-
Arizona developer Randall Jackson says that he saw the need for a luxury residential cruise ship while sailing through the Straits of Magellan during a family vacation. Never mind that several already exist. Jackson's ship—appropriately named the Magellan—sets itself apart with fractional ownership...
-
Home prices rose ever higher in 2005: The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the median new-home price came in at $237,300, compared with $221,000 a year earlier—but the increases didn't keep first-time buyers out of the market.
-
Acquisition activity sped up after the first of the year. Reston, Va.–based Comstock Homes expanded its reach into the South with its purchase of Parker Chandler Homes, based in Atlanta and with additional operations in Charlotte, N.C., and Myrtle Beach, S.C. Comstock estimates the buy will add $75...
-
Last November, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the state's local property tax system, which pays for about 60 percent of the bill to operate its public schools, amounts to an unconstitutional statewide property tax. It gave the legislature a deadline of June 1 to agree to a new funding scheme.
-
HUD announced in December that it will pay the mortgages of some of the Gulf Coast hurricanes' victims for up to 12 months, as those homeowners return to repair their homes and find jobs.
-
Many reports continue to justify the demand for condos, but it's tougher to ignore concerns that some markets are getting overbuilt, overrun with investors, or both.
-
Many California municipalities have made headlines in recent years for hiking developer fees sky high, but not Fresno: Its bargain-basement fees have held steady for decades.
-
BUILDERS ARE GOING urban in their search for dirt. Many of the national builders have set up urban or infill divisions, looking for what Randy Jackson, president of The Planning Center, a community planning and design consulting firm, calls “underutilized land.”
-
For the first time, more than 1 million owner-occupied homes are worth more than $1 million, according to the results of the 2004 American Community Survey, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. But there are plenty of nonmillionaires, too: The median value of all homes included in the survey was...
-
Using a formula that weighs wage costs, taxes, electricity costs, and costs of real estate for industrial and office space, the Milken Institute recently declared Hawaii, New York, and Massachusetts the most expensive states in which to do business. Its annual Cost of Doing Business Index found...