U r b a n T r e k k e r

BeauSoleil, Louisiana Solar Home

This solar house is a production from the University of Lousiana at Lafayette. The house has 800 square feet of living space, which is the size of one or two bedroom condo. It is designed to be completely self sufficient, and ideal for the coastal region. The big promise is this: the house will generate more energy than it's consume. Affordability also part of the theme.

[oops, forgot the pix..]

  

image: Team UL Lafayette

Sold: Bernie Madoff's Montauk to a Mystery Buyer

Bernie Madoff beach house sold "over" list price. The list price was $8.75 million. Take this: there were between 5 to 10 offers for the house and more than 28 showings since August.

This is an interesting market or what...

Related articles by Zemanta

• Madoff's NY Beach Home Sells for More Than $8.75M (abcnews.go.com)
• Madoff Mania: Hamptons House Shocker!: Bernie Madoff's Montauk house was mocked... (curbed.com)

Seven DC Cos. Moved up Rank 2009 Fortune 500, NVR didn't Make it..

There are seven DC-based companies that made it to the 2009 Fortune 500 list. However, NVR didn't make the cut, because of its revenue fell 29% in 2008. NVR went from #464 in 2008 to #584 this year.

The seven companies that moved up the rank:

• AES Corp.(NYSE: AES): No. 158 (up from No. 183 in 2008.)
• Danaher Corporation (NYSE: DHR): No. 213 (up from No. 239 in 2008)
• Coventry Health Care, Inc.(NYSE: CVH): No. 226 (up from No. 266 in 2008.)
• Pepco Holdings, Inc.(NYSE: POM): No. 254 (up from No. 279 in 2008)
• Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT): No. 52 (up from No. 57 in 2008)
• General Dynamics (NYSE: GD): No. 83 (up from No. 87 in 2008.)
• Computer Sciences Corp (NYSE: CSC): No. 153 (up from No. 170 in 2008.)

The other seven companies got downgraded:

• SLM Corporation (NYSE: SLM): No. 331 (down from No. 286 in 2008)
• Gannett Co., Inc.(NYSE: GCI): No. 371 (down from No. 332 in 2008)
• Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc.(NYSE: HST): No. 449 (down from No. 440 in 2008) Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE): No. 220 (down from No. 54 in 2008.)
• Fannie Mae: No. 112 (down from No. 53 in 2008.)
• Marriott International (NYSE: MAR): No. 208 (down from No. 197 in 2008)
• Capital One (NYSE: COF): No. 145 (down from No. 130 in 2008)

See what the housing market can do to a company revenue? Just look at Freddie Mac. It went from # 54 to #220.

(via Washington Business Journal)

Read more DC-MD-VA companies here, here, here.

Mortgage Rates Hit New Record Low

This is just in. According to Freddie Mac the national interest for fixed 30-year loan setting a new record dating back to 1971, via MarketWatch.

The national average interest rate on the benchmark 30-year, fixed-rate loan averaged 4.78% in the week ending Thursday, setting a new record low dating back to 1971 for the second consecutive week, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey. That rate is down from last week's 4.85% and the year-ago 5.88%. The 15-year fixed-rate loan averaged 4.52%, another record low dating back to 1991, down from the week-ago 4.58% and the year-ago 5.42%. The five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage averaged 4.92%, compared with 4.96% a week ago and 5.59% a year ago. One-year Treasury-indexed ARMs averaged 4.75% this week, down from last week's 4.85% and the year-ago 5.19%. "Mortgage rates followed other interest rates lower this week amid reports of slower economic growth," said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist.

This is good news for those buying and have a job to hang on to. However, for those who should be buying but don't have jobs it doesn't really matter how low the interest go. Job is it.

NOW: Is There Help for Homeowners?

This was from PBS show of NOW.

Is there a solution to the foreclosure mess that's destroying communities?

Across the country, cities are in crisis because of the fallout from the mortgage mess —property taxes are way down, and abandoned homes are bringing down property values, inviting crime, and draining government coffers. Neighborhoods are being destroyed. Yet the federal bailout money is not going directly to desperate communities and homeowners, but to local and national banks.

Conforming Loan Limits to Stay the Same in '09

No change to conforming loan limits, that is the max. loans that can be purchased by Fannie and Freddie, says FHFA. The limits will still be $417,000. (Loans above $417k are jumbos). Although, in some specified 'high cost' areas - in which DC MSA region (DC/MD/VA/W VA) is part of it - the limits would be up to 115% of local median house price and cannot exceed 150% of standard limits or $625,500.

Here's what median price is according to FHFA...

In calculating loan limits, FHFA used median house price estimates calculated by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) of the the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

 

Loan Limits 2009

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Weekly Real Estate News Roundup

Normalizing Ground Zero?
Tourists still flock to the World Trade Center site, almost seven years after the attacks of September 11. What they find when they get there is not a scene of destruction but a busy construction site.

More Attractive Interest Rates May Help First-Time Buyers
Months after Congress moved to lower borrowing costs for homeowners in a number of high-priced housing markets, interest rates are finally becoming more attractive on certain types of so-called jumbo mortgages, reports Ruth Simon in today’s WSJ.

Mortgages: A Close Look at All Those Fees
BORROWERS lucky enough to secure a mortgage in the current lending environment have a good amount of leverage when negotiating fees with brokers, who are increasingly starved for business.

Urban Manifesto: Factors that Make a City Great
What do you really want out of a city? And what can you do without? With the environment top of the agenda in mayors' offices around the world, Monocle looks beyond the recycling bins and congestion charges to see what makes for a liveable city.

Has the Credit Crunch Hit Your Home Equity Line
For many high school seniors, spring graduation marks the start of the transition to college. It is also the time when parents finalize their college-financing plans. Unfortunately, those preparing to write large checks this fall to cover college expenses are faced with an increasingly limited college-loan market. In particular, many must deal with an unexpected tightening of a popular source of college financing: the Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOC).

FHA Says Flip - I Mean Fix - that House
To help lenders get REO properties off their books, FHA is lifting a 90-day waiting period on resales instituted five years ago to deter fraudulent/predatory home flipping (see Inman News story).

Realty Q&A: Is It Wise to Get Out of an ARM if the Balance Due is Low?

Can a $100 Million Home be an Investment?
Donald Trump's Palm Beach mansion has been sold for $100 million to "little-known Russian fertilizer billionaire, Dmitry Rybolovlev":

Gas and Home Prices: What a Difference Two Years Can Make
It was only four years ago that home prices were rising at the rate of 20 percent per year and gasoline cost less than two dollars a gallon, yet it seems like a distant memory.

Second Homes: The Most Bang for their Euros
In Manhattan, foreign investors, trading on the dollar's weakness, have helped keep apartment prices at stratospheric levels.

Shoring Up Your Credit
There is no leniency.

FROM AROUND THE REGION: DC-MD-VA

Lessons of Arlington's Urban Development Needn't be Just History
The phenomenal metamorphosis of Arlington County's Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, among the region's most dramatic real estate transformations, teaches a timely lesson: Successful urban revitalization requires long-range planning and long-range public investment that sparks private investment.

Virginia Ahead of Maryland in Personal Income Growth
Virginia ranked 8th and Maryland ranked 10th in growth of personal income for the first quarter, according to a report released Thursday by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

More Homes Foreclosed in DC Area than New York, LA
The Washington area is home to one of the country's fastest-growing foreclosure rates.

Reston Named Top 'Brainy' Retirement Destination
Charles and Harriet Todd, both 85 years old, moved to Reston from Connecticut in 1975, when they were 52. “I got a job with the World Bank in Washington and I knew that their mandatory retirement age was 62,” said Charles Todd.

Fuel Prices May be Catalyst for Extending Metro to Dulles
The airport is short on public transportation, and

so are the places in between. Herndon has been wanting Metrorail for years, and Tysons Corner, designed for road access only, is plainly not equipped for the new era of increased public transportation use.

Multi Million Dollar Estates Move Even in Slow Market

Four years ago when Middleburg landowner Zohar Ben-Dov learned that his neighbors planned to sell their lush rolling land, he was concerned that a new owner might come in and spoil the pristine views surrounding Kinross, his 587-acre horse farm. The solution? Buy the 150 acres on the block.

Revelations from an Energy Audit
By now we’re all feeling the pinch on our wallets from escalating energy prices.

DC Carbon Footprint Ranks 89 of Top 100 Big Cities

So the report from Brookings Institution is out. Now we know that Wash DC carbon footprint is pretty bad, ranking 89 out of 100 top cities! Come on. We can do better than that.

Here is why. Since DC region extends all the way to the exurbs (outside burbs) higher carbon emissions come from the burb. At the same time, think the carbon emissions per capita a little bit off balance because Brookings lumps DC region together not only DC-MD-VA but also a region that stretches all the way to West Virginia. (Nothing against WVA). However, when it comes to transportation use, don't think there is a metro transit system like what WMATA (metro) offers there.

Even though, we do have mass transit (metro) system in place that covers some part of the Washington region, since majority of people still live in the burbs use wheels around more than in those live in higher density areas (urban) and higher energy use (McMansions), the footprint truly leaves higher mark in the DC sphere. Because when you look at the ranking based on per capita carbon emissions and residential energy use in 2005, DC carbon footprint at 3.12 metric tons - is worse than Baltimore-Townson (#69) and Newport News-VA Beach (#34).

The weight for carbon emissions: transportation and energy use. More use of these two cause higher carbon footprint and vice versa.

image: Brookings (emphasis added)

The top 10 cleanest cities: Honolulu, HI (1.36), LA-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA (1.41), Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA, (1.45), NY-NJ (1.5), Boise,ID (1.51), Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue (1.56), WA, San Jose-Sunny Vale-Santa Clara, CA (.57), SF-Oakland-Freemont, CA (1.57), El Paso, TX (1.61), and San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA (1.63). [Note: In bracket shows per capita carbon footprints in metric tons.]

The worst emitters among metro cities are Indianapolis, IN and Lexington, KY.

Other findings include:

• Large metro areas offer greater energy and carbon efficiency than nonmetropolitan areas (rural?)
• Carbon emissions increased more slowly in metro areas than the rest of the country in 2000 and 2005.
• Per capita emissions vary substantially by metro area. Interestingly there seems to be a Mississippi divide - cities in west of MS river has lower carbon emissions per capita - than cities east of the MS river.
• Development pattern (urban sprawl, smart growth) and rail transit play an important role in determining carbon emissions.
• Other factors, weather, the type of fuel to generate electricity (fossil-fuel vs. renewable energy), and electricity prices.

What applicable to the housing market is one of their 'targeted' recommendations which requires home energy disclosure for the purpose of selling and 'on bill' financing to stimulate and scale up energy-efficient retrofitting. 'On bill' financing according to Brookings, allows the homeowners to pay upfront costs of efficiency improvements in their monthly bills from the savings generated by investments.

Read more extensive coverage here and here [pdf].

Weekly Real Estate News Roundup

First Housing Now Oil
In Charlotte, N.C., gasoline at nearly $4 a gallon is cracking "the survivors," as credit counselor Bruce G. Hamlett calls them. They're the people who played by the rules and kept up their mortgage and utility payments even as neighbors gave up and moved away, leaving empty homes. Now, crazy prices at the pump are pushing even these survivors over the edge.

Don't Raid Retirement Savings to Pay the Mortgage
I have two home loans totaling 100% financing. Both are variable-rate, interest-only loans. The 80% loan is a 5-year ARM; the 20% loan is a home-equity loan in which the rate changes monthly. I have been in my $389,000 home since July 2004 and I am starting to have trouble making the payments, but I have not missed one yet. The present value of my home is probably less than what I owe on it, but not greatly so. The only money I have available to continue to make the payments is my 401(k).

The Lowdown on LIBOR
Financial institutions the world over use Libor—short for the London interbank offered rate—to set the interest paid on everything from mortgage loans to complex financial instruments. But now questions are being raised about whether the rate has been manipulated.

Countrywide Wants Up-Front Payments to Discuss Some Loan Mods? So What?
Last week’s Investor’s Business Daily painted a pretty rough picture of everyone’s favorite industry whipping post Countrywide Financial Corp., after getting wind of a servicing policy that requires some delinquent borrowers to pay 30 percent of arrearages before the lender will begin discussing loan modification options — fees that the reporter, Kathleen Doler, called “a steep entrance fee.”

Rates Rise, Lenders Get Strict
Every time you fill the gas tank, you get a lesson in why mortgage rates are rising.  Mortgage rates went up this week because prices for fuel and food keep moving higher and higher.

Lose Home, Pay More Tax
Some of the biggest losers in the real estate slump are not purchasers of mansions they could not afford. They are buyers of second homes — or third ones, for that matter — who are sitting on a tax time bomb.

Raising the New Roof
Green roofs are nothing new. In their book, Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls, Nigel Dunnett and Nöel Kingsbury report that the idea has “been [around] for centuries.” Historically, say the authors, people in present-day Turkey, Iraq and Iran built homes of mud or earth with grass-covered rooftops.

Modern Paradise
“Vladimir Ossipoff was kind of a legend in Hawaii,” says architect Dean Sakamoto, curator of Hawaiian Modern: The Architecture of Vladimir Ossipoff, an exhibition celebrating the work of this midcentury master, first held at the Honolulu Academy of Arts last November.

Ask the Expert
What's green, low cost, stylish and low maintenance product for tub and shower enclosures?

Inside a Billionaire's Real Estate Trouble

Burlingame, Calif. -Tim Blixseth grew up poor in Oregon, made a fortune selling timberland, and thanks to his skilled dealmaking, created The Yellowstone Club, a posh private skiing and golf resort on a vast spread in the mountains near Big Sky, Montana. In large part due to his ownership of the Yellowstone Club, he entered the ranks of the  Forbes 400 Richest Americans; last year, his net worth was an estimated $1.3 billion.

Fall or NY Real Estate Dynasty
It always seemed as if Harry Macklowe, the most famous of New York City's swashbuckling developers, was fated to lose it all one day. In good times, he borrowed heavily to expand his real estate empire. In bad times, Macklowe avoided catastrophe by sweet-talking his bankers - or battling them in court.

Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda
1. Waiting too long for the green consultation
  We should have coughed up a little extra money and brought in a green design person while we were still designing the house.

Hz So Good
Architects Simon Beames and Simon Dickens are worried. They are worried about the impact that construction makes on the environment, though they are equally concerned about being thought of as patchouli-scented Deadheads.

Housing Affordability Index: Surprise, It's a Buyer's Market
The National Association of Realtors released its latest report today on the Housing Affordability Index [HAI] for April, showing a slight decline to 129.4 from the March level of 130 (see chart below) due to a slight increase in median-price home in April.

Vader Garage Rehab Will Take Your Breath Away!
My man over at 100k House ran into a guy in Philly that just finished this green garage rehab and has it for sale on Craigslist.  Long and short, three University of Pennsylvania Master of Architecture majors agreed to forgo the traditional route of finding summer internships and decided to buy, design, and rehab a house in Philly.

Five Green Ideas for Your Kitchen Renovation
Gwendolyn Bounds invested about 16 months and $83k in her posh, green kitchen remodel. The process was slightly more difficult than she imagined, but nonetheless, as you can see from the below video: the result is quite nice.

Which Metros Feel the Most Pain? A Look at Case-Shiller
More bad news on the housing market: Released today, the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price indexes showed home prices across the country fell 14% from a year earlier, representing the largest drop in the 20-year history of the indexes. From the fourth quarter, prices fell 6.7%. (See WSJ article.)

FROM AROUND THE REGION: DC-MD-VA

Transit on Thursday: Not Down with ICC Edition
You might have missed it between the hot dogs and the pool parties and enjoying the warm weather, but Saturday's Post ran a front page story on the sad afterthoughts of Maryland's Intercounty Connector — a neighborhood that is literally being split, run over, and wiped from the land it sits on.

Resting on a Peninsula, with Little Pretense
Cabell P. Bragg seems oblivious to what many would consider his million-dollar view of the Patuxent River.

Foreclosures Hitting Military Families Felt in Woodbridge
Home foreclosures hitting military families in Woodbridge are growing at one of the fastest paces in the nation, according to a Bloomberg News report, citing data collected by RealtyTrac.

Looking for a Free Ride?
A program called Ride Free is going on now! The Northern Virginia Transportation Commission set up this program for the summer to help residents do our part to improve air quality.

Washington Business Leaders Form Coalition to Help Solve the Workforce Housing Crisis
"Workforce housing has become a big problem for us; driving to affordability is no longer an option," J. Michael Pitchford, co-chair of the Washington D.C. ULI Terwilliger Center for Workforce Housing, explained to more than 60 business leaders at a breakfast meeting May 14^th at the Bank of America offices.

Yards Park Phase I Get Zoning Approval
In what chair Anthony Hood remarked might have been the Zoning Commission's first-ever landscape architecture-only case, the Zoning Commission on Thursday night approved the design for the first phase of the waterfront park at The Yards, the nearly 6-acre green space along the Anacostia River on the site of the once walled-off Southeast Federal Center.

Spectrum Redevelopment Moves Forward
The Fairfax County Planning Commission last week unanimously approved redevelopment plans for the Spectrum shopping center in Reston.

Condo Market on the Edge
Valet attendants stand poised at the porte-cochere of the Ritz-Carlton Residences as a doorman ushers visitors toward the marble lobby. A scent called "Icelandic Moon Flower" wafts through the adjacent spa. Pathways wind through the manicured lawn and gardens, just steps from a new stretch of downtown Baltimore's waterfront promenade.

Charlottesville Firm Designs Horse-Oriented Communities
Sure, it would be nice to have a few acres with a couple of horses grazing in the front paddock, but, honestly, who has the time for all that barn work? A better solution might be to follow the example of golfers, who live next door to their hobby but let someone else do the work.

Playing Low Ball
In the year and a half that Ann Page has struggled to sell her five-bedroom McLean home, she has received an array of lackluster offers that fell below her original $2.499 million price tag.

Buyer's Market
This five-bedroom Falls Church home has “superior craftsmanship and materials” and is “loaded with luxury features,” including a recreation room with a home-theater wing, high ceilings, and a gourmet kitchen. Unfortunately, it’s been a stress-inducer to unload.

Not Moving or Sign of Desperation?

How many times you get to tour a new development with the builder? I can't remember a day in the past years where we see builders show up at the sales office - just to say hi - to prospect buyers. Now, builder start showing up at events. They're trying to build relationships with buyers. Hoping this approach will help 'close the deal.'

Hm, is this a sign that a) sales really slow moving, or b) desperation? Take your pick. Your guess is as good as mine.

At any rate, if you're in the mood for a weekend gateway - this could be it. A vacation  'courtesy' of the builder.  You'll probably have to listen to the  'sales pitch.' That's about it.