Atlanta
Residential
There’s a newly named neighborhood in Atlanta Midtown West. Close to Midtown and to transportation toward Downtown, it’s a former industrial zone in the city’s northwest corner, and, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, one that developers have only recently discovered. The first condos in Midtown West are going up on the site of a former lumberyard at the corner of Marietta Boulevard and Elaine Avenue. As of mid-July, all but 28 of the 183 loft-style townhouses had been sold.
Residential/Commercial
The Lindbergh area is the site of Atlanta’s briskest commercial and residential development. New BellSouth office buildings and a shopping center have opened near the metro station in Lindbergh, and as many as 1,500 new apartments are planned for the area. Developers have also bought existing apartment buildings in anticipation of greater residential growth, according to the Atlanta Business Journal.
Boston
Residential
Single-family home sales in Massachusetts continue to struggle. After two months of 10 percent-plus drops in sales volume, home sales were nearly flat in June, compared to June 2004, according to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. The number of single-family homes was up 0.5 percent in June to 6,084 houses. At the same time, according to media reports, the median sale price of a single-family home continued to climb statewide. The median price was up 4.8 percent in June to $373,500.
Residential
Boston has the riskiest housing market in the United States, according to a recent study by PMI Mortgage Insurance Company. Why? The Boston metro area has lost thousands of jobs in recent years, and housing prices in the area have nevertheless increased steadily and sharply. The study gave Boston real estate prices a 53 percent chance of experiencing a net decrease over the next two years.
Charlotte
Residential
Sales for existing homes in one of the nation’s fastest-growing metro areas increased 10 percent in June. Some 3,589 existing homes in the Charlotte metro area sold in June, according to the North Carolina Association of Realtors, up from 3,258 in June 2004. The average sales price for an existing home in the area, according to the Charlotte Business Journal, increased 1 percent to $214,144.
Chicago
Commercial/Residential
Chicago developer Christopher Carley in late July unveiled plans for what would be the tallest building in the United States. The 115-story tower and its steel spire would clear 2,000 feet, soaring higher than Chicago’s Sears Tower which, at 1,450 feet, is the nation’s tallest building and the proposed Freedom Tower in Lower Manhattan. Designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, the tower, tentatively named the Fordham Spire and planned for completion by 2009, would rise next to Lake Shore Drive near the entrance to Navy Pier, according to media reports. It would include a hotel as well as condos.
Residential
Streeterville, a small Chicago neighborhood along Lake Michigan, is seeing some of that city’s biggest residential development. At least 13 high-rise residential towers are expected in Streeterville in the next five years, according to the Chicago Tribune. That will boost the supply of apartments there by more than one-third, to 12,523 units, and could bring in as many as 5,250 new residents.
Las Vegas
Residential
Las Vegas’ status as one of the hottest housing markets in the nation should easily last through the autumn. June was one of the busiest months ever in the city for residential real estate. A record 3,387 new homes were sold during the month, the Las Vegas Sun reported, and more than 5,500 existing homes were also sold, the highest monthly number so far for 2005. Ninety-eight percent of homes in Las Vegas in June sold for the list price, too.
Residential
Las Vegas real estate is being discovered as an investment opportunity by more and more people outside the city. Of the estimated 53,000 new condo units currently planned in Las Vegas, as many as 80 percent of buyers are from outside the city, In Business Las Vegas reported. These outsiders want to invest in a growing housing market, but not necessarily live in the condos they buy.
Los Angeles
Residential/Commercial
In a trend sure to drive real estate prices in Los Angeles, population growth in Los Angeles County is slowing as more people move east into areas such as San Bernardino and Riverside counties, where housing is generally cheaper. L.A. County added 77,000 residents between July 2003 and July 2004, the Los Angeles Business Journal reported, for a growth rate of 0.8 percent. That was down from 97,000 added the previous 12 months. Riverside and San Bernardino counties, meanwhile, added a combined 148,000 new residents from July 2003 to July 2004, a 4.1 percent increase.
Residential
The assessed value of Los Angeles County properties increased almost 10 percent during fiscal year 2005 to $856 billion, according to recent government records. That’s a record value for the county, the Los Angeles Daily News reported, driven mostly by a steady increase in home sales. Through the end of June, home sales in the county were 8 percent ahead of where they were at the same time in 2004.
Miami
Commercial
The owners of the South Beach Marriott plan to create the third-largest hotel in Miami Beach. They bought the Eden Roc resort in late July, and announced plans to add a 20-story tower with 300 rooms to the oceanfront resort, the Miami Herald reported. The expansion would give the Eden Roc 649 rooms and is expected to cost between $15 million and $20 million. The expansion comes at the same time as the Eden Roc’s neighbor, the Fontainebleau, also adds hundreds of new rooms and remakes its interior.
Philadelphia
Residential
The Philadelphia suburb of Moorestown, N.J., was proclaimed the best place to live in the United States in a recent issue of Money magazine. The magazine analyzed towns and cities with populations of more than 14,000, and rated them on such things as school quality and real estate. Moorestown, with a population of less than 20,000, has a median single-family home price of $375,000, driven in large part by Philadelphians moving to the suburb for quieter living.
Residential/Commercial
Record gasoline prices in Philadelphia as high as $2.42 a gallon may ultimately reshape the city’s real estate development, according to experts interviewed by the
Philadelphia Daily News. Commuters strained by high gas costs may be forced onto Philadelphia’s much-maligned mass transit system, and that rise could cause a spur in commercial and residential development around rail and subway stops throughout the city.
San Francisco
Residential
A condominium conversion craze is sweeping the San Francisco Bay area. Developers are converting more and more commercial buildings and apartment complexes, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, to satisfy continued strong demand in what is already one of the nation’s most expensive housing markets. More than 700 condo conversion units had been approved by the city as of late July in San Francisco’s central business district alone, with hundreds more on deck. In San Mateo, the old Benjamin Franklin Hotel is being converted into 40 condos. Condos are generally cheaper than houses in the Bay Area, according to the Chronicle. The median price in June for a condo there was $481,000, compared with $644,000 for a detached, single-family home.
Residential
Construction on San Francisco’s tallest residential building should begin in September. Developed by New York-based Millennium Partners and scheduled for completion by 2009, the $400 million Millennium Tower on Mission Street will house 420 condos, with earlier plans to include hotel and office space having been scrapped, according to the San Francisco Business Times. At 465 feet, the Millennium Tower will be San Francisco’s fourth-tallest building overall.
Washington, DC
Residential
The Washington, D.C.-area housing market has started to slow down. The number of houses for sale in the area has increased by 50 percent in the past few months, according to the Washington Post, driving the available inventory to about 35,300 homes, well above the average of 23,000 for the past three years.