News About Properties

US recession will boost Philippines real estate – experts

A looming recession in the United States is expected to boost the Philippines’ booming property market and its outsourcing industries, real estate consultants CB Richard Ellis (NYSE:CBG) said Thursday.

‘We see no end for the demand for commercial real estate,’ CB Richard Ellis Philippines chairman Rick Santos told a news conference.

‘We haven’t seen this much interest since pre-1997 (before the Asian crisis),’ he said.

A report by the company said that while the call center industry in the Philippines may feel the brunt of a US recession it will be offset by an increase in the BPO (business process outsourcing) business as US companies increase their outsourcing of back office operations.

Canadians nervous about buying U.S. real estate

While sunshine states such as Florida and Arizona have long enticed Canadians to purchase their winter retreats in warmer-weather American cities, the uncertainty clouding the U.S. housing market now has many Canadians favouring properties north of the border. And the mountain resort of Canmore is a “coveted recreational destination,” says a report released today by Royal LePage.

In fact, 36 per cent of Canadians who own a winter recreational property or who are considering purchasing one cite they are more inclined to buy a property in Canada than in the U.S. because of the economic uncertainty plaguing our southern neighbours, says the 2008 Royal LePage Winter Recreational Property Report.

The report says Canmore’s ideal location on the eastern slopes of the Rockies surrounded by the mountains and a multitude of recreational activities “continue to make the area a coveted recreational destination.”

State 3rd in foreclosure rate [Michigan]

Michigan’s foreclosure rate ranked third nationwide for 2007, according to data released Monday by RealtyTrac Inc.

The Irvine, Calif.-based foreclosure Web site reported that 1.9% of Michigan’s households entered some stage of foreclosure during the year.

The company counted 136,205 foreclosure filings on 87,210 properties, a 68% increase over 2006 figures and a 282% rise from 2005.

Michigan ranked behind Nevada and Florida.

Path to wealth is through real estate holdings

Sorry, folks, this is not a get-rich-quick book. Still, you may be richer than you think, write authors Catherine McBreen and George Walper Jr. in Get Rich, Stay Rich, Pass It On.

More than 7 million American households today claim total assets of a million dollars or more. But it’s far more likely that “You’re among a group we call the mass affluent, people whose total assets add up to anywhere between $100,000 and $1 million, not including their primary residence,” according to the authors.

McBreen and Walper are managing director and president, respectively, of Spectrem Group, a research and consulting company that has been studying the affluent since 1991.

Each year, the firm surveys more than 5,000 millionaire and megamillionaire (more than $5 million in assets, not including primary residence) households. The firm monitors investment habits, how assets are allocated and the attitudes and perceptions that go into those decisions.

Technology Changes World of Real Estate

Like so many industries, technology has brought big changes to the selling and buying of real estate.

Some agents – and their sales counterparts in other corners of the business world – have taken to it better than others, says real estate agent consultant and coach Michael Russer.

Russer travels the world, pushing his brand of Internet sales help while sharing the stories of agents who have locked in to what a specialized Web presence can do for them, whether it’s going after military buyers, condo customers or nudists.

He spoke before more than 200 Coldwell Banker agents in SeaTac, Wash., recently and preached niche marketing and passed along a potentially counterintuitive message: Make marketing about the customers, not you.

Foreigners get a piece of the real estate pie

Kevin and Denise McCullough, a couple from Victoria, British Columbia, visited San Francisco nearly 50 times in the past decade, taking in Giants games, jogging along the Embarcadero and eating at favorite restaurants like Farallon and Myth.

They long talked of buying a vacation home here, but early inquiries brought home the twin realities of the city’s sky-high housing costs and their country’s weak exchange rate. That all changed last year, when the Canadian dollar reached and then passed parity with the U.S. dollar as the local real estate market flattened.

Early last month, the couple closed escrow on a $775,000 condo in Jackson Square, two blocks from the Embarcadero. A house at that price when they started looking six years ago would have cost them $1.3 million. Instead it cost them $711,000 – a difference of nearly $600,000.

“It’s mind-boggling,” said Kevin McCullough, 43, a criminal defense attorney.