Why Baby Boomers Are Moving to Hipster Neighborhoods

Jennifer Williams says she often feels like the oldest person on her block. When the 52-year-old corporate communications executive sets off for work in a suit, carrying a briefcase, with her hair in a bun, she is usually surrounded by young people with tattoos and rainbow crocheted skull caps. “It’s like mom is coming in for a visit,” she says.

That doesn’t bother Ms. Williams. In fact, such diversity is exactly what she was looking for when she bought a condo in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn two years ago, after living in what she calls the “dead zone” of the Upper East Side of Manhattan. “I find it endlessly fascinating and interesting. I wanted to be somewhere with energy and life.”

via Why Baby Boomers Are Moving to Hipster Neighborhoods.

Spitzer’s Expanding Real-Estate Empire

This week, Eliot L. Spitzer, the former New York governor, invited journalists to view his recent tax returns in his office in the French chateau-influenced Crown Building, on Fifth Avenue, which is doubling as his campaign headquarters. On the twenty-second floor, a gold-plated placard on the office door still bears the name of Spitzer’s father, Bernard. The lobby of the office features scale models of apartment buildings owned by the Spitzer family. But the details in Spitzer’s tax filings reveal that the senior Spitzer has quietly passed along much of his real-estate empire to his son, far more than previously has been revealed.

Bernard Spitzer, the son of Austrian immigrants, built a real-estate empire from scratch, after getting an engineering degree from City College of New York and working as a contractor. By the time the younger Spitzer graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law and became a prosecutor under Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, Bernard was one of the city’s most prominent real-estate magnates. The eighty-nine-year-old has been ill with Parkinson’s disease in recent years, however.

via Spitzer’s Expanding Real-Estate Empire.

Luxury hotel, condo project is now dead

After nine years of work, a plan to build a luxury upscale hotel and condo project known as the Grand Bohemian is dead.

City leaders Thursday agreed to a deal to let Orlando hotel developer Kessler Enterprise pay off its remaining debt from its $3.3 million purchase of the old Maas Brothers Store site that it bought in 2004 to build a hotel and condo tower.

Kessler officials said they now plan to sell the 1.2-acre parcel on the northwest corner of Second Street North and First Avenue North to Daniel Corp., an Atlanta-based development firm planning to build luxury apartments and some retail stores. Kessler officials declined to divulge the sale price.

via Luxury hotel, condo project is now dead.

Phasing out Freddie and Fannie could hurt home buyers

Home buyers could be squeezed by higher interest rates and need larger downpayments if Congress agrees with an Obama administration plan to phase out mortgage-guarantee giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

Southwest Florida lenders, home builders, real estate agents and other housing industry participants agree on the need to reform the nation’s housing finance system, of which the Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. are a large part.

But most echo national sentiments that the federal government needs to continue to play some role as a backstop going forward.

via Phasing out Freddie and Fannie could hurt home buyers.

Nearing retirement, with 3 tuition bills to pay

At 59 and 60, Kim and John Keuning are closing in on retirement — but they aren’t quite ready for it.

Six years out from their target date, the Duluth, Minn., duo have roughly $500,000 saved. Selling the small ad agency they own could net them another $150,000, they figure. (None of their five grown children is interested in taking it over.)

The sale of a vacation cabin and office building could add $250,000 to the pot. Even so, they’ll likely come up short.

Saving more — they now put away $12,000 of their $150,000-plus income — will be tough. The Keunings carry hefty loans on their home ($334,000) and office ($156,000).

via Nearing retirement, with 3 tuition bills to pay.

Bank bids on mayor’s condo

It looks like the foreclosed condo owned by the mayor of Greensboro will wind up in the hands of a bank in High Point.

High Point Bank and Trust Co. was the only bidder Tuesday on the Center Pointe condominium owned by Mayor Robbie Perkins and his ex-wife.

The bank bid $201,000.

Other bidders have until Aug. 16 — 10 days from Tuesday’s sale — to submit what’s called an upset bid that’s 5 percent above the bank’s bid

.

via Bank bids on mayor’s condo.