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Empire Equities expands to Arizona

By Inman News, Monday, July 12, 2004.

Hendricks & Partners arranged the sale of the Jefferson Steele Park and Jefferson on Central apartment properties in Phoenix, Ariz.

The two class A properties sold for an aggregate $62.5 million.

A unit of JPI Properties headquartered in Austin, Texas, sold the properties to Montvale, N.J.-based Empire Equities. It was the first major apartment acquisition for Empire west of the Mississippi River. Empire will be changing the names of the properties to Emperion on Central and Emperion Steele Park.  more...

Wells REIT grows Michigan holdings

By Inman News, Monday, July 12, 2004.

Wells Real Estate Investment Trust purchased a 210,000-square-foot office building located in Auburn Hills, Mich.

The value of the transaction was not disclosed.

The class A property is located at 1075 West Entrance and is situated on 14 acres near the intersection of two major highways, M-59 and I-75. The four-story building is divided into two large rectangular sections for office use, and parking can accommodate five cars per 1,000 square feet of space.  more...

Georgia warehouse sold

By Inman News, Monday, July 12, 2004.

CB Richard Ellis' Atlanta office arranged the sale of a 302,600-square-foot cross-dock distribution facility in Buford, Ga.

The value of the transaction was not disclosed.

The property, 2800 Sawnee Ave., is located directly off US 23 (Buford Highway) in Gwinnett County. The property is almost 20 acres and has 282,490 square feet of space in the main building, more than 5,000 square feet of office space, and a 20,139-square-foot storage building with two dock-high doors in a corporate campus-type environment.  more...

Dream homes on eBay (Barbie not included) Premium Content

By Glenn Roberts Jr., Monday, July 12, 2004.

Editor's note: The Internet has been a partner in the home ownership explosion of the last decade, prompting anyone with a computer to find his or her perfect home. In this special three-part series, we explored some of the more unique homes people have found online. These are homes that, pre-Internet, would've been difficult, if not impossible to find.  more...

New-home hunting on the Web Premium Content

By Samantha Peterson, Monday, July 12, 2004.

Enter "new homes" into a Google search and you'll see a list of Web sites that range from newspapers that showcase new properties online, to individual builders' sites, to sites specializing in new-home listings in the United Kingdom. You'll also see Web sites that focus exclusively on new homes across a wide spectrum of U.S. locations.

Inman News conducted a search for new homes in Charlotte, N.C., to test a handful of new-homes Web sites.  more...

Twin Cities posts record real estate sales

By Inman News, Monday, July 12, 2004.

Home sales in Minnesota's Twin Cities region reached a record 7,047 closed sales in June, up 19.3 percent from 5,905 closed sales in June of last year, according to the state's Realtor Public Policy Partnership.

Only twice previously has the one-month sales mark surpassed 6,000 homes, with 6,264 closed sales last July and 6,272 closed sales last August.

The total dollar volume of the 7,000-plus closed home sales in the 13-county metropolitan area was a record $1.8 billion in June.

Counties wi  more...

North Carolina Realtors get Do Not Call tool

By Inman News, Monday, July 12, 2004.

Realtors in North Carolina now have the option of gaining access to a service that will help them comply with state and federal Do Not Call laws.  more...

Coldwell Banker launches print ad campaign

By Inman News, Monday, July 12, 2004.

Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corp. has launched one of its largest national print advertising campaigns to promote its luxury-home marketing division, Coldwell Banker Previews International.

Full-color advertisements will appear in August in upscale magazines including Travel and Leisure, Vanity Fair, Departures, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, Forbes, Fortune, Architectural Digest, Gourmet, Town & Country, House & Garden  more...

Suburbs in need of smart planning Premium Content

By Inman News, Monday, July 12, 2004.

Many outlying rings of urban areas–where most development activity will continue to occur–are headed down a land-consumptive, sprawling course that must be changed to preserve the economic, social and environmental well-being of these communities, according to industry experts assembled by the Urban Land Institute.  more...

Rate hike boosts real estate Web traffic

By Inman News, Monday, July 12, 2004.

Real estate Web sites saw an immediate increase in visitors last week after the Federal Reserve raised the federal funds rate a quarter of a percent, a Web analytics firm said Friday.

HomeGain, AOL Home & Real Estate and MSN House & Home experienced double-digit growth during the week ended July 4, according to Nielson//NetRatings.  more...

Mortgage broker heads to prison

By Inman News, Monday, July 12, 2004.

A Lakewood, Colo., mortgage broker was sentenced to 40 years in prison Friday for bilking more than $5 million from more than 50 investors, according to local news reports.

Mortgage broker Randy Romero was charged with soliciting millions of dollars from investors to help qualify for mortgages through his company, American Home Mortgage. He had earlier this year pleaded guilty to two charges of securities fraud.  more...

Overnight mortgage rates drop

By Inman News, Monday, July 12, 2004.

Long-term mortgage interest rates were lower Friday, and the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond yield dipped to 4.46 percent.

The 30-year fixed-rate average slipped slightly to 5.68 percent, and the 15-year fixed-rate fell to 5.1 percent. The 1-year adjustable was unchanged at 3.35 percent.

The 30-year Treasury bond yield fell to 5.21 percent.

Rates are current as of 7:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.  more...

Reverse mortgage solves homeowner's income problem

By Robert Bruss, Monday, July 12, 2004.

DEAR BOB: I am a 66-year-old divorced woman. I own my condo, purchased 15 years ago for $232,500. My mortgage balance is about $115,000. Condos like mine in my building have been selling for $500,000 and up. My problem is I have a lot of equity, but I can't tap into it for cash. I am on Social Security and have a part-time job. I have pristine credit. However, I've been turned down for a home equity line of credit because my income does not qualify. When I tried to refinance my mortgage, I was told I could only do so without income verification.  more...

What does an interest-rate lock cover?

By Jack Guttentag, Monday, July 12, 2004.

"I locked my 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 5.5 percent and 1 point, but at closing I was dunned for $2,800 in lender fees of various types that had never appeared on the Good Faith Estimate. Why didn't the lock protect me against that?"

A lock is designed to protect borrowers against a rise in price between the lock date and closing, but the protection is often inadequate or fails altogether. You just discovered (the hard way) one of the reasons.  more...

Cheap mortgages fading

By Dian Hymer, Monday, July 12, 2004.

Interest rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages recently increased about 1 percent. When rates begin to rise, home sale activity often picks up. This has happened in many areas of the country as buyers hurry to take advantage of cheap mortgage money before it disappears.

As rates rise, affordability drops. This means that buyers who are only marginally qualified for fixed-rate financing have to consider less expensive mortgage products in order to buy the home they want.  more...