Existing Home Sales Climb To A 20-Month Record

January's home resales moved to a 20-month high -- additional evidence that the nation's housing recovery is underway.

According to the National Association of REALTORS®, the January 2012 Existing Home Sales showed 4.57 million units sold last month on a seasonally-adjusted, annualized basis -- a 4 percent increase as compared to December's revised figures.

An "existing home" is one that's been previously occupied and cannot be categorized as new construction.

Beyond the headline numbers, though, there was plenty about which for today's Seattle home sellers to get excited. Demand for homes remains strong, foreshadowing higher home prices through 2012.

First, the national housing stock is at a 5-year low.

In January, the number of homes for sale nationwide slipped to 2.31 million, the smallest home inventory since February 2007, and a 21% decrease from just one year ago.

Falling home supply amid constant home demand leads home prices higher. At the current pace of sales, today's complete home inventory would "sell out" in 6.1 months. 

Analysts say that a 6-month supply is a market in balance. Anything less is Bull Market territory.

Second, the National Association of REALTORS® says that one-third of all homes under contract "failed" last month. This means that many more buyers tried to buy, but couldn't for a number of reasons including mortgage denials; or, insurmountable home inspections issues; or, homes appraising for less than the contract price.

As contract failures subside, Existing Home Sales are expected to rise even faster.

And, lastly, first-time buyers continue to power the home resale market. In January, 33% of all sales were made to first-time buyers, up four points from last year. This statistic suggests that renters are moving into homeownership, an important component in a sustained housing market recovery.  

Given high demand and shrinking supply, we should expect for Fairwood home prices to rise in the coming months, if they haven't already. Thankfully, mortgage rates remain near all-time lows.

Low mortgage rates make homes more affordable.

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Morning Real Estate Review

Numerous indicators point to strong year in real estate (Realestaterama) Increased leasing velocity, the reemergence of speculative construction, and strong retail, manufacturing and transportation industry performance all signal the start of what very likely will be a positive year.

Trammell Crow gets financing for another NoMa office building (Globe St.) Sentinel Square II, a 270,000 s.f. office building, will be LEED Gold and meet stringent security standards.

The real reason to buy your own home (CNN Money) Hint: ever want to date again? Move out on your roommates and get your own place, that you own.

New York's BGC Partners lays out plans to buy bankrupt Grubb & Ellis (Business Journal) The purchase could have implications in the D.C. market as the 6th-ranked office rep gets snapped up.

Existing home sales rose in January, inventory down (Marketwire) The numbers are better than December and beat January of 2011.

A 5th Avenue experience for DC's 12th Street? (Globe St) With ESPN zone gone, planners envision multiple tenants in the large space to create a different shopping experience.

A new design for Fannie and Freddie (Washington Post) The mortgage giants should be weaned off life support and abandoned as an economic stimulus component.

Peterson Companies buys into Bethesda's Rock Spring (Washington Post) The developer of National Harbor gives injection to struggling mixed-use project.

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From Chiang Kai-Shek with Love

By Beth Herman

It was the year flailing New York crowds first welcomed The Beatles to "The Ed Sullivan Show." And though its own brand of fanfare was less about screams and more about shoji screens, a traditional 1960s 416-unit high-rise in Rockville, Md., with a decidedly Asian interior, went up to public acclaim at about the same time.

Renovated only once since then, in the 1980s, the quietly dignified Grosvenor Park III, 10401 Grosvenor Place, cautiously courted a more modern facelift, its loyal residents desiring to preserve as much of the building’s Far East legacy as possible. Manifested in such elements as jade-colored marble base molding, Japanese shoji screens, finely etched glass panels—a gift from Chinese General Chiang Kai-Shek—mounted in floor-to-ceiling teak, and both Chinese and Japanese artwork, time had nevertheless eroded and faded fabrics, furnishings and flooring. Glass panels had essentially become jaundiced with age. With the décor a mix of Chinese and Japanese, where the former is traditionally ornate and the latter very clean and spare, bringing the building’s 3,000-s.f. main lobby, elevator lobby, mail room, and reception and entry areas into the 21^st Century without sacrificing their heritage was a feat not easily undertaken.

“It didn’t look terrible, but there were elements that included (outdated) draperies all over the windows, and a terrazzo floor had cracked,” said owner/ principal JoAnn Zwally of Ashton Design Group, responsible for the redesign. “The reception counter was very old and had not even been changed in the last renovation. It was just not functional—dark wood and a design that really needed to be updated.”

The best of East and West

Embracing Shanghai and the luxe Peace Hotel (now the Fairmont Peace Hotel), to which she’d traveled, Zwally recalled singular Chinese art deco elements, including mosaics, deciding to base Grosvenor Park III’s redesign on the same. Working in tandem with building resident and design team head Alice Scherr, Zwally set about transforming the vast, dated lobby spaces and corridors of all 17 floors into modern quarters, the older incarnation’s blue and green hues manifested in a more contemporary and vibrant teal.

Culling obsolete wires and dormant cables from the reception area, and eliminating cluttered and confusing signage (only one sign currently exists), the designer replaced older materials with teak panels in an effort to mirror the treasured teak on the other side. “Today’s teak is not what it was the 1960s,” she said, “but we matched it as closely as we could.” The addition of a sleek, bi-level black granite and glass countertop with aluminum stanchions provides for staff privacy with a nod to modernity. A new soffit contains the lighting, and a newly-created wall conceals security monitoring equipment.

In the lobby, a Murano glass chandelier illuminates a curvilinear table, made from Bubinga—an exotic wood found largely around equatorial Africa—something Zwally designed herself from an antique she saw online. Art deco-style furnishings, including durable round-arm chairs by David Edwards, continue the theme, and computerized shades manipulate light and heat for energy conservation.

In a modern take on bread crumbs, Zwally integrated two large four-foot black diamond inserts and a few smaller ones into the floor of an elongated passageway, ushering residents to the elevator, and redolent of the rich black hue in the lobby space’s Chinese art deco rug. Dark-toned antique Asian doors at the end visually foreshorten the long trek.

Upstairs, Zwally swathed 17 floors in carpeting with a horizontal design strategy. Created to help proportionalize corridors 200 feet long but only five feet wide, “interlocking ovoids in different scales were used,” the designer said, larger in the more rectangular spaces where one exits the elevator and smaller where the hallways narrow. “We hand-measured every doorway because there were places where things were not exactly the same,” Zwally explained of the process, adding the carpet had to break strategically in between.

Shoji screens on every floor with a quiet, organic quality were obtained when the structure was built, though painted green in the prior renovation. This was something the Japanese culture would never do, according to Zwally, though residents were still quite partial to the screens. Accordingly, they were remade to look clean and contemporary, and reflect their natural origins.

With the addition of increased, though energy-efficient lighting fixtures, especially around the elevators, Zwally brightened the building’s public spaces considerably, ensuring residents and guests are able to savor the fruits of the redesign at any time of the day or night.

“Everything in this renovation is very durable,” Zwally said, speaking to the anticipated longevity of a large, public space. Chiang Kai-Shek, who lived nearly 88 years, would undoubtedly approve.

Photos courtesy of Geoffrey Hodgdon

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Real Estate Tycoon Donald Abbey Lists Bradbury Behemoth With Beastly $78,000,000 Price Tag

SELLER: Donald Abbey
LOCATION: Bradbury, CA
PRICE: $78,800,000
SIZE: 47,182 square feet (total), 5 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The 90210—that's Beverly Hills butter beans—may get heaps of press and glory as one of Southern California's most expensive and exclusive communities but it's the much lesser known 91008 community of Bradbury where some of the country's most expensive properties are bought and sold.

Believe it or not my little ponies but itty-bitty Bradbury, nestled into the rolling foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains a bit east of Pasadena and surrounded by far less affluent communities that include Duarte, Monrovia, and Azusa, is consistently ranked by the fine folks at Forbes as among the most expensive zip codes in all of the U-nited States of America. Although we did not spot the 91008 among the top 50 most expensive zips in the list compiled by Forbes for 2011, in 2009 Bradbury came in at #4 with a median home price of $3,44,773 and in 2010 the zip code ranked in at the #1 spot in 2010 with a staggering median home price of  $4,276,462.

Earlier today, thanks to The Bradbury Barker Your Mama learned what is easily Bradbury's largest and most lavish estate, built over the last 8 years by a real estate tycoon named Donald Abbey, hit the market to screams of flabbergast and a crash of cymbals with an whopping $78,000,000 price tag. No, puppies, Your Mama did not drunkenly add an extra zero. Mister Abbey's palatial pile actually carries a price tag of more than seventy-eight million bucks.


Let's run this opulent beast by the numbers and otherwise let the listing photographs speak for themselves: somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 landscaped acres; a 600-foot long gated driveway and double circular drive; Three-story, approximately 32,000 square foot mega-mansion main house with two-story library, behemoth reception hall/ballroom with 40-foot ceiling and built-in bar, and a colossal kitchen with copper range and barrel vaulted ceiling (that is perhaps lined with copper sheeting).

Listing information shows there are five bedrooms including two titanic master suites in the main house, one completely swaddled in a rather disturbing green (or maybe it's blue) stained wood paneling and the other with a gargantuan rotunda ceiling with trompe l'oeil architectural detailing and hand-painted frescos.

Other features of Mister Abbey's great estate in Bradbury include a 2,000 bottle wine cellar; six fireplaces; 3D theater and poker lounge; 10 car garage, a cross-shaped infinity-edged swimming pool (that may or may not be meant to make some sort of religious statement) and party-sized 15-person spa; sprawling house with lavish lounge, fitness and spa facilities; guest house, tennis court, temperature controlled trout pond with two-story waterfall, and a subterranean firing range.

And, let's not forget, a jaw-dropping price tag of $78,800,000, a number that may or may not be realistic—we don't know—but certainly guarantees to set all the property gossips tongues a-waggin'.

For the full photographic monty, listing agent Bob Hurwitz at the Hurwitz James Company set up a virtual tour sure to delight and/or mortify anyone interested the real estate affliction known in Your Mama's circle as Real Estate Size Queenery.

listing photos: Hurwitz James Company

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Oprah-owned Penthouse at Place 57 Up for Grabs

SELLER: Oprah Winfrey
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $7,900,000
SIZE: 2,530 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In January 2008 the juicy dish making its way down the New York City celebrity real estate gossip grapevine was that Oprah Winfrey's b.f.f. Gayle King—currently the co-anchor of CBS This Morning—coughed up a very considerable 7.1 million clams to acquire a glassy penthouse pad atop a sleek, newly built Midtown Manhattan tower called Place 57.

When all the deeds and documents were finally filed and recorded a few months later it was revealed by the New York Observer that the penthouse was more likely bought by Miz Winfrey and not Miz King. The evidence cited included that the names two of Miz Winfrey's known associates—accountant Lisa Gardina and Aspen-based attorney Gideon Kaufman—are listed in the purchase documents. However, in truth, Mister Kaufman's name also appears on the deeds and docs for Miz King's 10,000-plus square foot mansion in bucolic and baronial Greenwich, CT. More telling perhaps, as noted in the New York Observer and elsewhere, the Place 57 penthouse was purchased through a trust that seems to have been named after Miz Winfrey's beloved (but now deceased) cocker spaniel Sophie.

It was all very confusing, as these things sometimes are, but in spring 2011 Miz King invited the
cameras of decorator turned talk show hostess Nate Berkus for a somewhat limited tour of her New York City residence and the apartment shown is most certainly not the nearly all-glass penthouse pad on East 57th Street.

Anyhoodles poodles, late last night while grappling with a little insomnia Your Mama stumbled across the Oprah-owned penthouse at Place 57, now back on the market with an asking price of $7,900,000.

Current listing information shows the 36th floor spread has 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, 2,530 square feet of glass-wrapped interior space, and an additional 750-ish square foot wrap-around terrace with pulse racing and knee-bucking city views. Listing information shows the monthly common charges and taxes come up to a hefty but hardly unheard of $4,958 per month, more money than most people earn in a month but a relative pittance for a woman of Miz Winfrey's extraordinary riches.

The apartment, blessed with lofty 12-foot high ceiling, opens into an unforgivably slender, chute-like entrance hall that explodes in to a scalene triangle shaped dining and living space where two long walls of floor-to-ceiling glass converge in a (melo)dramatic (and perhaps a wee bit ham-handed) manner to provide a gigantic, birds-eye view that stretches from the George Washington Bridge, over Central Park, west towards New Jersey and south to the glittering towers of Midtown.

A swinging door in the dining area swings open to a light, bright, modern and expensively equipped but somewhat petite kitchen finished with flat-fronted cabinetry (that may or may not be white oak), charcoal-colored counter tops of unknown material, and chunky center island that does not, we note with chagrin and surprise, have a built-in breakfast bar component.

Two guest/family bedrooms, one with private bathroom the other with access to a hall bath as per the floor plan included with current listing information, occupy the northeast wing of the aerie. A short corridor behind the kitchen and off the entrance hall has a stacked washer/dryer closet and connects to the relatively petite master suite occupies that the southeast wing and includes three walk-in closets (two with windows), a spa-style pooper with jetted tub, separate shower and cubby for the terlit and bee-day.

The unfurnished penthouse gleams with newness and looks to Your Mama's admittedly tired and boozy eyes like it's never been lived in. Of course, we don't know a pea hen from a microwave oven so we really haven't an iota if Miz Winfrey—or Miz King or anyone else for that matter—ever spent a single night up in the Place 57 penthouse. For all we know the all but undecorated penthouse was used for little more than cocktail parties. Listing information does reveal, however, the walnut floors are "brand new" and the "state-of-the-art" kitchen is "barely used," language that indicates Miz Winfrey (or somebody) did at least a little cooking up in that kitchen.

Two guest/family bedrooms, one with private bathroom the other with access to a hall bath as per the floor plan included with current listing information, occupy the northeast wing of the aerie and the relatively petite master suite occupies the southeast wing and includes three walk-in closets (two with windows), a spa-style pooper with jetted tub, separate shower and cubby for the terlit and bee-day.

The Place 57 tower, located between 2nd and 3rd Avenues in the no-man's land between Fifth Avenue and Sutton Place, has a Vincente Wolf-designed Baccarat Crystal Lobby, whatever that is, and offers residents white glove services that include 24-7 doorman and concierge services, a fully equipped fitness center, thematically designed children's playrooms, residents-only conference rooms, and a Baccarat Crystal Garden, whatever the decorative devil that is.

As mentioned earlier, Miz King owns a 10,000-plus square foot mansion in Greenwich, CT she unsuccessfully attempted to sell back in June 2008 when it was listed with a $7,450,000 price tag. Although we can't be certain, it does not appear that Miz King's krib in Connecticut is currently on the (open) market.

Miz Winfrey, as billionaires typically do, owns a number of other high priced and high maintenance properties that include (but are not necessarily limited to) a four-unit duplex at the Water Tower Place complex in downtown Chicago, a plantation-style mansion on the island of Maui in Hawaii, and a massive 23,000 square foot mansion on 42-manicured acres in supah-swank Montecito, CA she picked up in 2001 for a mind altering $50,000,000.

Miz Winfrey also owns a number of small (and not so small) homes and condos in places like Douglasville, GA, Franklin, TN, Merrillville, IN and Elmwood Park, IL all of which we presume were acquired for use by various family members and/or close personal friends.

In 2007 Miz Winfrey dropped $5,600,000 on a 4,607 square foot condominium with 2 bedrooms, 3 full and 2 half bathrooms, and 2 car parking in a particularly posh Beaux Arts-style building in Chicago's swanky Streeterville neighborhood. The former chat show superstar, media mogul and generous global do-gooder reportedly never moved into the apartment that she put up for sale for about 6 months in 2008 for $6,000,000 and put up for lease late last year (2011) at $15,000 per month. The 6th floor Lake Shore Drive apartment remains listed for lease at $15,000 per month.

listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

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Georgia Avenue Groundbreaking Delayed Again

Groundbreaking for Guardian Realty's 13-story residential tower at 8711 Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring was delayed yet again because of the developer's indecision in choosing a general contractor, according to multiple (frustrated) sources. The project had been set to break ground at the end of January, but fell victim to Guardian's protracted pursuit of lower bids.

Guardian had no comment when contacted for this story.

Described as far back as 2008 as being on the "fast track," the project has flagged in recent years. Originally conceived as a 13-story Class A office tower, with ground-floor retail space, the project was switched to residential after the down economy made leasing difficult. (Location might also have been a factor - potential tenants who declined to lease at 8711 include corporate titans Northrup Grumman, Siemens, and Hilton, who all took offices elsewhere in the area.)

Developers anticipate a heightened demand for housing in the area after Walter Reed merges with the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. The site plan amendment, which left the original building's footprint almost entirely unchanged, was approved by Montgomery County planners in April 2011.

The new plan calls for 160 units in a thirteen story, 143-foot tall building on the 0.87 acre parcel, plus a bit of retail space (halved from 4,500 in the original plan). The WDG-designed building, which will open onto the forthcoming Fenton Street extension, also features a laudably adventurous "public arts plaza" designed by local artist Martha Jackson-Jarvis. The main feature of the plaza is a 75-foot "wave wall," a sort of flowing mosaic sculpture of varied textures that will "undulate like waves." Another, smaller, mosaic wall and a series of three-dimensional sculptures rounds out the space, and a mid-block pedestrian mall will connect the plaza to nearby Georgia Avenue.

At the April 2011 hearing for the site plan amendment, Brian Lang, representative of 8711 Georgia Avenue Parking Lot LLC, described the project as "liven[ing] up" a particularly "dark and dreary" stretch of Georgia Avenue. But before that happens, they'll have to actually build it.

Silver Spring real estate development news

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Foreclosure Filings Down 19 Percent In One Year

 

Foreclosure filings fell 19 percent last month versus one year ago, says foreclosure-tracking firm RealtyTrac. It's yet one more signal that the U.S. housing market may have already climbed off its bottom.

According to RealtyTrac, a "foreclosure filing" is any one of the following foreclosure-related events : (1) A default notice on a home; (2) A scheduled auction for a home; or, (3) A bank repossession of a home.

In looking at the January 2012 figures :

• Default Notices were down 22% from January 2011
• Scheduled Auctions were down 19% from January 2011
• Bank Repossessions were down 15% from January 2011

On a monthly basis, however, the numbers weren't so promising.

Default notices and scheduled auctions were mostly unchanged, but bank repossessions rose 8 percent. The rise in bank repossessions is likely because 2010's robo-signing controversy has been rectified at the state and lender level.

This trend toward more bank-owned homes is expected to continue through 2012.

As in most months, January's foreclosure activity was geographically concentrated. Nevada led the nation in Foreclosures Per Capita, followed closely by California. 13 states fared worse than the national average of 1 foreclosure per 624 households. 37 fared better.

The difference in foreclosure frequency among the two groupings was stark :

• Top 13 Foreclosure States : 1 foreclosure per 435 households, on average
• Bottom 37 Foreclosure States : 1 foreclosure per 5,101 households, on average

North Dakota had January's lowest foreclosure rate nationwide. Just 1 in 63,500 homes was in some form of foreclosure in North Dakota last month.

As a first-time or seasoned buyer in Kent , foreclosed homes can be enticing. They're plentiful and cheap. However, just because a foreclosed home can be bought for a "steal", that doesn't mean it's worth buying. The process of buying a foreclosed homes is different from the process of buying a non-foreclosed home.

The contract-and-negotiation process may be different with a foreclosed property, and foreclosed homes are often sold "as-is". This means the home you buy at auction could be run-down and defective to the point where it's uninhabitable.

If you plan to buy a foreclosed home, therefore, have a real estate professional on your side. The internet can teach you much about how the WA housing market works, but when it comes to writing contracts, you'll want an experienced agent on your side.

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