(Comment) JOHANNESBURG (February 03) - Estate agents are generally restricted by stock shortages in townships and have to revert to alternative methods of securing stock.
Unlike their counterparts in the traditional white suburbs where the client usually contacts the estate agent to assist him in selling his property, township estate agents have to “find” their clients.
A recent survey of township estate agents (mainly operating in Soweto) commissioned by First National Bank (FNB) revealed that there are some very different dynamics when comparing the township and traditional white suburb property markets.
Sourcing property stock in the townships
Most often, estate agents source their business by:
* Using “knock and drops” – i.e. distribution of pamphlets in mailboxes asking potential clients to contact the estate agent if they are thinking of selling their home.
* Estate agents walking from door to door offering their expertise in selling property.
* Estate agents look for properties that have evidence of renovation (for example, recently painted, additions, new gates, etc) and approach these owners to enquire about their intention to sell.
* Offering home owners free valuations on their property.
* Referrals and word of mouth are other ways of sourcing properties that these estate agents rely on quite heavily.
In addition, show houses don’t happen. This is mainly due to security concerns and protecting the privacy of the seller. For the same reasons, “For Sale” signs are not commonplace.
So, estate agents revert to driving the potential buyer around to view a range of properties that fit the buyers’ needs. Hence, considerable time and cost on the estate agents part is involved in securing a sale. To this end, it is important that potential buyers are vetted upfront in the process so that the estate agent ensures that they limit their efforts to “good” clients.
Determining the value of township property
Generally, the estate agents operating in townships agree that location is the key in determining property prices. In Soweto, for instance, suburbs such as Diepkloof Extension and Orlando, that are closer to the Johannesburg CBD, have seen greater price growth than those further away. Property in new developments, which are generally located far out, are often not sought after due to the distance that the owner would need to travel to work. Areas close to commuting routes are also more popular than those that are further away.
With location, the size of the house, the quality of the building work and the extent to which renovations have been done, all determine the value of a property.
Estate agents consider the following types of renovations to be the most important in adding value to a home:
* Installation of aluminium windows
* Re-plastering and re-painting
* Making improvements to flooring, particularly tiling of bathrooms
* Adding a garage
* Putting up walls around the property and installing electric gates
* Paving outside areas
* “De-cluttering” of the living and outside areas – i.e. neatness
Proximity to schools and shopping centres is also a factor affecting desirability of property and hence its value. Safety issues are paramount and properties with good security will also fetch a higher price. Finally, having peace and tranquility is also valued by some to be an important component of the appeal of a property.
The Internet is an important source of potential property buyers
Estate agents consider affordability to be the major challenge facing the township property market and given the effort that they need to put in to secure a sale, most estate agents prefer to qualify their potential client upfront. This eliminates any wasted time and cost for the estate agent.
One of the ways of advertising a property for sale is to use the internet. This may be the agency’s own website or a multi listing site. The majority of agents prefer to deal with potential buyers that contact them via this medium as they believe that the internet acts as a type of “screening” mechanism for them. In their experience, estate agents claim that internet sourced potential buyers are more likely to be more sophisticated than the walk-in buyer. The internet sourced buyer probably earns more, and estate agents have found that there is a higher percentage of these buyers that qualify for a home loan than potential buyers coming from any other source.
By Lynette Nicholson
Research Manager, First National Bank Home Loans
February 03, 2008
HUD secretary urges homeowners to get help to avoid foreclosure
Maria HerreraSouth Florida Sun-Sentinel
Released : Sunday, February 03, 2008 3:00 AM
Feb. 3--BOYNTON BEACH -- Some took notes frantically, as if in a college classroom. Others sunk their heads in their hands as if to hide their confusion and desperation.
But all who attended a forum Saturday at Boynton Beach High School hoped to learn something to keep foreclosure at bay.
More than 200 people attended the Home Preservation Forum, a United Way of Palm Beach County event to educate homeowners on how to save their homes from foreclosure. The forum featured keynote speakers from financial institutions, the Palm Beach County Commission on Affordable Housing, the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County and Alphonso Jackson, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
"With all the changes in the economy, the first thing you want to do is learn how to protect your home," said Onieda Rodriguez, of Delray Beach.
Rodriguez is a single mother with three children. She has a good job with an information technology company and has not fallen behind on her mortgage payments.
But "it's scary," she said of the current fallout in the real estate market in Florida and talk of foreclosures and recession. "There is no such thing as job security and you always have to have a backup plan."
After five years of fast sales and record price increases, South Florida's housing market soured in 2006. Some analysts expected it to improve by late 2007, but the slump deepened as foreclosure filings and the inventory of homes for sale spiked. Then, last summer's credit crunch forced lenders to tighten standards, which reduced the pool of qualified buyers.
"The housing crisis has been a powerful, staggering shock to our economy," Jackson told the audience. "Millions of homeowners have felt it ... the ripple effect touches financial institutions and governments everywhere."
Analysts say the housing slump will worsen early in 2008 as more adjustable-rate mortgages jump, sending homeowners into foreclosure and adding to the glut of properties for sale.
However severe the crisis, Jackson said, help is available. There are counseling services, and programs homeowners can seek to save their homes.
"The housing crisis must not steal away our dreams," he said.
Jose Varga is trying to hold on to his house in West Palm Beach. His problems started when he lost his job in October. After two months of unemployment, he fell behind on his payments. He was hoping to learn Saturday how to negotiate with the lender to keep his house.
"When I call, they tell me to pay or they will take my house," he said. "I want to make some kind of arrangement so that I can pay and keep it."
Vargas' credit wasn't strong enough to qualify for a mortgage with a low interest rate. On top of that, his home's value declined from $330,000 to $250,000 last year.
"I'm trapped," he said. "I can't even sell it to pay my mortgage and move to a more affordable place farther north."
Jackson, who is touring the country attending forums, said the situation is similar nationwide. He said that at a forum in Detroit, more than 200 people showed up with similar stories.
"It shows you the depth of the problem," Jackson said. "But it also shows you the problem can be resolved."
Jackson said it is important for homeowners to learn about the help available and what they can do to keep their homes.
Most people at the forum said they were embarrassed to talk publicly about their foreclosure problems. Most had fallen behind on their mortgages because they lost their jobs in construction or their interest rates were set so high they can't make the payments anymore.
"Nobody wants to be seen as a failure," Jackson said. "These people have worked hard all their lives to become a homeowner, to be part of the community."
Maria Herrera can be reached at meherrera@sun-sentinel. com or 561-243-6544.
To see more of The South Florida Sun-Sentinel or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sun-sentinel.com/. Copyright (c) 2008, South Florida Sun-Sentinel Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Provider:
Knight-Ridder / Tribune Business News / South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Keywords:
Mortgage Banking, Banking, U.S. Retail Banking Services, U.S. Banking, U.S. Business News, Business News, Consumer Finance, Financial Services, Top World News, Americas, North America, Urban Housing Policy, U.S. Housing & Urban Development, USA, MSNBC Business Video News, North American Banking, North American Business News, North American Financial Services, Housing, North American Real Estate, Real Estate, Retail Banking Services, Subprime Lending, U.S. News, Florida, U.S. Financial Services, U.S.
Released : Sunday, February 03, 2008 3:00 AM
Feb. 3--BOYNTON BEACH -- Some took notes frantically, as if in a college classroom. Others sunk their heads in their hands as if to hide their confusion and desperation.
But all who attended a forum Saturday at Boynton Beach High School hoped to learn something to keep foreclosure at bay.
More than 200 people attended the Home Preservation Forum, a United Way of Palm Beach County event to educate homeowners on how to save their homes from foreclosure. The forum featured keynote speakers from financial institutions, the Palm Beach County Commission on Affordable Housing, the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County and Alphonso Jackson, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
"With all the changes in the economy, the first thing you want to do is learn how to protect your home," said Onieda Rodriguez, of Delray Beach.
Rodriguez is a single mother with three children. She has a good job with an information technology company and has not fallen behind on her mortgage payments.
But "it's scary," she said of the current fallout in the real estate market in Florida and talk of foreclosures and recession. "There is no such thing as job security and you always have to have a backup plan."
After five years of fast sales and record price increases, South Florida's housing market soured in 2006. Some analysts expected it to improve by late 2007, but the slump deepened as foreclosure filings and the inventory of homes for sale spiked. Then, last summer's credit crunch forced lenders to tighten standards, which reduced the pool of qualified buyers.
"The housing crisis has been a powerful, staggering shock to our economy," Jackson told the audience. "Millions of homeowners have felt it ... the ripple effect touches financial institutions and governments everywhere."
Analysts say the housing slump will worsen early in 2008 as more adjustable-rate mortgages jump, sending homeowners into foreclosure and adding to the glut of properties for sale.
However severe the crisis, Jackson said, help is available. There are counseling services, and programs homeowners can seek to save their homes.
"The housing crisis must not steal away our dreams," he said.
Jose Varga is trying to hold on to his house in West Palm Beach. His problems started when he lost his job in October. After two months of unemployment, he fell behind on his payments. He was hoping to learn Saturday how to negotiate with the lender to keep his house.
"When I call, they tell me to pay or they will take my house," he said. "I want to make some kind of arrangement so that I can pay and keep it."
Vargas' credit wasn't strong enough to qualify for a mortgage with a low interest rate. On top of that, his home's value declined from $330,000 to $250,000 last year.
"I'm trapped," he said. "I can't even sell it to pay my mortgage and move to a more affordable place farther north."
Jackson, who is touring the country attending forums, said the situation is similar nationwide. He said that at a forum in Detroit, more than 200 people showed up with similar stories.
"It shows you the depth of the problem," Jackson said. "But it also shows you the problem can be resolved."
Jackson said it is important for homeowners to learn about the help available and what they can do to keep their homes.
Most people at the forum said they were embarrassed to talk publicly about their foreclosure problems. Most had fallen behind on their mortgages because they lost their jobs in construction or their interest rates were set so high they can't make the payments anymore.
"Nobody wants to be seen as a failure," Jackson said. "These people have worked hard all their lives to become a homeowner, to be part of the community."
Maria Herrera can be reached at meherrera@sun-sentinel. com or 561-243-6544.
To see more of The South Florida Sun-Sentinel or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sun-sentinel.com/. Copyright (c) 2008, South Florida Sun-Sentinel Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Provider:
Knight-Ridder / Tribune Business News / South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Keywords:
Mortgage Banking, Banking, U.S. Retail Banking Services, U.S. Banking, U.S. Business News, Business News, Consumer Finance, Financial Services, Top World News, Americas, North America, Urban Housing Policy, U.S. Housing & Urban Development, USA, MSNBC Business Video News, North American Banking, North American Business News, North American Financial Services, Housing, North American Real Estate, Real Estate, Retail Banking Services, Subprime Lending, U.S. News, Florida, U.S. Financial Services, U.S.
Mayor pushes housing fund: Norris wants portion of real estate levy, lodging tax set aside
Feb 02, 2008 (The Daily Progress - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris is pushing his fellow city councilors to set aside each year 2 cents of the real estate property tax and 25 percent of the city's lodging tax revenues for affordable housing programs -- a total this year of more than $1.7 million.
Establishing a devoted source would ensure that housing initiatives are not susceptible to the whims of councilors or the vagaries of the economy, proponents say.
"My main interest is getting a sustained and dedicated revenue source so we don't have this annual fight for every penny," Norris said.
The council is slated to take up the issue Monday.
Councilor Holly Edwards has previously stated her desire for a dedicated stream, while Councilor Julian Taliaferro said he generally supports the concept.
Some other councilors, however, have reservations. David Brown said he is wary of tying the hands of future councils by establishing a dedicated stream. If the council goes in that direction, he said, those who support increased spending on the bus system or city infrastructure might also push for sustained revenue sources.
"I'm leery of dedicating pennies on the tax rate to anything," he added. "I think every council has to look at the overall budget and decide where its priorities are."
Councilor Satyendra Huja said he supports in principle the creation of a dedicated stream but believes the council should hold off on setting an exact figure until it begins crafting the fiscal 2009 budget next month.
"I think it should be done at the same time as the other issues in the budget, so all the issues get a fair hearing together," he said.
This year the city has made an unprecedented commitment of $2.15 million to start an affordable housing trust fund, a huge jump from the $580,000 for such programs in the fiscal 2007 budget. Of the current year's funding, $1.5 million is from surplus dollars, while the rest comes from the city's general fund.
But city staffers are recommending that the upcoming budget include only $1.4 million for such initiatives -- a 36 percent decrease.
Norris and other affordable housing advocates are looking to boost that number and believe creating a dedicated stream from tax revenues is the best way to do so.
"I think affordable housing continues to be our biggest challenge and this is not the time to be retreating from that commitment," Norris said.
As part of this new package, the council will discuss ways to increase developer contributions to the affordable housing trust fund. While Albemarle County requires that 15 percent of units in a rezoned development be set aside at affordable rates, or that a developer contribute a comparable amount of money to a housing fund, Charlottesville has no such rules.
One reason is that the city receives few rezoning requests for which it can expect developer contributions. In 2007, only two such projects came forward and only one included an affordable housing contribution -- for $300,000.
"We have to create some real incentives for developer contributions and bring the development community to the table so they can be a part of the solution," Norris said.
Help may soon come from the General Assembly. Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath County, and Del. David J. Toscano, D-Charlottesville, have both introduced legislation that would allow the city to give developers more density in return for affordable housing contributions.
But councilors insist that the lack of affordable housing is a regional issue and the burden cannot be placed solely on Charlottesville. While the city is spending $2.1 million on housing initiatives this year, Albemarle is putting forward $330,000, plus an additional $300,000 received from a developer.
Councilors would like county supervisors to put more money toward affordable housing in the upcoming budget.
"I'm not saying the county needs to have an equal commitment, but the city cannot be expected to solve what is a regional problem," Brown said.
Establishing a devoted source would ensure that housing initiatives are not susceptible to the whims of councilors or the vagaries of the economy, proponents say.
"My main interest is getting a sustained and dedicated revenue source so we don't have this annual fight for every penny," Norris said.
The council is slated to take up the issue Monday.
Councilor Holly Edwards has previously stated her desire for a dedicated stream, while Councilor Julian Taliaferro said he generally supports the concept.
Some other councilors, however, have reservations. David Brown said he is wary of tying the hands of future councils by establishing a dedicated stream. If the council goes in that direction, he said, those who support increased spending on the bus system or city infrastructure might also push for sustained revenue sources.
"I'm leery of dedicating pennies on the tax rate to anything," he added. "I think every council has to look at the overall budget and decide where its priorities are."
Councilor Satyendra Huja said he supports in principle the creation of a dedicated stream but believes the council should hold off on setting an exact figure until it begins crafting the fiscal 2009 budget next month.
"I think it should be done at the same time as the other issues in the budget, so all the issues get a fair hearing together," he said.
This year the city has made an unprecedented commitment of $2.15 million to start an affordable housing trust fund, a huge jump from the $580,000 for such programs in the fiscal 2007 budget. Of the current year's funding, $1.5 million is from surplus dollars, while the rest comes from the city's general fund.
But city staffers are recommending that the upcoming budget include only $1.4 million for such initiatives -- a 36 percent decrease.
Norris and other affordable housing advocates are looking to boost that number and believe creating a dedicated stream from tax revenues is the best way to do so.
"I think affordable housing continues to be our biggest challenge and this is not the time to be retreating from that commitment," Norris said.
As part of this new package, the council will discuss ways to increase developer contributions to the affordable housing trust fund. While Albemarle County requires that 15 percent of units in a rezoned development be set aside at affordable rates, or that a developer contribute a comparable amount of money to a housing fund, Charlottesville has no such rules.
One reason is that the city receives few rezoning requests for which it can expect developer contributions. In 2007, only two such projects came forward and only one included an affordable housing contribution -- for $300,000.
"We have to create some real incentives for developer contributions and bring the development community to the table so they can be a part of the solution," Norris said.
Help may soon come from the General Assembly. Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath County, and Del. David J. Toscano, D-Charlottesville, have both introduced legislation that would allow the city to give developers more density in return for affordable housing contributions.
But councilors insist that the lack of affordable housing is a regional issue and the burden cannot be placed solely on Charlottesville. While the city is spending $2.1 million on housing initiatives this year, Albemarle is putting forward $330,000, plus an additional $300,000 received from a developer.
Councilors would like county supervisors to put more money toward affordable housing in the upcoming budget.
"I'm not saying the county needs to have an equal commitment, but the city cannot be expected to solve what is a regional problem," Brown said.
Homer contractor, Realtor has 'flipped' more than 30 houses
HOMER — With nearly 30 houses purchased, renovated and resold under his belt, it is no wonder people call Darian O'Dell "the house guy."
"It's all houses all the time," said O'Dell, a contractor and Realtor, referring to The Learning Channel show "Flip That House." "There's houses that need to be flipped everywhere."
O'Dell refers to the houses he rehabilitates as "fixers and flippers," but the similarity of his work to that done on the show ends there. It would be like comparing a lipstick job to a Mary Kay makeover.
"They don't do the extent that we do," the 38-year-old O'Dell said. "We gut them down to the studs, rearrange rooms (and) layouts and put absolutely everything new in them."
O'Dell earned a Bachelor of Science degree in management with a minor in marketing from Central Michigan University. The construction bug bit him after he purchased his first home and remodeled it to meet his family's needs. He tore out an old garage in back of the house, built on a new one and doubled the living space.
"I do enjoy saving houses," said O'Dell, who is married with two children. "This is what got me started: doing one myself."
At that time, eight years ago, he was working in the retail sector and thinking about how Americans make money. The only thing that seemed attainable to him was real estate.
So he bought his first sale property, he said, and it "seemed like we worked all our free weekends and nights" fixing the place up. The work took a year that way, but after he saw the profit that could be made, he ditched the retail work.
"I quit my job the Friday before Sept. 11 and when all that went down, I wondered why I quit my job," O'Dell said.
"Then, of course, one thing leads to another," he said,
smiling.
He initially became licensed as a contractor and started Hired Hands Construction. Then, three years ago, he was licensed as a Realtor. He became a broker in November and opened Spotlight Realty.
The work suits him better, O'Dell said, since he likes to live casually — wearing shorts 24 hours a day, year-round. Now he is becoming just as busy a Realtor as he is with the construction work.
"It all kind of breeds one another," he said.
O'Dell's teams operate concurrently. One team is working on a duplex on Leigh Street — which they will convert to a single-family dwelling — while another team recently finished and sold a house on Adams Street.
He will buy "pretty much any house that doesn't have pest damage or structural trouble." The houses have been varied but seem to have two things in common, O'Dell said.
"There's always a pink room in every house we buy ... (and) they're all ugly, always," he said.
Julie Yeider, a teacher in the Homer district, bought the Adams Street house, eyeing it as a potential dwelling for her family of five while it was still being worked on.
"We walked through it and fell in love with it," Jack Yeider, her husband, said.
The 2,600-square-foot house has five bedrooms; two large baths; new electric wiring, heating, kitchens, baths, siding, roofing and flooring; and a main floor laundry. Counters in the kitchen and bathroom are granite, and the walls are painted "the color of money," a shade O'Dell has custom-made for his houses.
"We really like what he did to the house," said Jack Yeider. "He definitely picks things that just about everybody should like."
O'Dell, who also is vice president of the Homer Area Chamber of Commerce, works primarily in the Homer area, where he grew up and still lives. He has rehabilitated some houses in Litchfield and Marshall, and has done some commercial and fire restoration.
The houses take around three months and up to $60,000 to turn around, and quite a bit of the material is recycled or put on the curb for others to haul off free.
O'Dell is an energetic and capable person, Village President Chris Miller said.
"We think he's doing a very fine job, exactly what the village needs, and we wish him all the success in the world," Miller said.
The houses bring in new families — benefitting area schools — and the property is put on the tax rolls at a higher tax base. The neighborhood is usually improved significantly because it seems to spur neighbors to clean up their properties, O'Dell said.
"We funnel the money back in locally as much as we can," O'Dell said. "Everybody wins is what I like."
Kathryn Hemenway is a freelance writer.
"It's all houses all the time," said O'Dell, a contractor and Realtor, referring to The Learning Channel show "Flip That House." "There's houses that need to be flipped everywhere."
O'Dell refers to the houses he rehabilitates as "fixers and flippers," but the similarity of his work to that done on the show ends there. It would be like comparing a lipstick job to a Mary Kay makeover.
"They don't do the extent that we do," the 38-year-old O'Dell said. "We gut them down to the studs, rearrange rooms (and) layouts and put absolutely everything new in them."
O'Dell earned a Bachelor of Science degree in management with a minor in marketing from Central Michigan University. The construction bug bit him after he purchased his first home and remodeled it to meet his family's needs. He tore out an old garage in back of the house, built on a new one and doubled the living space.
"I do enjoy saving houses," said O'Dell, who is married with two children. "This is what got me started: doing one myself."
At that time, eight years ago, he was working in the retail sector and thinking about how Americans make money. The only thing that seemed attainable to him was real estate.
So he bought his first sale property, he said, and it "seemed like we worked all our free weekends and nights" fixing the place up. The work took a year that way, but after he saw the profit that could be made, he ditched the retail work.
"I quit my job the Friday before Sept. 11 and when all that went down, I wondered why I quit my job," O'Dell said.
"Then, of course, one thing leads to another," he said,
smiling.
He initially became licensed as a contractor and started Hired Hands Construction. Then, three years ago, he was licensed as a Realtor. He became a broker in November and opened Spotlight Realty.
The work suits him better, O'Dell said, since he likes to live casually — wearing shorts 24 hours a day, year-round. Now he is becoming just as busy a Realtor as he is with the construction work.
"It all kind of breeds one another," he said.
O'Dell's teams operate concurrently. One team is working on a duplex on Leigh Street — which they will convert to a single-family dwelling — while another team recently finished and sold a house on Adams Street.
He will buy "pretty much any house that doesn't have pest damage or structural trouble." The houses have been varied but seem to have two things in common, O'Dell said.
"There's always a pink room in every house we buy ... (and) they're all ugly, always," he said.
Julie Yeider, a teacher in the Homer district, bought the Adams Street house, eyeing it as a potential dwelling for her family of five while it was still being worked on.
"We walked through it and fell in love with it," Jack Yeider, her husband, said.
The 2,600-square-foot house has five bedrooms; two large baths; new electric wiring, heating, kitchens, baths, siding, roofing and flooring; and a main floor laundry. Counters in the kitchen and bathroom are granite, and the walls are painted "the color of money," a shade O'Dell has custom-made for his houses.
"We really like what he did to the house," said Jack Yeider. "He definitely picks things that just about everybody should like."
O'Dell, who also is vice president of the Homer Area Chamber of Commerce, works primarily in the Homer area, where he grew up and still lives. He has rehabilitated some houses in Litchfield and Marshall, and has done some commercial and fire restoration.
The houses take around three months and up to $60,000 to turn around, and quite a bit of the material is recycled or put on the curb for others to haul off free.
O'Dell is an energetic and capable person, Village President Chris Miller said.
"We think he's doing a very fine job, exactly what the village needs, and we wish him all the success in the world," Miller said.
The houses bring in new families — benefitting area schools — and the property is put on the tax rolls at a higher tax base. The neighborhood is usually improved significantly because it seems to spur neighbors to clean up their properties, O'Dell said.
"We funnel the money back in locally as much as we can," O'Dell said. "Everybody wins is what I like."
Kathryn Hemenway is a freelance writer.
Modern condos to change city's hub
CONCORD: As downtown grows, developers hope market downturn won't hurt sales
By Tanya Rose
STAFF WRITER
Article Launched: 02/03/2008 03:06:46 AM PST
Lehmer's Oldsmobile sat on one of Concord's most high-profile intersections for seven decades -- easily the city's oldest car dealership. Owned by a local family, the business enjoyed great success, even though people couldn't see it from the freeway.
But then its employees and proprietors watched from their spot at Galindo Street and Willow Pass Road as downtown Concord changed around them. Soon, the one-story building looked out of place among the new office complexes, the snazzy high-rises and the multiscreen movie theater across the street.
So when patriarch Erv Lehmer died at age 90 in 2004, the family decided to sell the land and move the dealership.
Immediately, plans for hundreds of modern condominiums on the old Lehmer's spot were revealed.
The Signature Properties project would be called the Renaissance, officials said, and would have a Mediterranean theme. It would boast 314 condominiums, and would attract young professionals and families in droves.
After years of waiting, the first phase of the project -- 100 condos -- is set to have an opening party Feb. 23. People can start buying them in March or April. The remaining units will be built between now and 2010, spilling north on Willow Pass Road and along Concord Avenue.
Five years from now, there will have been 1,000 new single-family units-- whether apartments, condos or townhouses -- built in Concord since 2004, said John Montagh, the city's business development manager.
And most of those are within walking or short driving distance of Concord's urban core, Todos Santos Plaza. These new residents are expected to work downtown, to shop downtown, to patronize downtown restaurants.
"Not everyone wants to live in San Francisco to get that urban experience," said Mike Ghielmetti, president of Signature Properties.
"The city has had a good vision. They wanted to enliven the downtown, and there have been some great businesses that have opened up in the last few years, plus new landscaping," he said.
"All that is cool stuff, and we want to be a part of it," he said.
Businesses around Todos Santos, some of which thrived alongside the Lehmers and have been hearing about the condos for years, couldn't be more thrilled.
"More people, more housing; that's always good for business," said Raees Iqbal, who has owned Western Vacuum Center on Salvio Street for the past eight years.
"When the Legacy apartments opened up down the street, all those people started coming in," he said, referring to the luxury Legacy Apartments a few blocks away from the Renaissance on Galindo Street.
"People who had been coming here a long time were starting to say they couldn't find parking, and I worry about that, about the infrastructure, but overall, it's good," he said.
Matt Dalton, manager of Half Price Books, said his store has seen more customers, not only because of new housing but because of the expanding farmers market series and other events and concerts held in the town square.
"We're really excited," he said.
Jim Forsberg, Concord's director of planning and economic development, said the city has tried to create a business hub complimented by retail, restaurants and housing, all within walking distance of one another.
"Every city has its own energy and character, but I think Concord is the only one that has BART downtown," Forsberg said. "Pair that with everything else, and pretty soon you have critical mass in jobs and housing. It's all there. And then we won't have to work so hard to get developers to come. They'll just want to come."
Montagh, the city's business development manager, said condominiums aren't the only new assets. He said there will be a new Una Mas restaurant opening downtown in the next month, along with a new salon and maybe a sit-down restaurant to compliment such existing places as Toscana and E.J. Phair Brewing Company and Alehouse.
As for Renaissance, there's no word yet on the pricing. In early 2006, the condos were to be priced around $400,000 to $575,000. But the downturn in the market could change that.
"The market is lower, no doubt. But the project is unique in that you can't really find new condominiums so close to an urban core," Ghielmetti said. "We're still finalizing the pricing. We'll know more in a month or so."
The one-, two- and three-bedroom condos will be between 800 and 1,700 square feet. Ghielmetti said some will have mezzanines and bonus rooms. The complex will have a pool, spa, gym and other amenities.
Reach Tanya Rose at 925-943-8345 or trose@bayareanewsgroup.com.
online
www.renaissanceinconcord.com
By Tanya Rose
STAFF WRITER
Article Launched: 02/03/2008 03:06:46 AM PST
Lehmer's Oldsmobile sat on one of Concord's most high-profile intersections for seven decades -- easily the city's oldest car dealership. Owned by a local family, the business enjoyed great success, even though people couldn't see it from the freeway.
But then its employees and proprietors watched from their spot at Galindo Street and Willow Pass Road as downtown Concord changed around them. Soon, the one-story building looked out of place among the new office complexes, the snazzy high-rises and the multiscreen movie theater across the street.
So when patriarch Erv Lehmer died at age 90 in 2004, the family decided to sell the land and move the dealership.
Immediately, plans for hundreds of modern condominiums on the old Lehmer's spot were revealed.
The Signature Properties project would be called the Renaissance, officials said, and would have a Mediterranean theme. It would boast 314 condominiums, and would attract young professionals and families in droves.
After years of waiting, the first phase of the project -- 100 condos -- is set to have an opening party Feb. 23. People can start buying them in March or April. The remaining units will be built between now and 2010, spilling north on Willow Pass Road and along Concord Avenue.
Five years from now, there will have been 1,000 new single-family units-- whether apartments, condos or townhouses -- built in Concord since 2004, said John Montagh, the city's business development manager.
And most of those are within walking or short driving distance of Concord's urban core, Todos Santos Plaza. These new residents are expected to work downtown, to shop downtown, to patronize downtown restaurants.
"Not everyone wants to live in San Francisco to get that urban experience," said Mike Ghielmetti, president of Signature Properties.
"The city has had a good vision. They wanted to enliven the downtown, and there have been some great businesses that have opened up in the last few years, plus new landscaping," he said.
"All that is cool stuff, and we want to be a part of it," he said.
Businesses around Todos Santos, some of which thrived alongside the Lehmers and have been hearing about the condos for years, couldn't be more thrilled.
"More people, more housing; that's always good for business," said Raees Iqbal, who has owned Western Vacuum Center on Salvio Street for the past eight years.
"When the Legacy apartments opened up down the street, all those people started coming in," he said, referring to the luxury Legacy Apartments a few blocks away from the Renaissance on Galindo Street.
"People who had been coming here a long time were starting to say they couldn't find parking, and I worry about that, about the infrastructure, but overall, it's good," he said.
Matt Dalton, manager of Half Price Books, said his store has seen more customers, not only because of new housing but because of the expanding farmers market series and other events and concerts held in the town square.
"We're really excited," he said.
Jim Forsberg, Concord's director of planning and economic development, said the city has tried to create a business hub complimented by retail, restaurants and housing, all within walking distance of one another.
"Every city has its own energy and character, but I think Concord is the only one that has BART downtown," Forsberg said. "Pair that with everything else, and pretty soon you have critical mass in jobs and housing. It's all there. And then we won't have to work so hard to get developers to come. They'll just want to come."
Montagh, the city's business development manager, said condominiums aren't the only new assets. He said there will be a new Una Mas restaurant opening downtown in the next month, along with a new salon and maybe a sit-down restaurant to compliment such existing places as Toscana and E.J. Phair Brewing Company and Alehouse.
As for Renaissance, there's no word yet on the pricing. In early 2006, the condos were to be priced around $400,000 to $575,000. But the downturn in the market could change that.
"The market is lower, no doubt. But the project is unique in that you can't really find new condominiums so close to an urban core," Ghielmetti said. "We're still finalizing the pricing. We'll know more in a month or so."
The one-, two- and three-bedroom condos will be between 800 and 1,700 square feet. Ghielmetti said some will have mezzanines and bonus rooms. The complex will have a pool, spa, gym and other amenities.
Reach Tanya Rose at 925-943-8345 or trose@bayareanewsgroup.com.
online
www.renaissanceinconcord.com
Mydeco: the new website that helps you design your home online
Mydeco is a new site that lets you plan your decor online, then buy the products you need. Our correspondent tests it and checks out its rivals
When I bought my two-bedroom flat in southwest London four years ago, its white walls, neutral carpets and basic but functional kitchen meant I could move in pretty much straightaway. Bar buying the odd bit of Ikea furniture, I did nothing to the place.
Now, though, the moth-infested carpet, peeling kitchen lino and slightly grubby walls are starting to depress me. It’s time for a makeover. But where to start? The options are endless and, despite spending hours poring over interiors magazines, I’m terrified I’ll ruin everything – especially on my limited budget of about £1,000 per room.
I could employ an interior designer, but they don’t come cheap: Alan Hughes, vice-principal of the Inchbald School of Design, in central London, says that even the most junior interior designer costs £20-£25 an hour – or at least £160 a day. If you want an established name, expect to pay far more: Helen Green Design, for example, charges 10% of the cost of every project, the cheapest of which is usually not less than £10,000.
Help could be at hand, however, with the launch of a new website. Mydeco, which goes live tomorrow, is the latest venture by Martha Lane Fox, 34, and Brent Hoberman, 39, who made their names – and fortunes – when they founded Lastminute.com, then survived the dotcom crash. Their new site allows people to create a virtual version of their home in order to experiment online with paint, wallpaper, flooring, furniture and lighting – all of which you can then buy through the site.
As part of the aim of creating a “design community”, others can then comment on your virtual room, suggest ideas and even, if they are sufficiently inspired, buy one of the items of furniture in it themselves – giving you, the “designer”, a cut. You can also “befriend” the site’s official designers (Kelly Hoppen and John Stefanidis, among others) and pick up some style pointers from them.
“Between 50% and 60% of people need pictorial representation of something to visualise it,” says Hoberman, who had the idea for Mydeco when he bought a house and couldn’t picture what he could do with it – despite being married to an interior designer. And, he adds, the level of choice today just aggravates the problem: “When you’re talking about buying furniture, you need to get across the broad range of options – and why one sofa is 10 times more expensive than another, or where to find them all.” Mydeco, Hoberman claims, will help people to decorate room by room and work out how to put furniture together.
So, can clicking around with my mouse really help me to work out what my flat could look like? And is Mydeco different to the internet-based design advisers already out there? I went online to see how they compare.
www.mydeco.com
The home page, I have to admit, sends a excited tingle down my spine. “Revolutionise the way you shop for your home,” it declares. You must register, but Mydeco is free to use (its founders get commission on products sold via the site). Its “virtual planner” tool will help me to design my perfect room: I can compare interior styles from a library of ideas, or check out other site members’ attempts at interior design and steal a few tips from them.
I take the “style DNA” test to find out what look will make me happy. Apparently, I have “international chic” – effortless, cosmopolitan. I always knew it was in there somewhere. Having flicked through various pictures of inspirational rooms and earmarked a few pieces of furniture (which I can save for future reference), I load the dimensions of my sitting room into the “virtual planner” and try to lay out a room.
It takes a while. You have to manipulate a template, which is time-consuming and tedious, especially as it won’t let me insert a window where there is supposed to be one. Once I have a rough approximation of what my room looks like, however, I can add furniture, from an L-shaped sofa to a dining table, then paint the walls with colours from Dulux, Designer Paint and Craig & Rose, or paste up one of 41 wallpaper samples.
It’s all too ethereal, so I upload a photo of the real room and try painting that. This is better: if only I could dye my sofa blue, I could get the perfect look. But, while the planning tools on Mydeco are useful, they are a bit too complex for me. I would rather flick through the lovely furniture pictures, draw up a wish list and dream about being able to afford an interior designer.
Verdict: Great for ideas and inspiration, especially as everything’s on one site. But, until I get a bit more tech-savvy, I’ll stay away from virtual room design. 8/10
www.housetohome.co.uk
Run by IPC Media, which publishes a plethora of glossy interiors magazines, this free site is an amalgamation of brands and products, “inspirational rooms” of the sort featured by the interiors mags in its publishing stable, and expert advice on everything from caring for a wooden floor to brightening up a bathroom. Practical tools include colour, room and garden planning programmes, as well as an online calculator, so you can work out how many tins of paint or rolls of wallpaper you will need for a particular project.
I kick off with the “celebrity home style quiz”. It turns out my style is like Stella McCartney’s, only with more leather. The colour planner is fun, but limited: the generic room images are extremely stylish, but they certainly don’t resemble anything in my little flat, and the only colours you can test are by Crown. The room planner is better: there are several prebuilt layouts, but I can also input my real room’s dimensions and work out where the furniture could go.
It takes me a few goes to work out how to alter the dimensions, by which time I’m a bit bored – and the generic furniture is less fun than having real-life products to drop in, à la Mydeco. On the plus side, I can save ideas in an online “scrapbook”.
Verdict: Full of products and inspirational images, the site is great for a trawl when you can’t be bothered – or can’t afford – to buy every interiors magazine going. The planning tools are a bit gimmicky, though: pen, paper and a few tester pots of paint would work just as well. 6/10
www.dulux.co.uk
The sheer size of the Dulux range throws me into a panic every time I contemplate one of the company’s colour charts. The website, however, is quite fun. It shows the latest trends for 2008, as well as ideas for colour schemes. You can find out which paints are suitable for a particular surface; or, if you’re dithering about what colour you should paint your sitting room to show off that prized red leather chair, you can click on the nearest shade and the site will suggest complementary colours.
There are virtual room layouts to colour in, or you can upload a photo of your own room and “paint” it.
Again, a paint calculator features, and you can also find localdec-orators operating under the government-endorsed Trust-Mark scheme.
For inspiration, I take a “colour chemistry” quiz, which asks a lot of inane questions – “How would your friends describe your personality?” It turns out I’m a “comfort creator” and should be using golds and reds. Attempting to put this into practice, I try colouring in some virtual room layouts. Again, this gets tedious, as none of the rooms looks like mine, so I upload a real picture of my sitting room to decorate.
Unfortunately, the way the photograph is rendered online means “painting” it creates an interesting, slightly graffiti-esque effect – very cool, but nothing like my sitting room. You also have to decide your “mood board” of colours at the start, which means a lot of dragging and dropping from a paint chart to a folder; this is labour-intensive and rapidly becomes dull.
Verdict: It’s quite interesting to see how certain colours work together, but the site did nothing to combat my Dulux colour-chart anxiety, and there’s no capacity to go 3-D or look at furniture. 4/10
So, will I be using any of the sites to change my home? Certainly for inspiration – and the choice of furniture at Mydeco will save me many a tiring trek along the high street. But, until the virtual world becomes more appealing than the real one, my basic computer skills mean it’s easier and faster for me to keep heading down to B&Q for a few tester pots of paint. Oh, and I might give my friend the interior designer a call along the way.
When I bought my two-bedroom flat in southwest London four years ago, its white walls, neutral carpets and basic but functional kitchen meant I could move in pretty much straightaway. Bar buying the odd bit of Ikea furniture, I did nothing to the place.
Now, though, the moth-infested carpet, peeling kitchen lino and slightly grubby walls are starting to depress me. It’s time for a makeover. But where to start? The options are endless and, despite spending hours poring over interiors magazines, I’m terrified I’ll ruin everything – especially on my limited budget of about £1,000 per room.
I could employ an interior designer, but they don’t come cheap: Alan Hughes, vice-principal of the Inchbald School of Design, in central London, says that even the most junior interior designer costs £20-£25 an hour – or at least £160 a day. If you want an established name, expect to pay far more: Helen Green Design, for example, charges 10% of the cost of every project, the cheapest of which is usually not less than £10,000.
Help could be at hand, however, with the launch of a new website. Mydeco, which goes live tomorrow, is the latest venture by Martha Lane Fox, 34, and Brent Hoberman, 39, who made their names – and fortunes – when they founded Lastminute.com, then survived the dotcom crash. Their new site allows people to create a virtual version of their home in order to experiment online with paint, wallpaper, flooring, furniture and lighting – all of which you can then buy through the site.
As part of the aim of creating a “design community”, others can then comment on your virtual room, suggest ideas and even, if they are sufficiently inspired, buy one of the items of furniture in it themselves – giving you, the “designer”, a cut. You can also “befriend” the site’s official designers (Kelly Hoppen and John Stefanidis, among others) and pick up some style pointers from them.
“Between 50% and 60% of people need pictorial representation of something to visualise it,” says Hoberman, who had the idea for Mydeco when he bought a house and couldn’t picture what he could do with it – despite being married to an interior designer. And, he adds, the level of choice today just aggravates the problem: “When you’re talking about buying furniture, you need to get across the broad range of options – and why one sofa is 10 times more expensive than another, or where to find them all.” Mydeco, Hoberman claims, will help people to decorate room by room and work out how to put furniture together.
So, can clicking around with my mouse really help me to work out what my flat could look like? And is Mydeco different to the internet-based design advisers already out there? I went online to see how they compare.
www.mydeco.com
The home page, I have to admit, sends a excited tingle down my spine. “Revolutionise the way you shop for your home,” it declares. You must register, but Mydeco is free to use (its founders get commission on products sold via the site). Its “virtual planner” tool will help me to design my perfect room: I can compare interior styles from a library of ideas, or check out other site members’ attempts at interior design and steal a few tips from them.
I take the “style DNA” test to find out what look will make me happy. Apparently, I have “international chic” – effortless, cosmopolitan. I always knew it was in there somewhere. Having flicked through various pictures of inspirational rooms and earmarked a few pieces of furniture (which I can save for future reference), I load the dimensions of my sitting room into the “virtual planner” and try to lay out a room.
It takes a while. You have to manipulate a template, which is time-consuming and tedious, especially as it won’t let me insert a window where there is supposed to be one. Once I have a rough approximation of what my room looks like, however, I can add furniture, from an L-shaped sofa to a dining table, then paint the walls with colours from Dulux, Designer Paint and Craig & Rose, or paste up one of 41 wallpaper samples.
It’s all too ethereal, so I upload a photo of the real room and try painting that. This is better: if only I could dye my sofa blue, I could get the perfect look. But, while the planning tools on Mydeco are useful, they are a bit too complex for me. I would rather flick through the lovely furniture pictures, draw up a wish list and dream about being able to afford an interior designer.
Verdict: Great for ideas and inspiration, especially as everything’s on one site. But, until I get a bit more tech-savvy, I’ll stay away from virtual room design. 8/10
www.housetohome.co.uk
Run by IPC Media, which publishes a plethora of glossy interiors magazines, this free site is an amalgamation of brands and products, “inspirational rooms” of the sort featured by the interiors mags in its publishing stable, and expert advice on everything from caring for a wooden floor to brightening up a bathroom. Practical tools include colour, room and garden planning programmes, as well as an online calculator, so you can work out how many tins of paint or rolls of wallpaper you will need for a particular project.
I kick off with the “celebrity home style quiz”. It turns out my style is like Stella McCartney’s, only with more leather. The colour planner is fun, but limited: the generic room images are extremely stylish, but they certainly don’t resemble anything in my little flat, and the only colours you can test are by Crown. The room planner is better: there are several prebuilt layouts, but I can also input my real room’s dimensions and work out where the furniture could go.
It takes me a few goes to work out how to alter the dimensions, by which time I’m a bit bored – and the generic furniture is less fun than having real-life products to drop in, à la Mydeco. On the plus side, I can save ideas in an online “scrapbook”.
Verdict: Full of products and inspirational images, the site is great for a trawl when you can’t be bothered – or can’t afford – to buy every interiors magazine going. The planning tools are a bit gimmicky, though: pen, paper and a few tester pots of paint would work just as well. 6/10
www.dulux.co.uk
The sheer size of the Dulux range throws me into a panic every time I contemplate one of the company’s colour charts. The website, however, is quite fun. It shows the latest trends for 2008, as well as ideas for colour schemes. You can find out which paints are suitable for a particular surface; or, if you’re dithering about what colour you should paint your sitting room to show off that prized red leather chair, you can click on the nearest shade and the site will suggest complementary colours.
There are virtual room layouts to colour in, or you can upload a photo of your own room and “paint” it.
Again, a paint calculator features, and you can also find localdec-orators operating under the government-endorsed Trust-Mark scheme.
For inspiration, I take a “colour chemistry” quiz, which asks a lot of inane questions – “How would your friends describe your personality?” It turns out I’m a “comfort creator” and should be using golds and reds. Attempting to put this into practice, I try colouring in some virtual room layouts. Again, this gets tedious, as none of the rooms looks like mine, so I upload a real picture of my sitting room to decorate.
Unfortunately, the way the photograph is rendered online means “painting” it creates an interesting, slightly graffiti-esque effect – very cool, but nothing like my sitting room. You also have to decide your “mood board” of colours at the start, which means a lot of dragging and dropping from a paint chart to a folder; this is labour-intensive and rapidly becomes dull.
Verdict: It’s quite interesting to see how certain colours work together, but the site did nothing to combat my Dulux colour-chart anxiety, and there’s no capacity to go 3-D or look at furniture. 4/10
So, will I be using any of the sites to change my home? Certainly for inspiration – and the choice of furniture at Mydeco will save me many a tiring trek along the high street. But, until the virtual world becomes more appealing than the real one, my basic computer skills mean it’s easier and faster for me to keep heading down to B&Q for a few tester pots of paint. Oh, and I might give my friend the interior designer a call along the way.
Home economics: the real estate market in the US
Anybody who wants to get gloomy about Britain’s housing market has only to cast an eye across the Atlantic to America
Anybody who wants to get gloomy about Britain’s housing market has only to cast an eye across the Atlantic. The US housing downturn is proving a lengthy one, and shows scant signs of ending.
Last week, figures for new-home sales in America showed a drop of 4.7% in December to an annualised rate of 604,000, the lowest for 13 years. Though monthly figures are volatile, particularly in the weather-affected winter months, the weakness appears to be genuine.
At face value, anybody buying a new home in America can do so at a price 10.4% lower than a year ago. There is a note of caution attached to this – the figures are not adjusted for size and type of property – but nobody doubts prices are still falling. Housebuilders in Britain have had a torrid time on the stock market, but spare a thought for their US counterparts. They are sitting on more than 9½ months’ supply of unsold homes, the most for 26 years.
So, the housing market in America is undoubtedly weak and, for the moment, getting weaker, in spite of aggressive cuts in interest rates by the Federal Reserve, its central bank. There are important differences between the USA and the UK. America, after all, was the home of sub-prime, while the supply of new homes there has been less constrained by planning restrictions.
If you want to be pessimistic, however, you would say that, just as America tends to get new gadgets and Hollywood movie releases before us, so its housing-market pain may be a harbinger of things to come here – in which case, prepare for a long and grinding downturn.
The Bank of England’s figures for mortgage approvals were certainly downbeat: they fell to 73,000 in December, from an already weak 81,000 in November.
A different scenario is provided by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), in its latest Consumer and Housing Prospects report. The CEBR has joined those predicting a drop in prices this year. It thinks that by the fourth quarter, the average house price will be £187,900, 2.5% down on the final three months of 2007 and 5.5% below the peak of £198,900 reached last summer. Its forecast is significant in that it has tended to be more upbeat about the market than, for example, Capital Economics. But recent data, including a 0.4% drop in prices recorded by the Land Registry in December, the first such fall since August 2005, have tipped its hand.
Unlike others, however, the CEBR remains bullish about the fundamental state of the housing market. It thinks the downturn, caused as it is by the credit squeeze and temporary strains on household finances, will be short-lived. Prices in 2009 will rise by 3%, it predicts, followed by above-inflation rises in the following two years.
This is the battleground on which housing predictions are being fought out. Will we see a drawn-out US-style decline in market activity and prices, or just a brief period of pain, after which factors such as rising population and a shortage of housing supply will reassert themselves? I am in the latter camp, but for this to happen, sentiment here will have to remain optimistic – unlike in America.
home.economics@sunday-times.co.uk
Anybody who wants to get gloomy about Britain’s housing market has only to cast an eye across the Atlantic. The US housing downturn is proving a lengthy one, and shows scant signs of ending.
Last week, figures for new-home sales in America showed a drop of 4.7% in December to an annualised rate of 604,000, the lowest for 13 years. Though monthly figures are volatile, particularly in the weather-affected winter months, the weakness appears to be genuine.
At face value, anybody buying a new home in America can do so at a price 10.4% lower than a year ago. There is a note of caution attached to this – the figures are not adjusted for size and type of property – but nobody doubts prices are still falling. Housebuilders in Britain have had a torrid time on the stock market, but spare a thought for their US counterparts. They are sitting on more than 9½ months’ supply of unsold homes, the most for 26 years.
So, the housing market in America is undoubtedly weak and, for the moment, getting weaker, in spite of aggressive cuts in interest rates by the Federal Reserve, its central bank. There are important differences between the USA and the UK. America, after all, was the home of sub-prime, while the supply of new homes there has been less constrained by planning restrictions.
If you want to be pessimistic, however, you would say that, just as America tends to get new gadgets and Hollywood movie releases before us, so its housing-market pain may be a harbinger of things to come here – in which case, prepare for a long and grinding downturn.
The Bank of England’s figures for mortgage approvals were certainly downbeat: they fell to 73,000 in December, from an already weak 81,000 in November.
A different scenario is provided by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), in its latest Consumer and Housing Prospects report. The CEBR has joined those predicting a drop in prices this year. It thinks that by the fourth quarter, the average house price will be £187,900, 2.5% down on the final three months of 2007 and 5.5% below the peak of £198,900 reached last summer. Its forecast is significant in that it has tended to be more upbeat about the market than, for example, Capital Economics. But recent data, including a 0.4% drop in prices recorded by the Land Registry in December, the first such fall since August 2005, have tipped its hand.
Unlike others, however, the CEBR remains bullish about the fundamental state of the housing market. It thinks the downturn, caused as it is by the credit squeeze and temporary strains on household finances, will be short-lived. Prices in 2009 will rise by 3%, it predicts, followed by above-inflation rises in the following two years.
This is the battleground on which housing predictions are being fought out. Will we see a drawn-out US-style decline in market activity and prices, or just a brief period of pain, after which factors such as rising population and a shortage of housing supply will reassert themselves? I am in the latter camp, but for this to happen, sentiment here will have to remain optimistic – unlike in America.
home.economics@sunday-times.co.uk
What can we do with our shabby conservatory?
We want to integrate our draughty extension into the main house
The dilemna: Marc and Carole Zander and their children - Matthew, Laura, Alicia and Eloise - live in a charming Arts and Crafts house in Reigate, Surrey. They have a ground-floor extension - a collage of cracked stained glass and old brick providing a wonderful playroom which is cold and damp in winter. The Zanders want to improve this space, integrating it into the main house yet still accommodating the creative needs of their children. There is also an original bread oven to consider, which protrudes into the playroom.
The solution: Arts and Crafts houses make the prettiest of family homes, even though the rooms may be small and the layout divisive, so it is not surprising that a former owners rigged up an extension. Combined with a double-pitch roof, this extra bit of building does seem to chime in with the Arts and Crafts movement nostalgia, so the phrase “If it ain't broke why fix it?” comes to mind.
The problem is that this structure is broke, and in quite a few places: rebuilding is essential. However, as the Zander family clearly benefits from the extra square footage, I would not change the footprint.
The real challenge is to determine in what style to rebuild. Arts and Crafts is out of the question, given that new construction in an historical style is as ridiculous as dressing for the office in a suit of armour. Nor would I advocate a “glass box”, the ubiquity of which is becoming an architectural cliché. Instead this replacement building should simply be “honest”, which was a founding principle of the Arts and Crafts movement. Such an idea can easily be realised in the construction of a simple oak-frame and glass building (with perhaps a zinc roof to contrast with the existing tile), duplicating the volume and double-pitch of the existing leaky structure to obviate the need for planning consent (though the Zanders should check with their local authority before commissioning any new structure). Prime Oak - www.primeoak.co.uk - would be a good bet for this task.
But before the Zanders select their oak, we need to deal with the internal layout. The kitchen is tucked away in a small space at the rear of the original building, which also has a fireplace with a bread oven, the curved rear of which punctures the wall of the extension. I would move the kitchen to the front of the new extension, with a double set of glass doors opening into the garden. The old kitchen could then be converted into a den, with a TV concealed in the old fireplace behind cupboard doors, and where there is also enough space to store the children's collection of dressing-up clothes. A play space with bookshelves and storage could be arranged on the other side of the dividing fireplace, which opens into the formal dining room. The play area could include foldaway mini-furniture, so that when the children are in bed there is a tidy and unobstructed thoroughfare between the dinner table and the kitchen.
To make this layout work, two sections of wall need to be removed around the original back door, possibly requiring a structural engineer. It would be worth it,though, as the layout then becomes comfortably open plan, allowing Carole to keep an eye on the children from her new kitchen.
As with the outside, I would pick a modern rustic look inside: either a Spitalfields kitchen by Plain English (plainenglishdesign.co.uk) or Gold Label by Keller Kitchens (kellerkeukens.nl); flagstone flooring; sisal rugs from the Alternative Flooring Company (alternativeflooring.com) and a touch of whimsy - two Grain Drum Lamps from one of my favourite suppliers, farm21.co.uk, to go either side of the den's sofa.
Do you have an inner dilemma? E-mail the details to: property.consumer@thetimes.co.uk
The dilemna: Marc and Carole Zander and their children - Matthew, Laura, Alicia and Eloise - live in a charming Arts and Crafts house in Reigate, Surrey. They have a ground-floor extension - a collage of cracked stained glass and old brick providing a wonderful playroom which is cold and damp in winter. The Zanders want to improve this space, integrating it into the main house yet still accommodating the creative needs of their children. There is also an original bread oven to consider, which protrudes into the playroom.
The solution: Arts and Crafts houses make the prettiest of family homes, even though the rooms may be small and the layout divisive, so it is not surprising that a former owners rigged up an extension. Combined with a double-pitch roof, this extra bit of building does seem to chime in with the Arts and Crafts movement nostalgia, so the phrase “If it ain't broke why fix it?” comes to mind.
The problem is that this structure is broke, and in quite a few places: rebuilding is essential. However, as the Zander family clearly benefits from the extra square footage, I would not change the footprint.
The real challenge is to determine in what style to rebuild. Arts and Crafts is out of the question, given that new construction in an historical style is as ridiculous as dressing for the office in a suit of armour. Nor would I advocate a “glass box”, the ubiquity of which is becoming an architectural cliché. Instead this replacement building should simply be “honest”, which was a founding principle of the Arts and Crafts movement. Such an idea can easily be realised in the construction of a simple oak-frame and glass building (with perhaps a zinc roof to contrast with the existing tile), duplicating the volume and double-pitch of the existing leaky structure to obviate the need for planning consent (though the Zanders should check with their local authority before commissioning any new structure). Prime Oak - www.primeoak.co.uk - would be a good bet for this task.
But before the Zanders select their oak, we need to deal with the internal layout. The kitchen is tucked away in a small space at the rear of the original building, which also has a fireplace with a bread oven, the curved rear of which punctures the wall of the extension. I would move the kitchen to the front of the new extension, with a double set of glass doors opening into the garden. The old kitchen could then be converted into a den, with a TV concealed in the old fireplace behind cupboard doors, and where there is also enough space to store the children's collection of dressing-up clothes. A play space with bookshelves and storage could be arranged on the other side of the dividing fireplace, which opens into the formal dining room. The play area could include foldaway mini-furniture, so that when the children are in bed there is a tidy and unobstructed thoroughfare between the dinner table and the kitchen.
To make this layout work, two sections of wall need to be removed around the original back door, possibly requiring a structural engineer. It would be worth it,though, as the layout then becomes comfortably open plan, allowing Carole to keep an eye on the children from her new kitchen.
As with the outside, I would pick a modern rustic look inside: either a Spitalfields kitchen by Plain English (plainenglishdesign.co.uk) or Gold Label by Keller Kitchens (kellerkeukens.nl); flagstone flooring; sisal rugs from the Alternative Flooring Company (alternativeflooring.com) and a touch of whimsy - two Grain Drum Lamps from one of my favourite suppliers, farm21.co.uk, to go either side of the den's sofa.
Do you have an inner dilemma? E-mail the details to: property.consumer@thetimes.co.uk
How property boom spread to Britain’s far-flung regions
Homeowners with a wary eye on the property market can take comfort from the knowledge that eventually even the most unfashionable locations become popular.
A new survey of house prices by the Halifax shows that – while the areas close to London still boast the highest house prices – once-shunned parts of Northern Ireland and Wales have outperformed the rest of the country for the past ten years.
Prices in Co Armagh, once blighted by the Troubles, have risen by 331 per cent, while those in Co Tyrone jumped 315 per cent.
Such increases dwarfed those in Berkshire, up 196 per cent, and Hampshire, up 186 per cent, the areas thought to have benefited most from the unrelenting demand for homes for London’s wealthy commuters.
The news will reassure homeowners who had to buy outside their preferred areas during the property boom.
In all, five of the ten best-performing counties were in Northern Ireland, which is reaping the “peace dividend” of investment and booming immigration. House price inflation in the Province reached 50 per cent last year.
But Wales – which has suffered a turbulent few years for house prices – also outperformed much of Britain. Carmenthenshire and Anglesey (which agents tip to be star performers in the next few years) recorded rises of 287 and 269 per cent respectively.
Lucian Cook, a director of research at Savills estate agents, said: “This is the regions playing catchup.”
By contrast, prices in London, where the property boom hit first and carried on the longest, were up a modest 216 per cent. Surrey, Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire, which boast the highest house prices in the country, rose 196 per cent, 198 per cent and 221 per cent respectively.
George Burnand, of the agents Strutt and Parker, said that the most highly prized locations remained in Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire and Oxfordshire. He said: “The most popular counties have the best schools, the best transport links to London and the best road connections.”
But to the despair of local people on lower wages, prices have also gone up in popular second-home locations, such as Cornwall, up 266 per cent, East Sussex, up 243 per cent, and the Isle of Wight, up 245 per cent.
Liam Bailey, head of research at Knight Frank, said: “These rural, lifestyle locations are where the wealth has elected to go in the past“ ten years.”
Prices have also jumped in new locations favoured by bargain-hunting commuters. Jonathan Haward, of the County Homesearch Company, said that Herefordshire had benefited from the M40, and Lincolnshire and Norfolk from much-improved rail services. North Wales has also done well with many medium-distance commuters travelling to Manchester, Liverpool and Chester.
The ascendancy of farther-flung locations has so far passed by much of Scotland. The worst-performing county in Britain was North Lanarkshire, where prices rose a mere 149 per cent. In West Dunbartonshire prices were up just 150 per cent.
That situation is expected to change, with Scotland nominated as a potential star performer this year showing possible price rises of up to 4 per cent. Halifax has tipped Aberdeenshire, up just 184 per cent in a decade, to outperform this year.
London is expected to regain lost ground in the next few years, with prices likely to soar in Kent and Essex.
Incredible. Is Judith Heyward consciously trying to persuade people to buy into the very top of a massively overinflated market?
If so, why?
Ian, London, England
Yes, the cycle has turned, and the bullish propagandists are not willing to tell you that. But iut was oh-so-predictable that it would turn. Go to YouTube, and type "UK Property Cycle": and you will find many who predicted the turn. But dont expect a useful discussion of cyclical realities from mainstraem journos, whose papers rely on advertising from Builders and others with vested interests.
DrBubb, London, London, UK
I'm quite baffled by this article. It is true that house prices rose between 1997 and 2007, but is Ms Heywood not aware that the property cycle has turned, and that prices are falling in nominal terms? This article merely quotes a series of estate agents (who clearly have vested interests in pretending that prices are rising). I see no mention of real indicators of house prices, such as the recent Land Registry, RICS or Nationwide data, all of which show that prices are falling.
Robert, London, UK
A new survey of house prices by the Halifax shows that – while the areas close to London still boast the highest house prices – once-shunned parts of Northern Ireland and Wales have outperformed the rest of the country for the past ten years.
Prices in Co Armagh, once blighted by the Troubles, have risen by 331 per cent, while those in Co Tyrone jumped 315 per cent.
Such increases dwarfed those in Berkshire, up 196 per cent, and Hampshire, up 186 per cent, the areas thought to have benefited most from the unrelenting demand for homes for London’s wealthy commuters.
The news will reassure homeowners who had to buy outside their preferred areas during the property boom.
In all, five of the ten best-performing counties were in Northern Ireland, which is reaping the “peace dividend” of investment and booming immigration. House price inflation in the Province reached 50 per cent last year.
But Wales – which has suffered a turbulent few years for house prices – also outperformed much of Britain. Carmenthenshire and Anglesey (which agents tip to be star performers in the next few years) recorded rises of 287 and 269 per cent respectively.
Lucian Cook, a director of research at Savills estate agents, said: “This is the regions playing catchup.”
By contrast, prices in London, where the property boom hit first and carried on the longest, were up a modest 216 per cent. Surrey, Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire, which boast the highest house prices in the country, rose 196 per cent, 198 per cent and 221 per cent respectively.
George Burnand, of the agents Strutt and Parker, said that the most highly prized locations remained in Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire and Oxfordshire. He said: “The most popular counties have the best schools, the best transport links to London and the best road connections.”
But to the despair of local people on lower wages, prices have also gone up in popular second-home locations, such as Cornwall, up 266 per cent, East Sussex, up 243 per cent, and the Isle of Wight, up 245 per cent.
Liam Bailey, head of research at Knight Frank, said: “These rural, lifestyle locations are where the wealth has elected to go in the past“ ten years.”
Prices have also jumped in new locations favoured by bargain-hunting commuters. Jonathan Haward, of the County Homesearch Company, said that Herefordshire had benefited from the M40, and Lincolnshire and Norfolk from much-improved rail services. North Wales has also done well with many medium-distance commuters travelling to Manchester, Liverpool and Chester.
The ascendancy of farther-flung locations has so far passed by much of Scotland. The worst-performing county in Britain was North Lanarkshire, where prices rose a mere 149 per cent. In West Dunbartonshire prices were up just 150 per cent.
That situation is expected to change, with Scotland nominated as a potential star performer this year showing possible price rises of up to 4 per cent. Halifax has tipped Aberdeenshire, up just 184 per cent in a decade, to outperform this year.
London is expected to regain lost ground in the next few years, with prices likely to soar in Kent and Essex.
Incredible. Is Judith Heyward consciously trying to persuade people to buy into the very top of a massively overinflated market?
If so, why?
Ian, London, England
Yes, the cycle has turned, and the bullish propagandists are not willing to tell you that. But iut was oh-so-predictable that it would turn. Go to YouTube, and type "UK Property Cycle": and you will find many who predicted the turn. But dont expect a useful discussion of cyclical realities from mainstraem journos, whose papers rely on advertising from Builders and others with vested interests.
DrBubb, London, London, UK
I'm quite baffled by this article. It is true that house prices rose between 1997 and 2007, but is Ms Heywood not aware that the property cycle has turned, and that prices are falling in nominal terms? This article merely quotes a series of estate agents (who clearly have vested interests in pretending that prices are rising). I see no mention of real indicators of house prices, such as the recent Land Registry, RICS or Nationwide data, all of which show that prices are falling.
Robert, London, UK
The factory that became a family home in Puerto Soller, Mallorca
Near a Mallorcan resort where the A list plays, this couple turned an old factory into a huge family home – and on a tight budget
Necessity, it is said, is the mother of invention. And never more so than when you have a big, run-down building, but a small budget with which to convert it into a family home.
As that is the situation in which Chris Strickland and Sarah Kenyon found themselves when they set about transforming an old textile factory in Soller, northwest Mallorca, it is a good job their ingenuity paid off.
Chris, 67, a retired businessman, spotted the 100-year-old factory five years ago with his first wife, a Spanish artist. The building was derelict (a cloth-dyeing operation, it had closed at the end of the second world war), but the setting was picturesque: all orange trees and olive groves, with the Tramuntana mountains as a backdrop.
They bought it for €300,000 (£225,000 at current rates) and planned to convert the 305-square-metre structure into a gallery with living space for themselves – but the couple split before this happened. Strickland decided to continue the renovation, and had already started when he met and married Kenyon, 33, who runs a local holiday-home rental business (www. kenyonstricklandassociates.com).
“It was uninhabitable, but we still moved in,” she says. “Parts had no doors or windows. Wild cats used to come and do their business on the floor. One was sick on the sofa. It was awful.”
Luckily, Strickland had plenty of renovation experience: he’s revamped all the homes he’s owned in 20 years on the island. He knew that such a big project would only really work if he kept costs down. “A good friend is an architect and bon vivant,” he says. “He gave his advice for free, and in return we took him to Palma for good meals.” Strickland also hired local craftsmen directly, rather than using a building contractor: “You save at least 30%.”
When walls were knocked down, rubble, which is expensive to clear, was used as infill – both in a disused lift shaft and in an old water-storage tank, to make it shallower and suitable for a saltwater swimming pool – much to the delight of the couple’s children, Amelie, 3, and Natasha, 2.
The entire building was rewired and the sandstone walls were strengthened to support a new tiled roof. As much material as possible was reused: steel beams from a demolished warehouse now support the roof of an elegant conservatory; old wooden beams were resized and cleaned up, and now support the new ceilings. Those left over became decking in a Japanese-style garden, alongside paths made of hundreds of the original bricks. “By recycling and knowing how to get things cheaper, we saved between £150,000 and £225,000,” says Strickland, who reckons the project cost £375,000, including legal fees.
Today, the former factory is an airy two-storey home of about 200 square metres. The ground floor alone has five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a large living room and kitchen/ diner, an open space suitable for a dance studio or gym, and a self-contained flat. The second floor has another three bedrooms and two bathrooms.
The house is a 10-minute stroll from Soller, a lovely spot that attracts the rich and famous: Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones have a home nearby, as does Andrew Lloyd Webber.
The popularity of this once remote area has risen greatly in the past six years, since a new mountain tunnel made it far more accessible; it is now a 30-minute drive from the Mallorcan capital. It is also linked by a little tram to up-and-coming Puerto Soller and its family beach, two miles away. Prices in what was once an orange-growing centre have risen steadily. Three-bed townhouses now start at £300,000.
Some of the most desirable homes are the elegant señorial (merchant) houses, boasting gardens planted with lemon and orange trees. “The last cheap one went five years ago for £208,000,” says Trini Moreno, director of the Morcas International agency. “Today, it would be about £700,000.”
With the education needs of their two young girls to consider, the couple have decided to move back to Britain – probably near Bath, where Kenyon’s parents live – and the £1m asking price of their Spanish home reflects the recent boom in the area. But who will want to buy such an enormous place? The home definitely appeals to a “niche market”, says Jan Westwood, Mallorcan associate with The Property Finders, an overseas property-search consultancy.
Even the agent selling the property agrees. “For a lot of people, it may be too much space,” says Edward Lees, a manager with Engel & Völkers in Mallorca. “But I think it’s great. A large family could live here very happily.” It would also suit someone working from home. A painter, for instance, would be in good company, as there are two other separate, independently owned buildings on the site: an artist’s studio and a blacksmith’s forge.
Strickland knows that he will miss the place when they leave. “We have a view of the mountains all the way round,” he says. “And in winter, you can see a drift of snow. It’s beautiful now.
“We have to think of our children’s future, though. It’s been great seeing it all come together, but no, I wouldn’t do it again. It’s exciting, but it’s also hard work.”
For sale for €1.35m with Engel & Völkers; 00 34 971 634488, www.mallorca.engelvoelkers.com
Necessity, it is said, is the mother of invention. And never more so than when you have a big, run-down building, but a small budget with which to convert it into a family home.
As that is the situation in which Chris Strickland and Sarah Kenyon found themselves when they set about transforming an old textile factory in Soller, northwest Mallorca, it is a good job their ingenuity paid off.
Chris, 67, a retired businessman, spotted the 100-year-old factory five years ago with his first wife, a Spanish artist. The building was derelict (a cloth-dyeing operation, it had closed at the end of the second world war), but the setting was picturesque: all orange trees and olive groves, with the Tramuntana mountains as a backdrop.
They bought it for €300,000 (£225,000 at current rates) and planned to convert the 305-square-metre structure into a gallery with living space for themselves – but the couple split before this happened. Strickland decided to continue the renovation, and had already started when he met and married Kenyon, 33, who runs a local holiday-home rental business (www. kenyonstricklandassociates.com).
“It was uninhabitable, but we still moved in,” she says. “Parts had no doors or windows. Wild cats used to come and do their business on the floor. One was sick on the sofa. It was awful.”
Luckily, Strickland had plenty of renovation experience: he’s revamped all the homes he’s owned in 20 years on the island. He knew that such a big project would only really work if he kept costs down. “A good friend is an architect and bon vivant,” he says. “He gave his advice for free, and in return we took him to Palma for good meals.” Strickland also hired local craftsmen directly, rather than using a building contractor: “You save at least 30%.”
When walls were knocked down, rubble, which is expensive to clear, was used as infill – both in a disused lift shaft and in an old water-storage tank, to make it shallower and suitable for a saltwater swimming pool – much to the delight of the couple’s children, Amelie, 3, and Natasha, 2.
The entire building was rewired and the sandstone walls were strengthened to support a new tiled roof. As much material as possible was reused: steel beams from a demolished warehouse now support the roof of an elegant conservatory; old wooden beams were resized and cleaned up, and now support the new ceilings. Those left over became decking in a Japanese-style garden, alongside paths made of hundreds of the original bricks. “By recycling and knowing how to get things cheaper, we saved between £150,000 and £225,000,” says Strickland, who reckons the project cost £375,000, including legal fees.
Today, the former factory is an airy two-storey home of about 200 square metres. The ground floor alone has five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a large living room and kitchen/ diner, an open space suitable for a dance studio or gym, and a self-contained flat. The second floor has another three bedrooms and two bathrooms.
The house is a 10-minute stroll from Soller, a lovely spot that attracts the rich and famous: Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones have a home nearby, as does Andrew Lloyd Webber.
The popularity of this once remote area has risen greatly in the past six years, since a new mountain tunnel made it far more accessible; it is now a 30-minute drive from the Mallorcan capital. It is also linked by a little tram to up-and-coming Puerto Soller and its family beach, two miles away. Prices in what was once an orange-growing centre have risen steadily. Three-bed townhouses now start at £300,000.
Some of the most desirable homes are the elegant señorial (merchant) houses, boasting gardens planted with lemon and orange trees. “The last cheap one went five years ago for £208,000,” says Trini Moreno, director of the Morcas International agency. “Today, it would be about £700,000.”
With the education needs of their two young girls to consider, the couple have decided to move back to Britain – probably near Bath, where Kenyon’s parents live – and the £1m asking price of their Spanish home reflects the recent boom in the area. But who will want to buy such an enormous place? The home definitely appeals to a “niche market”, says Jan Westwood, Mallorcan associate with The Property Finders, an overseas property-search consultancy.
Even the agent selling the property agrees. “For a lot of people, it may be too much space,” says Edward Lees, a manager with Engel & Völkers in Mallorca. “But I think it’s great. A large family could live here very happily.” It would also suit someone working from home. A painter, for instance, would be in good company, as there are two other separate, independently owned buildings on the site: an artist’s studio and a blacksmith’s forge.
Strickland knows that he will miss the place when they leave. “We have a view of the mountains all the way round,” he says. “And in winter, you can see a drift of snow. It’s beautiful now.
“We have to think of our children’s future, though. It’s been great seeing it all come together, but no, I wouldn’t do it again. It’s exciting, but it’s also hard work.”
For sale for €1.35m with Engel & Völkers; 00 34 971 634488, www.mallorca.engelvoelkers.com
Home extenstions, basements, conservatories: cramming too much in?
We need to curb our desire to extend, not pander to it
In the olden days, before we viewed our houses as cash machines, you used to buy a property, and move in. Six months later, you might have changed the wallpaper in the hall. Six years later, perhaps, you would have fitted a new kitchen. If you were really splashing out, you might even have put in new carpets. Nowadays, however, we spend a fortune: last year, according to a survey on household spending just released by the Office of National Statistics, Britons laid out £750m every week on carpets, sofas, garden furniture and other “decorative goods”. And a house is no longer just a house. Oh, no. It’s a “footprint” - to be built on, dug under and generally exploded.
“Gutting, stuffing and expanding,” agrees George Ferguson, who, as a former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, is a bit of an expert on these things. “There is a tendency to squeeze too much out of the house these days. Like all these things, how you do it matters almost more than whether you do it.”
How we do it makes Ferguson tremble - and not in a good way. “Only this morning, I was having an ‘I hate conservatories’ chat with a colleague,” he admits genially.
It’s not just the clip-on conservatory that is a problem. It’s everything. “Basements are a nightmare, but at least they are underground,” Ferguson continues. “Lofts can be hideous. It’s all the add-ons that come with them: those giant dormer windows, the changed profile of the roof. In a uniform terrace, or a square, it can be a disaster.”
Our poor old houses have come to resemble nothing so much as the mule in the children’s game Buckaroo, onto the saddle of which all sorts of detritus is gradually hooked, until the nag can bear the pressure no longer. Our houses don’t explode with the fads we have imposed on them, but surely this is only a matter of time.
Every morning, I pass two neighbouring houses, designed in about 1900 as a matching pair. One has seen no structural changes. The other, however, has had the full Buckaroo treatment, from loft to basement via conservatory and side extension. It has had so many face-lifts that, compared with its undeveloped neighbour, it now looks a bit like Cher standing next to Judi Dench.
People can’t help this urge, say builders. It’s part of modern living.
“People will just expand their houses to have the space they need,” says Maggie Smith, sales and marketing director at the London Basement Company, who is fully aware that her company is but part of a developmental craze to push our houses up and out, rather like a bricks-and-mortar Wonderbra. “Quite a lot of our clients have gone up to the loft and extended that, then moved down, putting a conservatory onto the side return, then continued to go on down into the basement.
“There are so many standard-size houses around - two reception rooms and four bedrooms are not enough. And, if you don’t want to move, just think of the stamp duty and moving costs you will save.”
Building up, down and out is rather contagious, apparently - like yawning. “Oh, we’ve had rashes of basements,” Smith says cheerily, before telling me about the added value an extension can bring to your home.
I have news for her. Not all add-ons bring in the lolly. Alex Lyle, head of sales at the Fulham office of the estate agency Marsh & Parsons, despairs at what some people do with their “footprint”.
“There are some houses that really push the boundaries,” he says. “I know of one person who has put a basement below his basement. It’s a classic case of overdevelopment, and of course he won’t be able to sell it. Well, he might, but not for a premium. Another client in central London has his entire garden taken up by a swimming pool. It’ll be a tough one for us to market.”
You see? Bunging on this or that is not a direct route to a giant leap in capital values. You may have been told it is, but it isn’t.
“There is a curve of diminishing returns with extensions,” says Adam Stackhouse, the agency’s head of residential development. “Agents justify their prices by calculating the square footage of a property, but don’t take into account the quality of the space available. And the secondary space is often worth much less. A good mansard conversion on your roof might have the same value as the floors below, but an attic conversion won’t. Pushing out from the property is also a risk, as, for most people, the garden situation is pretty dire as it stands.”
So, how can we stem this tsunami of overenthusiastic overdevelopment? “There is a simple answer,” says Lee Mallett, an urban-regeneration consultant and former editor of Building Design magazine. “Build more houses. Then people wouldn’t be pressurised into extending their homes in an ungainly fashion. People put ugly extensions on because it’s so difficult to find housing any other way.”
Well, without wishing to go all Calvinist here, perhaps our desire to bulge out of our houses can be calmed by a bit of self-discipline. After all, it isn’t as though we are having large families any more (though I must admit to having four children myself). Perhaps if we were a bit more organised about what we have, became a trifle less indulgent in the hoarding department and went shopping a bit less (for anything, whether it be clothes, shoes, furniture or baths), we might not persuade ourselves that we need that loft extension or basement television lounge so badly.
As for a basement beneath a basement – can someone go and help that man? Now.
In the olden days, before we viewed our houses as cash machines, you used to buy a property, and move in. Six months later, you might have changed the wallpaper in the hall. Six years later, perhaps, you would have fitted a new kitchen. If you were really splashing out, you might even have put in new carpets. Nowadays, however, we spend a fortune: last year, according to a survey on household spending just released by the Office of National Statistics, Britons laid out £750m every week on carpets, sofas, garden furniture and other “decorative goods”. And a house is no longer just a house. Oh, no. It’s a “footprint” - to be built on, dug under and generally exploded.
“Gutting, stuffing and expanding,” agrees George Ferguson, who, as a former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, is a bit of an expert on these things. “There is a tendency to squeeze too much out of the house these days. Like all these things, how you do it matters almost more than whether you do it.”
How we do it makes Ferguson tremble - and not in a good way. “Only this morning, I was having an ‘I hate conservatories’ chat with a colleague,” he admits genially.
It’s not just the clip-on conservatory that is a problem. It’s everything. “Basements are a nightmare, but at least they are underground,” Ferguson continues. “Lofts can be hideous. It’s all the add-ons that come with them: those giant dormer windows, the changed profile of the roof. In a uniform terrace, or a square, it can be a disaster.”
Our poor old houses have come to resemble nothing so much as the mule in the children’s game Buckaroo, onto the saddle of which all sorts of detritus is gradually hooked, until the nag can bear the pressure no longer. Our houses don’t explode with the fads we have imposed on them, but surely this is only a matter of time.
Every morning, I pass two neighbouring houses, designed in about 1900 as a matching pair. One has seen no structural changes. The other, however, has had the full Buckaroo treatment, from loft to basement via conservatory and side extension. It has had so many face-lifts that, compared with its undeveloped neighbour, it now looks a bit like Cher standing next to Judi Dench.
People can’t help this urge, say builders. It’s part of modern living.
“People will just expand their houses to have the space they need,” says Maggie Smith, sales and marketing director at the London Basement Company, who is fully aware that her company is but part of a developmental craze to push our houses up and out, rather like a bricks-and-mortar Wonderbra. “Quite a lot of our clients have gone up to the loft and extended that, then moved down, putting a conservatory onto the side return, then continued to go on down into the basement.
“There are so many standard-size houses around - two reception rooms and four bedrooms are not enough. And, if you don’t want to move, just think of the stamp duty and moving costs you will save.”
Building up, down and out is rather contagious, apparently - like yawning. “Oh, we’ve had rashes of basements,” Smith says cheerily, before telling me about the added value an extension can bring to your home.
I have news for her. Not all add-ons bring in the lolly. Alex Lyle, head of sales at the Fulham office of the estate agency Marsh & Parsons, despairs at what some people do with their “footprint”.
“There are some houses that really push the boundaries,” he says. “I know of one person who has put a basement below his basement. It’s a classic case of overdevelopment, and of course he won’t be able to sell it. Well, he might, but not for a premium. Another client in central London has his entire garden taken up by a swimming pool. It’ll be a tough one for us to market.”
You see? Bunging on this or that is not a direct route to a giant leap in capital values. You may have been told it is, but it isn’t.
“There is a curve of diminishing returns with extensions,” says Adam Stackhouse, the agency’s head of residential development. “Agents justify their prices by calculating the square footage of a property, but don’t take into account the quality of the space available. And the secondary space is often worth much less. A good mansard conversion on your roof might have the same value as the floors below, but an attic conversion won’t. Pushing out from the property is also a risk, as, for most people, the garden situation is pretty dire as it stands.”
So, how can we stem this tsunami of overenthusiastic overdevelopment? “There is a simple answer,” says Lee Mallett, an urban-regeneration consultant and former editor of Building Design magazine. “Build more houses. Then people wouldn’t be pressurised into extending their homes in an ungainly fashion. People put ugly extensions on because it’s so difficult to find housing any other way.”
Well, without wishing to go all Calvinist here, perhaps our desire to bulge out of our houses can be calmed by a bit of self-discipline. After all, it isn’t as though we are having large families any more (though I must admit to having four children myself). Perhaps if we were a bit more organised about what we have, became a trifle less indulgent in the hoarding department and went shopping a bit less (for anything, whether it be clothes, shoes, furniture or baths), we might not persuade ourselves that we need that loft extension or basement television lounge so badly.
As for a basement beneath a basement – can someone go and help that man? Now.
The eco-home of a Maserati-driving petrolhead
The snarling bonnet of a Maserati and the cute little rump of a Fiat Panda are the vehicles on display when I crunch onto the forecourt of Harry Metcalfe’s new home in one of the more remote parts of rural Oxfordshire. There are others, stored out of sight, such as the sprawling baroque extravagance of one of today’s super-supercars, a Pagani Zonda. But Metcalfe is no ordinary petrolhead. He is the founding editor of one of motoring journalism’s success stories, the ultra-glossy magazine Evo.
Several things make Metcalfe, 49, different from your average car nut. One is his background – farmer/landowner, rather than journalist or publisher. The other is his house. Metcalfe might burn fossil fuel at a prodigious rate when he and his Evo team are test-driving supercars, but back home he has designed his family a surprisingly low-energy lifestyle that has slashed his utility bills by two-thirds.
Metcalfe’s new house looks traditional, but is heated with a ground-source heat pump rather than oil, gas or electricity. And, as he still needs electricity for lighting and cooking, he makes a lot of his own with a large wind generator. He also harvests enough filtered rainwater for half his needs, storing it in an underground tank. “I am,” he says frankly, “trying to have my cake and eat it.”
Metcalfe, straightforward and likeable, certainly looks more the farmer than the speed freak or media type. The way he tells it, he set up Evo almost on a whim in 1998, being a car enthusiast and sensing a gap in the market as other titles in the field were closing down. Yet, for all his success as an agri-businessman and publisher, only recently has he acquired a place of his own.
Forever the property wheeler-dealer, buying and selling houses and land, he found himself with a large portfolio – but, paradoxically, still lived in a rented farmhouse. That changed in 2002, when, with a growing young family, he bought a 280-acre working farm near Burford, in the Cotswolds. It cost £2m and came with a number of buildings; among them, a short distance from the main farm complex, a small, traditional-looking house that turned out to have been built in 1939. It is this house that, six years and £1.1m later, has become Metcalfe’s new ultra-green manor.
I find the family – his wife, Patricia, and twin children, Charlie and Izzie, 12, plus two dogs – still settling into the new house. They moved in last November, having lived in a cottage up at the main farm, but there’s still some finishing-off to do. Fabric swatches lie about, earth-moving is taking place outside (Metcalfe likes driving a digger as much as any other vehicle), the new garden is not yet established, the long games room above the garage building outside is unfinished and there’s that general impression of furniture jostling for position. But the surrounding fields – populated, somewhat surreally, by the woolly alpacas that Metcalfe favours (“I like their Dr Dolittle look,” he remarks) – are well tended, and you get the impression that the new house will quickly bed down into the landscape.
Metcalfe may drive carbon-fibre vehicles capable of speeds above 200mph, but, domestically, despite having an unlisted house outside the local village conservation area, he chose to go down the traditional route rather than attempt radical modern architecture.
Peter Yiangou, a Cirencester-based traditionalist architect and country-house specialist, fitted the bill. And what he and the local craftsfolk have produced is so big that the original house becomes merely one wing of the new five-bedroom complex. Before, it was 2,000 sq ft: now it is nearly 5,000, plus another 3,000 for the garage and games block, designed to look like an agricultural outbuilding. This, apparently, was a smaller design option than some they considered. Even so, the moment came when the family chose to sell a holiday house in Italy to fund their ambitions back home.
Just as the 1939 house was a faithful continuation of the ancient Cotswolds style, so the new parts exactly mimic the old, right down to the way the individual stones (from a local quarry) are dressed. A regrettable earlier flat-roofed extension was demolished. The new leaded windows are double-glazed, the house is heavily insulated and there are bathrooms everywhere. But logs burn in the grate in the large stone-flagged hall downstairs, and, when you step in through the front door beneath its carved stone cowl, it is only the obvious newness of everything, and the modern kitchen, with its mandatory Aga, that show you are not still in the 18th century.
The cutting-edge technology comes in the house’s energy and water systems. “We’ve got to be really careful about how we use oil,” Metcalfe says. “Putting oil into an old boiler to heat a house is not a very efficient way to use a valuable resource. Cars are mobile, so they have to use a mobile energy source – and petrol is perfect – but houses are fixed. So I got interested in finding other sources of energy for the house. What amazed me was the efficiency of the ground-source heat pump.”
Metcalfe project-managed the building work himself. As a farmer, he considered growing his own biofuel, but rejected this as too inefficient. Ground-source heat pumps, he found, act much like refrigerators in reverse. Loops of flexible pipes buried in trenches in the ground outside collect the few degrees of near-constant warmth present in the soil. This free heat is passed through a heat exchanger and concentrated to provide background underfloor heating for the house.
Heat pumps can gather up to five times more energy than they spend pumping fluid around. Unfortunately, they don’t make water hot enough for baths and showers; Metcalfe has a high-efficiency immersion heater for that.
A large heat-pump system such as Metcalfe’s, including all the trench digging, comes at a cost: £20,744 in his case, less a grant of £1,200. It generates 28 kilowatts of heat, enough for several small houses. “It’s a brilliant system, but it’s disruptive,” he warns. “Putting it in destroys your garden.” Not everyone has the land to do what he did: capitalise on all the earth-moving to create an 18th-century-style raised lawn, or ha-ha, around the house.
He has a separate air-source heat pump in a shed for his outdoor pool, which makes sense – you use pools in the summer, when the air is hot, so why not put some of that heat in the water? It cost about £850 more than the big oil-fired boiler he would otherwise have installed, but costs a third as much to run.
As for the underground rainwater tank, that is a 6,500-litre polyethylene model that automatically tops itself up from the mains if it gets too low. The family use it for lavatories, dishwashers, garden irrigation and replenishing the pool. It may seem an extravagance at an installed cost of £4,250, but it saves £450 a year in metered water bills.
Then there’s the only bit of all this technology you can actually see – the wind generator, a medium-sized one that cost £18,000 fully installed, less a grant of £5,000. It is about the same size as the wind pumps that used to be a familiar sight in the countryside, but this was the one aspect of the house that the local planners got edgy about, insisting on approval from everyone from the Civil Aviation Authority (the RAF Brize Norton air base is not far away) to the British Horse Society (in case it made the nags bolt). This took ages.
The planners, meanwhile, did not seem bothered about the enormous new house at all – maybe because it’s designed to look old. They did insist on authentic iron gutters and the correct mortar.
So, there is Metcalfe, in a big house, using a lot of energy – even his cars are pampered with their own underfloor heating – but with a clearer conscience than most. He is by no means an off-the-grid, zero-energy person, and he could do more – such as recycling “grey water” from baths to use on the garden, or covering his barns with electricity-generating photovoltaic panels. But he has done a lot, and, as he says: “The net result of combining turbine technology with the latest heat pumps is that annual running costs are a third of what they would have been had oil been used.”
If he’d heated everything by oil instead, he calculates, that would have involved burning 14,000 litres a year at a current cost of £7,280 – it’s a very big house. “People get obsessed with the payback period – how long will it be before it covers its costs?” he says. “That doesn’t bother me. I just think that, in 10 years’ time, a really efficient house, free of oil, will be worth more than one that slurps up oil.” My own rough calculation is that it would take about 12 years for Metcalfe to cover the investment costs of this alternative-energy technology at current prices – though a much shorter period if conventional-energy prices continue to spiral upwards.
While the ground-source heat pump is superefficient and constant, the air-source pump is effective only in summer and early autumn. And the wind turbine is, of course, dependent on the weather. Even so, it contributed 19% of Metcalfe’s electricity in the month before Christmas. He knows this because he has an outhouse full of dials and gauges that tell him.
Moreover, he gets a big discount from his electricity supplier because his wind-turbine output counts towards their green-energy targets. All in all, Metcalfe doesn’t look remotely like someone who has backed the wrong horse. Besides, he’s doing it as a matter of principle: save precious oil for supercars, don’t waste it in boilers.
Of course, Metcalfe and all the other well-heeled country types could save even more energy by moving into a snug city apartment, giving up their cars, and going everywhere by public transport. But he’s doing a serious road test of something that is going to become familiar: microgeneration. If he can do this now, the rest of us will be doing a smaller version of it when costs fall in a few years’ time. And if petrol gets really scarce, Metcalfe says that most of the time, he doesn’t even need to drive his Zonda. He just likes to stand and look at it.
Eco-livingthe Metcalfe way
1 Ground-source heat pump from Viessmann (www.viessmann.co.uk).
Cost: £20,744 (minus a grant of £1,200).
For: conjures free warmth out of the ground for water heating; works year-round.
Against: involves lots of messy trench-digging.
2 Air-source heat pump for outdoor swimming pool from Calorex (www.calorex.com).
Cost: £4,780 (£850 more than conventional heating).
For: great in summer, when you’re using the pool.
Against: no use if you fancy a winter dip.
3 Wind turbine, 6kW model from Proven Energy (www.provenenergy. co.uk).
Cost: £18,000, fully installed (minus a £5,000 grant).
For: you get green-energy rebates, as well as lower bills.
Against: best in exposed locations and wide-open spaces. Some planners dislike them.
4 Rainwater harvesting system by Freerain (www.freerain.co.uk).
Cost: £4,250.
For: can save you half your metered water bills.
Against: costly to get that big tank buried.
5 Double insulation. No matter what the power source, better insulation saves energy. Metcalfe used both conventional thick glass-fibre insulation and advanced reflective thin-quilt “multifoil” insulation (such Gauges in the pump room keep track of green-energy output as Triso-Super 10, www.tri-isosuper 10.co.uk).
Cost: multifoil is about 10% dearer than glass fibre.
For: everything.
Against: multifoils require skilled installation.
Consider also: roof-mounted solar water-heaters; roof-mounted photovoltaic panels, to generate electricity; grey-water recycling, for use on the garden.
Several things make Metcalfe, 49, different from your average car nut. One is his background – farmer/landowner, rather than journalist or publisher. The other is his house. Metcalfe might burn fossil fuel at a prodigious rate when he and his Evo team are test-driving supercars, but back home he has designed his family a surprisingly low-energy lifestyle that has slashed his utility bills by two-thirds.
Metcalfe’s new house looks traditional, but is heated with a ground-source heat pump rather than oil, gas or electricity. And, as he still needs electricity for lighting and cooking, he makes a lot of his own with a large wind generator. He also harvests enough filtered rainwater for half his needs, storing it in an underground tank. “I am,” he says frankly, “trying to have my cake and eat it.”
Metcalfe, straightforward and likeable, certainly looks more the farmer than the speed freak or media type. The way he tells it, he set up Evo almost on a whim in 1998, being a car enthusiast and sensing a gap in the market as other titles in the field were closing down. Yet, for all his success as an agri-businessman and publisher, only recently has he acquired a place of his own.
Forever the property wheeler-dealer, buying and selling houses and land, he found himself with a large portfolio – but, paradoxically, still lived in a rented farmhouse. That changed in 2002, when, with a growing young family, he bought a 280-acre working farm near Burford, in the Cotswolds. It cost £2m and came with a number of buildings; among them, a short distance from the main farm complex, a small, traditional-looking house that turned out to have been built in 1939. It is this house that, six years and £1.1m later, has become Metcalfe’s new ultra-green manor.
I find the family – his wife, Patricia, and twin children, Charlie and Izzie, 12, plus two dogs – still settling into the new house. They moved in last November, having lived in a cottage up at the main farm, but there’s still some finishing-off to do. Fabric swatches lie about, earth-moving is taking place outside (Metcalfe likes driving a digger as much as any other vehicle), the new garden is not yet established, the long games room above the garage building outside is unfinished and there’s that general impression of furniture jostling for position. But the surrounding fields – populated, somewhat surreally, by the woolly alpacas that Metcalfe favours (“I like their Dr Dolittle look,” he remarks) – are well tended, and you get the impression that the new house will quickly bed down into the landscape.
Metcalfe may drive carbon-fibre vehicles capable of speeds above 200mph, but, domestically, despite having an unlisted house outside the local village conservation area, he chose to go down the traditional route rather than attempt radical modern architecture.
Peter Yiangou, a Cirencester-based traditionalist architect and country-house specialist, fitted the bill. And what he and the local craftsfolk have produced is so big that the original house becomes merely one wing of the new five-bedroom complex. Before, it was 2,000 sq ft: now it is nearly 5,000, plus another 3,000 for the garage and games block, designed to look like an agricultural outbuilding. This, apparently, was a smaller design option than some they considered. Even so, the moment came when the family chose to sell a holiday house in Italy to fund their ambitions back home.
Just as the 1939 house was a faithful continuation of the ancient Cotswolds style, so the new parts exactly mimic the old, right down to the way the individual stones (from a local quarry) are dressed. A regrettable earlier flat-roofed extension was demolished. The new leaded windows are double-glazed, the house is heavily insulated and there are bathrooms everywhere. But logs burn in the grate in the large stone-flagged hall downstairs, and, when you step in through the front door beneath its carved stone cowl, it is only the obvious newness of everything, and the modern kitchen, with its mandatory Aga, that show you are not still in the 18th century.
The cutting-edge technology comes in the house’s energy and water systems. “We’ve got to be really careful about how we use oil,” Metcalfe says. “Putting oil into an old boiler to heat a house is not a very efficient way to use a valuable resource. Cars are mobile, so they have to use a mobile energy source – and petrol is perfect – but houses are fixed. So I got interested in finding other sources of energy for the house. What amazed me was the efficiency of the ground-source heat pump.”
Metcalfe project-managed the building work himself. As a farmer, he considered growing his own biofuel, but rejected this as too inefficient. Ground-source heat pumps, he found, act much like refrigerators in reverse. Loops of flexible pipes buried in trenches in the ground outside collect the few degrees of near-constant warmth present in the soil. This free heat is passed through a heat exchanger and concentrated to provide background underfloor heating for the house.
Heat pumps can gather up to five times more energy than they spend pumping fluid around. Unfortunately, they don’t make water hot enough for baths and showers; Metcalfe has a high-efficiency immersion heater for that.
A large heat-pump system such as Metcalfe’s, including all the trench digging, comes at a cost: £20,744 in his case, less a grant of £1,200. It generates 28 kilowatts of heat, enough for several small houses. “It’s a brilliant system, but it’s disruptive,” he warns. “Putting it in destroys your garden.” Not everyone has the land to do what he did: capitalise on all the earth-moving to create an 18th-century-style raised lawn, or ha-ha, around the house.
He has a separate air-source heat pump in a shed for his outdoor pool, which makes sense – you use pools in the summer, when the air is hot, so why not put some of that heat in the water? It cost about £850 more than the big oil-fired boiler he would otherwise have installed, but costs a third as much to run.
As for the underground rainwater tank, that is a 6,500-litre polyethylene model that automatically tops itself up from the mains if it gets too low. The family use it for lavatories, dishwashers, garden irrigation and replenishing the pool. It may seem an extravagance at an installed cost of £4,250, but it saves £450 a year in metered water bills.
Then there’s the only bit of all this technology you can actually see – the wind generator, a medium-sized one that cost £18,000 fully installed, less a grant of £5,000. It is about the same size as the wind pumps that used to be a familiar sight in the countryside, but this was the one aspect of the house that the local planners got edgy about, insisting on approval from everyone from the Civil Aviation Authority (the RAF Brize Norton air base is not far away) to the British Horse Society (in case it made the nags bolt). This took ages.
The planners, meanwhile, did not seem bothered about the enormous new house at all – maybe because it’s designed to look old. They did insist on authentic iron gutters and the correct mortar.
So, there is Metcalfe, in a big house, using a lot of energy – even his cars are pampered with their own underfloor heating – but with a clearer conscience than most. He is by no means an off-the-grid, zero-energy person, and he could do more – such as recycling “grey water” from baths to use on the garden, or covering his barns with electricity-generating photovoltaic panels. But he has done a lot, and, as he says: “The net result of combining turbine technology with the latest heat pumps is that annual running costs are a third of what they would have been had oil been used.”
If he’d heated everything by oil instead, he calculates, that would have involved burning 14,000 litres a year at a current cost of £7,280 – it’s a very big house. “People get obsessed with the payback period – how long will it be before it covers its costs?” he says. “That doesn’t bother me. I just think that, in 10 years’ time, a really efficient house, free of oil, will be worth more than one that slurps up oil.” My own rough calculation is that it would take about 12 years for Metcalfe to cover the investment costs of this alternative-energy technology at current prices – though a much shorter period if conventional-energy prices continue to spiral upwards.
While the ground-source heat pump is superefficient and constant, the air-source pump is effective only in summer and early autumn. And the wind turbine is, of course, dependent on the weather. Even so, it contributed 19% of Metcalfe’s electricity in the month before Christmas. He knows this because he has an outhouse full of dials and gauges that tell him.
Moreover, he gets a big discount from his electricity supplier because his wind-turbine output counts towards their green-energy targets. All in all, Metcalfe doesn’t look remotely like someone who has backed the wrong horse. Besides, he’s doing it as a matter of principle: save precious oil for supercars, don’t waste it in boilers.
Of course, Metcalfe and all the other well-heeled country types could save even more energy by moving into a snug city apartment, giving up their cars, and going everywhere by public transport. But he’s doing a serious road test of something that is going to become familiar: microgeneration. If he can do this now, the rest of us will be doing a smaller version of it when costs fall in a few years’ time. And if petrol gets really scarce, Metcalfe says that most of the time, he doesn’t even need to drive his Zonda. He just likes to stand and look at it.
Eco-livingthe Metcalfe way
1 Ground-source heat pump from Viessmann (www.viessmann.co.uk).
Cost: £20,744 (minus a grant of £1,200).
For: conjures free warmth out of the ground for water heating; works year-round.
Against: involves lots of messy trench-digging.
2 Air-source heat pump for outdoor swimming pool from Calorex (www.calorex.com).
Cost: £4,780 (£850 more than conventional heating).
For: great in summer, when you’re using the pool.
Against: no use if you fancy a winter dip.
3 Wind turbine, 6kW model from Proven Energy (www.provenenergy. co.uk).
Cost: £18,000, fully installed (minus a £5,000 grant).
For: you get green-energy rebates, as well as lower bills.
Against: best in exposed locations and wide-open spaces. Some planners dislike them.
4 Rainwater harvesting system by Freerain (www.freerain.co.uk).
Cost: £4,250.
For: can save you half your metered water bills.
Against: costly to get that big tank buried.
5 Double insulation. No matter what the power source, better insulation saves energy. Metcalfe used both conventional thick glass-fibre insulation and advanced reflective thin-quilt “multifoil” insulation (such Gauges in the pump room keep track of green-energy output as Triso-Super 10, www.tri-isosuper 10.co.uk).
Cost: multifoil is about 10% dearer than glass fibre.
For: everything.
Against: multifoils require skilled installation.
Consider also: roof-mounted solar water-heaters; roof-mounted photovoltaic panels, to generate electricity; grey-water recycling, for use on the garden.
Real Estate trusts approved for Pakistani investors
The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan has released the Real Estate Investment Trust regulations for 2008.
The REIT rules allow the general public to add funds to a pool of real estate investments.
Fund managers will have a minimum of 20 per cent stake in pool schemes and will receive a management fee for managing the real estate.
People will be allowed to invest through units of the REIT scheme, which will be listed on stock exchanges.
According to the REIT regulations, two types of schemes are envisaged in Pakistan: developmental and rental.
In a developmental scheme, property will be bought and sold with the sale proceeds to be distributed among the unit holders.
In the rental REIT, a portfolio of properties will be rented out with returns to shareholders being distributed after annual dividends from rental income are totalled.
The REIT rules allow the general public to add funds to a pool of real estate investments.
Fund managers will have a minimum of 20 per cent stake in pool schemes and will receive a management fee for managing the real estate.
People will be allowed to invest through units of the REIT scheme, which will be listed on stock exchanges.
According to the REIT regulations, two types of schemes are envisaged in Pakistan: developmental and rental.
In a developmental scheme, property will be bought and sold with the sale proceeds to be distributed among the unit holders.
In the rental REIT, a portfolio of properties will be rented out with returns to shareholders being distributed after annual dividends from rental income are totalled.
A trendy year for homeowners
More trends to spot this year, from Ann Mack, director of trendspotting at ad agency JWT.
- Start with staycations - stay-at-home vacations in lavishly appointed back yards.
- Eco-chic becomes eco-thrifty as we adopt green strategies to save money and enhance our homes' value.
- We'll start eating very locally, growing our own food out of concern about cost and quality.
- Our furniture will respond to tech gear and gadgets by providing places to hide cables or including built-in power strips.
- The growth industry: Become an e-clutter consultant to help people consolidate their electronics and organize their tech assets.
Roses are red, recycling is green
Red isn't the only valentine color. The one you love can love the Earth with a Greensender box: a fabric grocery bag, reusable water bottle, organic cotton T-shirt, compact fluorescent bulb, material on how they all spare the Earth.
It's $50 from www.greensender.com, where you'll find information on living lightly on the Earth.
Perfect your Super Bowl party
Super Bowl party tips for Sunday evening: Enlist one of the kids to refill chip and nacho baskets, put out more dip, pick up trash, replenish napkins.
Provide amusements during the too-long, too-boring halftime show: card games, a laptop to check stats, or a foam football for instant replays.
Living Green Expo is returning
The Pinellas Living Green Expo, that showcase of products and services for those who want to live more sustainably, returns May 3 and 4 for its third year.
It moves this year to the Harborview Center in downtown Clearwater. Details are at www.pinellaslivinggreenexpo.org.
- Start with staycations - stay-at-home vacations in lavishly appointed back yards.
- Eco-chic becomes eco-thrifty as we adopt green strategies to save money and enhance our homes' value.
- We'll start eating very locally, growing our own food out of concern about cost and quality.
- Our furniture will respond to tech gear and gadgets by providing places to hide cables or including built-in power strips.
- The growth industry: Become an e-clutter consultant to help people consolidate their electronics and organize their tech assets.
Roses are red, recycling is green
Red isn't the only valentine color. The one you love can love the Earth with a Greensender box: a fabric grocery bag, reusable water bottle, organic cotton T-shirt, compact fluorescent bulb, material on how they all spare the Earth.
It's $50 from www.greensender.com, where you'll find information on living lightly on the Earth.
Perfect your Super Bowl party
Super Bowl party tips for Sunday evening: Enlist one of the kids to refill chip and nacho baskets, put out more dip, pick up trash, replenish napkins.
Provide amusements during the too-long, too-boring halftime show: card games, a laptop to check stats, or a foam football for instant replays.
Living Green Expo is returning
The Pinellas Living Green Expo, that showcase of products and services for those who want to live more sustainably, returns May 3 and 4 for its third year.
It moves this year to the Harborview Center in downtown Clearwater. Details are at www.pinellaslivinggreenexpo.org.
Housing Market 'Surprisingly Strong'
Even with economic storm clouds on the horizon, Canada's real estate market hums along with high price appreciation and record-breaking sales.
Supported by booming energy sectors, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick are experiencing the highest house price gains, RoyalLePage Real Estate Services said in its latest survey.
There were no signs of the traditional seasonal slowdown and "surprisingly strong" price increases and "unwavering demand" in the last quarter of 2007, said Royal LePage president Phil Soper.
Nationally, detached bungalows increased to an average of $337,555, up 11.6 percent, while standard two-story houses rose to $399,738, a jump of 11.3 percent. Average condominiums were up to $240,395, a climb of11.7 percent for the year.
Regina and Saskatoon lead the country, with bungalows rising more than 50 percent, while prices rose 43 percent in Saint John, New Brunswick, and 21 percent in Winnipeg. Double-digit gains were recorded in Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria.
A less frenetic real estate market is expected as the economy starts to slow due to less demand for Canada's exports and manufacturing job losses.
"With the U.S. economy likely to contract modestly in the first half of the year, Canada's economy will brush up against bigger ice floes this year," said Sal Guatieri, the Bank of Montreal's senior economist.
BLACK-FOCUSED SCHOOL DISAPPOINTS PREMIER
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is "disappointed" with the Toronto District School Board's decision to establish a controversial "black-focused" school.
The board narrowly approved a motion to open Canada's first school of its type to reflect the needs of its 30,000 black students.
"This is a student achievement issue and the board is acting on its right to set up an alternative school," Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said.
High dropout rates and underachieving students are problems not just in Toronto, so creating such a school isn't the answer, Conservative education critic Elizabeth Witmer said.
"I don't support it," McGuity said, adding: "The best way for us to educate our children is to bring them together so they can come together, learn together and grow together."
News in brief
Hundreds of flights were canceled Friday at Toronto's Pearson airport and schools and businesses were closed after a snowstorm from the U.S. Midwest roared into eastern Canada, dumping about eight inches of snow. The storm then moved into Quebec and the Maritimes while crews continue to restore power to thousands of people in Prince Edward Island after an ice storm last Monday.
Montreal Canadiens fans are rallying behind hockey legend Guy Lafleur, who was arrested on accusations he gave contradictory testimony at his son's bail hearing. Mark Lafleur faces some 20 criminal charges, including sexually assaulting a minor. The accusations concern Guy Lafleur's testimony that his son was respecting a court-ordered curfew while in his parents' custody.
Facts and figures
The Canadian dollar has been showing some volatility - climbing above and falling below parity with the U.S. currency. The dollar was worth $1.0059 U.S. Friday while the U.S. greenback returned99.41 cents Canadian, before bank exchange fees.
The Bank of Canada's key interest rate is steady at 4 percent while the prime lending rate is 5.75 percent.
Canadian stock markets were mixed, with the Toronto Exchange index up at 13,206 points Friday and the TSX Venture Exchange lower at 2,566 points.
Lotto 6-49: (Wednesday) 1, 20, 21, 23, 40 and 41; bonus 12. (Jan. 26) 1, 5, 11, 37, 44 and 47; bonus 36. Super 7: (Jan. 25) 4, 9, 10, 17, 26, 32 and 33; bonus 27.
Regional briefs
Slower sales and the higher-valued Canadian dollar are blamed by computer maker Dell for closing its call center that employs 900 people in Edmonton. An "unspecified" number of 1,500 call center jobs are being cut in Ottawa along with ending plans to hire another 1,200 there.
Beatle Paul McCartney is again speaking out against the annual Canadian seal hunt. The music legend is calling on animal lovers to pressure the European Union to proceed with a ban on seal products, a huge market for the hunters. McCartney and his former wife, Heather Mills, went to the Gulf of St. Lawrence two years ago to protest against the hunt, calling it "senseless brutality."
Pooch Jake can't wait to get back to home in warm San Diego after an extended visit in the frozen countryside of rural Alberta. The German shepherd-cross went missing six months ago while on a trip and owner Brenda Hemsing thought she'd never see him again. He's flying home after being found sleeping under an abandoned bus in Ponoka near Edmonton still wearing his identification tags.
Supported by booming energy sectors, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick are experiencing the highest house price gains, RoyalLePage Real Estate Services said in its latest survey.
There were no signs of the traditional seasonal slowdown and "surprisingly strong" price increases and "unwavering demand" in the last quarter of 2007, said Royal LePage president Phil Soper.
Nationally, detached bungalows increased to an average of $337,555, up 11.6 percent, while standard two-story houses rose to $399,738, a jump of 11.3 percent. Average condominiums were up to $240,395, a climb of11.7 percent for the year.
Regina and Saskatoon lead the country, with bungalows rising more than 50 percent, while prices rose 43 percent in Saint John, New Brunswick, and 21 percent in Winnipeg. Double-digit gains were recorded in Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria.
A less frenetic real estate market is expected as the economy starts to slow due to less demand for Canada's exports and manufacturing job losses.
"With the U.S. economy likely to contract modestly in the first half of the year, Canada's economy will brush up against bigger ice floes this year," said Sal Guatieri, the Bank of Montreal's senior economist.
BLACK-FOCUSED SCHOOL DISAPPOINTS PREMIER
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is "disappointed" with the Toronto District School Board's decision to establish a controversial "black-focused" school.
The board narrowly approved a motion to open Canada's first school of its type to reflect the needs of its 30,000 black students.
"This is a student achievement issue and the board is acting on its right to set up an alternative school," Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said.
High dropout rates and underachieving students are problems not just in Toronto, so creating such a school isn't the answer, Conservative education critic Elizabeth Witmer said.
"I don't support it," McGuity said, adding: "The best way for us to educate our children is to bring them together so they can come together, learn together and grow together."
News in brief
Hundreds of flights were canceled Friday at Toronto's Pearson airport and schools and businesses were closed after a snowstorm from the U.S. Midwest roared into eastern Canada, dumping about eight inches of snow. The storm then moved into Quebec and the Maritimes while crews continue to restore power to thousands of people in Prince Edward Island after an ice storm last Monday.
Montreal Canadiens fans are rallying behind hockey legend Guy Lafleur, who was arrested on accusations he gave contradictory testimony at his son's bail hearing. Mark Lafleur faces some 20 criminal charges, including sexually assaulting a minor. The accusations concern Guy Lafleur's testimony that his son was respecting a court-ordered curfew while in his parents' custody.
Facts and figures
The Canadian dollar has been showing some volatility - climbing above and falling below parity with the U.S. currency. The dollar was worth $1.0059 U.S. Friday while the U.S. greenback returned99.41 cents Canadian, before bank exchange fees.
The Bank of Canada's key interest rate is steady at 4 percent while the prime lending rate is 5.75 percent.
Canadian stock markets were mixed, with the Toronto Exchange index up at 13,206 points Friday and the TSX Venture Exchange lower at 2,566 points.
Lotto 6-49: (Wednesday) 1, 20, 21, 23, 40 and 41; bonus 12. (Jan. 26) 1, 5, 11, 37, 44 and 47; bonus 36. Super 7: (Jan. 25) 4, 9, 10, 17, 26, 32 and 33; bonus 27.
Regional briefs
Slower sales and the higher-valued Canadian dollar are blamed by computer maker Dell for closing its call center that employs 900 people in Edmonton. An "unspecified" number of 1,500 call center jobs are being cut in Ottawa along with ending plans to hire another 1,200 there.
Beatle Paul McCartney is again speaking out against the annual Canadian seal hunt. The music legend is calling on animal lovers to pressure the European Union to proceed with a ban on seal products, a huge market for the hunters. McCartney and his former wife, Heather Mills, went to the Gulf of St. Lawrence two years ago to protest against the hunt, calling it "senseless brutality."
Pooch Jake can't wait to get back to home in warm San Diego after an extended visit in the frozen countryside of rural Alberta. The German shepherd-cross went missing six months ago while on a trip and owner Brenda Hemsing thought she'd never see him again. He's flying home after being found sleeping under an abandoned bus in Ponoka near Edmonton still wearing his identification tags.
Look for gardening ideas abroad; from Provence to Thailand
We British have never been afraid to borrow ideas from overseas – and that certainly goes for our gardens. Our correspondent looks for foreign inspiration
Last summer, travelling through the Provençal countryside by train, I pondered the fields of sunflowers and groves of olive trees – planted in neat rows and pruned to perfection – and marvelled at how different it looked from our own landscape.
The real eye-opener had comeearlier, however: how dramatically man’s imprinton the land appeared to differ as I left Britain, then emerged from the Channel tunnel amid all things Gallic.
Be it agriculture or horticulture, how each nation tills and tends the soil is as much of a giveaway as the British propensity for wearing socks with sandals, and the irritatingly innate elegance and enviably thin ankles of the French.
We had travelled through British suburbs where our temperate climate allows for corridors of greenery. Lacking the orderliness of the French, our gardens are a hotchpotch: an endearing mix of lawn, flowerbeds, hanging baskets, sheds, trampolines and the gaudy plastic detritus of family life.
I love the way we Britons garden.
What you see here, you don’t see anywhere else. We are eclectic – even eccentric – and celebrate diversity. Nautical themes, Mediterranean courtyards, tropical jungle gardens and sleek modernity sit cheek by jowl with blowsy herbaceous borders, gardens given over entirely to the obsessive cultivation of one plant – dahlias, sweet peas or whatever – jokey topiary and intricate Elizabethan knots.
It is all one glorious celebration of gardening for its own sake. We don’t particularly care if our garden is tasteful, rarely feel the need to prove anything and aren’t afraid to embrace something foreign. Just look at the average British provincial high street, which offers Indian, Italian, Greek, American and Chinese cuisine, with a smattering of Japanese, Thai, Spanish and French thrown in for good measure. In any small town outside Paris, however, the food on offer is likely to be not only French, but specific to the region.
In much the same way, French gardens always look like French gardens. They are masters of formality and control, tending always towards symmetry: pruning, clipping, pollarding and making the plants work for them. The natural form is tamed. I always feel that French gardeners don’t take no for an answer from mother nature, whereas she senses that most Britons are a bit of a pushover.
Formality and symmetry are common to many countries, but there are marked differences, nonetheless. English formal gardens lack the necessary ruthlessness needed to achieve the cleanest lines and the greatest impact. The French are not afraid of scale, or of sticking to a plan without wavering. By comparison, our efforts are always a little fuzzy around the edges. And, when it comes to grand schemes, I think we tend to lose our nerve and wonder whether it couldn’t do with a bit of softening. It is partly our love affair with plants – a more-the-merrier approach – but it is also to do with having a dread of appearing to take it too seriously.
I’ve picked on the contrasts between the British and the French because the love-hate relationship that exists with our closest neighbour is a perfect illustration of how much national garden styles can differ, even over small distances. There are, of course, exceptions, and one must try to avoid cliché and the temptation to ignore the diversity of styles to be found in every country.
We admire and often emulate each other’s gardens: the English style is highly praised and popular in Japan, just as Japanese gardens are compelling to us. What looks familiar to one is exotic and unusual to another. But underlying, deep-seated tendencies and preferences – governed, perhaps, by national character, lifestyle and climate – show through, just as they do in art, costume and music. If we are the result of our upbringing and the influences of our immediate surroundings, our gardens are a reflection of that – and are all the more intriguing as a result.
OTHER NATIONAL STYLES
Italian
Italian gardens are weighed down with a wealth of history. Even in the mid-20th century, many of its citizens were still peasants, concentrating on growing vegetables in order to survive, rather than creating leafy groves in which to wander. Those were the preserve of the wealthy – so it’s no wonder that ancient columns, sculpture and other elements of classical decoration jostle with Renaissance, baroque and rococo ornament.
In Italian gardens, formality incorporates magnificent figurative fountains and stonework, but is softened by exuberance in the planting. If you’re looking to create a similar effect, don’t try to do it on a tight budget. Italian-style gardens constructed with inferior stone substitutes and dodgy faux-classical sculptures always look naff. To achieve the desired look of timeless quality, you have to use good materials.
The extreme heat of summer in Italy means that planting styles rely more heavily on evergreens than we have to, thanks to the temperate British climate. But terracotta pots filled with flowers or fruiting specimens will be in keeping with the Italian look and will provide just the right amount of extra colour.
Japanese
Asia is home to some of the world’s most enigmatic gardens. In Japan, the garden is a place of refuge and meditation, a haven in which to contemplate nature and one’s place within it. Serenity and simplicity are the order of the day. The natural landscape is reflected in the shaping of the ground and the careful placing of stones or raked gravel. Plants often have a distinct purpose, being used to create elegance of line or a shapely silhouette. Foliage and bark are as highly prized as flowers, and less is generally more.
If you long to achieve the same sense of clarity, go for high-quality hard landscaping and place the emphasis on one or two choice individual specimen plants. Acers may seem too obvious, but they are ideal for the job. Give them plenty of space and let them shine.
Moroccan
This style is frequently used in show gardens, and it works well in small, enclosed spaces, emulating the courtyards of a North African medina. Such gardens need the intensity of a Mediterranean sun to come to life – or at least a south-facing aspect. Rich colours are displayed on walls, floor tiles and mosaics. Similarly, intricate patterns and small repetitive friezes or borders instantly suggest a Moroccan influence, as do symmetrical water features – a key part of Islamic gardens, which often have a small fountain.
American
This is where the popular new prairie planting style really took off. It involves mixing flowering perennials – many native to North America – with grasses in vast, naturalistic swathes that melt into the landscape. The look works best when space is not an issue. Achieving this sense of expansive colour and movement is difficult in the back garden of the average British semi, but you can enjoy a similar feel in a sunny position, using a slimmed-down palette of the same plants.
Further reading: In Search of Paradise: Great Gardens of the World by Penelope Hobhouse (Frances Lincoln £25)
Last summer, travelling through the Provençal countryside by train, I pondered the fields of sunflowers and groves of olive trees – planted in neat rows and pruned to perfection – and marvelled at how different it looked from our own landscape.
The real eye-opener had comeearlier, however: how dramatically man’s imprinton the land appeared to differ as I left Britain, then emerged from the Channel tunnel amid all things Gallic.
Be it agriculture or horticulture, how each nation tills and tends the soil is as much of a giveaway as the British propensity for wearing socks with sandals, and the irritatingly innate elegance and enviably thin ankles of the French.
We had travelled through British suburbs where our temperate climate allows for corridors of greenery. Lacking the orderliness of the French, our gardens are a hotchpotch: an endearing mix of lawn, flowerbeds, hanging baskets, sheds, trampolines and the gaudy plastic detritus of family life.
I love the way we Britons garden.
What you see here, you don’t see anywhere else. We are eclectic – even eccentric – and celebrate diversity. Nautical themes, Mediterranean courtyards, tropical jungle gardens and sleek modernity sit cheek by jowl with blowsy herbaceous borders, gardens given over entirely to the obsessive cultivation of one plant – dahlias, sweet peas or whatever – jokey topiary and intricate Elizabethan knots.
It is all one glorious celebration of gardening for its own sake. We don’t particularly care if our garden is tasteful, rarely feel the need to prove anything and aren’t afraid to embrace something foreign. Just look at the average British provincial high street, which offers Indian, Italian, Greek, American and Chinese cuisine, with a smattering of Japanese, Thai, Spanish and French thrown in for good measure. In any small town outside Paris, however, the food on offer is likely to be not only French, but specific to the region.
In much the same way, French gardens always look like French gardens. They are masters of formality and control, tending always towards symmetry: pruning, clipping, pollarding and making the plants work for them. The natural form is tamed. I always feel that French gardeners don’t take no for an answer from mother nature, whereas she senses that most Britons are a bit of a pushover.
Formality and symmetry are common to many countries, but there are marked differences, nonetheless. English formal gardens lack the necessary ruthlessness needed to achieve the cleanest lines and the greatest impact. The French are not afraid of scale, or of sticking to a plan without wavering. By comparison, our efforts are always a little fuzzy around the edges. And, when it comes to grand schemes, I think we tend to lose our nerve and wonder whether it couldn’t do with a bit of softening. It is partly our love affair with plants – a more-the-merrier approach – but it is also to do with having a dread of appearing to take it too seriously.
I’ve picked on the contrasts between the British and the French because the love-hate relationship that exists with our closest neighbour is a perfect illustration of how much national garden styles can differ, even over small distances. There are, of course, exceptions, and one must try to avoid cliché and the temptation to ignore the diversity of styles to be found in every country.
We admire and often emulate each other’s gardens: the English style is highly praised and popular in Japan, just as Japanese gardens are compelling to us. What looks familiar to one is exotic and unusual to another. But underlying, deep-seated tendencies and preferences – governed, perhaps, by national character, lifestyle and climate – show through, just as they do in art, costume and music. If we are the result of our upbringing and the influences of our immediate surroundings, our gardens are a reflection of that – and are all the more intriguing as a result.
OTHER NATIONAL STYLES
Italian
Italian gardens are weighed down with a wealth of history. Even in the mid-20th century, many of its citizens were still peasants, concentrating on growing vegetables in order to survive, rather than creating leafy groves in which to wander. Those were the preserve of the wealthy – so it’s no wonder that ancient columns, sculpture and other elements of classical decoration jostle with Renaissance, baroque and rococo ornament.
In Italian gardens, formality incorporates magnificent figurative fountains and stonework, but is softened by exuberance in the planting. If you’re looking to create a similar effect, don’t try to do it on a tight budget. Italian-style gardens constructed with inferior stone substitutes and dodgy faux-classical sculptures always look naff. To achieve the desired look of timeless quality, you have to use good materials.
The extreme heat of summer in Italy means that planting styles rely more heavily on evergreens than we have to, thanks to the temperate British climate. But terracotta pots filled with flowers or fruiting specimens will be in keeping with the Italian look and will provide just the right amount of extra colour.
Japanese
Asia is home to some of the world’s most enigmatic gardens. In Japan, the garden is a place of refuge and meditation, a haven in which to contemplate nature and one’s place within it. Serenity and simplicity are the order of the day. The natural landscape is reflected in the shaping of the ground and the careful placing of stones or raked gravel. Plants often have a distinct purpose, being used to create elegance of line or a shapely silhouette. Foliage and bark are as highly prized as flowers, and less is generally more.
If you long to achieve the same sense of clarity, go for high-quality hard landscaping and place the emphasis on one or two choice individual specimen plants. Acers may seem too obvious, but they are ideal for the job. Give them plenty of space and let them shine.
Moroccan
This style is frequently used in show gardens, and it works well in small, enclosed spaces, emulating the courtyards of a North African medina. Such gardens need the intensity of a Mediterranean sun to come to life – or at least a south-facing aspect. Rich colours are displayed on walls, floor tiles and mosaics. Similarly, intricate patterns and small repetitive friezes or borders instantly suggest a Moroccan influence, as do symmetrical water features – a key part of Islamic gardens, which often have a small fountain.
American
This is where the popular new prairie planting style really took off. It involves mixing flowering perennials – many native to North America – with grasses in vast, naturalistic swathes that melt into the landscape. The look works best when space is not an issue. Achieving this sense of expansive colour and movement is difficult in the back garden of the average British semi, but you can enjoy a similar feel in a sunny position, using a slimmed-down palette of the same plants.
Further reading: In Search of Paradise: Great Gardens of the World by Penelope Hobhouse (Frances Lincoln £25)
Protection One President and CEO To Be Featured Speaker at Annual Barnes Buchanan Security Alarm Conference
LAWRENCE, Kan., Feb. 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Richard Ginsburg, president and chief executive officer of Protection One, Inc. , one of the largest electronic security companies in the United States, will speak at the 13th annual Barnes Buchanan Conference, which will be held Thursday, Feb. 7, through Saturday, Feb. 9, 2008, at The Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida.
As the event's featured speaker, Ginsburg will present his views on the security industry and provide an overview of Protection One at the conference kick off at 1 p.m. Eastern time, Thursday, Feb. 7. A copy of Ginsburg's presentation will be available on the investor relations section of Protection One's Web site at http://www.ProtectionOne.com, beginning no later than that time and will remain available there until Feb. 21, 2008. On the company's Web site, you also may find biographical information about Ginsburg, view recent press releases and register for customized automatic delivery of Protection One events and news.
For more information about the conference, go to http://www.barnesbuchanan.com.
About Protection One:
Protection One is one of the largest vertically integrated national providers of sales, installation, monitoring, and maintenance of electronic security systems to homes and businesses. Network Multifamily, Protection One's wholly owned subsidiary, is the largest security provider to the multifamily housing market. The company also owns the nation's largest provider of wholesale monitoring services, the combined operations of CMS and Criticom International. For more information about Protection One, visit http://www.ProtectionOne.com. (PONENR)
As the event's featured speaker, Ginsburg will present his views on the security industry and provide an overview of Protection One at the conference kick off at 1 p.m. Eastern time, Thursday, Feb. 7. A copy of Ginsburg's presentation will be available on the investor relations section of Protection One's Web site at http://www.ProtectionOne.com, beginning no later than that time and will remain available there until Feb. 21, 2008. On the company's Web site, you also may find biographical information about Ginsburg, view recent press releases and register for customized automatic delivery of Protection One events and news.
For more information about the conference, go to http://www.barnesbuchanan.com.
About Protection One:
Protection One is one of the largest vertically integrated national providers of sales, installation, monitoring, and maintenance of electronic security systems to homes and businesses. Network Multifamily, Protection One's wholly owned subsidiary, is the largest security provider to the multifamily housing market. The company also owns the nation's largest provider of wholesale monitoring services, the combined operations of CMS and Criticom International. For more information about Protection One, visit http://www.ProtectionOne.com. (PONENR)
Realtors(R), Mayors Recognize Miami-Dade for Virtual Housing Center
WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Association of Realtors(R) and the U.S. Conference of Mayors have named Miami-Dade County an Ambassador City for its Housing Central Web portal. The virtual one-stop housing center connects residents with affordable homes and rental units and provides valuable information and resources for area families.
The county developed Housing Central to help residents find homes and rental properties that best meet their needs. The Realtor(R) Association of Greater Miami and the Beaches (RAMB) is working closely with Miami-Dade County to link Housing Central to the Realtor(R) association's multilanguage Web site, providing hundreds of additional property listings.
"Realtors(R) build communities and care about the lack of affordable housing opportunities in many of our cities and towns," said NAR President Dick Gaylord, a broker with RE/MAX Real Estate Specialists in Long Beach, Calif. "Our goal is to help all families at all income levels find a place they can call home."
Housing Central's locator tool helps individuals search rental properties or homes for sale according to location, price or property features. The Web site also lists Section 8 properties as well as income-based and special-needs housing. Landlords or individuals selling homes under $400,000 can also post their homes for free on the Housing Central Web site. Currently, more than 2,600 properties are listed on the site.
In addition to property listings, Housing Central also has information about Miami-Dade County's housing programs, online applications for financial aid and lists of services available to help potential home buyers finance and purchase a home.
During a luncheon today at the Country Club of Coral Gables, a representative from NAR joined David Gatton, director, Council on the New American City, U.S. Conference of Mayors, in presenting the Ambassador for Cities plaque and $5,000 for the Housing Central initiative to Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez and RAMB's Chairman Kim Kirschner, and President of Residential, Terri Bersach.
"Initiatives like Housing Central have helped hundreds of families quickly and easily find and access affordable homes and rentals, a top priority in many of our communities," said Gaylord. "We are in an ever-changing real estate market, and this Web portal is helping address the needs of both current Miami-Dade residents and those looking to relocate to the area."
NAR and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, through its Council on the New American City, launched the Ambassadors for Cities program in 2003 to encourage cities and local Realtor(R) associations to form partnerships to promote affordable housing and homeownership.
The National Association of Realtors(R), "The Voice for Real Estate," is America's largest trade association, representing more than 1.3 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.
Information about NAR is available at http://www.realtor.org. This statement and news releases are posted in the News Media section. Statistical data, charts and surveys also may be found by clicking on Research.
REALTOR(R) is a registered collective membership mark which may be used only by real estate professionals who are members of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS(R) and subscribe to its strict Code of Ethics. Not all real estate agents are REALTORS(R). All REALTORS(R) are members of NAR.
The county developed Housing Central to help residents find homes and rental properties that best meet their needs. The Realtor(R) Association of Greater Miami and the Beaches (RAMB) is working closely with Miami-Dade County to link Housing Central to the Realtor(R) association's multilanguage Web site, providing hundreds of additional property listings.
"Realtors(R) build communities and care about the lack of affordable housing opportunities in many of our cities and towns," said NAR President Dick Gaylord, a broker with RE/MAX Real Estate Specialists in Long Beach, Calif. "Our goal is to help all families at all income levels find a place they can call home."
Housing Central's locator tool helps individuals search rental properties or homes for sale according to location, price or property features. The Web site also lists Section 8 properties as well as income-based and special-needs housing. Landlords or individuals selling homes under $400,000 can also post their homes for free on the Housing Central Web site. Currently, more than 2,600 properties are listed on the site.
In addition to property listings, Housing Central also has information about Miami-Dade County's housing programs, online applications for financial aid and lists of services available to help potential home buyers finance and purchase a home.
During a luncheon today at the Country Club of Coral Gables, a representative from NAR joined David Gatton, director, Council on the New American City, U.S. Conference of Mayors, in presenting the Ambassador for Cities plaque and $5,000 for the Housing Central initiative to Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez and RAMB's Chairman Kim Kirschner, and President of Residential, Terri Bersach.
"Initiatives like Housing Central have helped hundreds of families quickly and easily find and access affordable homes and rentals, a top priority in many of our communities," said Gaylord. "We are in an ever-changing real estate market, and this Web portal is helping address the needs of both current Miami-Dade residents and those looking to relocate to the area."
NAR and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, through its Council on the New American City, launched the Ambassadors for Cities program in 2003 to encourage cities and local Realtor(R) associations to form partnerships to promote affordable housing and homeownership.
The National Association of Realtors(R), "The Voice for Real Estate," is America's largest trade association, representing more than 1.3 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.
Information about NAR is available at http://www.realtor.org. This statement and news releases are posted in the News Media section. Statistical data, charts and surveys also may be found by clicking on Research.
REALTOR(R) is a registered collective membership mark which may be used only by real estate professionals who are members of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS(R) and subscribe to its strict Code of Ethics. Not all real estate agents are REALTORS(R). All REALTORS(R) are members of NAR.
NorthStar Realty Finance Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2007 Earnings Conference Call
NEW YORK, Feb. 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- NorthStar Realty Finance Corp. , an internally managed REIT that primarily originates and invests in commercial real estate debt, real estate securities and net lease properties, today announced that it will host a conference call to discuss fourth quarter and full year financial results for the period ended December 31, 2007 on Thursday, February 28, 2008 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern time. Hosting the call will be David T. Hamamoto, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Andrew C. Richardson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. A press release with fourth quarter and fiscal year 2007 financial results will be issued before the market open on February 28, 2008.
The call will be webcast live over the Internet from the company's website at http://www.nrfc.com and will be archived on the company's website. The call can also be accessed live over the phone by dialing 800-257-7063, or for international callers, by dialing 303-262-2130.
A replay of the call will be available one hour after the call through Thursday, March 6, 2008 by dialing 800-405-2236 or 303-590-3000 for international callers, using pass code 11108401.
About NorthStar Realty Finance Corp.
NorthStar Realty Finance Corp. is an internally managed REIT that primarily originates and invests in commercial real estate debt, real estate securities and net lease properties. For more information about NorthStar Realty Finance Corp., please visit http://www.nrfc.com.
The call will be webcast live over the Internet from the company's website at http://www.nrfc.com and will be archived on the company's website. The call can also be accessed live over the phone by dialing 800-257-7063, or for international callers, by dialing 303-262-2130.
A replay of the call will be available one hour after the call through Thursday, March 6, 2008 by dialing 800-405-2236 or 303-590-3000 for international callers, using pass code 11108401.
About NorthStar Realty Finance Corp.
NorthStar Realty Finance Corp. is an internally managed REIT that primarily originates and invests in commercial real estate debt, real estate securities and net lease properties. For more information about NorthStar Realty Finance Corp., please visit http://www.nrfc.com.
With Pre-Foreclosures at a Record High in the United States, Real Estate Investors have Found Hidden Treasure in the Chicago Sub-prime Mortgage Meltdo
(EMAILWIRE.COM, February 03, 2008 ) Chicago, IL – Jeff Kaller offers an opportunity for investors to profit from pre-foreclosed real estate. Many investors are curious about investing but due to lack of knowledge and training they do not enter this profitable business.
Over the course of the last year the United States has experienced a steady rise in foreclosures. Analysts predict that with rising interest and inflation rates along with high housing costs, the future outlook of foreclosures remain substantial. For 11 years Jeff Kaller has created the most powerful information available on the technique of negotiating Short Sales. A short sale occurs when the lender accepts less than the balance owed on the mortgage to sell the pre-foreclosed property.
Jeff Kaller is offering the secrets of negotiating these deals at his upcoming workshop. Attend the workshop to learn the following secrets and tips:
* How to find hidden deals through five little used lists that others don’t know exist
* The proprietary 82% rule, combined with combo loans, means a huge paycheck every single time, on every single deal
* The only tested and proven formula designed to generate a check of $95,000 or greater, on one deal used by hundreds, if not thousands of his students
* Short sale secrets unavailable anywhere for any price, and the biggest killer of any deal violated by 89% of all new investors
* How to generate a successful short sale 100% of the time
Jeff Kaller will be speaking at two all-day events in Chicago, IL on February 16th and February 17th. Registration and additional information are shown on his website at http://www.jeffsworkshop.com/
Contact Information:
Paramount Promotions LLC (The Countries Leading Short Sale Trainer)
Over the course of the last year the United States has experienced a steady rise in foreclosures. Analysts predict that with rising interest and inflation rates along with high housing costs, the future outlook of foreclosures remain substantial. For 11 years Jeff Kaller has created the most powerful information available on the technique of negotiating Short Sales. A short sale occurs when the lender accepts less than the balance owed on the mortgage to sell the pre-foreclosed property.
Jeff Kaller is offering the secrets of negotiating these deals at his upcoming workshop. Attend the workshop to learn the following secrets and tips:
* How to find hidden deals through five little used lists that others don’t know exist
* The proprietary 82% rule, combined with combo loans, means a huge paycheck every single time, on every single deal
* The only tested and proven formula designed to generate a check of $95,000 or greater, on one deal used by hundreds, if not thousands of his students
* Short sale secrets unavailable anywhere for any price, and the biggest killer of any deal violated by 89% of all new investors
* How to generate a successful short sale 100% of the time
Jeff Kaller will be speaking at two all-day events in Chicago, IL on February 16th and February 17th. Registration and additional information are shown on his website at http://www.jeffsworkshop.com/
Contact Information:
Paramount Promotions LLC (The Countries Leading Short Sale Trainer)
Real Estate Investors see Home Foreclosures as a Money Making opportunity
(EMAILWIRE.COM, February 03, 2008 ) Chicago, IL -- Pre-foreclosure expert and investment entrepreneur, Jeff Kaller, is coming to Chicago, IL on Saturday, February 16, 2008 and Sunday, February 17, 2008 to speak about pre-foreclosure property investment and home purchase. He will explain the advantage of pre-foreclosure and what it means for anyone who wants to take advantage of the current real estate market.
According to, Jeff, “Generally pre-foreclosures are a great investment as long as you know what the risks and benefits are…the property owner simply wants to get out of the property as soon as possible and that can be a great opportunity for the investor. Because of the epic increase in home foreclosures all across the U.S., now is the right time for investors to purchase property. Once you understand what exactly a pre-foreclosure is” Jeff says, “you’ll see how to benefit from it.”
Technically, a pre-foreclosure is a process in which a mortgage loan is in default due to lack of payment. Usually a notice of default will have been filed as a first step. If the default is not cured either a judicial or non judicial proceeding is started or property is subject to foreclosure. Pre-foreclosure is sometimes known as Lis Pendens (lawsuit pending) in states that conduct judicial proceedings.
Usually both the lender and the home owner want to keep this from occurring which is why they are willing to negotiate with investors. Lenders prefer to sell the mortgage at a lower price to investors than allow the value to depreciate while the property sits idle. The home owner would rather have an investor take over the mortgage so they can satisfy their debt. Some of the major benefits of a pre-foreclosure purchase include the assurance of always securing a clear title, which saves a lot of time, cost and apprehension when buying foreclosures.
Jeff Kaller will discuss the technique of negotiating short sales at two all-day workshops in Chicago, IL on February 16th and 17th. Registration and additional information are shown on his website at http://www.jeffsworkshop.com/
According to, Jeff, “Generally pre-foreclosures are a great investment as long as you know what the risks and benefits are…the property owner simply wants to get out of the property as soon as possible and that can be a great opportunity for the investor. Because of the epic increase in home foreclosures all across the U.S., now is the right time for investors to purchase property. Once you understand what exactly a pre-foreclosure is” Jeff says, “you’ll see how to benefit from it.”
Technically, a pre-foreclosure is a process in which a mortgage loan is in default due to lack of payment. Usually a notice of default will have been filed as a first step. If the default is not cured either a judicial or non judicial proceeding is started or property is subject to foreclosure. Pre-foreclosure is sometimes known as Lis Pendens (lawsuit pending) in states that conduct judicial proceedings.
Usually both the lender and the home owner want to keep this from occurring which is why they are willing to negotiate with investors. Lenders prefer to sell the mortgage at a lower price to investors than allow the value to depreciate while the property sits idle. The home owner would rather have an investor take over the mortgage so they can satisfy their debt. Some of the major benefits of a pre-foreclosure purchase include the assurance of always securing a clear title, which saves a lot of time, cost and apprehension when buying foreclosures.
Jeff Kaller will discuss the technique of negotiating short sales at two all-day workshops in Chicago, IL on February 16th and 17th. Registration and additional information are shown on his website at http://www.jeffsworkshop.com/
Real estate market still strong
Alabama home sales topped out at 57,083 units sold in 2007, a 5 percent decline from 2006, according to the University of Alabama's Center for Real Estate.
Even so, 2007 was the third best year on record for home sales in the state.
The center reported that consumer confidence was lower toward the end of 2007 because of turbulence in the mortgage and credit markets, along with the increasing national foreclosure rate.
The Shoals, however, was at the top for the mid-sized markets and experienced a 4.62 percent year-over-year sales growth.
"Our market is strong. We did have a really good year in 2007, and we're expecting good things to happen this year," said Charlene Isbell, president of the Realtors Association of the Shoals.
For 2007, Isbell said there were 1,801 local homes sold, with an average selling price of $132,129 and an average of 71 days spent on the market.
"It's a good time to sell and a good time to buy," Isbell said. "The seller can get a good price on a home and there's a lot of good homes to find for the buyer."
Much of the Alabama housing market has been in a period of adjustment, though, since the middle of the third quarter of 2007, said Grayson M. Glaze, executive director of the real estate center.
"Demand has understandably tempered as consumers paused to digest national housing headlines and to gain a better read of their local real estate market," Glaze said.
State housing inventory peaked in July with 44,921 units for sale and finished 2007 with an inventory of 41,604.
The current housing inventory is 19.17 percent higher than December 2006, Glaze said.
"The center will continue to closely monitor this very important market indicator, as the reduction in excess supply will be critical for the market to regain positive traction during 2008," Glaze said.
He explained that the inventory-to-sales ratio is important in determining a healthy sales pace, which is typically about six months. Glaze said that in December, the state's ratio was at an unhealthy 11.1 months, indicating when the existing supply of homes would be depleted.
In December 2007, the inventory-to-sales ratio for the Shoals area was seven months. The rate for the Shoals area "has consistently been within the favorable ranges for the last several years," Glaze said.
He said the Alabama market will continue to reflect a period of correction as demand will likely remain softer than normal.
"2008 should represent another solid year for Alabama real estate," Glaze said.
"It may simply be unrealistic for the Alabama housing market to match the record-breaking sales pace of the last three years."
Kenda Williams can be reached at 740-5720 or kenda.williams@timesdaily.com.
Even so, 2007 was the third best year on record for home sales in the state.
The center reported that consumer confidence was lower toward the end of 2007 because of turbulence in the mortgage and credit markets, along with the increasing national foreclosure rate.
The Shoals, however, was at the top for the mid-sized markets and experienced a 4.62 percent year-over-year sales growth.
"Our market is strong. We did have a really good year in 2007, and we're expecting good things to happen this year," said Charlene Isbell, president of the Realtors Association of the Shoals.
For 2007, Isbell said there were 1,801 local homes sold, with an average selling price of $132,129 and an average of 71 days spent on the market.
"It's a good time to sell and a good time to buy," Isbell said. "The seller can get a good price on a home and there's a lot of good homes to find for the buyer."
Much of the Alabama housing market has been in a period of adjustment, though, since the middle of the third quarter of 2007, said Grayson M. Glaze, executive director of the real estate center.
"Demand has understandably tempered as consumers paused to digest national housing headlines and to gain a better read of their local real estate market," Glaze said.
State housing inventory peaked in July with 44,921 units for sale and finished 2007 with an inventory of 41,604.
The current housing inventory is 19.17 percent higher than December 2006, Glaze said.
"The center will continue to closely monitor this very important market indicator, as the reduction in excess supply will be critical for the market to regain positive traction during 2008," Glaze said.
He explained that the inventory-to-sales ratio is important in determining a healthy sales pace, which is typically about six months. Glaze said that in December, the state's ratio was at an unhealthy 11.1 months, indicating when the existing supply of homes would be depleted.
In December 2007, the inventory-to-sales ratio for the Shoals area was seven months. The rate for the Shoals area "has consistently been within the favorable ranges for the last several years," Glaze said.
He said the Alabama market will continue to reflect a period of correction as demand will likely remain softer than normal.
"2008 should represent another solid year for Alabama real estate," Glaze said.
"It may simply be unrealistic for the Alabama housing market to match the record-breaking sales pace of the last three years."
Kenda Williams can be reached at 740-5720 or kenda.williams@timesdaily.com.
Conflicting data confuses area homeowners
By Stephen P. Clark
Staff Writer
Published February 3 2008
STAMFORD - As home prices drop throughout the country because of the subprime crisis, the housing market in Fairfield County has remained relatively strong, said Director of Assessment and Collection William Forker.
At the first public meeting on the 2007 property revaluation last week, held at the Long Ridge Firehouse, a homeowner asked Forker how the lessening of neighborhood values affects assessments. The homeowner said the assessed market value of his property went up 10 percent.
"It sounds a little bit out of line," the homeowner said.
"There are people who are convinced that properties in Stamford have dropped 25 percent," Forker told the nearly 60 homeowners in attendance. "I can tell you it has not. There's a slowing down in the increase of value. But overall in Stamford and in Fairfield County, that drop or decrease has not materialized."
In an interview, Pascale Millien-Faustin, a Realtor with ERA Shays Real Estate, disagreed with Forker's assessment of the housing market.
"I don't think it's accurate," she said. "A lot of people are losing their homes and are afraid of buying."
Millien-Faustin characterized the housing market as "unstable."
The North Stamford Association, a homeowners' group, hosted the meeting last week. During the one-hour meeting, Forker talked about what he called "dramatic growth" in the Grand List since 1999, when the last revaluation was done before 2006.
Residential property increased by 116 percent, he said, and commercial property by 160 percent. The Grand List is the total value of all taxable property in the city, including real estate, automobiles and business equipment.
Forker noted that the taxable real estate portion of the Grand List has grown from $9.6 billion in 1999 to $22 billion this year.
"What does it all mean? How will taxes be affected?" he asked. "That I don't know. Taxes are budget-driven."
This year's property revaluation has shifted more of the tax burden to commercial property owners. According to data from the Office of Assessment and Collection, residential properties accounts for 63 percent of the real estate portion of the Grand List, down from 71 percent last year. Commercial properties rose to 37 percent from 29 percent last year.
Last year's revaluation, which shifted more of the tax burden to homeowners, was phased in to soften the impact. At the meeting, Forker pointed out that if this year's revaluation is phased in, the change in how the tax burden is apportioned will not be fully realized.
Some homeowners asked questions that Forker said he couldn't answer. For example, homeowners wanted to know what the change in assessed value was for North Stamford.
"I can't answer that specifically," Forker said.
Others wanted to know whether Forker changed his methodology. Forker assured homeowners that he didn't.
"This is a mass appraisal for tax purposes," he said. Each property is assessed by sales value, income approach or cost approach, Forker said. "All three must be considered."
A few homeowners asked why the increase in their property values didn't match those of their neighbors. Forker said he would have to view the specific properties to answer the question.
Forker told a story about a Shippan homeowner who did not think her waterfront property was worth as much as her assessment. She had her assessment reduced by the Board of Assessment Appeals to $1.1 million from $1.4 million, he said. And a few months later, she sold it for $1.6 million.
Informal hearings for property owners who disagree with their assessments began last week. In the first week, there were 422 hearings, most of them commercial properties, Forker said. He said that number of hearings in one week wasn't unusual.
Members of the North Stamford Association were pleased with Forker's presentation, said Thomas Lombardo, president of the homeowners' group. Forker said he doesn't have another public meeting scheduled because no other group has requested one.
Staff Writer
Published February 3 2008
STAMFORD - As home prices drop throughout the country because of the subprime crisis, the housing market in Fairfield County has remained relatively strong, said Director of Assessment and Collection William Forker.
At the first public meeting on the 2007 property revaluation last week, held at the Long Ridge Firehouse, a homeowner asked Forker how the lessening of neighborhood values affects assessments. The homeowner said the assessed market value of his property went up 10 percent.
"It sounds a little bit out of line," the homeowner said.
"There are people who are convinced that properties in Stamford have dropped 25 percent," Forker told the nearly 60 homeowners in attendance. "I can tell you it has not. There's a slowing down in the increase of value. But overall in Stamford and in Fairfield County, that drop or decrease has not materialized."
In an interview, Pascale Millien-Faustin, a Realtor with ERA Shays Real Estate, disagreed with Forker's assessment of the housing market.
"I don't think it's accurate," she said. "A lot of people are losing their homes and are afraid of buying."
Millien-Faustin characterized the housing market as "unstable."
The North Stamford Association, a homeowners' group, hosted the meeting last week. During the one-hour meeting, Forker talked about what he called "dramatic growth" in the Grand List since 1999, when the last revaluation was done before 2006.
Residential property increased by 116 percent, he said, and commercial property by 160 percent. The Grand List is the total value of all taxable property in the city, including real estate, automobiles and business equipment.
Forker noted that the taxable real estate portion of the Grand List has grown from $9.6 billion in 1999 to $22 billion this year.
"What does it all mean? How will taxes be affected?" he asked. "That I don't know. Taxes are budget-driven."
This year's property revaluation has shifted more of the tax burden to commercial property owners. According to data from the Office of Assessment and Collection, residential properties accounts for 63 percent of the real estate portion of the Grand List, down from 71 percent last year. Commercial properties rose to 37 percent from 29 percent last year.
Last year's revaluation, which shifted more of the tax burden to homeowners, was phased in to soften the impact. At the meeting, Forker pointed out that if this year's revaluation is phased in, the change in how the tax burden is apportioned will not be fully realized.
Some homeowners asked questions that Forker said he couldn't answer. For example, homeowners wanted to know what the change in assessed value was for North Stamford.
"I can't answer that specifically," Forker said.
Others wanted to know whether Forker changed his methodology. Forker assured homeowners that he didn't.
"This is a mass appraisal for tax purposes," he said. Each property is assessed by sales value, income approach or cost approach, Forker said. "All three must be considered."
A few homeowners asked why the increase in their property values didn't match those of their neighbors. Forker said he would have to view the specific properties to answer the question.
Forker told a story about a Shippan homeowner who did not think her waterfront property was worth as much as her assessment. She had her assessment reduced by the Board of Assessment Appeals to $1.1 million from $1.4 million, he said. And a few months later, she sold it for $1.6 million.
Informal hearings for property owners who disagree with their assessments began last week. In the first week, there were 422 hearings, most of them commercial properties, Forker said. He said that number of hearings in one week wasn't unusual.
Members of the North Stamford Association were pleased with Forker's presentation, said Thomas Lombardo, president of the homeowners' group. Forker said he doesn't have another public meeting scheduled because no other group has requested one.
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