As data shows more Americans in poverty, Belle Glade looks for ideas from eastern Palm Beach County

Start at the east end of Southern Boulevard – at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, one of the country’s poshest private clubs – drive west 38.8 miles on the same road and you reach Belle Glade, a city with some of the worst unemployment and poverty in the country.

Without using your blinker, you go from a 20,000-square-foot Louis XIV ballroom, gilded ceilings and a $100,000 fee just to join the club to overflowing soup kitchens, child poverty at twice the national rate and people capturing rain in buckets because their water was turned off for nonpayment.

Last week, the Census Bureau announced that poverty in the U.S. has spread to 46 million people and that the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest continues to grow.

via As data shows more Americans in poverty, Belle Glade looks for ideas from eastern Palm Beach County.

Urban Luxury Homes Are Making a Comeback

The market for luxury goods is in full-fledged revival mode, and that includes high-end city real estate — apartments and townhouses in the $5 million-plus range. After plunging 30% from peak to trough, luxury-home prices in many big urban markets are back on the rise. Unit sales in Manhattan, Miami and San Francisco are up as much as 50% since 2009, as new buyers have come into the market from China, India, Russia and Brazil. Prices are up 15% or more.

"Buyers at every price point smell value and, at the high end, they are in a position to do something about it," says Brian K. Lewis, executive vice president of Halstead Properties in New York.

Some sellers are even making money. Scott Bommer, founder of the hedge fund SAB Capital, couldn’t have bought his $28.5 million 5,800 square-foot apartment on the 29th floor New York’s Ritz-Carlton Tower on New York’s Central Park South at a less propitious time: July 2008. He relisted the apartment four months later at $35 million, but not surprisingly found no takers. In late August, he finally closed a sale for $30 million, according to Leighton Candler, senior vice president at the Corcoran Group. Bommer declined to comment.

via Urban Luxury Homes Are Making a Comeback.

Big hearted developer has big plans for Melbourne skyline

Peter Flotz believes in bringing the personal touch to business.

It’s not unheard of him, for instance, to walk into meetings for multi-million dollar development projects bearing a box of his mother’s cookies.

That personal touch has helped him forge successful partnerships, he says, but has also hurt as he has sometimes let his heart overrule his head.

via Big hearted developer has big plans for Melbourne skyline.

Innkeepers Wins Approval to Extend Control of Bankruptcy

Innkeepers USA Trust won approval to extend control over its bankruptcy amid a dispute with Cerberus Capital Management LP and Chatham Lodging Trust over whether they will buy 64 of its hotels.

The new deadline to file a Chapter 11 plan will be Nov. 10 once a formal order is submitted, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman said today in Manhattan. Control over the case had been set to expire Oct. 1. Innkeepers scaled back a request to extend the date to Jan. 19, saying it would revisit the issue Nov. 9 if needed.

The operator of 71 hotels, including Residence Inns, Marriott hotels and Hampton Inns, received court approval of a plan in June, before Cerberus and Chatham sought to cancel their $1.1 billion purchase citing a change in market conditions or Innkeepers’ business. Innkeepers sued, saying there has been no such change since reaching the binding agreement May 16.

via Innkeepers Wins Approval to Extend Control of Bankruptcy.

Sign of the times: Accidental landlords

Those who want even more help are turning to rental-management professionals. “It’s been a huge boon for us,” said Brenton Hayden, president and CEO of Renters Warehouse, Golden Valley. Unintentional landlords now represent more than 50 percent of his firm’s customers, up from about 10 percent just two years ago. “We’ve had to staff up and train people on the ins and outs.”

Real-Time Leasing, a Burnsville company, also has seen an increase in accidental landlords, according to co-owner James Wagley. The chores that such landlords are most eager to outsource are “confrontations,” often related to collecting rent, and maintenance, he said. Many amateur landlords seek professional help after a tenant fails to pay rent for several months. “They [landlords] try to be nice, then feel duped and embarrassed” when the nonpayment persists, Wagley said.

Anne Healy’s year as a landlord was so frustrating that she put her St. Paul house back on the market and recently sold it — for $50,000 less than an offer she turned down last year.

via Sign of the times: Accidental landlords.

Chris Griffith: Making sense of condo maintenance fees

This is going to be exciting! There is nothing more exciting than talking about numbers, budgets and statistics to get everyone hanging on the edge of their seats … or the abyss to boredom. End sarcasm here.

One of the more consistent questions asked by real estate consumers is, what exactly is included in the fees and what exactly is the maintenance fee?

via Chris Griffith: Making sense of condo maintenance fees.