Articles About Residential

Are housing prices about to experience a double dip?  Existing home sales fell 27 percent in July to the lowest level reported since 1995.  The plunge occurred even though mortgage rates are at their lowest levels in decades and houses in most regions are priced to sell.  July sales fell to a seasonally adjusted annual […]

America’s states are under water in more ways than one.  This writer got a close-up view of how our aging infrastructure is being taxed by the elements.  A summer storm that brought as much as eight inches of rain in just two hours in the wee hours of Saturday, July 24 wreaked havoc in Chicago’s […]

David Owen, a staff writer with The New Yorker, has expanded on his 2004 article entitled “Green Manhattan” that roughs up some of the environmental movement’s most closely held beliefs in a new book entitled Green Metropolis.  A review by Catherine Tumber, originally published in The Wilson Quarterly, notes that “Eco-friendly suburbanites and small-town residents […]

The next item on President Barack Obama’s ambitious agenda is likely to be overhauling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage firms that so far have cost American taxpayers $145 billion to keep afloat.  The two firms, which own more than half of the nation’s $11 trillion in home mortgages, collapsed along with the […]

Commercial real estate is currently experiencing a perfect storm, one that will utterly change the way corporations utilize their office space in the future.  This is the opinion of John Vivadelli, CEO and founder of AgilQuest Corporation and a well respected industry expert in the fields of alternative office environments; real estate metrics and cost […]

Three years after an EF5 tornado tore apart tiny Greensburg, KS, the town of approximately 900 is making a conscious effort to rebuild itself as a green community. City officials, residents and business owners are leading by example, making Greensburg a national model for environmentally conscious living. For example, a wind farm five miles south […]

Bank repossessions of homes rose 44 percent in May over the same month last year, reaching an all-time high and with increases occurring in every state as lenders stepped up the rate of seizures. Realty Trac, Inc., an Irvine, CA-based data company that tracks foreclosures, reports that bank repossessions totaled 93,777 in May, with filings […]

The end may be in sight to phase out CO2-emitting coal by 2030, according to Architecture 2030 a non-profit, non-partisan and independent organization established in response to the global-warming crisis.  That conclusion comes from researchers at leading institutions such as NASA, NREL, Architecture 2030 and Columbia University. The paper issued by the institutions – titled […]

If you’ve noticed a recent drop in mortgage interest rates, thank the PIGS’ (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) troubles, which are causing jitters in the globe’s equity markets.  Seeking a safe haven, investors are putting their money into U.S. Treasury notes.  Because mortgage interest rates tend to rise and fall with 10-year U.S. Treasury note […]

Wells Fargo & Company and LNR Property Corporation are hunting for buyers for $1 billion each of distressed commercial real estate assets and loans.  San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, the nation’s largest commercial real estate lender, is soliciting bids on $500 million to $1 billion worth of office and hotels.  LNR, the nation’s largest CBMS special […]