Black neighborhoods in Baltimore were disproportionately affected by the subprime mortgage fallout, according to a federal lawsuit expected Tuesday from the city, which is attempting to recoup the costs of maintaining neighborhoods wracked by foreclosures.The suit alleges San Francisco-based Wells Fargo Bank N.A. engaged in a pattern of predatory lending practices in Baltimore’s poorest neighborhoods, leading to foreclosure rates nearly double the citywide average.
While the lawsuit, to be filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, does not specify compensatory or punitive damages, City Solicitor George Nilson said foreclosures have cost Baltimore tens of millions.
The lawsuit alleges that Wells Fargo targeted black neighborhoods for deceptive lending practices — a practice known as reverse redlining, which is prohibited under the federal Fair Housing Act. For example, it claims that mortgages for homes worth $75,000 or less — most of which are located in minority neighborhoods — were sold at higher rates and laden with fees and surcharges.
The Australian real estate company that owns Vallejo’s Gateway Plaza and Vallejo Corners, otherwise known as the Target Center, is seeking buyers before a February debt refinancing deadline, a company official said. Centro Properties Group, which also owns Metro 580 and Rose Pavilion in Pleasanton, said this week it seeks “expressions of interest” for either buying the company or its Australian and U.S. assets, according to reports.
The move is a result of damage caused the firm by the subprime mortgage crisis, said Mitchell Brown, spokesperson from the firm’s Australian headquarters.
San Rafael-based Autodesk Inc. said it has completed the acquisition of Hanna Strategies, a software development firm with offices in Shanghai, Atlanta and Pune, India. On Nov. 1 Autodesk announced its intention to acquire Hanna Strategies. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. This acquisition supports Autodesk’s goal of creating digital design innovation technology through its software development.
Six days before Christmas, the Commercial Real Estate Women of Washington, D.C., gathered for its last monthly luncheon of the year in the ballroom of the Capital Hilton. Hundreds of architects, commercial real estate brokers, developers and bankers ended the year with a panel on the defining event of 2007 — the credit crunch.
“Where we used to have 20 bidders on every asset, now we have six,” John E. Duffy, senior managing director of the commercial brokerage firm Holliday Fenoglio Fowler, told his audience. “The pretenders are gone.”
If the commercial real estate boom of recent years was a grand opus, with millions of square feet of new office buildings being built, bought and leased. Then 2007 was the year the tempo slowed. In 2008, both the ongoing tightness in the debt markets and an expected economic slowdown is likely to result in more of the same, brokers and analysts said.
People who wants to enter a real estate career and be an agent, broker, or appraiser usually enrolls in an institution that offer courses on real estate subjects and take the subsequent exams for licensing afterwards. However, it is now possible for people to take these courses in the comfort of their own homes because online real estate courses are available on the Internet.
Real estate licensing online courses are the fastest, and most convenient way to get a real estate license. With up-to-date courseware and state-of-the-art teaching tools, these online schools are increasing in popularity with every passing day.
If you to save some of your valuable time and complete an entire course from your home or office instead of sitting in a classroom for countless hours. Check out real estate appraisal license courses or visit the website www.celi-edu.com for more information.
As the nation enters a new year skirting perilously close to recession, Metropolitan Orlando surpasses other areas of the state in the strength of its real-estate market, one of the state’s top private economists said Monday.
Orange County is probably tops in Florida among the 33 counties studied because of a nice mix of “fast-growing industries, such as tourism, health care, education and defense manufacturing,” Orlando economist Hank Fishkind said in an analysis for the Attorney’s Title Insurance Fund.
“It’s the strongest, in part, because of job creation,” Fishkind said of Orange, the largest county in Metro Orlando, which also includes Seminole, Osceola and Lake.
His report predicts that Lake will see the bulk of the metro area’s home starts, more than doubling from 1,213 in 2007 to 2,905 in 2008. That rebound, he said, is mainly because the market skidded to a halt so fast last year.
If you are a real estate agent and you want to practice your profession in a particular state, it is needed that you should obtain first a real estate license before you are able to practice your profession.
One of the basic requirements of acquiring a real estate license is that you must be at least 18 years of age. Remember that each state have there own specific set of requirements. For example in Texas real estate, it is required in there that you should take a 60 hours course on “Principles of Real Estate”. Aside from this, it is required that you should take at least 30 hours on Texas real estate courses about the Law of Agency and Law of Contracts. To know about these specifications, check with your local state office and ask how you can fulfill the requirements to obtain a real estate license.
Real Estate Disposition Corporation (REDC) will hold a five-day public auction for more than 1,000 residential properties over the course of three weekends–allowing time off for the Super Bowl– during January and February in Southern California.
Some homes in the auction, which will take place between January 26 and February 10, will have starting bids that are 40 percent lower than the previously valued price.
REDC conducts real estate auctions on behalf of third parties–mortgage companies, lenders or builders–that have inventory remaining from subdivisions or properties they developed.
“”We offer alternative marketing processes,” says REDC Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer Joe Joffrion. “You don’t typically see TV, print and Internet combined advertising from builders. We hit all forms of media. We’re trying to really broaden the audience to include people who may not be aware these homes are available.”
The company’s builder and developer auctions are smaller and can involve properties such as condos and single-family homes.
Auctions featuring foreclosed properties offer options ranging from single-family homes to one- to four-unit multifamily residences. REDC foreclosure auctions have taken place almost every weekend since May.
“[Auctions are] an instantaneous process,” Joffrion says. “There’s an expedited offer and acceptance period. It helps sellers and communities because the worst thing today is the amount of homes on the market that just aren’t moving.”
In December, REDC held an auction involving nearly 70 new luxury condos in four communities in Southern California.
This month, auctions for discounted condos, townhomes, twin homes and single-family homes–such as a four-bedroom, $1.25 million single-family residence in Glendale, Calif. (pictured), which has an opening bid price of $359,000–are scheduled for the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, Calif. on Jan. 26 and the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles on Jan. 27
Additional auctions are slated for the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, Calif. on Feb. 2, the Pomona Convention Center in Pomona, Calif. on Feb. 9 and Riverside, Calif.’s Riverside Convention Center on Feb. 10.
The majority of homes for sale are lender foreclosures, but the auction also will feature 13 brand new homes.
Individuals interested in the auction are encouraged to attend one of the open house inspection days on January 12, 19 and 20 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pre-registration, property and bidder information can be found at www.USHomeAuction.com.
Established in 1990 and headquartered in Irvine, Calif., the Real Estate Disposition Corporation (REDC) has sold more than $1 billion in real estate assets since May 2006.
PetSmart Inc. has promoted Jaye Perricone to senior vice president of real estate. A 15-year veteran of the Phoenix-based chain of pet stores, her duties will include leading real estate site selection, construction and lease administration, said Phil Francis, PetSmart chairman and CEO.
When it comes to real estate business, it is quite complicated for in this kind of business involves a certain level of risk that may cause you some problems. However, problems can be lessen if you get the right skills and information to actively participate in the real estate business, this can be done through training, it may be a training online or done through a traditional sources.
Getting a real estate license for brokers, agents, and appraisers is a requirement in Texas and even in the United states for you to be able to practice your profession. Actually different states requires you to take a real estate license, they have varied requirements with regard to qualifying for the state tests that are peculiar to the real estate market in the state. If you want to find out how to get a real estate license, the Internet can provide you online schools that offer the training required to qualify.
Check out Texas real estate courses or visit the website www.celi-edu.com a provider of a convenient online home study courses specifically designed for people with busy schedules.
Investment Management put Condor House, a seven-story office building facing London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, on the market for 130 million pounds ($256 million) six months ago. The building sold last month for about 117 million pounds, 10 percent below the asking price.Appraisal values fell at a record rate in November and commercial real estate derivatives contracts indicate owners of British offices, shopping malls and warehouses may suffer their biggest annual losses in more than a quarter century.
“The U.K. market is falling apart,” said Peter Hobbs, London-based head of research at RREEF Real Estate, a Deutsche Bank AG unit that manages about $100 billion. “There’s a risk that this cyclical downturn turns into something worse.”
Britain’s 700 billion-pound commercial property market will perform worse in 2008 than the rest of Europe, the U.S. and Asia, Hobbs said. The slide is accelerating as banks tighten lending standards across the globe after losses of more than $90 billion from U.S. mortgage investments. Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., the world’s second-largest commercial real estate broker, estimates transactions in the U.K. slumped 60 percent during the final quarter of 2007 to about 5 billion pounds.
Building owners may record losses of at least 11 percent in 2008, according to prices of derivatives contracts pegged to indexes compiled by London-based research firm Investment Property Databank Ltd.
The decline would be the largest since IPD introduced its annual total-return index in 1981, which combines data for rental incomes and changes to appraisal values. The benchmark index covers 200 billion pounds of investments and excludes debt, which can multiply property gains or losses.
The commercial real estate industry was accountable for more than 10 percent of Colorado’s state economy during 2006, according to a study commissioned by the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties. The study found that commercial real estate comprises 10.5 percent of the state’s economy, totaling out to a value of $23.4 billion.
The state’s three major metropolitan areas — Denver, the northern Front Range and Colorado Springs — had nearly 85 percent of Colorado’s existing commercial and multifamily properties, with metro Denver alone representing nearly 58 percent of existing income-producing square footage, the study found.