Ashley Judd and Dario Franchitti Put Scottish Spread Up for Sale

SELLER: Ashley Judd and Dario FranchittiLOCATION: Port of Menteith, Stirlingshire, ScotlandPRICE: offers in excess of £3,800,000 ($5,918,920)SIZE: 7+ bedrooms, 7 full and 4 half bathrooms/water closetsYOUR MAMAS NOTES: Rakish race car driver Dario Franchitti won his third Indy 500 over the weekend and—thanks to the Scottish Snitch—Your Mama learned over the weekend the Italian-named Scotsman and his...

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NoMa Greyhound Station Developers Plan Feature Park

Perseus Realty, LLC and First Potomac Realty Trust are nearing the anniversary of their purchase of the Greyhound Station in NoMa on 1st and L Streets, a site they will develop into a mixed use building.  While developers remain mum on details of the building, one public element of the plan has emerged - developers will give back a portion of the space to create a public park space will...

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Pending Home Sales Slip In May

The housing market took a breather in April. After forging past its benchmark value of 100 in March, April's Pending Home Sales Index dropped back to 95.5, its lowest reading of the year. The data suggests fewer home resales throughout WA and nationwide in the months ahead. A "pending home" is a home under contract to sell, but not yet closed. The Pending Home Sales Index is tracked and...

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Morning Real Estate Review

MoCo officials join developers to welcome Silver Spring's Galaxy apartments (PRWeb) Wednesday's grand opening ceremonies for the 195-unit apartment building in downtown Silver Spring heralds another mixed-income community.Home price indexes not so reliable (Wall Street Journal)  Indexes can vary by as much as 10%, calling into question their predictive val...

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Thayer Avenue Condos Reborn as Subsidized Housing

The long-moribund Silver Spring condo project at 814 Thayer Avenue, the former site of the National Association of the Deaf (NAD), has been reconceptualized by a new developer as an affordable housing complex.The amended site plan was recommended for approval by Montgomery County planners earlier this month.  While the amount of public space has remained the same, at just over 40,000 s.f., new...

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Foreclosures Fall To 5-Year Low

Foreclosures filings fell 5 percent between March and April of this year, and by 11 percent as compared to one year ago. The data comes from RealtyTrac. The foreclosure-tracking firm tallied fewer than 189,000 foreclosure-related actions last month -- the fewest number since July 2007. Rapidly-declining foreclosure figures are another signal that the U.S. housing market may already be in recovery....

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Morning Real Estate Review

Now coveted, walkable neighborhoods like Washington D.C. (NY Times)  In what is still news to some, a Brookings Institution study finds that walkable communities are better.  Rents and sale prices are going up there faster than in non-walkable communities. Duh.Georgetown, Arlington among most walkable neighborhoods (DCist)  Georgetown and Arlington are 2 such walkable neighborhoods (see previous story), and offer some of the most convenient places to live in the country. Oh, and if...

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Construction begins on 440 K

Construction began today on Quadrangle Development Corporation and The Wilkes Company’s development of a 234-unit, 14-floor residential building at 440 K. It’s part of Mount Vernon Triangle’s “critical mass” and should be finished in the last quarter of 2013.The development includes more than 9,000 s.f. of ground floor retail space in the 2 million s.f. mixed-use community, "the largest such project...

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Meat Loaf Moves to Texas

BUYER: Michael Lee Aday, a.k.a. Meat LoafLOCATION: Austin, TXPRICE: $1,475,000SIZE: 5,200 square feet, 4 bedroom, 5.5 bathroomsYOUR MAMAS NOTES: We apologize in advance for being a bit flat and little slow to get back up in the celebrity real estate saddle after the Memorial Day hiatus, most of which Your Mama spent sauced up on gin & tonics, nursing ailing pooches, watching tomatoes ripen and...

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Prosper.Com Class Action Lawsuit

I received notification today of a class action lawsuit against Prosper.com. It's been several years since I loaned money through them and, in the end, I decided it wasn't for me. I know a couple of my readers also loaned money through them. I just wanted to make people aware that, if you loaned money through Prosper between January 1,2006 and October 14, 2008, you may be a member of the class action suit. Full details can be found at http://www.prosperclassaction.c...

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Save Energy For Summer : Flip Your Ceiling Fan Rotation

Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer and, in many parts of the country, weekend weather was indistinguishable from what one might expect in August. Temperatures climbed into the 90s throughout the Southwest, South Central, Midwest and Southeast and even crossed 100 degrees in parts of Kansas. For homeowners with ceiling fans, the change of season offers a timely reminder to change the...

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Morning Real Estate Review

Builders woo buyers with smaller floor plans (Washington Post)  Builders are finally stepping away from McMansions as recession-era buyers focus on practicality, affordability.Lehman buys remaining stake in Archstone (Reuters)  Lehman pays $1.58 billion for the last chunk of the apartment giant.Rents higher near White House, Capitol (Washington Post) Shockingly, a Costar report says that rents are higher near the centers of power.   Rents seem to be at even more of a premium during...

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Today in Pictures - 455 Eye Street

Equity Residential's mixed-use redevelopment encompassing several historic properties at 443-459 Eye Street, NW is close to beginning construction.  With a predicted groundbreaking in August, and with Clark now signed up as the General Contractor, developers will soon begin tearing down the non-historic portion in favor of a residential tower with 174 units.  Hickock Cole Architects has...

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Your Next Place

By Franklin Schneider   Yeesh. I'm not the sort of person who's easily intimidated (when I was 21 and visiting friends in New York, I spotted a famous Calvin Klein model in a record store and immediately went over and chatted her up; she looked me up and down and without saying a word, turned and walked out the door) - but this historic Capitol Hill home was intimidatingly classy. I kept...

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End of Week Pick Up: Georges Marciano

SELLER: Georges MarcianoLOCATION: Beverly Hills, CAPRICE: $24,500,000SIZE: 19,590 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 9 bathroomsYOUR MAMAS NOTES: This one's for all the children out there who relish in a tetch of schadenfreude with their high-cost real estate scuttlebutt.All the international property gossips' tongues have been wagging this week over the Beverly Hills (CA) estate of legally and financially...

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MRP’s Penn Quarter “Trophy” Office Loses Investment Partner, Gains Investment Partner

MidAtlantic Realty Partners, LLC (or MRP) announced it has a new joint-venture partner in ASB Real Estate Investments to build its previously announced Class A “trophy” office building planned at the southwest corner of Ninth and G Streets in Penn Quarter and intends to begin construction this summer. The former investment partner was Rockpoint Group LLC.Regardless of the change in ownership, it doesn’t...

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HPRB Votes Down 16th Street Mixed-Use Church and Office Building Design

During a concept review hearing yesterday, the Historic Preservation Review Board voted 5 to 2 against granting The Third Church of Christ, Scientist and ICG 16th Street Associates, LLC an exception that would allow them to build a mixed-use church and office building more than 90 feet high at 910 16th Street (between K and I), where the church currently stands. This would have broken a restriction...

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30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Rates Fall To 3.78% Nationwide

For the fifth consecutive week, conforming 30-year fixed rate mortgage rates have dropped to new all-time lows. According to this week's Primary Mortgage Market Survey from Freddie Mac, "prime" mortgage applicants willing to pay 0.8 discount points plus closing costs can secure a mortgage rate of 3.78%, on average. This is a small improvement in rate over last week when the average 30-year fixed...

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Lady Antebellum's Dave Haywood Buys and Buys Again

BUYER: Dave HaywoodLOCATION: Nashville, TNPRICE: $2,100,000SIZE: 6,750 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 6 full and 2 half bathroomsYOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last week we picked apart the recent real estate activities of Lady Antebellum lead singer Charles Kelley who recently upgraded his living situation in Nashville, TN. Now comes word, via The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial that another of pop-country phenom's...

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