Seeking Relief in Puerto RicoMonday afternoon, Puerto Rico’s creditors are invited to meet at Citigroup’s Park Avenue office for a presentation by the Commonwealth’s top financial official and a former chief economist at the World Bank. The meeting, which will be streamed online to the public, is being billed as the first face-to-face meeting between Puerto Rico and its creditors since the governor declared that the island’s debts were not payable. —Michael Corkery
Labor Talks for CarmakersContract talks begin this week between the United Automobile Workers and two of Detroit’s automakers. Negotiations start on Monday with General Motors and on Tuesday, with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Negotiations at Ford begin later this month. The union is hoping for wage increases in a new contract. The current labor agreements expire in September. --Bill Vlasic Expected Growth in Consumer SpendingRetail sales figures due from the Census Bureau on Tuesday are likely to show that spending climbed in June for a fourth straight month, buoyed by the lowest unemployment the country has experienced in seven years and strong payroll growth. Spending at auto dealers and home improvement stores has jumped in recent months, evidence that households feel confident enough to make longer-term investments in their cars and homes. Consumers are also starting to spend more at the pump, reflecting the higher costs of gas since April, though that could divert dollars away from other retailers. Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of economic activity in the United States. --Hiroko Tabuchi Banks Post EarningsThe nation’s largest banks report their second-quarter results this week, starting with JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo on Tuesday. Analysts are expecting relatively ho-hum earnings despite the stable economy in the United States. The wild card for banks like Bank of America, which reports on Wednesday, could be results from their bond, currencies and commodities trading operations. Trading revenue tends to swing wildly each quarter. Also reporting earnings this week are the private equity firm Blackstone Group and the asset manager BlackRock. --Michael Corkery Click here to Read more $3,597,750 Meritage Homes of Florida Inc to Lennar Homes LLC, Pt 4-35-19, O.R. Book 02576 Page 3358, July 2.
$2,450,000 Harrell Groves Inc to DME Holdings LLC, 0, O.R. Book 02575 Page 7336, June 30. $2,300,000 John Cannon Homes Inc to Michael Jonathan E, Michael Sharon L, Lot 2 Blk B Concession, O.R. Book 02576 Page 3467, July 2. $2,200,000 Gas Holdings LLC to Anderson Robert E Sr, Lot 1 Bluewater Palms, O.R. Book 02576 Page 0119, June 30. $1,345,000 Staab Robert J, Staab Diana L to Birk Christopher L, Birk Brenda L, Lot 47 Lakewood Ranch Country Club Village, O.R. Book 02576 Page 1612, July 1. $1,147,500 Kincaid Arnold D, Kincaid Christine J, Kincaid Raymond M to 1003 Real Estate Holdings LLC, Pelots Addition to Bradenton, O.R. Book 02576 Page 4994, July 2. Click here to Read more Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2015/07/13/5893412/real-estate-transactions-july.html#storylink=cpy Home values in Detroit neighborhoods are finally experiencing some upward momentum after years of rock-bottom prices. Still among the cheapest places in the nation to buy a house, Detroit neighborhoods are seeing prices inch up on most residential blocks with substantial gains in the strongest areas. A Free Press analysis of land records shows the median sale price of any home in the city was $30,000 last month, more than four times the $7,000 median in 2009, an especially dark year for the economy and real estate. To be sure, there are still plenty of houses in Detroit selling for $1,000 or less because of their poor physical condition and the still-deteriorating neighborhoods. And occasionally, a $1 house will hit the market when a bank or other owner wants to rid itself of the liability of ownership. "Are prices going up? Yes. Let's say three years ago it was $3,000, now it's $12,000," said Albert Hakim, owner of City Management Group, which sells dozens of Detroit houses a month. "It's still not back to where it should be, but it's better than it was." In Detroit's suburbs, prices have been steadily rebounding from recessionary lows with help from super-low mortgage rates, slimmer inventories of existing homes and improvements in the economy and people's personal finances. Click here to Read more Crowdfunding has become a hot trend in commercial-real-estate finance, so it’s no surprise that Howard Michaels is expanding the Carlton Group into that business.
Click here to Read more The secondary market for real estate investments, which grew 30% in 2014 after years of being nearly dormant, is poised to grow 45% this year to up to $7 billion, observers say.
With several $1 billion or larger portfolios of limited partnership interests in real estate funds for sale — including CalPERS' plans to sell up to $3 billion of its real estate portfolio — the market appears ready for prime time. Based on completed transactions, the market grew 30% to $4.8 billion in 2014 from the prior year. That compares with $2 billion in completed deals in 2011, according to data from Landmark Partners, an alternative investments manager that specializes in investments on the secondary market. Landmark predicts “record growth” in 2015, to the $6 billion to $7 billion range. “Large institutional investors have recently become increasingly more comfortable in utilizing the real estate secondary market as a portfolio management tool,” said Jamie Sunday, partner in the real estate group in Landmark's Boston office. During the past five years, there were about three secondary real estate transactions of $400 million or more, he said. So far this year, there have been six transactions in that range, of which several were larger than $1 billion, Mr. Sunday said. The growth of the real estate secondary market helped entice CalPERS to put a portion of its portfolio on the market, spokesman Joe D'Anda said in an e-mail. “We believe conditions are favorable and we are testing the market,” Mr. D'Anda said. “So yes, it (the growth of the real estate secondary market) does play in to the timing of this sale.” Respondents to a recent survey by Toronto-based secondary market broker Setter Capital predicted the real estate secondary market could reach $7.7 billion in 2015. Setter conducted the survey of the most active buyers in the secondary market for alternative investment funds in January. While there are only a handful of buyers, they have or are raising substantial amounts. That interest, coupled with the fact that there are a limited number of large portfolios for sale, has pushed prices up. And rising prices are inducing other asset owners to return to the market. In addition to the $304.5 billion California Public Employees' Retirement System, Harvard Management Co, which oversees the Cambridge, Mass.-based university's $36.4 billion endowment, has brought a $1 billion portfolio to market, industry insiders say. Click here to Read more Atlantic City's newest development is not a casino. Opened in late June, the Playground is a smorgasbord of restaurants, retail and nongaming entertainment. There's an Apple store. A row of indoor live music venues, called "T Street," inspired by Memphis' Beale Street, stretches along the first floor. Once the final stages of development are complete, a private beach club will grace the sand, accompanied by two pools, including one on the roof. The new project, designed by world renowned casino architect Paul Steelman, occupies the Pier Shops complex at Caesars, a 300,000-square foot space jutting out onto the beach from Atlantic City's boardwalk. "I vowed I would never do it because I have a beach house [in the area] and I didn't want to mix business with pleasure," said Bart Blatstein, chief executive of Tower Investments, the Playground's Philadelphia-based developer. "But then, this was too good an offer to pass up." The complex cost $200 million to develop in the mid-2000s. Blatstein said he scooped up the real estate for $2.7 million, eight months after a $45 million deal with a different buyer fell through. In Atlantic City, vulture investors are beginning to swoop in. They're developers who specialize in turning around distressed properties or neighborhoods. While many folks have written off the East Coast's one-time gambling mecca, investors such as Blatstein see an opportunity: Low real estate prices touting property tax bills that are fraction of their prerecession assessments, in a city desperately trying to reinvent itself. Click here to Read More THOMASVILLE — A giant piece of Thomas County history has been sold but will remain intact historically.
The Greenwood Plantation ante-bellum main house, a lodge, stables, garage and eight staff houses and cottages on a 235-acre tract were sold to Westchester South Investments, LLC, for just under $1.3 million. The property was sold by Jon Kohler & Associates, a Madison, Florida, real estate firm, said Erica Hanway, owner of Plantation Marketing Group, a sister company to the Kohler firm. “We’ve been marketing Greenwood for about three and a half years,” Hanway said Thursday. The property was owned by the Greentree Foundation in New York. “We’ve had high expectations for the buyer to be preservation- and conservation-minded,” Hanway explained. “We’re really pleased with the outcome and the patience of the Greenwood Foundation to get this done right.” Max Beverly, Thomasville’s mayor, is among the managers of the investment group that made the purchase. Beverly could not be reached for comment Thursday. Said Kohler, “It’s very exciting for the City of Thomasville and the people of Red Hills. ... We feel great about it. The buyer understands the architectural significance of the Greenwood campus.” In February, a foundation created by Paddy Vanderbilt Wade purchased the balance of the 4,000-plus acres of Greenwood Plantation, which included the rare 1,200-acre “Big Woods,” the largest privately held tract of virgin old-growth longleaf pine left in America. Wade has implemented plans to conserve this property. Click here to Read More WASHINGTON (AP) — There's economic reality. Then there's the Chinese stock market.
The two usually occupy parallel universes. When China's economy was roaring along at double digit rates in the 2000s, Chinese stocks floundered. But starting in the summer of 2014, as evidence of an economic slowdown gathered, the Shanghai Composite index climbed nearly 150 percent. 3 photos+ caption"The stock market has never been fully aligned with the fundamentals," says Yukon Huang, senior associate at the Carnegie Asia Program in Washington. Now the Chinese stock bubble has burst and Shanghai shares are in a free fall. They've lost about 30 percent since peaking last month. But economists don't expect the market meltdown to do much damage to the real economy. "We don't see it as a major macroeconomic issue," Olivier Blanchard, the International Monetary Fund's research chief, told reporters Thursday. The IMF expects the Chinese economy to grow 6.8 percent this year, unchanged from the forecast it made in April, before the market meltdown. Prices in the stock market are supposed to reflect business realities: the health of the economy, the quality of the companies listed on stock exchanges, the comparative allure of alternative investments. But in a communist country where the government plays an oversized role in the economy, investors pay more attention to signals coming from policymakers in Beijing than to earnings reports, management shake-ups and new product announcements. During the booming 2000s, only politically connected firms were allowed to list on stock exchanges for the most part. Many of them were run by insiders of dubious managerial talent. The markets were dominated by inefficient state-owned companies. Investors were especially wary of investing in big government banks believed to be sinking under the weight of bad loans. Stocks went nowhere. The Chinese government is now trying to manage an economic transition away from an overreliance on exports and over-investment in things like real estate and factories. The old way left the country with too many vacant houses, idle factories and corporate debt. The government wants to nudge the economy toward slower but steadier growth based on spending by Chinese consumers. Talking up the stock market became part of the plan. As China's real estate market cooled, Chinese with money to spare could invest in stocks instead. If their portfolios grew, they'd feel wealthier and more willing to spend. Chinese companies could issue shares of stock and use the proceeds to pay down debt. So state media began encouraging Chinese to buy stock, even as the country's economic outlook dimmed. The economy grew 7.4 percent last year, the slowest pace since 1990. It's expected to decelerate further this year. But authorities allowed investors to borrow to buy ever-more shares. Unsophisticated investors — more than a third left school at the junior high level — got the message and bought enthusiastically, taking Chinese stocks to dangerous heights. Now it's all crashing down. Analysts say the economy is unlikely to take a big hit. The IMF's Blanchard says most Chinese investors didn't spend their paper gains as stocks rose, so they shouldn't have to curb spending now. Carnegie's Huang notes that most investors are still ahead: Despite the recent drop, Shanghai stocks are still up more than 80 percent over the past year. And the Chinese stock market is small compared to the overall economy, the world's second biggest. More damage has been done to the credibility of government policymakers who talked up stocks only to see them crumble. Now they are desperately trying to control the damage — suspending trading in hundreds of stocks, for instance, and barring major shareholders from selling their stakes. "It's pretty safe to say that Beijing's appreciation of how hard it is to control equity prices is much greater today than it was a month ago," says Daniel Rosen, partner at the Rhodium Group consultancy. Click here to Read More Burrowing owls led to anarchists vomiting on tech shuttles and that now brings us to yet another reality show attempting to capture the current fever pitch in Silicon Valley.
Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing branches over to the Bay Area in tonight’s premiere episode. Naturally, we sat down with show star and real estate mogul Andrew Greenwell to find out why he thought shining a light on the high cost of SF housing was such a good idea. For the first time in history, real estate prices are driven by obscure things like tech shuttle routes.— Andrew Greenwell, star of Million Dollar Listing San Francisco Greenwell and his co-stars Roh Habibi, and Justin Fichelson promise to provide us with a look at their diverse lives – Greenwell is gay, Habibi is Muslim and Fichelson is Jewish. There’s also some quotable nuggets on the show like Fichelson’s “You have 22-year-olds wearing hoodies and t-shirts and shorts, and they’re living here in the Mission District, and starting companies like Instagram and Twitter,” and Greenwell’s “For the first time in history, real estate prices are driven by obscure things like tech shuttle routes.” Housing is a sore subject for many in SF and this show is sure to bring up some heated emotions. The show is called Million Dollar Listing, but most one bedroom condos in the city go for more than that – and in the space of just a few days. Average salaries don’t match up with current real estate values and most people can barely afford rent without some controls in place, due to scarcity in the market. The show will focus on housing at much higher prices than that, and we’re told most of the drama will center on seller’s demands. The former co-owner of Re/Max Results is starting a crowdfunding website for people eager to jump into Twin Cities real estate investing. Minneapolis-based SaundersDailey will officially launch later this month, but is already seeking investment for its first fund online. Marshall Saunders, who sold his half-ownership stake in Eden Prairie-based Re/Max last year, started SaundersDailey with three business partners. The idea for the company came partly from his experience helping people buy income properties as a real estate agent. “There’s this huge, untapped middle investor,” he said. “They don’t have $300,000 or $700,000 to bring to the table, but they also don’t want to be buying just single-family homes, duplexes and stuff like that.” SaundersDailey aims to let those investors pool their capital to do larger deals. Today, it only lets accredited investors participate in deals. However, that will likely change once state regulators set rules for the recently approved MNvest bill or the federal government releases guidelines for a key provision of the JOBS Act, Saunders said. The company is strictly focused on the Twin Cities real estate market for now, but plans to expand elsewhere in Minnesota and the Midwest. “We’re local to the Twin Cities area, and we know everything street by street,” Saunders said. Click here to Read More |
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