S.A.’s hot home market cools [Central Texas]

S.A.’s hot home market cools [Central Texas]

The party isn’t exactly over for San Antonio real estate, but the champagne has stopped flowing.

Home builders, feeding off of the anxiety of the national real estate meltdown coupled with the typical seasonal slowdown, have started offering deals and incentives not available a few months ago.KB Home even has started to lay off employees.

The flurry of year-end deals can be attributed, in part, to an annual strategy builders use to move homes off the books for tax purposes. But there’s also a sense that 2007 won’t be as good as 2006, and that the frenzy that typified home building and sales in recent years has eased.

“I’m hearing more people being concerned than I am (hearing them be) ecstatic,” said Michael Moore, vice president of the Greater San Antonio Builders Association.

Turning a profit [Chicago]

Turning a profit [Chicago]

A developer who bought about eight acres from Homer Township in 2003 flipped the property 3– months later, netting a roughly $1.3 million profit on his $91,000 investment.

Developer Robert Parsons also is a partner, according to a company employee, in Solarcrete. That firm was given a $2.5 million contract to build the adjacent Founders Crossing senior housing.

Construction of the 30-unit development was dogged by delays and setbacks, and it took three years to finish.

Parsons later gave $10,000 to Township Supervisor Andrew “Bud” Fazio’s campaign in the days before Fazio’s 2005 election to a second term.

What Statistics on Home Sales Aren’t Saying [South Florida]

What Statistics on Home Sales Aren’t Saying [South Florida]

Down in Naples, Fla., a fast-growing city on the Gulf of Mexico, there was an auction of houses about a month ago.

An auction isn’t the usual way to sell a home, but it can make sense for people who don’t want to leave their houses on the market for months at a time and also don’t want to take the first offer to come along. So on a Saturday morning inside the Naples Beach Hotel and Golf Club, a few dozen houses went on the block in front of about 500 audience members.

Based on the official housing statistics, you might have guessed that the sellers would have made out just fine, despite all the talk of a real estate slump. According to one widely followed real estate index — tabulated by the government agency that regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the average house in Naples sold for 20 percent more this summer than it would have a year earlier.

A shady 14.3M deal? Mandarin condo buyer sues over sun block [Boston]

A shady 14.3M deal? Mandarin condo buyer sues over sun block [Boston]

Real estate mogul Pritam Singh agreed to spend $14.3 million, with dreams of basking in a sun-splashed penthouse atop the ultra- luxurious Mandarin Oriental Boston.

But Singh contends his hopes were dashed when he discovered the Mandarin Oriental penthouse he had put under contract in the Back Bay was far from a sun-worshippers’ delight. Instead he claims it will be cast into a “nearly constant state of darkness” by the Prudential and other nearby towers.

Singh, a rags-to-riches Florida developer with Boston roots, sued the project’s developers in federal court in a bid to recover his $3.4 million deposit, plus damages.

A Slam-Dunk in Houston Real Estate

A Slam-Dunk in Houston Real Estate

Hakeem Olajuwon, the soft-spoken Nigerian émigré who led his team to two N.B.A. championships, has also done extremely well flipping real estate in his adopted hometown. Following an unorthodox yet disciplined strategy, he has managed to make as much in real estate in the last 10 years as he did in his 17 seasons playing professional basketball.

“He buys high and sells higher,” said David L. Cook, executive vice president with the commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, who has represented Mr. Olajuwon in several transactions.

Many of the former N.B.A. All-Star’s real estate plays caused market watchers in Houston to shake their heads because they felt he overpaid.

Would-be renters lose thousands

Would-be renters lose thousands

The slight woman with the sharp tongue and unassuming personality talked a good game.

It’s how she was able to convince four separate renters to pony up thousands of dollars each to rent houses she did not own.

But in reality, Nancy J. Burgess attempted to rent properties in The Acreage and Loxahatchee that she’d recently been evicted from. The scam cost the renters more than $10,000 and landed Burgess, 56, in jail, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

Burgess has been charged with four counts of grand theft and one count of scheme to defraud, sheriff’s officials said. Using classified advertisements in The Palm Beach Post, Burgess offered potential renters a chance to grab a two-bedroom, two-bathroom house in Loxahatchee for $1,400 a month with all utilities included and free cable, for example.