Condo Blog - A Non-Corporate Blog From CondoDomain HQ

Does discount brokerage apply to all real estate companies offering services for less?

What if a firm offers full service real estate brokerage for less? Are they a discount broker?

Could discount brokerages be categorized in two different silo’s - Buy Side & Sell Side?

Are all discount brokerages created equally?

How about flat fee brokerages who are offering a full service for a set fee? Is that a discount brokerage/

Is anything “NON-TRADITIONAL” considered a discount brokerage?

Could a discount real estate brokerage be better than a traditional real estate brokerage if they specialize in a niche?

Could a tech savvy well run effcient discount brokerage actually be more profitable than a traditional real estate brokerage?

Has anyone figured out what buyers really want?

Has anyone figured out with sellers really want?

Can someone help me in answering these questions?

Discount Brokerage Interviews? 

Out South Beach connection Kevin Tomlinson shows off some primetime ’spaces’ in South Beach.

Kevin Tomlinson and Dora Puig, worked with a buyer for a penthouse in Miami Beach that sold for $7 million last month. (picture above)

…

“The very, very high end of the markets in communities such as the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Manhattan and Miami and to a lesser degree Chicago, Seattle and Washington that have global appeal have held up much better than the rest of the housing market,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “A recession would certainly not help the high end, but it would not undermine it. And much of their buying is done with cash and not affected by the global financial turmoil and its impact on the availability of mortgages.”

Take the greater Miami area. Over all, home prices have fallen 7.3 percent from their peak in December 2006, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index that tracks repeat sales of specific homes. But because of a shift upward in the value of the homes that have traded hands, the median price for condos sold so far this year for over $1 million is holding steady at $1.5 million, according to the Realtor Association of Greater Miami and the Beaches….Continued…

Source:  NYTimes

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If O.J. Simpson can rake in $1.2 million over three years while being on the hook for a $33.5 million wrongful death settlement, there’s no reason prison-bound Michael Vick can’t buy himself a condo in South Beach.

Michael Vick may have had to sell off his multimillion-dollar mansion in Georgia, but the disgraced, dogfighting NFL star bought a pricey pad in the luxurious Icon South Beach high-rise, according to the New York Post. Continued…

Source:  NYPost

In Florida….isnt there that law that if you get sued, go to jail, etc…the courts can take everything EXCEPT Florida Real Estate which is protected by the state????

I am still amazed every time I go over to Fort Point Channel and the Boston Wharf / Seaport neighborhood of Boston. If you haven’t been in a while…its time to re-visit. If you visit it every two weeks you can actually see the neighborhood change. Scaffolding comes down off a building, a new tree planted, new roads paved…its really incredible what is going on.

Last week in a Boston Globe article (below), the picture is a tad mis-painted. Right now there are 3 major developers in the neighborhood. Tony Goldman, Joe Fallon & Young Park…which all three are bringing their own flavor to the neighborhood. Between condos, apartments, office, retail & hotel space being converted this area of town will no question be the ultimate live, work, play neighborhood.

In a recent interview with Tony Goldman (below)…the press kind of putt a weird spin on some of the recent moves some of the developers are taking. At the end of the day I think its very simple to understand that over time (next 2-5 years) some buildings will be converted to office, some to hotel, some to mixed use condominiums & retail. I think the vision is what Boston needs and we hope to showcase a new artistic ‘piece’ in the very near future which may help all of us understand what ‘the players’ have in mind for Fort Point Channel!
The Article:

The man who helped reinvent New York’s vibrant Soho and Florida’s South Beach had a similar bold vision for Boston’s Summer Street neighborhood. But that was a year ago.

Since then, Tony Goldman and investment partner Archon Group have sold seven of the 17 properties that were to be the building blocks of a revitalized 24/7, live-work-play district in the Fort Point Channel area.

And now they have put two more buildings on the market - 316 and 322 Summer St., historic warehouse structures whose renovations were to kick off the transformation of Summer and adjacent side streets.

The city approved the prominent brick buildings for conversion into luxury condos, but the residential market has cooled significantly in the last year. Continued…

Source: Boston Globe

I guess sometimes it really does stink to be a celebrity.  Watch this video as Jessica Simpson attempts to visit some new condos in Manhattan.

Source:  Rudy @ Kiosk Realty 

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We are now the proud new owners of 2/10,000ths of a Miami Condo!

Zack Preble, the Internet marketing specialist who created CondoFiasco.com, wants some help to pay for a condo unit in Miami that he says he never should have bought.

An online marketing specialist for Foreclosure.com, a site that offers information about foreclosure properties, Preble has conjured up a marketing campaign to call attention to his plight. “I’ve got to do what I know how to do,” he said.

His CondoFiasco.com Web site proposes, “Own a piece of Miami for $35.50. Believe it or not I am going to try to sell my condo one link at a time.” He is selling 8,029 “slices,” which are essentially tiny square ads — often called pixel ads — on a grid that are linked to a Web site selected by the purchaser.

Several blogs, including the Foreclosure.com blog, have made mention of Preble’s personal condo fiasco. Preble owns 1,971 of the 10,000 pixel ad units at the site. The pixel ad grid overlays an image of the condo development. The pixel space he maintains represents his $70,000 down payment on the $355,000 condo unit. Continued…

CondoFiasco.com

Check out the Map (and co-owners)

Watch the Video

Truly amazing on what Dubai is and what it will become.  If you havent watched the flick yet….check it out! 

Thanks to the guys at Sellsius - the found a loophold in Maryland that benefits new condo developers.

Maryland condominium developers can take advantage of a little known loophole in the state’s condominium law which allows them to allocate the common elements interest to their advantage.

In most states*, the condominium law requires developers to allocate the percentage interest in the common elements fairly. Fairly usually means the percentage common element interest must bear some relationship to the unit’s square footage, location, views, uniqueness, exclusive use, etc. Since the percentage common element interest determines how much monthly common charges and assessments an owner has to pay, the rationale is the better (more desirable) the unit, the more you pay, compared to your fellow owners. No so in Maryland.  Continue reading on Sellsius…

Sounds crazy.  Try again.  If you are looking for a $11.95M gorgeous 6 bed, 5.5 bath downtown Boston home…we have the perfect place for you….but dont buy through us…buy through Redfin and they will cut you a check at closing for $239,000! Check out the listing.
We have all seen and heard about Redfin, many pass judgement…I think we did at the very beginning too….but we love it now.  We love the innovation, the team and concept…so much maybe we will even jump into the online brokerage space.  Anyway, check out this listing (Herb Chambers lives here!)

More on Redfin Boston

More on Redfin Corporate

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For one day only, you can purchase a luxury residence for a spectacular price at Skyline located in New England’s vibrant, new waterfront community of Station Landing in Medford, MA. Enjoy shops and restaurants steps from your door and downtown Boston just minutes away by the adjacent MBTA Orange Line or by car. Each of the 30 residences will be sold to the highest bidder. The auction will be held at the Hotel Marlowe, Cambridge.

MODELS ARE OPEN DAILY 12-4 AND THURSDAY 2-7 FOR VIEWING FOR DETAILS AND DIRECTIONS CALL 781.391.0550 OR VISIT SKYLINEATSTATIONLANDING.COM

Visit Skyline at Station Landing Website 

Visit other Boston Condos 

We all know the Panama Real Estate and Condo market is booming booming booming!.  Gerry Davidson a real estate consultant from Atlanta, GA sent us a link to a great blog post and 7 part article about buying real estate in Panama.  So if your interested in Panama Real Estate or the Panama Condo market…check it out!

I think its like the the stuff you put on your windshield so you don’t have to use your wipers???

Kidding - Well, another Social / Networking / Advertising / Portal / B2B / Website launches yesterday. Zolve.com

We would love to tell you more about it…but when we went to sign up, they tried to hit us with a $40/month fee. Hey, we are a startup here….we don’t have that kind of coin to just play around wiht your site. With Active Rain being so powerful and FREE….I am not sure how much traction Zolve will get…although I do love their GUI and feel of the site.

Catch up more from our east coast peers:

“Zolve - a Whole New Real Estate Marketplace for Professionals” (GeekEstate Blog)
“Yo, Check Out My Listings— and Put Me in Your ‘Top Friends’ List” (BusinessWeek’s Hot Property)
“Zolve Tries to Kick ActiveRain While It’s Down” (Future of Real Estate Marketing)
“Zolve: A Social Network for Real Estate Agents” (TechCrunch)
“ZOLVE.com - Another RE Network” (RainCityGuide)

The detached home has long been the dream of home ownership for many Canadians.

But higher interest rates and a steep rise in home prices over the last decade mean Canadians are increasingly turning to more affordable condominium housing.

Thanks to Toronto condo building, housing starts hit a 29-year high of 278,200 annualized units in September, up almost 20 per cent from August, according to figures released by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. yesterday.

“The steaming hot Toronto condo market powered the volatile multiple units construction in all regions of the country,” BMO Nesbitt Burns economist Robert Hogue said yesterday.

In Toronto, sales of new condominiums have been particularly strong and are on track to beat the 2005 all-time record.  Continued…

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“Condo-hotel projects once were so hot in South Florida that Donald Trump planned two in Fort Lauderdale. Now he’s back down to one amid cooling enthusiasm for the novel real estate product behind much of South Florida’s recent hotel boom.

The celebrity developer expressed confidence in the Trump International Hotel and Tower under construction on the northern end of Fort Lauderdale Beach. But his partners are worried enough about condominium sales, he said, that they’ve suspended plans for the Trump Las Olas Resort to the south.

”They want to wait until the market comes back. And I agree with them,” Trump said. “At this moment, to build in this market would be foolish.””

See Ft. Lauderdale Condos

See Miami Condos 

From Jail House to Luxury Suites!

We visited the all new Liberty Hotel here in Boston last evening.  Very very very cool!  A must see - www.libertyhotel.com

History:

n his inaugural address in 1843 Boston Mayor Martin Brimmer proposed a new prison to replace the communal Leverett Street Jail built in 1822. The Charles Street Jail, a Boston prison was built by the City of Boston. The City of Boston assumed administrative functions that were normally performed on a County level elsewhere. Because of this unique arrangement, the Mayor of Boston was the pivotal figure in the planning of this facility. During the next five years debate ensued over location and funding for the new jail. In 1848, architect Gridley Bryant, one of the foremost exponents of the Granite Style, and penologist Louis Dwight recommended a prison site in Boston which faced the Charles River Basin. The Charles Street Jail, has much Boston history as it was completed in 1851, has major national architectural significance as the prime institutional example of the Boston Granite Style of the mid-19th Century. The jail became a prototype design which would greatly influence prison construction throughout the United States and abroad. This historic architecture site occupies approximately three acres facing the Charles River and is dominated by the large granite cruciform jail building.

The Charles Street Jail was in operation from 1851 through 1990. However, in 1973 the United States District Court ruled that conditions in the jail violated the constitutional rights of those incarcerated at the site. Following this ruling several renovation plans were developed for the facility but none received the required approval by the Boston City Council. Instead of the planned renovation, a new jail was designed and built a few blocks away on Nashua Street near Leverett Circle. On Memorial Day weekend 1990, the last prisoners were moved from the Charles Street Jail to the new Suffolk County Jail built on Nashua Street.

I saw this article in the NYTimes today.  So does your condo have an anthem???

It seems every new condominium these days has its own tune, meant to convey its soul to potential buyers. At 151 Wooster Street (151wooster.com) in SoHo, it is a jazz track featuring a lone trumpet. Vigorous strings evoke Vivaldi at the Cielo (cielocondos.com) on the Upper East Side. Electronic music heralds 166 Perry Street (166perryst.com) in the West Village.

Developers are forever adding bells and whistles to distinguish their properties from all the others on the market. And as Web sites are increasingly being used as teasers to drive buyers (especially out-of-state and international buyers) into sales offices, many developers are going beyond slick graphics and literally orchestrating the journey.  Continued….

A summer haven for wealthy New Englanders is known for its great big houses both on the water and off.  The quaint island or Martha’s Vineyard has finally came to realize that for some…condo ownership is wanted.

“A day doesn’t go by when I don’t get a dozen inquiries from people interested in condominiums,” said Ruth P. McGorty, publisher of the Real Estate Guide For Martha’s Vineyard. “With land and individual home prices so high, the real estate market is set to reinvent itself. That’s a trend you take to the bank.”

That’s exactly what Allen Worden, chief executive of Scout Real Estate Capital, did last December when his firm purchased two of Edgartown’s historic hotels - the Harbor View and Kelley House - with plans to renovate each into hotel and condo hybrids. Scout Real Estate Capital paid $40 million for the two waterfront properties - and by the ambitious project’s completion in 2009 - will invest another $115 million to convert half of the rooms in both into private residences with all the high-end amenities.

Continued… 

Source:  Boston Globe

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Our Miami Beach Condo Impresario Kevin Tomlinson gave us the shake down on SOFI (South of Fifth) condo sales absorption this week!
With the real estate market in a state of flux, absorption rates are increasingly used as an indicator to assess how long it would take to sell ALL the existing condos in each condominium, assuming the rate of sales stays constant and no new listings are added to the inventory. Additionally, absorption rates are the best way of tracking market performance. They are usually used to indicate “overall real estate market performance,” or how an entire market is doing.

Here’s the math:

Number of listings: 40

Number of sales in the last six months: 8

8 divided by 6= 1.33 sales per month

Number of listings: 40 divided by number of sales per month: 1.33= 30 months of supply

See the Entire Post 

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