Condos and real estate miami 1 | Online Ads Up, Newsper Classifieds Down | | @June 06, 2007 06:43:54 AM | | Top | | | Wednesday, June 6, 2007
As reported by: Media Post
According to preliminary estimates from the Newspaper Association of America, advertising expenditures for newspaper Web sites increased by 22.3 percent to $750 million in the first quarter versus the same period a year ago. Advertising on newspaper Web sites made up 7.1 percent of total newspaper ad spending in the first quarter compared with 5.5 percent for the same period a year ago.
NAA President and CEO, John F. Sturm, said "The percentage of ad spending generated by newspaper Web sites continues to grow as advertisers realize the value of (this) Web audience... consumers who have higher household incomes and shop online more frequently than other Internet users."
Advertising expenditures at newspapers and their Web sites totaled $10.6 billion for the first quarter of 2007, a 4.8 percent decrease from the same period a year earlier. Spending for print ads in newspapers totaled $9.8 billion, down 6.4 percent versus the same period a year earlier.
Among the major print components in the first quarter:
Classified advertising fell 13.2 percent to $3.4 billion
Retail declined 2.2 percent to $4.8 billion
National was down 2.8 percent to $1.7 billion
Within the classified print category in the first quarter:
Real estate advertising fell 14.2 percent to $953 million
Recruitment dropped 14.3 percent to $975.3 million
Automotive was down 20.1 percent to $751.3 million
All other classifieds were down 0.5 percent to $699.3 million
"... newspapers continue to make aggressive moves to redefine classified advertising through new online partnerships and other approaches that will position them for the future," Sturm concluded. |
2 | THE WORLD’S LARGEST ONLINE CONDO MARKETPLACE REMAINS THE MASTER OF ITS DOMAIN NAME | | @June 05, 2007 10:04:34 AM | | Top | | | USCondex.com Now Operates Under New Domain Name Condo.com
MIAMI, FL., June 5, 2007 – USCondex.com, the world’s first and largest online condo marketplace – dubbed the NASDAQ for Condos – today announced it has acquired the domain name Condo.com, and effective immediately will operate under its new domain www.condo.com. The new name easily resonates with buyers, renters, sellers and developers of condominiums around the world, identifying Condo.com as THE leading website to visit for all things condo.
The announcement comes less than two years after the successful launch of USCondex.com to the online real estate community. The name change is a significant milestone for the company, indicative of the growth it has experienced and further strengthening its leadership position in the online condominium marketplace.
“Acquiring this new domain has a huge impact on our business at hand,” said Richard Swerdlow, Chief Executive Officer for Condo.com. “As we continue to bring the world’s condo community together online, owning the premier domain name in the space will help us achieve our goal to better communicate our business model to global users and partners. Condo.com is a name that transcends language barriers, giving us a tremendous advantage over our competition as we seek to grow our business globally.”
Condo.com provides cutting edge information, functionality and tools for buyers and sellers around the world, including a social networking tool that allows users to network and connect to one another, video blog and upload virtual tours. With unmatched listing capabilities and resources offered on the site, and proprietary technology that provides users with detailed neighborhood, school and demographic information, Condo.com provides a service found no where else in the world.
For more information, visit Condo.com.
About Condo.com
Condo.com is the first and fastest growing global advertising portal and listing service for condominiums. Condo.com carries the largest inventory of condominiums listed in the United States and 70+ countries around the world, valued at over $100 billion. Condo.com cost-effectively delivers unparalleled international exposure to developers, brokers and for-sale-by-owners through the seamless distribution of its listings to a global network of real estate websites visited by over 15 million viewers per month. |
3 | Condo.com -- US Condo Exchange (USCondex.com) Changes name to Condo.com | | @June 04, 2007 03:51:43 AM | | Top | | | US Condo Exchange has changed its name to Condo.com. "This name better reflects our mission, growing global brand and positioning as the World’s Largest Condo Marketplace," says founder and CEO, Richard Swerdlow.
For Buyers it means more condos to search and more tools to help
with purchase and rental decisions!
For Sellers it means more traffic, more leads
and faster sales!
Our site now features:
- Over 300,000 listings from around the world
- A growing social network and user community
- Condo TV with dozens of property videos
- Detailed neighborhood information on all listings
- Free listings and video uploads
- Power Seller program for Brokers and Agents
- And more...
"Our site has been the largest site on the internet dedicated exclusively to condo sales and advertising for over two years," states co-founder, James Haft,"Come visit Condo.com and see 'the best place to buy, sell or rent your condo(tm)'." |
4 | Miami office market picks up | | @May 07, 2007 21:08:47 PM | | Top | | | A RECORD NUMBER OF NEW OFFICE TOWERS ARE BEING PLANNED FOR MIAMI'S DOWNTOWN AND BRICKELL AREAS DESPITE WORRIES THAT THERE WON'T BE ENOUGH DEMAND
BY MATTHEW HAGGMAN
mhaggman@MiamiHerald.com
Just as a record condo building binge is playing out across Miami's skyline, a record office building binge is just about to start.
Developers want to add three giant office towers in Miami's downtown and Brickell areas, with workers preparing and marketing campaigns under way. Yet some wonder if it's not another case of developers responding to a market need with too much, too fast, just as many think they did with condos.
''There is definitely pent-up demand for new office space, but how much?'' said Peter Harrison, senior vice president at Transwestern Commercial Services. The veteran office broker said the current office proposals are more aggressive than anything he's seen in Miami in his three decades in the market.
For more than a year builders for each of the proposed towers -- called 1450 Brickell, Met 2 and Brickell Financial Centre -- touted their respective projects as the answer to a shrinking supply of office space. But many observers assumed one or two would ultimately back off.
Instead, work crews are now on each site. Each builder has renewed pledges that they have the financial backing and gumption to go forward, whether or not any companies sign leases to rent space before construction starts. All three are marching ahead without announcing a single signed lease.
Some equate the jockeying to a game of chicken.
''If so, it's a very serious game of chicken. There is a lot of money at stake,'' said Jack Lowell, an office broker who represents MDM Development Group, which is building Met 2.
Owning office space has become increasingly desirable, because a lack of recent office construction has driven up occupancy levels and rents. Last month Tishman Speyer of New York, one of the best-known commercial property owners in the world, bought an office complex on Miami's Brickell Key.
If built, the three new buildings would add about 1.9 million square feet of new space by 2010 to a downtown and Brickell area that has some 12 million square feet of office and a vacancy rate of about 10 percent.
So, is there enough demand?
South Florida has long been a home for regional headquarters, but not a magnet for big corporate tenants that gobble up lots of space in one swoop. The average annual absorption for office space in the area from 2003 to 2007 was 287,000 square feet annually, reports Jones Lang LaSalle.
''The talk has been that the office market will be fine if one building goes ahead and it will probably be OK if another is built a year later,'' said Steve Owens, president at Swire Properties, which has built offices, condos and a hotel on Brickell Key. ``But if all three go, we would be potentially challenged.''
Foram Group last month broke ground for Brickell Financial Centre, a planned 40 floors with 602,000 square feet at 600 Brickell Ave. Delivery is set for 2010. The firm, backed by a wealthy Malaysian family, has enough cash to build without a bank loan, said Foram CEO Loretta Cockrum.
''We just can't think about how many others are coming out of the ground,'' she said. ``We have decided the market is there and will compete for the best tenants.''
Similarly, work is already under way on the foundation of Met 2's office and hotel complex, slated to rise 47 stories with 750,000 square feet on Southeast Second Avenue. Insurance giant MetLife is a joint venture partner. Completion is slated for 2010.
1450 Brickell was the first to announce office building plans, with 35 floors and 585,056 square feet planned on Brickell Avenue. Alan Ojeda, CEO of the tower's builder, Rilea Group, said he wouldn't build three office buildings now if he had the land to do it.
Yet he said the coming surge in new office property may not create the glut some fear. For one, vacancy rates should continue shrinking through 2010, he said. And, all of the condo development downtown will bring more people, along with more need for office space.
Also, two of the projects -- Brickell Financial Centre and 1450 Brickell -- are looking to build structures certified green, which may draw tenants. ''If you look at the whole thing, it is adding about 10 percent more space to the market,'' Ojeda said. ``Ten percent doesn't break a market.''
Still, despite construction crews doing foundation work, there is still time to pull the plug.
''From what we see at the moment, it looks like all three are moving forward,'' Owens said. ``But the real truth comes when you come out of the ground. You can put foundations in and stop; cover them up and wait. Yet if you don't stop there, you must finish the building.'' |
5 | Condo Sales in Massachusetts Decline More Than 10 Percent | | @April 26, 2007 08:29:37 AM | | Top | | | From Banker and Tradesman Online
January 22, 2007
By Aglaia Pikounis
After two years of substantial growth, the condo market took a breather last year, with unit sales dropping more than 10 percent statewide and prices slipping slightly.
A total of 30,203 condominiums were sold in Massachusetts in 2006, a 12.89 percent decline from 2005, according to statistics released today by The Warren Group, parent company of Banker & Tradesman. The statewide median selling price for condos last year fell 1.2 percent to $275,000
The drop in activity is a sharp contrast to the last two years, when the condo market saw double-digit percentage gains in sales and robust price gains. Condo sales jumped about 12 percent in 2005 from the prior year and sales were nearly 19 percent higher in 2004 compared to the year before.
“We had a normalization of the market. The market had been heated up over the last couple of years,” said Larry Rideout, owner and general manager of Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty in Boston. “Prices didn’t go down as much as everyone – the media – anticipated.”
Condo sales in recent years have been fueled by demand from aging baby boomers seeking a more carefree lifestyle and first-time buyers who couldn’t afford surging single-family home prices, according to longtime Realtors.
A significant portion of boomers searching for condos have a home they need to sell and as the single-family home market softened and homes took longer to sell, some of them put off their purchases, industry watchers say. Meanwhile, first-time buyers, who may have thought that buying a single-family home was impossible, paused as they saw a growing number of for-sale homes to choose from and prices begin to ease.
With the availability of undeveloped land shrinking, parts of the Bay State have seen a jump in new condo development as builders try to maximize the number of units they can build, explained David S. Drinkwater, president of Grand Gables Realty Group in Scituate.
In Boston – which saw a flurry of new luxury condo sales later in the year with the opening of the Residences at the Intercontinental along the Fort Point Channel – some neighborhoods
experienced gains while others saw sales plummet by 20 percent or more. Overall, sales in Boston fell 9.6 percent with a total of 6,588 units trading this year compared to 7,286 in 2005, The Warren Group reported.
In central Boston – which includes the South End, Back Bay, Beacon Hill, the waterfront, Fenway and other downtown neighborhoods – sales were off by only 1.4 percent and the median selling price fell 4 percent to $489,000.
‘Percolating’ Market Jason Weissman, a principal of Boston Realty Advisors, said sales activity remained strong in tony Boston neighborhoods like Back Bay and Beacon Hill because there wasn’t a significant spike in the number of condos available for sale.
“Volume and prices may have been off statewide, but in areas like Back Bay and Beacon Hill, prices really held and there were slight gains in volume,” he said. Some 544 condos in the Back Bay and Beacon Hill were sold last year with an average price of $822,276, compared to 541 condos that were sold in 2005 with an average selling price of $809,275, according to Weissman, who cited information from MLS Property Information Network.
Still, sales volume declined by 22 percent to 33 percent in neighborhoods like Allston, Brighton, East Boston, Jamaica Plain and Roxbury. In Brighton, 476 condos were sold, a 22 percent drop from the prior year, while the median selling price dropped a modest 1 percent to $271,750.
In Roxbury, the median selling price dropped 6 percent to $354,500, and sales were off by 24 percent.
Matt Bless, broker-owner of Vanguard Realty in Brighton, said properties took twice as long to sell. The average market time increased from 30-45 days to 60-90 days, he said.
In Brookline, a community that Bless’ office serves, properties that normally went under agreement within two weeks were taking about two months to sell. Constant news reports about the real estate market affected buyers and sellers, according to Bless.
“Because there was so much publicity about the state of the market and the death of the seller’s market, there were buyers who started to have unrealistic expectations about how much of a discount they could get,” he said.
“I find the market is percolating and coming back to life. We’ve gotten a lot of inquiries. A lot of people who were renting last year and decided not to buy, it seems like we’re getting calls from them again saying ‘now I think I want to buy,’” he said.
While condo sales cooled in Brighton and other sections of Boston, sales jumped 34 percent in Dorchester last year. A total of 862 condos were sold in Dorchester and the median selling price climbed 5 percent to $288,900.
Rideout, of Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty, said Dorchester may be benefiting from home seekers priced out of the South End and Back Bay.
In other parts of the city, some in the industry were stunned when an auction took place in the fall for Folio Boston, a new development in the city’s Financial District. “The Folio was kind of [in] a fringe market. That was a unique property location that was definitely an untested product. The numbers that they were reaching for, I think, were difficult to achieve for a new residential neighborhood,” said Weissman.
Outside of Boston, steep drops in sales occurred in Essex County, where the 3,564 unit sales were 21.86 percent lower than a year earlier, and in Norfolk County, where 3,055 condos were sold – a 19 percent drop from 2005, according to The Warren Group. |
6 | Commercial and Retail Condos Growing in Popularity | | @April 11, 2007 08:06:43 AM | | Top | | | Minding the Store in a Condo
New York Times
April 11, 2007
By J. ALEX TARQUINIO
Patrick Cooney stops in frequently at the Museum of Modern Art store on the corner of Spring and Crosby Streets in Manhattan. Before Christmas, he loaded up on T-shirts and toys for the family. “MoMA is a part of New York,” he said.
But unlike other loyal customers at the museum’s outpost in SoHo, Mr. Cooney is also the store’s landlord. Five years ago, he bought the 15,000-square-foot retail condominium at 81 Spring Street, covering the ground floor, lower level and a storage area in the basement, and the Modern rents all the space.
Retail condominiums work much like residential condos. Developers carve out retail space on the ground floor of a building and sell it to investors. The developers often lease the space out first, and the more compelling the tenant, the steeper the price they can ask of the buyer.
Over the last few years, the market for these properties has skyrocketed in Manhattan. More than 560,000 square feet of retail condo space sold last year for almost $650 million. That was a sharp increase from the 28,000 square feet that sold in 2003 for around $26 million, according to Real Capital Analytics, a New York real estate company that tracks deals worth at least $5 million.
Over the last two years, Manhattan represented 38 percent of the total square footage of retail condo space sold nationwide, and 65 percent of the dollar value, according to the company’s statistics.
While New York has the largest market for retail condos, they are also popular with investors in other densely built-up American cities like Chicago, San Francisco, Boston and Washington, said Dan Fasulo, the director of market analysis at Real Capital Analytics. “They’re the glamour cities, with global appeal,” he said.
Brokers say that in New York’s intense real estate market, developers are eager to assemble construction sites, even in neighborhoods not previously regarded as prime commercial areas. In the process, they are offering such high prices for smaller buildings that the owners cannot resist selling. And once they do sell, there are powerful tax incentives to plow the money back into real estate.
Mr. Cooney, for example, purchased the SoHo store with money he made selling four adjacent residential brownstones on the Upper East Side of Manhattan that had been divided into rental units.
Mr. Cooney, a restaurateur who immigrated from Ireland in 1968 and owns O’Casey’s at 22 East 41st Street, had purchased all four buildings for a total of $350,000 in the late 1970s. So when he sold them for $12 million in 2001, almost all of the proceeds would have been subject to capital gains taxes.
But he opted to do a 1031 exchange, which is named for a section of the federal tax code that allows real estate investors to avoid paying capital gains taxes if they quickly reinvest in real estate. The law gives them 45 days to identify the properties they would like to buy and 180 days in all from when they sold their original properties to close on the new ones.
Mr. Cooney used most of his windfall to buy two retail condos.
First, as part of his original agreement to sell the brownstones to the developer Sherwood Properties, he gained the right to pay $3.5 million to acquire a retail condo in the Metropolitan, the 30-story residential tower at 181 East 90th Street that was built on the brownstone site. A Chase bank branch has a 20-year lease in his condo.
He also paid $6.3 million to the Horizon Realty and Development Corporation for the store in SoHo, where the Museum of Modern Art already had a 10-year lease.
The museum created this store to maintain a foothold in Manhattan while the museum on 53rd Street was closed for renovation, said Kathy Thornton-Bias, the museum’s general manager of retailing.
But the SoHo store first opened its doors just a few days after the terrorist attacks in September 2001. It was difficult then even to enter the neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, much less do any shopping there.
At the time, Mr. Cooney had only a verbal agreement to buy the retail condo, so he might have backed out. But his interest in the distinctiveness of the location and the tenant — combined with his need to close the deal quickly because of the 1031 rules — persuaded him to proceed.
Eric Anton, an executive director at Eastern Consolidated who sold the Spring Street store to Mr. Cooney, estimates that half of the retail condo sales in his office are to buyers with money that they are eager to apply to 1031 exchanges. He said many of these buyers are gearing up for retirement — like Mr. Cooney, who is 62 now — and without the tax incentives, they might instead roll some of their gains into bonds.
David LaPierre, a senior vice president at CB Richard Ellis, said that retail condos might also have a psychological appeal for some local investors.
“Walking around a neighborhood, you can see new stores opening, and you can go in and out of stores,” he said. “That makes retail feel more tangible than an office market, where you can’t tell the quality of the buildings from the outside.”
Of course, soaring sales prices have taken a slice out of capitalization rates, a ratio of the net income produced by a property relative to its cost. When Mr. Cooney bought the Spring Street store in early 2002, it had a capitalization rate of 7 percent.
Now, however, some retail condos in prime locations like Fifth Avenue are selling with yields as low as 4.5 percent, brokers say. “That is very close to a bond,” Mr. LaPierre said. Buyers who accept yields that low are betting that the values of condominiums will continue to climb, he said.
Mr. Cooney estimates that the SoHo store might sell with a capitalization rate of 5 percent now.
“And I would buy it today for 5 percent,” he said. “You can’t beat the location, or the tenant.” |
7 | Why Icahn Is Betting On WCI's Florida Condos | | @April 05, 2007 11:07:53 AM | | Top | | | From: Wall Street Journal
By MICHAEL CORKERY in Miami Beach
April 5, 2007; Page C1
Amid softening home prices, rising foreclosures and turmoil in the mortgage industry, billionaire financier Carl Icahn is making a contrarian bet on a troubled pocket of the U.S. housing market: high-end Florida condominiums.
How Mr. Icahn fares with his wager could help answer whether this state's housing downturn is a cloud that will soon blow over or a storm that will linger for years. The board of WCI Communities Inc., a home builder that has erected hundreds of high-rise condos along the Florida coast, could decide today whether to accept Mr. Icahn's tender offer of $22 a share for the builder that many consider a good barometer for the state's priciest real estate. That offer, which totals about $920 million, is slightly higher than WCI's $21.45 price yesterday in 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
Mr. Icahn's pursuit of WCI has puzzled many on Wall Street who believe the Bonita Springs, Fla., company is highly exposed to the swelling glut of condos dotting Florida beaches and golf courses. In the fourth quarter, WCI, which has a market value of about $909 million, had more defaults on condos and cancellations of typical single-family homes, which it also builds, than it received orders for new homes.
Mr. Icahn appears to be counting on Florida real estate to make a comeback. "My investment philosophy, generally, with exceptions, is to buy something when no one wants it," he said yesterday. "We made a fairly large investment and took control of several energy companies seven or eight years ago when they were way down. Housing is somewhat analogous."
Mr. Icahn, who has put up a slate of nominees for the WCI board, declines to comment on what, if any, plans he has for the company. In a Jan. 16 Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Mr. Icahn said he beneficially held 14.5%, or 6.1 million shares, in WCI and that he intended to contact the company to discuss how to "unlock the inherent value" of its shares. His tender offer is conditioned on the WCI board pulling its recently enacted poison-pill provision intended to ward off hostile takeovers. WCI declined to comment, citing a "quiet period" after the tender offer.
In an interview before he made his March 23 tender offer, he said, "On a medium- to long-term basis, there are a lot of factors that will help Florida." Among them: Baby boomers reaching retirement age are moving south.
With prices as high as $11 million for some prime units, WCI condos seem suited to wealthy buyers. WCI also boasts a large amount of undeveloped land across Florida, with many parcels located near its current developments. Some investors believe that land will prove valuable when the Florida market recovers.
Mr. Icahn's offer comes at a crucial time for WCI and for the Florida condo market, generally. The company is expected to open about 10 condo developments across Florida this year. Many of the units within these developments were sold to investors several years ago, as the speculative market roared along. Now those buyers are choosing whether to close on their units and move in, or walk away from hefty deposits, or try to resell their condos in a softening market. WCI buyers put down average deposits of 18% on units with an average sales price of $1.2 million.
While the speculative overhang of newly constructed single-family homes may have peaked in some markets across the country, the full force of Florida's condo glut is still unfolding because, in many cases, it has taken two to three years to complete the high-rise buildings.
In Miami-Dade County alone, 8,000 condo units are expected to open this year, while an additional 12,000 units will open in 2008, followed by 5,500 units in 2009, says Jack McCabe, a housing consultant based in Deerfield Beach, Fla. Fewer than 11,000 condos were built in Miami-Dade between 1995 and 2004.
"It's not a pretty picture," Mr. McCabe says. "This stuff was built five years too soon. The first real wave of baby boomers will retire in 2010 and Florida is going to be one of the most vibrant markets. But before that, we are going to see a lot of people lose money."
Many investors agree. As of March 15, WCI was among the most heavily shorted stocks, with short interest comprising 55% of its float.
Short sellers bet that a stock price will fall. Many short investors are betting WCI will be hit by a wave of defaults, as buyers walk away from their deposits or buyers try to rescind their contracts through lawsuits.
"You have a dire situation," says Credit Suisse analyst Ivy Zelman, who has a "sell" rating on WCI. "There is too much inventory, not enough sales and price deflation. It's the perfect storm."
Charles May put down a $315,000 deposit on a WCI condo in Bal Harbour, near Miami, in December 2003. Before he decided to buy the approximately $1.55 million condo he says WCI sent a limousine to his house, delivering champagne and fancy bathrobes.
Three years later, the condo tower isn't finished and Mr. May expects he will have to resell for a loss. Mr. May is suing the company to get his deposit back, claiming the project is behind schedule.
WCI says its default rate, or rate of condo buyers who don't close on their unit and walk away from a deposit, this year may rise above its historical average of about 2%, but it doesn't expect that rate to exceed 10%. While on the rise, that measurement is much lower than what many other builders are experiencing.
Other builders have higher cancellations, in part because they require smaller deposits for single-family homes. Buyers of WCI units have been more reluctant to walk away from their bigger deposits.
A surge in defaults could be especially painful for WCI because the company needs cash to pay down its debt. WCI's debt-to-capital is roughly 66%, compared with an average of 44% among other builders, says Credit Suisse's Ms. Zelman.
To be sure, some analysts say WCI could limp along collecting as much cash as it can.
One source is the deposits that the company gets to keep when buyers walk. Some analysts also believe Mr. Icahn could refinance the company's debt and possibly sell off some of its land |
8 | Neighborhood data powers home-search site | | @March 29, 2007 09:26:12 AM | | Top | | | FindaHome.com seeks to build broker network
Thursday, March 29, 2007
By Glenn Roberts Jr.
Inman News
FindaHome.com is a site for home buyers who are seeking a low-crime, predominantly white and Republican neighborhood where Portuguese is spoken, there are a bunch of well-educated young couples who make lots of money, and there is a nearby Montessori private school, Safeway grocery store, Peet's coffee shop and Thai restaurant.
It's also a site for people who want to live in a bay-side neighborhood with average rainfall and plenty of golf courses, condos and health clubs, or a sunny, ethnically diverse place with a plethora of parks and playgrounds, churches and veterinarians.
You get the point. FindaHome.com mixes a monumental amount of data into its neighborhood-search platform, which is integrated with mapping tools, color-coded overlays and data charts to provide a very broad range of customized search options. Site users can also search among for-sale properties, and the site's creators are planning to build an international network of subscribing brokers to populate the site with more property information. The site's beta version includes a limited sampling of property listings.
Real estate-related mapping technologies on the Internet have evolved well beyond simple house-shaped "pushpin" icons and driving directions to help users visualize complex sets of data and learn more about neighborhood areas.
Scott Tatro, the co-founder of the site, is no stranger to mapping technology -- he is a licensee and a sublicensor of a patented mapping technology that is the subject of a patent infringement lawsuit, and he is also named in a countersuit that charges he participated in a racketeering scheme with officials at a company that is selling licenses to the technology. He denies this charge, and both cases are ongoing.
The stakes in those lawsuits are high, as the integration of property search with mapping is now ubiquitous in the real estate industry and the National Association of Realtors has lent its financial support to the legal defense of a Pennsylvania Realtor who is charged with patent infringement in the case.
HomePages.com, PropertyShark.com and HotPads.com are among the other examples of property-search sites that offer rich neighborhood data, and the FindaHome.com search platform uses technology that was licensed from another company, NeighborhoodMatch Inc. NeighborhoodScout.com, Neighboroo.com and ZipCodeStats.com are among the other sites with detailed neighborhood information. Such sites draw heavily from publicly available U.S. Census statistics.
Tatro said the company is seeking subscriptions from one broker in each multiple listing service area across the country so that subscribing brokers can upload property information from their local MLSs to the site. The subscription fee is $199 per month, which includes a guarantee that leads generated through the site "will be sufficient to make the membership profitable within the first 90 days."
He is also marketing the FindaHome.com site as a solution for brokers to avoid possible legal penalties that could result from patent-infringement lawsuits. There is no guarantee that the patent's licensors will prevail in the case or that all brokers will be found liable -- the patent's backers are seeking class-action status for the case though the agent's lawyers are opposing class-action status. Mark Tornetta, the inventor of the patented technology, had filed lawsuits against Microsoft Corp and Moore USA in 1998 charging that the companies' HomeAdvisor and cyberhomes.com infringed on his patents, though those lawsuits were later dropped.
Envirian, a real estate brokerage company, and LendingTree, which operates the RealEstate.com Web site and brokerage company, are among the companies that have paid for licensing rights to the technology.
Real Estate Alliance Ltd., a Pennsylvania company that is licensing the patented mapping technology, "will never be able to sell a license to or collect a dime in settlement form any of the brokers that are selected as part of our network," Tatro explained, as his own company has "the buying power and license rights to provide those licenses to the broker" as a sublicensor of the technology.
"The FindaHome.com team has committed to leverage its sublicensing agreement rights to indemnify its broker members so that they never have to worry about any form of infringement, past, present or future. We are also including terms in our agreement that states that if the patent holders eventually win their case and the broker/member has liability, then we will pay for their license at our cost."
The brokers who subscribe to FindaHome.com will be able to place a version of the site's property and neighborhood search engine on their own Web sites, and to share the neighborhood mapping technology, minus the property-search capability, with other Web sites. Participating brokers can generate leads from their own Web site's version of the search tools and from the FindaHome.com site.
Some of the search functions available at the main site will not be available on the brokers' version, he said, such as features that display ethnicity information for a given area. It is illegal under fair-housing laws, for example, for real estate agents to steer clients to certain neighborhood areas based on ethnicity. "We are pulling out several of those more questionable criteria from the (brokers') version," Tatro said. |
9 | Coldwell Banker goes virtual with property sales | | @March 28, 2007 01:21:00 AM | | Top | | | Company sets up shop in Second Life online world
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
By Glenn Roberts Jr.
Inman News
Coldwell Banker has put up a shingle in the Second Life digital frontier, and is among the first real-world real estate companies to sell virtual homes in cyberspace.
Second Life is a three-dimensional virtual world with its own currency, Linden dollars, that can be purchased for real money.
There are about 5 million registered Second Life users, or "residents," and about 1.7 million of them are more active users who have participated in the virtual world -- or "metaverse" -- within the past 60 days. Residents are represented by customized characters called avatars. (See Inman News report.)
"It's the real wild, wild West," said Charlie Young, senior vice president of marketing for Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corp., which has about 3,800 affiliated real estate offices and 124,000 sales associates in 31 countries.
Second Life is dominated by a small group of land barons who dominate the real estate market, Young said, and the company saw an opportunity to participate in the online world while marketing its real-world services in a new venue. "Second Life consumers were being taken advantage of in some regard, in terms of price-gouging," Young said.
Similarly, Young noted, Coldwell Banker got its start 101 years ago when its original founder, Colbert Coldwell, set up shop in post-earthquake San Francisco in an effort to professionalize the real estate industry in a time of rampant corruption.
So Coldwell Banker three months ago began to buy up some virtual land in Second Life and paid a third-party virtual architect for some home designs. And voila -- the company launched its virtual realty business Friday.
David Marine, Coldwell Banker's senior manager of eMarketing, said it's not uncommon for homes to sell in Second Life for about $60 in U.S. dollars, and for landowners to sell parcels in groups rather than individually. "The average resident who wants to buy one piece of land is kind of at a loss," Marine said. Coldwell Banker is pricing its properties for about $20 in U.S. dollars, he added.
Perhaps, said Young, the company will develop a working "code of ethics" for the virtual world.
The company staffs a sales office in Second Life with live agent avatars who can schedule appointments for users to view properties and can answer questions and offer information about the company's real-world services. The office is open for business from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Young said these in-world agents are essentially customer-service professionals, not licensed real estate agents. And they don't receive commissions for virtual sales -- they are paid a regular salary, he said.
"We're not in this to make money off virtual real estate transactions," he said. Instead, the company is hoping to build brand recognition with an ultra-tech-savvy audience. "The brand has been looking for avenues to start connecting to the younger consumer, the new consumer," he said.
"Our first and primary objective is all about making a connection from a brand perspective," Young said, and the company has worked to integrate its virtual presence with its real service offerings.
The company's virtual presence in Second Life allows users to jump to real-world tools to search for the company's for-sale properties and agents and find estimated home values, for example. A virtual golden retriever -- the mascot for the Coldwell Banker system -- sits at the entryway to the company's Second Life office and can lead visitors to sample the company's services.
In the digital world, the company has an inventory of about 500 homes that it will sell or rent, and also has plans to sell vacant land for users to build custom homes. The common areas in these developments feature corporate branding, as do the yard signs in front of the available homes. Coldwell Banker also advertises its brand and properties elsewhere within the Second Life space.
Just as advertisers gradually crawled, walked and then flocked to the Web, Second Life is evolving as a destination for corporations and corporate advertising -- though that has stirred a backlash from some users. "We expect there are going to be two camps," Young said.
"We expect the average Second Life everyday citizen is going to be very accepting. We're not just advertising -- we're participating in their experience. We know that land barons who are pretty influential members of the community are going to be not so happy with us. We are going to be there as long as members of Second Life wants us to be," he said.
Other companies have set up shop at Second Life, too. Cisco Systems announced in December the launch of its Second Life presence to showcase products, display the design for a company-branded future baseball stadium, and to host events. Microsoft Corp. has its own island in Second Life.
It's not yet clear, Young said, whether Coldwell Banker will enter the commercial virtual real estate business within Second Life and whether the company will participate in brokering resale properties. Also, he said, it's possible that real-world Coldwell Banker sales associates may want to try their hand at virtually representing Second Life clients.
"This is an experimental lab for us. We don't know where it's going to take us," Young said. "We will learn things about how the Internet works. Things about Second Life could drive the Internet experience in the future outside of Second Life."
Buyers of Coldwell Banker virtual homes have assurances that their neighbors won't be able to super-size their homes to block out virtual views -- homeowners can decorate inside but won't be able to change the outside of their homes. Also, there are restrictions against commercial developments in Coldwell Banker's subdivisions -- so no next-door rock concerts or disco clubs.
The company is attempting to bring some order to a sometimes chaotic land. "There is certainly no urban planning," Young said. Meanwhile, Coldwell Banker offers "well laid-out, well-planned communities. They all have houses built on them -- they all have roads and infrastructure within those communities." As a bonus, the company is throwing in free virtual furniture for home buyers.
Just as in the real world, Coldwell Banker wants to know more about its clients and prospective customers in Second Life. "We have an extremely detailed reporting mechanism," Young said, so there is a record of any avatar who steps into the office. The company plans to keep track of its virtual transactions, too.
On Monday the company recorded its first virtual-home sale, and Young said the company expects that its initial inventory may be sold or rented within six weeks "if all goes well."
Young said the company's virtual presence could be used as a forum for company agents and officials to hold meetings and interact, and the company's Second Life office includes an amphitheater with seating for about 50 avatars. "We are looking at the virtual aspect of communication that Second Life could bring," Young said. |
10 | Point2 goes public with Web site usage information; Company provides real-time data on Web traffic, member stats | | @March 26, 2007 16:32:31 PM | | Top | | | Point2 goes public with Web site usage information
Monday, March 26, 2007
Inman News
Point2, a technology company that offers online tools for real estate professionals including a National Listing Service that allows members to manage the marketing of other property listings, has opened its user statistics to the world.
The company today announced the public availability of several company statistics, including membership, listings, incoming prospects and unique visitors at the site, and also announced a branding initiative that incorporates several products under the Point2 National Listing Service name.
As of this morning, the Point2 NLS was growing at a rate of 179 members per day and 979 listings per day, and attracted 3,906 prospects per day and 67,981 unique visitors per day, according to the new "Realtime Statistics" page at the site.
"One of the things we're trying to do is strive for transparency," said Brendan King, chief operating officer of Point2 Technologies. "We're trying to get really, really transparent about everything we do to build trust."
While members of the site already have access to reporting tools specific to their own property listings and traffic at the NLS site, King said that hopefully the statistics will encourage other real estate professionals to participate in the system.
Besides membership and visitor statistics, the company is providing such technical information as page-load time at the site and outstanding customer-service issues and resolution time, including the number of customer-service issues closed per day and the busiest category for customer-service issues.
The Point2 NLS had 15.5 million page views in the past 30 days, 2.9 million unique visitors, and 5.9 million views of detail pages for property listings. Also, the site reported 117,899 total members, 494,796 listings, and 3.2 million total photos at the site.
Licensed real estate professionals can be members of the Point2 NLS, and Point2 operates a public property-search site at Point2Homes.com.
As for the branding initiative, Point2 announced that its Point2 Broker, Point2 Agent, Point2 Builder and Point2 PropMan services will be re-branded as Point2 NLS for brokers, agents, builders and property managers, while the Point2 Homes will maintain its separate identity. |
11 | US Condo Exchange Continues Global Expansion - Hires New Chief Marketing Officer | | @March 26, 2007 11:22:22 AM | | Top | | | USCondex the world's first and largest online condo marketplace, today announced the appointment of Xavior Miller as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Mr. Miller will be responsible for company marketing, eCommerce, and branding initiatives. Miami, Florida (PRWEB) March 26, 2007 -- USCondex the world's first and largest online condo marketplace, today announced the appointment of Xavior Miller as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Mr. Miller will be responsible for company marketing, eCommerce, and branding initiatives. "Mr. Miller brings over 12 years of branding, product development, and interactive marketing experience to our company," says Richard Swerdlow, CEO at USCondex. "His previous work with major global brands including; Travelocity, American Express, and Crystal Cruises will allow him to create innovative marketing solutions for USCondex." Over the last 12 years, Mr. Miller has had notable success in several industries, including online travel, entertainment and retail. He was most recently at RazorGator, a Kleiner Perkins company, where he led the eCommerce operations and was key in preparing the company's online business for which they received Series A funding. Prior to Razorgator, Mr. Miller assisted in the growth of Travelocity, American Express Travel, Crystal Cruises, Navigant International and a company he founded in 1994 XStreamSolutions.net. "I am excited to join a talented and passionate team of experts at USCondex," Says Mr. Miller. "Like many of my previous ventures, this company is poised to revolutionize their industry and I am here to contribute my expertise to help make that happen." For more information please contact Adam Kujacznski at 305.476.2075 US Condo Exchange, LLC (www.uscondex.com) is a global leader in the online condominium marketplace, with over 300,000 listings spanning 40 countries valued at over $100B. USCondex is based in Miami, FL, and was founded by CEO Richard Swerdlow and James Haft, managing director of Pacific Alliance Limited, LLC, a New York-based investment bank, in 2006 |
12 | J.P. King partners with USCondEx.com to demonstrate auction solutions to developers | | @February 04, 2007 22:15:17 PM | | Top | | | J.P. King has announced an agreement with the US Condo Exchange under which the auction marketing firm will be featured in animated advertisements on the Condo Exchange’s web site at www.USCondEx.com.
J.P. King and the Condo Exchange will work together to help demonstrate to developers how a J.P. King Auction can reduce inventories, which are currently at all-time highs.
“Hundreds of condominium owners are currently saddled with large of inventories that they thought would have been sold long ago,” said Craig King, president of J.P. King. The US Condo Exchange currently has more than 190,000 condos located in the United States and in 37 countries around the world. This provides us an opportunity to reach many of these developers,” said King.
Numerous options exist for condominium developers who need to reduce their inventory. Two common types of auctions include “Grand Opening Auctions” and “Closeout Auctions,” said King.
“Most developers know that the hardest units to sell are the very first ones and the very last ones. When a development is brand new, you often have a situation where people wait around for someone else to jump in first. A Grand Opening can establish the momentum that ensures a successful project. Toward the end of the sales period, developers often find that expense of continuing their marketing efforts for just a few units can cause their profits to erode. For those, a Closeout Auction can be a good choice,” said King.
In between, an Inventory Reduction auction may help a developer solidify the investment by selling a large number of units and reducing the inventory and debt to manageable levels. |
13 | It's Trump vs. market in condo project | | @January 28, 2007 22:16:44 PM | | Top | | | By Alexandra Clough
Palm Beach Post Staff Columnist
Sunday, January 28, 2007
The condo market is tanking, and many projects are being canceled or put on hold nationwide.
Donald Trump's response? Don't worry. Be happy.
The real estate mogul says his brand is so strong that it now has the power to defeat poor market conditions, wherever they may be.
As proof, he pointed to his latest Trump Tower in Hawaii. Despite a slumping real estate market there, that project sold out for a whopping $700 million in just eight hours, setting a world record. Buyers were from around the globe.
Average unit price: $1.5 million.
Those kind of results are music to the ears of Jorge Perez, head of The Related Group of Miami.
Perez has been trying to drum up pre-sales for his latest planned West Palm Beach condo, Icon Palm Beach, on North Flagler Drive. Even though Perez has a loyal following on U.S. and South American projects, the Palm Beach County market is so tough these days that Perez knew he needed something more: Access to the worldwide market.
Enter The Donald to goose Icon's chances of success. Perez said he's counting on Trump's worldwide name to bring international buyers to his high-priced project, now renamed Trump Tower Palm Beach.
Would Perez have gone forward if he didn't have Trump?
"We think the land and the project are fabulous," he said. "But would we have waited one year for the launch until the market got better? We might have."
Perez said he's not concerned that Trump's bold way of speaking will hurt sales. "He's always been a controversial guy who speaks his mind," he said.
Indeed, Trump has made waves nationally for his verbal attacks on comedian and The View host Rosie O'Donnell, whom he's called a "loser" and "fat pig." Closer to home, Trump's also feuding with Palm Beach town officials over an oversized U.S. flag and flagpole at Mar-a-Lago.
In Trump style, he called these events positive. "Fox did a poll that said 91 percent of Americans are in favor of what I said about Rosie," he said. "And everyone is in favor of the American flag."
So will Trump fly the big flag at Trump Tower Palm Beach when it's done?
"I think we should have one," Trump said. "It's a prominent site, and any prominent site should proudly fly the American flag."
Perez may go along with Trump's over-the-top comments and his flag-loving ways. But one thing's for sure: He won't be joining Trump on the small screen.
Perez said he's frequently asked if he and Trump have discussed filming The Apprentice: South Florida, starring the telegenic Perez. The answer is a big fat no.
"I have no desire whatsoever to be on TV," Perez said. |
14 | Condo inventories rose sharply in last six months | | @January 25, 2007 23:50:33 PM | | Top | | | Condo inventories rose sharply in last six months
Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, January 25, 2007
Greater Vancouver real estate markets saw a 55 per cent increase in inventory of unsold presale condominium units over the last six months, which may trigger a slowdown in future development, PricewaterhouseCoopers reported today.
The rising inventory is likely a result of fewer buyers being able to afford Vancouver's high-flying prices, Craig Hennigar, vice-president of PricewaterhouseCoopers Real Estate (PsC), said.
However, Hennigar said developers will likely build the projects they have in the works now, then scale back their future expectations rather than drop prices that are being driven largely by skyrocketing land and construction costs.
Hennigar, in PwC's latest Greater Vancouver condominium market review, counted 4,350 unsold condominium units in pre-sale marketing at the end of December, compared with 2,780 in January, 2006.
However, Hennigar added that the 4,350 unsold units only represented about 28 per cent of all units in pre-sale marketing. In January, the 2,780 units represented 23 per cent, so the ratio of unsold units in the market hasn't increased dramatically.
"We're not suggesting, at this point, that the market is awash in unsold presales," Hennigar said. "We're not even at 50 per cent [which would signal a buyer's market]. But we're closer to it than we were six months ago, or 12 months ago when the market was hotter." |
15 | Use US Condo Exchange...or else!!! :-) | | @January 19, 2007 13:46:37 PM | | Top | | | |
16 | How about a college education with your new condo? | | @January 17, 2007 13:35:11 PM | | Top | | | A slow market has developers offering everything from shopping sprees to new cars to vacations.
BY RICHARD WESTLUND
''I had been looking for about six months, and didn't have an immediate need to buy,'' said Nisius, an agricultural exports manager for Cargill who was seeking a shorter commute to her Coral Gables office. ``The developer offered to waive his fees and pay my closing costs.''
Before Nisius moves into her $400,000 condominium this month, she will take advantage of a $4,000 credit from Rooms to Go, whose Dadeland showroom is on the ground floor of Toscano, and another $1,000 credit from Best Buy. ''I'm moving from a three-bedroom house further south and downsizing, so some of my current furniture won't work at my new condo,'' she said. ``Getting all new furniture for free was a real incentive for me.''
Faced with a sharp drop-off in demand at a time when thousands of new units are coming on the market, South Florida developers are offering a host of financial incentives to attract buyers like Nisius. To take just one example, Abel Homes was recently offering zero down payments, no closing costs and no association fees for a year on the remaining townhomes at its Naranja Villas development in Southwest Miami-Dade.
''I think it's essential for builders to offer incentives,'' said Al Piazza, CEO of Coscan Homes in Fort Lauderdale. ``Customers today are expecting them, and with the market still so slow, I think you'll see even more out there.''
To promote its new family-oriented Orchid Grove townhouse community in Pompano Beach, Coscan is offering buyers a free four-year college education for one child or grandchild. Under the incentive program, which is scheduled to run until May 1, Coscan will cover the child's cost to enroll in the Florida Pre-Paid College Plan, about $10,000.
LOT OF INTEREST
Piazza said he got the idea from developer friends in New York who offered a similar incentive in the 1980s. ''We've had a lot of interest from both buyers and brokers,'' he said. ``It's generated a lot of talk and I'm sure it will be an important consideration for many buyers as we begin closing these sales.''
In the past year, some individual sellers have offered new cars, airline tickets or exotic vacations to market their homes. But buyers usually prefer a cash incentive, such as a discount in the sales price or the payment of closing costs. In a recent national survey by online real estate company HouseHunt, 77 percent of responding buyers said payment of closing costs was their top incentive choice.
''Not surprising, this would represent a bottom-line savings of several thousand dollars in normal closing cost fees and services,'' said Michael Bearden, president and CEO, in announcing the results.
Many developers in South Florida today are typically offering a package of incentives, according to Ron Shuffield, president, Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell in Coral Gables.
''We've worked with developers who gave away car leases to buyers,'' Shuffield said. ``We're not doing that anymore. Most people prefer incentives like having their homeowner fees paid for a year or two, or other costs associated with the transaction.''
One common incentive today in the new home market is waiving a provision in the sales contract that requires the buyer to pay a 1.5 to 1.75 percent fee to the developer. Those fees, which covered some of the developer's closing costs and enhanced a project's profitability, were widely imposed several years ago at the height of the recent boom market. ''Many developers are now paying closing costs for the buyers, which are usually 2 to 3 percent of the sale price,'' said Shuffield. ``If you include the waiving of the developer's fees and other incentives, a buyer's savings today can be 5 to 6 percent altogether.''
Some real estate brokerages and developers offer discounts to buyers who use their affiliated mortgage and title services. However, buyers should also compare fees with independent companies to be sure they are getting the best deal.
SELLERS IN ACT
Individual sellers are also offering incentives, such as paying a buyer's closing costs or homeowner association fees. Again, it's important for buyers to be sure the seller has not inflated the sales price in order to offer these ``discounts.''
Regardless of incentives, the best way for a seller to market a home is to price it correctly, said Mike Pappas, president of The Keyes Co. in Miami. ''Sellers don't have to resort to gimmicks and making sacrifices,'' he said. ``In reality, if a seller works with an agent at pricing his or her property correctly, and that property receives proper attention and exposure, this is the magic formula for a successful sale.''
__________
richard.westlund@earthlink.net
Posted on Sun, Jan. 14, 2007
Source: MiamiHerald.com |
17 | US Condo Exchange Partners with Italian Powerhouse to Showcase American Condos | | @January 16, 2007 12:14:44 PM | | Top | | | Miami, FL, January 15, 2007 --(PR.COM)-- US Condo Exchange, LLC, www.uscondex.com, the online marketplace where more than 200,000 condos can be searched, compared and reserved online in real time, announced today that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Italian real estate powerhouse Pirelli & C. Real Estate (“Pirelli RE”), a firm with over €15 billion in real estate assets under management and a leadership role in a wide variety of real estate businesses throughout Italy and Central-Eastern Europe.
Through the partnership, Pirelli RE’s online real estate venture, www.casaclick.it, will showcase condos listed on US Condo Exchange, bringing the vast market of European buyers and extensive inventory of U.S. Condos. In addition, Casaclick will employ new, patented technology to feature streaming video content of US Condo Exchange properties at its hundreds of newspaper kiosks throughout Rome, Milan and other key cities, including planned interactive capabilities where passersby can simply click on kiosk screens to view potential vacation homes in South Beach, Las Vegas and more. For Americans interested in that dreamed-of apartment in Florence or Rome, they will now be able to access the best of Italy’s “condo” market on www.uscondex.com, thanks to the new relationship between US Condo Exchange and Pirelli RE.
This pairing is one more step in US Condo Exchange’s efforts to globalize the condo market and comes on the heels of a similar agreement with Primelocation, www.primelocation.com, the United Kingdom’s leading online real estate portal. “US Condo Exchange aims to eliminate all borders when it comes to condo marketing and transactions,” said Richard Swerdlow, Co-Founder and CEO of the U.S. Condo Exchange. “Through our partnership with Italy’s leading real estate conglomerate, we have opened up our condo inventory to Italians. We expect the ease with which Italians can now view and purchase American condos to result in exponentially increased sales to that market. Additionally, we are adding worldwide condo inventory which we believe will be interesting to our site users.”
According to the National Association of Realtors, Europeans already account for 58% of international home sales in markets such as Florida, illustrating the market for of vacation and second homes across the Atlantic. Furthermore, Pirelli RE is currently expanding its own reach to Germany and Poland.
“Italians are increasingly interested in condos, but up until now, there has never been an easy way to access condo information let alone conduct transatlantic transactions,” said Paolo Bottelli, CEO of Casaclick. “Condo Exchange facilitates the exchange of information like never before. At the same time, the best of Casaclick’s listings are now available to a much broader audience by having them showcased on US Condo Exchange.”
Now, Italian-speaking visitors may visit www.casaclick.it to “Esplora il mercato immobiliare,” translation: Explore the American Housing Market. What’s more, Casaclick will “push the net to go on the road” via newsstands, according to Mr. P. Bottelli, with the new interactive-shop-window patented technology making the condo market available “street by street regardless of whether you have a personal computer.”
“The condo market has never seen such exposure, and it couldn’t come at a better time,” added Richard Swerdlow, Chief Executive Officer of US Condo Exchange, “We continue to pursue key international alliances while adding new condo inventory to our exchange daily… this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
British residents may visit www.primelocation.com to access US Condo Exchange listings, and US Condo Exchange expects to unveil other key international alliances shortly.
Pirelli & C. Real Estate (“Pirelli RE”) is one of the leading players in the real estate industry in Italy and one of the most important in Europe, thanks to an innovative business model for the sector and a flexible and dynamic organization with the highest professional standards. Pirelli RE has become a leader in the management of real estate assets in Continental Europe. The company, listed on the Milan Stock Exchange since June 2002 (PRS.MI) and with about €15bn of AUM, is a subsidiary of the Pirelli Group, a large multinational industrial conglomerate listed on the Milan Stock Exchange The Pirelli Group businesses include Pirelli Tyres, Pirelli Labs, Pirelli Broadband Solutions, Pirelli Ambiente and indirectly stakes in telecom companies. (www.pirellire.com)
US Condo Exchange is the first and fastest growing global advertising portal and listing service for condominiums. Condo Exchange currently has over 200,000 condos listed on its site located in the United States and in 40 countries around the world, valued at over $60 billion. The website cost-effectively delivers unparalleled international exposure to developers, brokers and for-sale-by-owners through the seamless distribution of its listings to a global network of real estate websites visited by over 15 million viewers per month. Condo Exchange also features a simple and automated self-listing process, and partners with major media companies to automate the listing of for-sale and for-rent condo classifieds.
###
Contact Information
US Condo Exchange
Adam Kujacznski
305-476-2075
a.kujacznski@uscondex.com
www.uscondex.com |
18 | U.S. mortgage rates rise for fourth week in five | | @January 11, 2007 16:44:24 PM | | Top | | | Excite
Marketwatch - The story behind the numbers
30-year fixed-rate should remain below 6.5% in 2007: economist
By Amy Hoak, MarketWatch
Last Update: 11:54 AM ET Jan 11, 2007
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Mortgage rates edged up in Freddie Mac's weekly survey released on Thursday, the fourth increase in five weeks, lifted by a strong December employment report, the company's chief economist said.
'The gain in employment in December exceeded the consensus forecast, and helped ease fears about the state of the economy,' said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac (FRE: news) chief economist, in a statement. 'But stronger employment and higher wages put upward pressure on inflation, which, in turn, translates into higher interest rates.'
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.21% in the week ending Thursday, up from 6.18% last week. The mortgage averaged 6.15% a year ago.
'We expect rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages to remain below 6.5% in the coming" |
19 | Real estate rebound likely in second-half '07, economists say | | @January 11, 2007 15:04:01 PM | | Top | | | Inman Real Estate News - Real estate rebound likely in second-half '07, economists say: "Real estate rebound likely in second-half '07, economists say
Experts project recovery after hitting first-half 'trough'
Thursday, January 11, 2007
By Glenn Roberts Jr.
Inman News
Frank Nothaft Frank Nothaft
NEW YORK -- The national housing market may not have reached bottom yet, but the second half of the year will likely begin the recovery from a slight downturn that followed a prolonged boom in sales and home prices, economists generally agreed during a panel this week at the Real Estate Connect NYC conference.
'We're going to hit the trough in the first half of 2007,' said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for Freddie Mac and a panelist for the 'Housing Outlook: 2007' session. Other panelists included representatives from the California Association of Realtors, Rutgers University and the University of Pennsylvania.
Single-family construction, which peaked in third-quarter 2005, was 18 percent lower in third-quarter 2006, he noted. From that level Nothaft said he expects an additional decline of about 8 percent to 10 percent before the market turns around. 'We're most of the way through the correction but we're not at the trough part yet.'" |
20 | NYC condos grab larger share of the pie | | @January 04, 2007 09:41:46 AM | | Top | | | Brokers predict Manhattan co-op boards may have to relax some restrictions to compete
The Real Deal
By Lauren Elkies
December 2006
It's unlikely that prestigious Upper East Side co-op buildings like 740 Park Avenue and 834 Fifth Avenue are going to let the riff-raff in any time soon.
However, Manhattan co-op buildings as a whole -- despite trumping condos by three-to-one in sheer number -- have been losing a bit of steam as the primary apartment choice in recent years.
Source: Miller Samuel
Despite generally costing more per square foot, condos are taking up an increasing share of the real estate market in Manhattan -- accounting for more than 50 percent of sales in recent quarters.
Some brokers are saying co-ops will eventually have to reposition themselves to adapt: Changes could involve slightly more lax financial requirements and even tweaks to the typical co-op board approval process in some buildings.
Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of appraisal firm Miller Samuel, said he would suspect that in some buildings, "you may see co-ops limiting and, especially in a weaker market, loosening financial requirements." Still, that may take awhile, as many brokers say co-ops are getting tougher on candidates recently, and there are more board rejections now than in a long time.
Read more... |
21 | Manhattan real estate prices still rising in Q4 | | @January 04, 2007 08:17:31 AM | | Top | | | 2006 was better than last year, says Douglas Elliman CEO
Thursday, January 04, 2007
By Glenn Roberts Jr.
Inman News
Manhattan, N.Y.
Manhattan residential real estate prices climbed overall in the fourth quarter compared to the same quarter last year, several major brokerage companies reported this week. Halstead Property, Brown Harris Stevens, The Corcoran Group and Prudential Douglas Elliman released reports detailing condo and co-op sales and pricing activity for the fourth quarter.
The sales data used by some companies was in some cases skewed higher in the fourth quarter when compared to fourth-quarter 2005 because of a new source of public data on co-op sales that became available earlier this year.
Miller Samuel Inc., a residential appraisal company that prepared the quarterly report for Prudential Douglas Elliman, reported that the average sales price for Manhattan co-op and condos in the fourth quarter grew 3.2 percent compared to fourth-quarter 2005 and the median sale price was up 5.1 percent.
Meanwhile, the average price per square foot declined 0.4 percent, days on market from the last list date increased 9.1 percent and the listing inventory shrank 0.5 percent when compared to the same quarter last year. The report is based on data from 2,441 sales in the fourth quarter.
The average sale price of co-ops grew 2.7 percent in the fourth quarter compared to fourth-quarter 2005 and the median sale price was flat. The average price per square foot fell 4 percent and days on market increased 6 percent compared to fourth-quarter 2005, Miller Samuel also reported.
The average sale price of Manhattan condos rose 7.5 percent; the median sale price was up 14.4 percent; the average price per square foot was up 6.5 percent; sales grew 36.1 percent; and days on market increased 14.9 percent compared to fourth-quarter 2005, according to the report.
The average sale price of Manhattan condos increased 52.3 percent among three-bedroom condos but dropped 26.6 percent among condos with four or more bedrooms in the fourth quarter compared to the same quarter last year -- there were price increases between 4.2 percent and 7.2 percent for condos with fewer bedrooms.
The average sale price of lofts rose 11.9 percent while the median sale price dropped 5.4 percent in the fourth quarter compared to fourth-quarter 2005, according to the report. The average price per square foot grew 15.8 percent and the days on market from last list date rose 19.8 percent for lofts compared to the same quarter last year.
The price per square foot paid for co-ops and condos flew up 19.7 percent in the fourth quarter compared to fourth-quarter 2005 in Manhattan's Uptown area, while climbing 4.2 percent in the downtown area, and falling 3.1 percent in the east area and 1.1 percent in the west area of Manhattan.
Read more... |
22 | Things to Look for in 2007 | | @January 03, 2007 13:09:10 PM | | Top | | | Source: TRANSPARENT REAL ESTATE (www.TransparentRE.com)
Here are a few random ideas for 2007:
Mapping mashups are so 2006... how about mapping mashups with picture and video? Viewr
starts to come close as a global travelogue of real estate, but I'm
interested in seeing granularity - down to the neighborhood level with
pictures and videos searchable across city maps. And while we're at it,
how about public commentary on these various neighborhoods, even at the
intersections, using Wikiified Popups within the mapping mashup. And then, add social networking - allow the visitors to neighborhoods within the maps to interact with each other via chat and other identity schemas like avatars.
Aggregation is happening all over Web 2.0... the Trillianization of IM systems and blogs (RSS feedreaders) are the precedents, next up are all those social networking sites (here are two betas). Unfortunately... Realtors are saddled with checking their MLS, Craigslist, Zillow, GoogleBase, edgeio, etc. There are a few listing automation companies
that ease the Realtor's time consuming task, but sad to say that an
effective real estate aggregation site still seems far away as long as
the MLS systems don't uniformly cooperate... (although cracks are
appearing in Houston).
That means the Consumer and their Realtor advisors still need to hop
around various search sites. An aggregating listing engine acting as a one-stop
shop would allow comparisons across the search sites.
National sites providing localized real estate information - Active Rain's Localism
is a first manifestation focusing on providing localized content - - -
social networking in the form of localized Realtor lists, pictures of
and descriptive copy about locales and neighborhoods.
Title insurance companies jump into the data distribution business. Fidelity National Title's Cyberhomes AVM offering
is their first consumer facing product. Expect other title insurance
companies to follow suit because a Realtor or even the Consumer will
favor the company that's providing free data and technology offerings (especially if RESPA is enforced the way it should).
Title insurance companies will learn how to market to the consumer. Fidelity's Spanish language
title insurance information site is a first attempt at outreach. The
companies are further developing market segmenting strategies that
mirror the communities they serve.
I'll touch on mobile applications (Joel at FoREM
is the expert), video and lead generation (start thinking about your
new business models) later this year (which gives me a lot of leeway)...
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23 | Webcam provides view of project's progress | | @January 03, 2007 10:32:15 AM | | Top | | | Orlando Sentinel : Orange County News
With investor-owners located worldwide, from Ireland to South America, The Point Orlando Resort near the Orange County Convention Center faced a challenge in keeping buyers updated on progress of the two condo-hotel towers now rising near Wet 'n Wild.
Technology has done the trick. A live Web-camera shot offers viewers anywhere 24-hour visual access to the scene on Carrier Drive near Universal Boulevard.
"I always used to have to run out and snap pictures and send them out to people individually, but now this is very helpful. Anyone, anywhere in the world can watch the towers go up, with this dedicated webcam," said sales coordinator Debora Pludwinski. The Web address is www.thepointorlando.com
Read More... |
24 | Realtors give readings on local markets | | @December 22, 2006 08:09:15 AM | | Top | | | Inman Real Estate News - Realtors give readings on local markets
Part 1: Word-On-The-Street market snapshots
Friday, December 22, 2006
By Matt Carter
Inman News
Editor's note: No one knows the local real estate market better than Realtors. In this two-part series, Inman News sought out local insights on what's happening on the ground and what agents think is in store for 2007.
Read more.... |
25 | More people using Web for real estate search | | @December 15, 2006 23:00:55 PM | | Top | | | Inman Real Estate News:
More people using Web for real estate searchPew study: 39% of Internet users look for housing info onlineFriday, December 15, 2006Inman News
The number of Internet users who look for housing information online has grown steadily over the last six years, a new study finds, thanks to more online resources for listings and other real estate information.
Nearly two in five adult Internet users in the United States, or 39 percent, have looked online for information about a place to live -- double the overall number of Americans who had done so in 2000, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. That was up from 34 percent in 2004 and 27 percent in 2000.
Overall, more than a quarter of all adults in the United States, or 27 percent, have looked online for information about housing, more than double the overall number of Americans who had done so in 2000 (13 percent).
Younger Internet users were more likely to seek housing information online than older Web users. Fifty-one percent of Internet users 18-29 years old have searched online for housing information, compared with 43 percent of Internet users 30-49 years old, 27 percent of Internet users 50-64 years old, and 15 percent of Internet users age 65 and older.
Moreover, 9 percent of Internet users 18-29 years old reported in August that they looked for housing information on a typical day, more than double the percentage (4 percent) in this age group who said the same thing two years earlier."
More...:
Source: Inman News |
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