Want a place where a kid can be a kid (and an adult can be one, too)? Check out this five-bedroom home in Peoria, AZ. The home—which boasts an enormous yard complete with a treehouse, playground, pool, and zip line—is available for $1.3 million.
“My client is a kid at heart,” says listing agent Ed Durham. “He wanted to make an extreme home.” And extreme it is—extremely fun, especially if you’re a kid. The zip line stretches about 30 yards, taking riders from the treehouse beside the home to the playground’s entrance. Click here to read more Julia Morgan made history as a pioneering female architect and left behind a stunning architectural legacy. But only one of her designs in San Jose, CA, is still standing.
Built in 1912, the historic home, which is on the market for $3.5 million, may be “one of the finest examples of a Julia Morgan design,” listing agent Arthur Sharif says. “It’s the most beautiful woodwork I’ve ever seen in any house.” Morgan, a native San Franciscan, was the first woman to receive an architecture license in California and the first woman to be admitted to the Paris Beaux-Arts School in the 1890s. However, she’s probably best known as the designer of the over-the-top Hearst Castle for newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. Morgan designed this San Jose property for another captain of industry, lumber baronJames Pierce. “When he commissioned her, he picked the finest pieces of lumber from his mill,” Sharif says. He describes the mansion’s carvings and moldings as “museum quality.” “Even the hardwood floors are just amazing,” he adds. Click here to read more You’ve probably heard real estate can be safer than the stock market, while still yielding decent returns. This can be true, but adding real estate to your portfolio is very different from investing in stocks, bonds, and certificates of deposit. Finding success in the housing market often requires being able to find good deals and ripe opportunities. Check out some tips below to help you launch your housing market investment career.
1. Assess your goalsIt’s important to check your credit and have your finances in order before you get into the housing market. (You can get a free credit report summary from Credit.com to see where you stand.) If you are struggling to make your own mortgage payments, real estate investment might not be the right move. But if you are willing to put the time in to research a good location and deal, crunch numbers to test a property’s financial potential, and can manage the maintenance needed, then it might be a good fit for you. Just be sure you know what you are looking to gain from the experience and understand what it will take to get there. Click here to read more After signing with the Toronto Raptors, power forward Luis Scola has put his five-bedroom, 9,171-square-foot home in Indiana on the market. The contemporary home is listed for $1.4 million.
Scola spent two seasons with the Indiana Pacers before defecting to Toronto. As a member of the Argentine national team, he’s an Olympic gold medalist (2004, in Athens) and the all-time high scorer—and four-time tournament MVP—in the FIBA Americas Championship. “The whole style of the home is very contemporary, especially for Indiana,” says listing agent Noelle Hans-Daniels. The dramatic entrance is two stories high, with chocolate walls, white woodwork, and iridescent, metallic accent walls above and beside the fireplace. Click here to read more Home prices in July 2015 inched up just 0.7% from June, but they were still 4.7% higher than they were a year ago, according to Tuesday morning’s S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, which covers all nine U.S. Census divisions.
The big winners? Not too surprisingly, San Francisco, Denver, andDallas had the highest price increases: 10.4%, 10.3%, and 8.7%, respectively. “Those three markets are the hottest markets and have been all year,” our chief economist, Jonathan Smoke said. This may be why Case-Shiller’s 10-City Composite, which includes urban heavy hitters such as New York City and Los Angeles, remained virtually unchanged from last month, with a 4.5% year-over-year gain. The 20-City Composite, which includes smaller cities such as Phoenix, Denver, and Tampa, posted a 5% year-over-year gain. The data on realtor.com® have been showing much the same trend, Smoke said: “moderate, but still above average, price appreciation.” As always, folks, don’t put too much stock in these numbers; once they’re revised next month, things might change. As the Case-Shiller report said, “All 20 cities reported increases in July before seasonal adjustment; after seasonal adjustment, 10 were down, nine were up, and one was unchanged.” Click here to read more Mortgage lenders and real-estate agents are bracing for the Oct. 3 implementation of a five-year-old law that has forced them to overhaul the way they process sales.
The changes, prompted by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law, are meant to help consumers better understand the terms of their mortgages before they sign the dotted line. But some in the real-estate industry worry that the rest of the year could be marked by delayed closings, frustrated borrowers and confused real-estate professionals as they adjust to the new rules. At heart, the changes simplify forms long required by the federal government that disclose loan terms, such as a mortgage’s interest rate and prepayment penalties. The rules also require that consumers see the final terms at least three business days before closing, a change meant to ensure they have time to understand what they’re agreeing to. Click here to read more This historic home in New Orleans’ popular Treme neighborhood was tiny before tiny homes were cool.
Listed for an affordable $100,000, this 523-square-foot home covers all the basics. “It has everything you need and nothing you don’t,” says listing agent Mathilde Lemann. But this little pink home has something you won’t find anywhere else: New Orleans’ architectural charm. Built sometime before 1929, this tiny structure is a shotgun home, so named because a person could see (or shoot) from the front door to the backdoor. The gabled roof sports interesting shingles that stand out from the street. The deep overhang is held up by ornate Queen Anne–style brackets. The stoop is just wide enough to sit and chat with the neighbors. And like many of New Orleans’ best homes, this tiny house has been around long enough to develop distinctive only-in-New Orleans touches. Click here to read more Homeowners who end up unable to pay their mortgage may soon see their homes taken over by a surprising new player in the field: hedge fund firms. According to The New York Times, banks have sold over 100,000 delinquent mortgages to private equity and hedge fund companies, who restructure these loans—through modifications or foreclosures—in an effort to resell them and turn a profit.
Yet while some hedge funds are being praised for their creative solutions for struggling homeowners, others have been branded bullies—quickly pushing homes into foreclosure and showing less flexibility than banks when negotiating modifications so homeowners can hang onto their property.One particular company, Lone Star Funds—a $60 billion private equity firm served by Caliber Home Loans—has attracted criticism from numerous homeowners who’ve complained that the company has tried to kick them out of their home even though they’ve filed the necessary paperwork to stay. In many states, filing for a loan modification legally keeps foreclosure at bay. Yet by arguing that such applications can take up to a week to get “uploaded” into their system, Caliber has attempted to proceed with the foreclosures anyway. Click here to read more Award-winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski is renting out his chic 1920s Spanish-style home for $50,000 a month.
The master of film imagery earned Oscars for his work on “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan.” Located in Beverly Hills, CA, his property offers three little houses for the one monthly lease payment. The main house is a four-bedroom, four-bathroom structure with an outdoor living room. The detached one-bedroom guesthouse, which includes a kitchen, also dates to the ’20s. But where this rental really shines is a thoroughly modern media room that could also double as a guesthouse. Green plants form a graceful curtain over the serene room’s wall of glass. A Spanish-style fireplace takes up an entire corner of the room. The whole setting is picture-perfect—what else would you expect from the man who’s been nominated for six Academy Awards for his work behind the camera? “Bridge of Spies,” his next film with frequent collaborator Steven Spielberg, is slated to hit theaters in just a couple of weeks. Click here to read more Wine lovers often dream of owning a winery in rustic, chic Sonoma, CA. Now that dream can become reality.
This 8-acre property in the Alexander Valley AVA, a renowned wine region just outside of hip Healdsburg (home to dozens of restaurants and boutiques), comes with 6 planted acres of zinfandel, cabernet sauvignon, and viognier grapes. Nestled right along Highway 128, it’s on the market for $5.75 million. “There’s a nice old farmhouse on it—really sweet, well-done,” says listing agent Grace Lucero. The house went on the market in early July and is currently listed as a vacation rental for around $350 a night. That 1912 Craftsman-style home has three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The master bedroom provides access to a deck and hot tub. The house also features custom woodwork (look at that gorgeous front door!) and other cool details, including a bedroom window seat, walk-in showers, and a soaking tub. Click here to read more |
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February 2017
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