalling $4,500, he said.”

“In January 2010, a Kenosha County Circuit Court judge ruled for the banks, rejecting allegations about lender abuse. Wells Fargo spokesman James Hines said the Rinaldis’ arguments ‘were found to be without merit.’”

“Tom Wuensch of Onalaska, said he doesn’t dispute he owes money on his four-bedroom home. The balance on his loan was $360,000 when he stopped paying. The house is now worth no more than $250,000, he said. His case is pending. ‘The negative perception seems to be ‘You’re trying to get a free house,’ said Wuensch, who has staved off foreclosure for four years by challenging the efforts by a series of lenders to seize his home. ‘Really what this is about is, we shouldn’t be letting banks take free houses. We bailed them out once already.’”

“Mike Hilla of Chicago is among those who used the ’show-me-the-note’ defense. In an interview, Hilla said he stopped paying for the rental home he owns in Fitchburg when his monthly mortgage payment ballooned by more than $800 a month to $2,280 in 2009. But Hilla, whose job was to bundle and sell mortgages to Wall Street, saw his income plummet as the housing market collapsed.”

‘Late last month, he lost his bid in Dane County Circuit Court after Wells Fargo brought in one of its top officials, along with what it said was the original mortgage note from a company vault in Texas. Judge Richard Niess seemed particularly bothered that Hilla — who has failed to pay his mortgage, property taxes or insurance for more than two years — would get the Fitchburg rental home free and clear.”

“There’s house trouble on the East End of Long Island. The number of unsold Hamptons homes has hit a 30-year high while prices have plummeted. Some industry authorities blame the Hamptons market on homeowners pushing up prices unrealistically, as they did in other distressed housing markets. ‘It doesn’t matter if it’s Las Vegas, Arizona or the Hamptons when a home is overleveraged,’ said Corcoran Group CEO Pam Liebman. ‘It doesn’t help that there are currently too many homes in the Hamptons that are still on the market because the owners have unrealistic price expectations.’”

“Dottie Herman, CEO of Prudential Douglas Elliman, looked on the bright side. ‘Just because homes are listed in foreclosure doesn’t mean much. It just means that someone misses three payments,’ she said.”

“North Miami’s embattled mayor, Andre Pierre’s once again got some ’splainin to do this morning as Bank of America has moved in to foreclose on the $230,000 home he owns on NE 121st Street. He bought the 11,945-square foot property in the Sans Souci Estates development in 2003, the booming days of the housing bubble, for a tidy $353,000. That’s since ballooned into a $432,538 mortgage as of last July, the Business Journal reports. The house, meanwhile, is worth just $230,000.”

“Pierre claims the bank foreclosed too soon and that he was still negotiating a loan modification to keep the residence. ‘I’m not sure it’s legal for them to file it when we have been talking back and forth,’ he tells the South Florida Business Review. ‘The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.’”

“David and Odessa of Oregon lost their home to foreclosure in 2009 after David was downsized out of his studio production job. He did eventually find work in Madison, just as retired parents Lauralyn and Jim, discovered much of their retirement money was lost in the stock market. They then decided to become a multi-generational family, all living under one roof.”

“As the family continues to adjust to their new reality, they said they hope politicians learn the same hard lessons they have. ‘We can’t afford the seven bedroom house that we’d all enjoy to have our own space,’ said Odessa. ‘Right now, we’re all living on top of each other, and that’s what we do. We have to simplify.’”

“Kyle Saavedra, 26, is part of the trend the Urban Land Institute is seeing in California; he doesn’t want to own a house, an indication that perhaps the foreclosure crisis has changed attitudes. ‘Definitely not my number one priority,’ Apartment renter Saavedra said. ‘I’d rather go out and see the world and do whatever. Have fun. Not be tied down.’”

“And if you think the housing attitudes are just a Gen X or Y mindset, think again. The California Association of Realtors said only one-third of homeowners who’ve sold their home are purchasing another one, the vast majority is opting to rent instead. Senate Committee Chairman Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, is disturbed by the trend and still sees homeownership as a model for community. ‘If everyone in the community has bought into it, they’ve bought into the larger community,’ DeSaulnier said. ‘They come out for politics. They’re more engaged.’”

“‘The suburban housing market just isn’t there anymore,’ Urban Law Institute researcher Arthur Nelson said. ‘It used to be there.’”


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Buy a 64-Square-Foot House on eBay!: Of all the strange things up...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Thursday, March 15, 2012, by Sally Kuchar

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? Previous: Noe Valley Victorian, $2,395,000


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Globe Trotting: The Chinese gambling mecca of Macau...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Thursday, March 15, 2012, by Rob Bear

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? Previous: Glamping Photographed; Ninja Turtles Creator Lists; More!

? Next: A Colonial Transformed by Caribbean Architect Oliver Messel


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Saturday, March 24, 2012

Fireside Chat with Mayor Lee: Today the Mayor's in the house...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Tuesday, March 13, 2012, by Alex Bevk

mayor%20lee%20painting.jpgToday the Mayor's in the house to answer some finely tuned questions from the BoS. Newest Supe Olague wants to know what's happening now that the Redevelopment Agency has been dissolved - specifically, how will community voices still be heard without a lot of staff or resources. Sup. Avalos wants to increase his district's green space and green canopy, and asks the status of the Alemany Street Greening Project. As expected, the Mayor will have some carefully prepared answers, so we'll fill you in on his responses tomorrow. [SF Gov, Photo: Office of the Mayor]


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Bits Bucket for March 9, 2012

‘reports about Big Money moving in and buying up lots of distressed properties’

What’s the implication? Buy now or be priced out forever. IMO this is a cover for the shadow inventory issue.

I went over this recently, but to touch on a couple things; you are talking about Freddie/Fannie/HUD. They’ve got the bulk of the inventory. HUD has a strict policy on allowing primary owners first shot, and I haven’t heard of them selling in bulk after that. Let’s look at the GSEs:

‘Fannie Mae plans to sell nearly 2,500 foreclosed properties to investors in the first phase of an initiative to aid the U.S. housing market through bulk sales of distressed homes. Investors will be able to submit bids on the entire portfolio of properties, but also will be able to submit offers on all the properties in any given market. The FHFA didn’t specify a timeline for the auction process, but the pilot sales could take place over the course of several months, said people familiar with the matter.’

‘The initial round of sales is unlikely to have much of an impact on these housing markets because the properties are already rented. They represent a tiny sliver of the more than 140,000 foreclosed properties that Fannie currently owns.’

‘The number of foreclosure notices issued in the Tucson area spiked in February after ebbing for the last several months. In Pima County, 918 borrowers received notice their mortgage loans were in default and their property had been scheduled for auction. That’s a 20 percent increase over February 2011, and a 30 percent increase compared with January, data from the county recorder’s office show.’

‘Foreclosure filings in the county and across the state are actually down significantly — in Mercer County, foreclosure filings dropped by almost 74 percent from 2010 to 2011, from 2,489 in 2010 to 651 in 2011, according to the state judiciary. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. New foreclosure filings in New Jersey were almost completely halted in 2011 amid litigation and investigations into lender paperwork and so-called ‘robo-signing.’

‘With a decision rendered in one of the lawsuits last week, it’s likely thousands of foreclosure filings pent up in the pipeline will be released.’

One county in AZ will add more inventory than the ‘pilot program’ totals in a couple of months. The judicial foreclosure states have a mountain of houses in default.


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The Empire State Manufacturing Survey: March 2012

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

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On the Market: Tudor Mansion In Hillsborough Features the West's Longest Residential Water Slide

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Monday, March 12, 2012, by Sally Kuchar Around these parts Hillsborough is mostly known as "that place over there where houses are really, really, really expensive. Like $50,000,000 expensive." What you probably weren't expecting to find out is that at 185-feet, this home in Hillsborough is supposedly holding the record for the longest residential waterside west of the Mississippi. Built in 1930, the Tudor estate at 3080 Ralston Avenue is approximately 15,200 square feet and currently asking a completely reasonable a starter home-friendly $16,500,000. There's 11 bedrooms, 8 full and 3 half baths in the main house and guest house. While the interiors are kind of stuffy and spooky, the backyard is exactly the opposite. In addition to the resort-style swimming pool, there's also a regulation sized tennis court, full outdoor catering kitchen, pool cabana, and barbecue kitchen. Do invite us to your pool party.
· 1930 Tudor Estate In Hillsborough, CA With One Of The Longest Residential Waterslides [Homes of the Rich]
· Uber-Luxury: Hillsborough Estate Hits the Market [Curbed SF]
· 3080 Ralston Ave [Coldwell Banker]
· A Stuffy Mansion With the West's Longest Home Water Slide [Curbed National] 3080 Ralston Ave, Hillsborough, CA

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Real Estate Sold: Top Three Residential Property Sales For the Past Seven Days

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Tuesday, March 13, 2012, by Sally Kuchar

3-13-123.jpgListed for: $2,895,000
Received: $2,925,000!
Size: 4-bed, 3.5-bath; 3,463 square feet
Location: 752 27th Street, Noe Valley
The skinny: This home recently underwent a significant remodel by Topetcher Architecture. We put this contemporary manse up against a home in Eureka Valley/Dolores Heights and asked you to vote on which was the better deal. 752 27th Street won by securing an outstanding 65.1% of the vote. The location is great, especially since it's a mere half block from the Douglass Dog Park.

3-13-122.jpgListed for: $3,890,000
Received: $3,650,000
Size: 6-bed, 4.5-bath; 3,493 square feet
Location: 40 Sea Cliff Avenue, Sea Cliff
The skinny: Like every other property in Sea Cliff, this one's huge and has amazing views of the Golden Gate Bridge. The listing tells us that it's a "phenomenal home situated in one of the most coveted corners in Sea Cliff" and that the location is great because of its "proximity to restaurants and highly regarded local schools," so there's that.


3-13-121.jpgListed for: $8,900,000
Received: $8,200,000
Size: 6-bed, 6.5-bath
Location: 3855 Washington Street, Presidio Heights
The skinny: There's nothing more we can write about Zynga founder Mark Pincus' house. Click here for past coverage.


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Development Watch: Seawall Lot To Stay a Parking Lot (For Now)

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Tuesday, March 13, 2012, by Alex Bevk

giants%20parking%20lot%20A.jpg
Seawall Lot 337 - current parking lot for AT&T Park and future home to...something - will remain a parking lot for the next five years, if a renewal lease is approved by the Board of Supervisors this afternoon. The space is currently leased to China Basin Ballpark Company, LLC, and they use the lot for commuter, baseball game, and special event parking. While all the hullabaloo over the site's future development continues to simmer (apartments and retail? artist space? Warriors stadium? oh my!), Port staff and CBBC have quietly negotiated terms for a five-year interim lease for special events and parking. It's not all for the sake of biding time though - the lease includes a high-season (ie. baseball season) base rent from April through October of $355,000 per month. Jeez, and we thought our rent was out of the park.
· Lease for Real Property - China Basin Ballpark Company, LLC - Seawall Lot 337 [SF Gov]
· Mission Rock Plan Approved, Now More Open About Warriors Arena [Curbed SF]
· Previous coverage of Seawall Lot 337 [Curbed SF]


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Friday, March 23, 2012

Q&A: Mayor Weighs In On Redevelopment and Public Green Space

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Wednesday, March 14, 2012, by Alex Bevk

city%20hall%20bos.jpg Yesterday Mayor Lee visited the Board of Supervisors for some formal policy discussion. All the questions and answers were prepared beforehand, but despite the stiff delivery there were some nuggets of info to examine. First, Sup. Olague asked about the now-defunct Redevelopment Agency - specifically, how will community voices still be heard without a lot of staff or resources. The Mayor assured that all the agency's affordable housing assets and functions have been reassigned to the Mayor's Office of Housing. MOH will also lead the forthcoming Housing Trust Fund. The City also created a successor agency to move forward with major project areas in Mission Bay, Hunters Point shipyard, and portions of the Transbay. To sort-of-kind-not-really answer the Supervisor's question, they're working on a transition system for the former Citizen Advisory Committees from Redevelopment areas.

Sup. Avalos wants to increase his district's green space and green canopy, and asked the status of the Alemany Street Greening Project. Currently, the median has only been greened from Lyell Street to Niagara Street, and the Supervisor wanted to know if there are plans to extend it all the way down to Daly City. The Mayor blamed funding for the hold up, since streetscape design and greening projects come straight out of the General Fund (the same General Fund that had a two-year deficit of $380 million). He also admitted that the City doesn't have the resources to maintain all of the street trees we already have. Apparently DPW is working on a study of tree maintenance financing possibilities, that should be ready later this spring.

· Fireside Chat with Mayor Lee [Curbed SF]
· Board of Supervisors agenda for March 13, 2012 [SF Gov]
[Mini Hall via Curbed Flickr pool/Chris Saulit]

400 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, Ca

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Turf Wars: Coit Tower Menu Features Fried Chicken, Halibut, Followed By Well-Whipped Hysteria

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Thursday, March 15, 2012, by Philip Ferrato

2012_03_15_coitdinner.jpgJon Golinger and the Telegraph Hill Neighbors refueled the torches they've been burning for the Coit Tower murals with news of a private dinner held last year in the tower. While no one disputes the murals need conservation, no one seems to be looking at actual pictures of the event, a dinner that had been auctioned at a Rec & Parks fundraiser and catered by chef Tyler Florence and event planner Laurie Arons. Adam Gottstein, whose grandfather Bernard Zakheim was one of the tower muralists, didn't bother look at the event pictures at the Laurie Arons Blog, giving the party a reckless, inebriated slant when he complained to the Arts Commission, pitchfork and pike at hand:

Holding private unsupervised functions complete with cocktails and burning candles within inches of these irreplaceable and already-damaged murals presents the possibility of obvious and potentially disastrous effects on the historic murals.
We couldn't agree more, except there were no "candles within inches," those are tea lights floating in water, in hurricanes, and feet away from any painted surfaces. Not exactly incendiary. The "candles" on the stairs are plastic (photo at Arons' blog) with batteries and LED bulbs. And Gottstein ignores the fact that it was a dinner for a dozen people- not exactly the crowd that shows up on weekends. So we hope next time, party planners use LED "candles" instead of tea lights, like they do at the De Young. Having swank private dinners amidst the murals is an outstanding way of raising money to preserve them, from people with the cash to do so, and a lot less taxing on the murals than hordes of tourists armed with water bottles and trail mix.
· Coit Tower Benefit Dinner [Laurie Arons Blog]
· Dinner Party in Coit Tower Endangered Murals, Artist's Grandson Says [City Insider/SF Gate]
· Coit Tower, NIMBY Beacon to the World [Curbed SF]

[Photo Credit: Meg Smith & Associates via Laurie Arons Blog]


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Michael Phelps Lists: Olympic phenom Michael Phelps wants out...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Tuesday, March 13, 2012, by Sally Kuchar

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? Previous: Condo-Searchers, Rejoice!


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Riki & Allen's Texas-Modern Remodel House Tour

2012_03_13-Riki_Allen_Texas_Modern_Remodel_76.jpg

Name: Riki and Allen
Location: Austin, Texas
Size/Room: 3850 sq. feet
Years lived in: 10

Grab a margarita and join Riki, Allen, and Dango (their dog) as we tour their beautiful, inviting, art-filled, remodel. Relax in the bright, open floorplan; enjoy some impressive hill country views; and dip your toes in the infinity-edge pool. It's going to be fun.

2012_03_14-Riki_Allen_Texas_Modern_Remodel_grid.jpg

Riki and Allen purchased a quaint one-bedroom, one-bath home tucked away in the Austin hills several years ago. The location was perfect, and they knew with the right architect and design it could be something truly grand. Fast-forward six years, an inspiring Dwell article, and architect Jay Hargave later and the space is now the spectacle it is today.

2012_03_13-Riki_Allen_Texas_Modern_Remodel_75.jpg

The original home is still intact — containing the kitchen, Riki's graphic-design workspace, and a grand room adorned with beautiful Morrocan pendant lights. They continued to live in these quarters as their brilliant addition was being constructed. Allen mentioned that choosing a design/build firm like Cottam Hargrave was important because it minimized the chances for the blueprints to be misinterpreted.

2012_03_13-Riki_Allen_Texas_Modern_Remodel_77.jpg

The realized vision is fantastic. The house is framed by walls of glass that welcome in rays of natural light and flow into large open rooms that are distinctly modern. Riki and Allen's rustic and earthy touches give the space a warm and relaxing atmosphere. The modest living area is where some epic Karaoke performances take place, complete with guitars and a digital mixer they hook up to their Macbook Pro. Just ahead is their window office, where they greet passers-by or cozy up with a good book from their bookshelf. Every room has a view of the hills, and every wall has interest — displaying photographs or artwork they've collected.

Thanks so much Riki and Allen!

2012_03_13-Riki_Allen_Texas_Modern_Remodel_79.jpg

Apartment Therapy Survey:

Our style:
Modern that is tempered/softened with traditional rustic woods and earthy pieces. Color accents come from paintings and tile and plaster choices.

Inspiration:
A page in Dwell magazine, where we discovered Cottam Hargrave Architects.

Favorite element:
Visual focus on outside, the glass, the pool, the openness.

Biggest challenge:
Staying on budget.

What friends say:
So inviting/comfortable... but gorgeous. Not museum-like like some modern houses can be.

Proudest DIY:
The fire pit, some planting and landscaping. Our big palm tree in front!

Biggest indulgence:
Big space, big view.

Best advice:
Design/build avoids architect versus builder drama.

2012_03_14-Riki_Allen_Texas_Modern_Remodel_01.jpg


Resources
Appliances / Tech:

Hardware:
Kohler Bathroom fixtures and accessories

Furniture:
Pieces from Kazana
Four Hands
Jaya
Pieces from New Mexico, El Paso, Southwest

Accessories:
Sony Bravia HDTV
iMac
Macbook Pro

Lighting:
Handmade by architect/contractor Jay Hargrave

Flooring:
Polished concrete floors accented with large vintage area rugs.

Window Treatments:

Artwork:
My husband is a great collector of landscapes and is a painter himself. We have my grandmother's paintings as well (and I dabble in abstracts) and we continue to add pieces on all the time. David Nakabayashi is an artist my husband collects quite frequently.

Other:


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Full Time Workers Fully Under Pressure: February 2012

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

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Bits Bucket for March 12, 2012

There’s a whole lot of mutual back patting going on at the Fed over supposed success of QE1 and QE2.

But given that QE3 is already out of the bag, where is the upside for the U.S. stock market from here? Isn’t it already fully priced in by now, given that it is common knowledge among everyone except a few clueless Rubes (e.g The Dallas Fed’s Fisher)?

Agustino Fontevecchia, Forbes Staff
Bringing You The Bull And Bear Case From The Markets Desk
3/12/2012 @ 6:47PM
Expect A Quiet Fed Meeting, But $500B QE3 Is Around The Corner

While the Fed isn’t expected to announce any new policy action on Tuesday, the FOMC will probably hint at further easing which shouldn’t be too far away. With a lagging job market, despite strength in the latest non-farm payrolls report, and housing still depressed, the Bernanke Fed will probably deliver an “insurance ease” to keep the fragile recovery on track and hedge itself ahead of fiscal headwinds and external shocks, according to Nomura’s fixed income research team.

On the much commented issue of sterilized bond buying, Nomura’s analysts note it’s essentially an “academic issue.” Bernanke & Co. will probably favor sterilized QE, though, in order to appease inflation hawks and keep a lid on oil prices.

Risk assets hit the road running in 2012, with U.S. and international equities rallying along with commodities. All of that changed on February 29 when Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, in Congressional Testimony, failed to emphasize how ready he was to deliver QE, sparking a global sell-off that hit U.S. equities (including the financials), emerging markets (as measured by the EEM ETF), and gold, among other assets.

Bernanke’s comments sparked a debate in the investing community, as market players tried to figure out what was next from the Fed. While the consensus toward the end of 2011 was that QE3 was around the corner, improved economic data in the U.S., partial resolution in Europe (as Greece effectively defaulted), and what appears to be a soft landing in China have forced many to reconsider the need for additional monetary stimulus.

The Fed will deliver additional quantitative easing over the next 3 to 6 months, according to Nomura; an opinion seconded by Goldman Sachs’ Jan Hatzius. While the Fed has used relatively more optimistic language in their latest Beige Book and in Bernanke’s prepared remarks to Congress, it continues to stress the economic expansion is still modest, while significant downside risks abound. Furthermore, Bernanke has made clear he still believes housing markets are in the gutter, and that the Fed isn’t delivering on the employment side.

QE will be delivered via purchases of mortgage backed securities (MBS) and Treasuries, with a bias for the former, and will be sterilized in order to appease inflation hawks and critics, Nomura says. With housing prices still looking for a bottom, meager job growth, record-high oil prices, and the probable resurgence of the European sovereign debt crisis in the near future, Bernanke must deliver an “insurance ease” to make sure the economy maintains its “escape velocity,” Nomura’s analysts argue. In other words, the Fed needs to “pump the economy to a high enough level to weather the […] storms that sill lie ahead for the nation.”

Fed involvement in bond markets has been consistent since 2008, suggesting Bernanke will try to avoid the “cliff effect” if they were to stop purchases cold turkey. Operation Twist, by which the Fed sold short-term assets and bought longer-termed securities, is set to come to an end in June.

Thus, the Fed will engage in an approximately $500 billion operation over the next 7 to 9 months, unveiled by the end of Q2, with an 80/20 split between MBS ($400 billion) and Treasuries ($100 billion). Sterilization, which will occur via a small extension of the Twist, term deposits, and reverse repos, will “keep the hawks at bay because a slight rise in front-end rates should support the dollar and reduce oil inflation,” explained the analysts.

The Fed views all three of its latest unorthodox operations as successful. QE1 was the perfect remedy in an emergency situation, while QE2 served to stave off deflation; the Twist worked in putting pressure on longer-rates while giving Bernanke time to let policy take effect.


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Thursday, March 22, 2012

Ikea Sewing Kits: Leave it to Ikea to turn...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Tuesday, March 13, 2012, by Sarah Firshein

Screen-shot-2012-03-13-at-11.57.07-AM.jpgLeave it to Ikea to turn a sewing kit into a sensation. Faced with the need to promote its iPad catalogue in Norway—and also brutally cold Scandinavian winters—the world-dominating Swedish furnishings chain released Beröra, a kit with touchscreen-compatible thread that can be woven into any pair of mittens. Within two weeks, all 12,000 kits sold out and the iPad catalogue became the most downloaded Ikea catalogue in the world per capita. [PFSK via Gizmodo; previously]

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The Philly Fed Business Outlook Survey: March 2012

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AM Linkage: Buckets Of Rain; Homeowners vs. Investors; Mavericks Festival Still On; More!

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Bits Bucket for March 10, 2012

America is lucky to have collectively dodged the Herman Cain bullet — what a complete moron! We all owe a debt of gratitude to the legions of women who conspired to keep a black Republican businessman out of the White House.

GOP Candidates Finally Go Past Bernanke

After months of taking shots at the Fed chairman, Republican candidates finally explain who they’d like better
By Danielle Kurtzleben
October 12, 2011 RSS Feed Print

By now, there are a few hard-and-fast rules about the debates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination: businessman Herman Cain will mention his 9-9-9 plan at every opportunity, Texas Gov. Rick Perry will focus on energy (almost to a fault), and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will take a beating.

Such was the case again at last night’s debate in Hanover, N.H., when candidates such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, and Cain all stated their intention to fire the Fed chairman, who was appointed by George W. Bush.

But last night, Bloomberg TV’s Julianna Goldman pushed candidates beyond this talking point, asking, “[W]hich Federal Reserve chairman over the last 40 years do you think has been most successful and might serve as a model for that appointment?”

The two candidates who responded, Cain and Paul, offered revealing answers that may invite future criticism. Referencing his own time at the Kansas City Fed in the 1990s, Cain chose Alan Greenspan, who served as Fed Chairman from 1987 through 2006. Though Greenspan was heralded during his time as an architect of prosperity—”Maestro,” as Bob Woodward called him in an eponymous book—hindsight has been less kind. Greenspan’s approach to monetary policy, specifically his targeting of low interest rates, is now seen as a key contributing factor to the housing bubble that helped lead to the current financial crisis. Greenspan himself admitted in 2008 at a congressional hearing that he had “found a flaw” in his ideology.

Then again, Cain didn’t get terribly deep into monetary policy in his answer; when asked why he chose Greenspan, Cain responded, “Because that’s when I served on the board of the Federal Reserve in the early 1990s,” then added that he admired how Greenspan oversaw the fed and “coordinated” with the Federal Reserve banks.

Paul responded by first slamming Greenspan as a “failure” and then naming Paul Volcker as his Fed Chairman of choice. “He at least knew how to end—or help, you know, end the inflation,” he said. Volcker, who served as Fed chairman from 1979 through 1987, helped to end the period of stagflation in the 1970s.


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