Condo Blog - A Non-Corporate Blog From CondoDomain HQ

Following the lead of several real-estate companies across the nation, a developer is working on plans to build hotel-style condominiums in Ann Arbor aimed at fans who want a place to stay on football weekends.

The condos will be about a mile and a half from Michigan stadium and cost between $97,000 and $189,000, said Mike Brenan, general manager of Brenan Hospitality Management Group.

Buyers will be able to rent space out to offset the cost of the condos if the owners intend to only use the space on certain weekends to go to football games, for example, Brenan said.

For many diehard fans, the condos are an opportunity to avoid sky-high hotel prices or the expense of maintaining a house or apartment near the stadium. The condos are also furnished and maintained by building staff. Continued…

Source: Michigan Daily

Looking for Michigan Tickets or see the upcoming schedule…here you go!

Earvin “Magic” Johnson has joined investment partners to introduce the first housing project in Boston backed by the retired NBA star’s urban development fund. The Canyon-Johnson Urban Fund is completing a project in Boston’s Charlestown section that features 146 condominiums next to the Sullivan Square transit station. Residents are expected to begin moving into the project, called Mezzo Design Lofts, late this year. The project’s local partner is Boston-based Cathartes Private Investments.  Continued…

Word on the street is that Mezzo Design Lofts will be making another innovative announcement that has to do with the custom furniture & interior design - packaged in with your mortgage.  Stay Tuned!

See Mezzo Lofts 

The Federal Reserve, reacting to concerns about the subprime lending crisis that’s rocked financial markets in recent weeks, Friday cut its so-called discount rate half a percentage point, to 5.75 percent.

The discount rate, the rate the Federal Reserve charges qualified lenders, mainly banks, for temporary loans, is largely symbolic. The central bank did not change its more closely watched federal funds rate, which affects credit cards, home equity lines of credit, car loans and other consumer loan rates. That rate remains at 5.25 percent.  Continued…

Source:  CNN Money

Check out what Highly Evolved Living is all about…

(Above photo from our most recent shoot @ Adams Farm in Shrewsbury, a new community marketed by Primetime Communities.)

This morning, Kim Blanton, Real Estate writer for the Boston Globe did a great piece on how Video is the new luxury media for high end real estate marekting.  We got a bit of press out of it too - Thx Kim!

The video Mary Canales created to sell her home was filmed in the cinema verité style, with a shaky hand-held camera wandering from room to room, occasionally bumping into an wall, dark bathroom or poorly lit corner.

She also unwittingly borrowed from director Alfred Hitchcock, whose fleeting cameos are a trademark of his most famous films. Canales’s own cameo appears as she turns her lens toward her front door. There she is - red blouse reflecting back at the camera from glass double doors.

“I wanted to make it better - I just haven’t had time,” she said apologetically of the video she shot to sell her $514,900 home in Windham, N.H.

Coldwell Banker labels videos of houses for sale on its website “Home Movies.” They are anything but that: The camera pans smoothly from a full view of the front of the property and a street scene to indoors, from one sun-filled room to another, before moving out to the backyard.

From amateur auteur to professional videographer, home sellers are increasingly turning to movies and streaming video over the Internet to market their properties. It is the latest form of visual advertising that started with posted photos and progressed to slide shows to 360-degree pans of properties.

Source:  Boston Globe

Search Boston Condos 

I have heard and seen this story…and actually lived through it myself, but here is the first broadly publicized piece on the bogus mortgage market which has put all of us in a bad position!  This  former mortgage loan officer tells all.  Watch the Video.

Kevin Tomlinson from the South Beach Real Estate Blog pinged us in on new market data.

This analysis covers the luxury high-rise condos South of Fifth Street (SoFi) in South Beach; ICON South Beach, Murano Grande, Yacht Club at Portofino, Murano at Portofino, Portofino Tower, South Pointe Tower, and Continuum I

Get all the data & charts on Miami Beach Condos here.

Search Miami Condos 

Kevin also pointed me over to a Quote of the Week which I found Interesting.

Condo Quote of the Week – ”In the next 2-5 years the valuation of Miami’s properties will see another boom, as Florida’s population continues to explode.” - Mark Zilbert, Creator of CondoFlip.com - Mark had quite a bit more to say in a recent marketing email, but most of it was nothing more than Mark’s super-hype on the Miami condo market. He tells us he just returned from Europe and makes it sound like the Europeans are queuing up to buy Miami condos like ice cubes in the desert. Speaking of the desert, Mark wants you to believe big money from the Middle East is moving into Miami condos. Obviously, Mark has spent way too much time in the sun. Mark’s probably sold more condos to flippers than anyone else in Florida, so he’s got a lot to lose as this market crumbles. If you’d like to see Mark’s entire email, drop me a line and I will forward it to you. It is well worth the read, if for nothing else but the laughs. On the other hand, if you took any of Mark’s advice, you might want to cry.

The Toronto Condo Show is a 1–stop exhibition designed to cater to the needs of everyone who is, or wants to be, a part of the emerging condo culture in Toronto. Attracting potential buyers overwhelmed by selection and unsure of where to begin, trendy young professionals looking to fuse modern design with small space, and seasoned owners who know exactly what they want, The Toronto Condo Show presents 3 days of everything “condo”.

Check out www.torontocondoshow.com for more details.

For Toronto Condos for Sale click here.

A home for sale in Edmonton, Canada, will be $1,000 cheaper tomorrow if it doesn’t sell today.

Steve Sedgwick, a Realtor for Royal LePage Noralta in Edmonton, Canada, is knocking $1,000 off of the home price per day until the property sells, he announced on Aug. 31. The pricing strategy is intended to call more attention to the property in an environment of swelling for-sale inventory. Continued…

Source:  Inman Blog

President Bush make note that mortgage companies are responsible for their own actions…

It took awhile for President Bush to insert his administration into the growing number of foreclosures on homes financed with high-risk mortgages. He said at the outset that the government has only a limited role to play and he was clear on what the government would not do:

“A federal bailout of lenders would only encourage a recurrence of the problem. It’s not the government’s job to bail out speculators or those who made the decision to buy a home they knew they could never afford.”

The crisis in so-called sub-prime mortgages affects only a fraction of the giant housing market, and as such might be viewed as only a small cloud in an otherwise sunny outlook for the economy as a whole. But home foreclosures have an enormous psychological impact on consumer confidence. And they generate the kind of anecdotal horror stories that can stampede Congress into ill-considered legislation.

There are short-term solutions available - slashing interest rates, pumping up the money supply - but they tend to have nasty long-term consequences, familiar to those who endured the 1970s.

The president announced a number of steps, some that will need congressional approval, to aid homeowners caught between rising mortgage payments and housing values that are flat or declining. The Federal Housing Administration would be allowed to help homeowners delinquent in their payments by guaranteeing mortgages refinanced at more favorable rates. And Internal Revenue Service rules would be amended so that homeowners who agree with their lenders to reduce the amount of their loans don’t lose their homes anyway because they can’t afford to pay taxes on the amount of the reduction. Congress is also being asked to raise the limits on mortgages the FHA can insure. Continued…

Source: Cincinnati Post