Atlanta
The Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership, a non-profit organization, plans to use loans, grants, subsidies and federal money over the next several years to repopulate communities hit hard by foreclosures. Counties across metro Atlanta will soon receive over $70 million in federal money to help alleviate the real estate bust, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Georgia will get over $153 million from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Boston
An increasing number of homebuyers and investors are purchasing foreclosed properties in Boston. From January through early December 2008, 482 foreclosed properties in Boston were purchased, more than six times the number purchased in all of 2007. Sales of foreclosed condominiums started at $23,000, and about 28 percent of those sold went for $100,000 or less, the Boston Globe reported. The Stamatos family, which runs Stamatos Property Management Corp., bought 36 bank-owned apartments in Boston, paying an average price of $69,000 per unit.
Sales of Boston commercial properties fell 86.5 percent in 2008, the Boston Globe reported. About $1.35 billion in commercial property was sold in 2008, compared to $10 billion in 2007, according to Jones Lang LaSalle. Real estate executives said buyers are unlikely to make purchases right now because they fear overpaying as the economic downturn continues. Available sublease space in Boston has also increased, nearly doubling between the third and fourth quarters of 2008, to about 900,000 square feet as of early January. But sublease space is unlikely to reach the 2.5 million square feet that was available on the market in 2004.
Chicago
Chicago’s condominium surplus is worst in the South Loop, the neighborhood where building was heaviest during the boom. Builders will complete 2,147 South Loop condos this year, a 66 percent jump from 2008, Crain’s Chicago Business reported. But 43 percent of these condos remain unsold, spelling further trouble for lenders and developers. More buyers are backing out before closing, due to worries about financing or the sliding market. Between 2003 and 2007, 6,644 units were sold in the South Loop, with 39 percent of all sales of new condos in downtown Chicago in those years.
Las Vegas
Home sales jumped, but prices declined in December 2008 compared to the same month in 2007, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Home sales nearly tripled, but median home prices dropped 32.7 percent, according to the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors. The inventory of homes listed for sale increased 0.6 percent. The December spike marked the fourth month in a row of home-sale increases, even though December is traditionally a slow month for real estate sales. Most current homebuyers plan to live in their homes for at least five years, local real estate experts said.
Tivoli Village, at Rampart Boulevard and Alta Drive, has delayed its opening from fall 2009 to 2010 due to the economic slowdown, the Las-Vegas Review Journal reported. The $850 million development, a joint venture between Executive Home Builders and IDB Development, is slated to have 340 condominium units and 700,000 square feet of retail, restaurant and office space. Retail tenants that have signed leases at the development include Tommy Bahama and AG Jeans. Work on the project’s 30-acre site began in 2006. The project has struggled with increasing construction costs.
Los Angeles
Rents in the Los Angeles area are dropping as home prices fall and the recession continues, the Los Angeles Times reported. Los Angeles apartment rents fell 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, the first drop since 2001, according to data from Reis, a research firm. Available rental inventory has also increased because of overbuilding and foreclosures being added to the rental stock. Mark Verge, owner of a property listings service, said the number of units he had listed for rent jumped 33 percent between January 2008 and the beginning of this year.
Philadelphia
The slumping housing market has left some senior citizens unable to relocate to retirement communities. Many seniors hoping to move into retirement developments cannot afford the community entry fees, which they usually pay with the proceeds from the sale of their previous home, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The facilities say they are going further down their waiting lists to find prospective residents willing to sell their existing homes in this market. Housing companies are increasing incentives, such as deferring the community entry fees for potential residents. One Philadelphia-area community, Maris Grove, launched a realty division that helps prospective residents sell their current homes more quickly.
Phoenix
The retail vacancy rate hit 7.5 percent in Phoenix at the end of 2008, the Phoenix Business Journal reported, with the largest percentage of vacant space in the northwest Phoenix area. The city’s vacancy rate has been rising for seven consecutive quarters, according to data from CB Richard Ellis. In the fourth quarter of 2007, Phoenix had a vacancy rate of 6.2 percent. Large retailers, including Circuit City and Kmart, announced plans in the fourth quarter to close locations in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Only 5.9 million square feet of new retail space entered the local market in 2008, down from 11.5 million in 2007.
San Francisco
Non-profit foreclosure counseling services in San Francisco have seen their counseling loads increase exponentially this year, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The Mission Economic Development Association, the only Bay Area foreclosure non-profit to offer services in both Spanish and English, counseled only nine families in 2006. In 2008, it counseled 155 families. In Oakland, the Home Ownership Center advised 31 clients in 2006 and 954 in 2008. These organizations, which also offer pre-purchase counseling, say that receiving counseling before buying a home drastically improves a homeowner’s chances of avoiding foreclosure.
Seattle
Median prices for single-family homes in King County, where Seattle is located, went above $400,000 in December for the first time since September, the Seattle Times reported. But median prices in the county are still down from their July 2007 high point of $481,000. The median sales price of a single-family home in King County was $403,500 in December 2008, a 7.34 percent decline from the same month in 2007. The median condo sales price was $288,895, a 0.38 percent drop. Buyers who closed on homes in December said they had trouble securing mortgages despite having high credit scores, stable incomes and no debt.
Washington, D.C.
The promised rental frenzy failed to materialize in January for Washington homeowners hoping to capitalize on President Barack Obama’s inauguration. Homeowners who listed their space for rent within a week or two of the election got the best deals, renting out condominiums for inauguration week for $3,000. But those who waited to list their homes for rent, some seeking more than $10,000 for inauguration week but others as little as $150 per night, found few takers. Property owners priced their rental spaces too high, area brokers said. Demand for space was also lower than initially predicted.
Washington, D.C., resident Duane McKinney was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison in early January for operating a real estate scam, the Washington Post reported. McKinney forged the names of property owners, many of whom were deceased, onto deeds and then sold the associated houses, buildings and vacant lots. He stole more than $1 million worth of property and kept over $700,000. He was indicted in 2007 and convicted of mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and theft in April 2008. McKinney’s sentence is two years longer than federal guidelines recommend.
Compiled by Sara Polsky