Captiva resort damaged by Charley may get new owner

Captiva resort damaged by Charley may get new owner

Talks are under way for the sale of Captiva’s South Seas Resort.

The New York-based Blackstone Group is negotiating to buy a group of Florida resorts from MeriStar Hospitality Corp., according to local real estate expert Frank D’Alessandro. That includes South Seas Resort & Yacht Harbour, one of the largest players in the local tourism market.

“They’ve been in due diligence for some time,” D’Alessandro said, referring to the period in which a buyer studies the proposed deal to make sure there’s nothing wrong.

Gentrification Arrives at a Crossroads in Yorkville

Gentrification Arrives at a Crossroads in Yorkville – New York Times

The intersection of Lexington Avenue and 86th Street is arguably the crossroads of the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a transportation hub within easy walking distance of some of the costliest real estate in the city. Yet for decades it has resisted gentrification.

On the southeast corner, next to an express subway station that is the 11th busiest in the system, are the remnants of a diner that closed several years ago. On the block between 85th and 86th Streets are a handful of dilapidated tenement buildings dating to the 1920’s or earlier whose tenants have included snack-food retailers, a tax preparer, a fortune teller and a tanning salon.

Troubles mount for flood insurance

Troubles mount for flood insurance

The National Flood Insurance Program is in trouble.

Congress increased the program’s borrowing authority to $18 billion to pay an expected 200,000 claims from Hurricane Katrina.

But the Federal Emergency Management Agency program can’t repay the loan, David Maurstad, a top FEMA official, told Gannett News Service.

“The program doesn’t have the ability to pay it back or to service debt of that size,” Maurstad said.

Home, sweet home, times 2

Home, sweet home, times 2

Increasingly, aging affluent baby boomers are finding themselves living in more than 1 house and in more than 1 state. Flexible working arrangements and new technology help make it possible.

To Pat and Kevin Fox, the character of home is found in a large window seat, glass-fronted kitchen cabinets, white bedspreads and boxy white night tables in the master bedroom. So that’s why all these features appear in their two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn Heights and in their four-bedroom house in Tallahassee, along with identical bathroom fixtures and nearly duplicate wardrobes in the closets.

Enabled by cheap airfares, flexible work schedules and technology such as cell phones, BlackBerrys and the Internet, a growing number of people are shuttling between two or more homes, blurring the age-old distinction between the primary and the vacation home.

White House targeting mortgage deduction

White House targeting mortgage deduction

This autumn, the president convened a tax advisory board, who under the auspices of devising simpler and fairer tax laws, were poised to further damage the housing market by suggesting a reduction of the mortgage-interest deduction. The ill-conceived tax proposal could rival the devastation resulting from a large-magnitude earthquake in our valley.

The proposal is a subliminal tax increase levied on the backs of the middle-class homeowner disguised as a fair reapportionment of tax liabilities. Surely this decision would purge investments from the real-estate market and channel them into the stock market; an act that would mimic previous (failed) efforts by President Bush (with Alan Greenspan’s approval) to divert funds from Social Security accounts into the stock market.

A downtown condo craze

A downtown condo craze

Four years ago, Pensacola developer Sonny Granger announced he was going to build a high-rise condominium in downtown Tallahassee.

The cheers were muted. Sure, Tallahassee officials had talked for years about bringing residents back downtown. But apartments costing several hundred thousand dollars? High-rise buildings? No way, said the cynics. Tallahassee isn’t ready for that cosmopolitan lifeÂstyle.