Prospering In The Housing Bust

Prospering In The Housing Bust

Gillette Edmunds has made good money in real estate–by knowing when to sell. Edmunds owned six investment properties: single-family homes in southeast Denver he’d purchased for around $70,000 apiece. He was leasing out the houses for an average of $700 a month, amply covering mortgage payments, property taxes and maintenance costs. Then the Denver residential market seemed to get too frothy, and before something bad happened, he dumped the homes for two or three times what he’d paid eight years before. Edmunds, who has retained his personal residence, reinvested the profits in real estate investment trusts. And indeed, the Denver market began to slide.

Housing boom could storm heartland

Housing boom could storm heartland

Could the real estate action be shifting to the heartland – the vast swath of middle America that never really was touched by the hyperinflationary housing boom? That’s what a new statistical analysis of housing price cycles in 100 major metropolitan areas suggests could be over the horizon.

Its author, Christopher L. Cagan, director of research and analytics for First American Real Estate Solutions, examined historical housing price movements and concluded that metropolitan real estate markets can be classified into three distinct behavioral categories:

Tax bill for zoo land nearly delinquent

Tax bill for zoo land nearly delinquent

Your window of opportunity to be part owner of a zoo is fast closing.

A fumbling of property tax payments on land under the Naples Zoo created a situation that could have allowed someone to step up, pay the delinquent amount and in turn receive a lien on the property.

The situation was so dicey that Collier County Manager Jim Mudd on Tuesday asked commissioners for permission to pay the roughly $150,000 in unpaid taxes with county money — essentially the county paying taxes to itself — in order to avoid further complications.

PIA of La. Stresses Preparation for 2006 Hurricane Season

PIA of La. Stresses Preparation for 2006 Hurricane Season

Due to the upcoming start of Hurricane Season on June 1, the Professional Insurance Agents (PIA) of Louisiana launched a public awareness campaign that includes the following tips for insurance consumers to prepare for the upcoming season, information regarding the availability and affordability of property insurance in south Louisiana and available insurance consumer resources.

Flood insurance is NOT covered under homeowners policies in Louisiana, and wind and hail may not be covered either. No matter where you live, it is extremely important that you consider whether you should purchase a separate flood policy.

Your mortgage lender may not require you to purchase flood insurance, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need it. Almost 25 percent of all flood insurance claims come from areas with minimal flood risk, according to the National Flood Insurance Program.

A storm of trouble

A storm of trouble

As coastal residents nervously await the start of a new hurricane season in June, they’re confronting another fright: the exorbitant price and short supply of insurance for wind damage.

Huge losses from Hurricane Katrina and other hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 have sent the homeowners insurance industry into a panicked retreat from the USA’s coastline. In Florida, which was hit by eight major hurricanes in two years, insurers are refusing to renew hundreds of thousands of homeowners policies to reduce exposure to claims.

No View, No Garden, Just a Wall – New York Times

No View, No Garden, Just a Wall

Bridget O’Brian and Barnett J. Brimberg relished the small backyard behind their Upper East Side townhouse, bounded at the far end by a plain wood fence and their next door neighbor’s extensive garden. But when the neighbor died, new owners arrived with big plans: Gut the house, add a fifth floor and build a several-thousand-square-foot extension in back for a new kitchen and a private gym.