Daily Archives: September 29, 2014

3 Ways the Boomer Housing Crisis Benefits Millennials | Bedford Hills Real Estate

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As baby boomers grudgingly age into their sunset years, they may find it increasingly difficult to find or afford housing that meets their needs.

In particular, younger boomers who are now in their 50s are poorer and have more debt than previous generations (in addition to lower home ownership rates). They may be unable to cover the cost of housing or long-term care in their retirement years, according to a recent report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. The youngest of the 76 million boomers have begun turning 50 this year – and 10,000 boomers a day will turn 65 from now through 2030.

The vast majority want to stay in their homes, but those homes often lack accessibility features, such as single-level living and wider hallways and doors, that would allow them to operate a wheelchair, for example. Furthermore, suburban or rural areas with inadequate public transportation can isolate them from family and friends as well as health care providers.

“The housing stock of America is pretty inflexible,” says David Eckerdt, director of the Gerontology Center and a sociology at the University of Kansas. “You can’t resize it or move it, and the ‘build’ environment can’t quickly acquire the necessary transit or parks or supermarkets.”

There may be a silver lining here, though: a real estate market that’s more welcoming to millennials. Here are four boomer-led housing trends that may help the younger generation in the long term.

ONE: A Housing Swap. For financial reasons and because they’re healthier than previous generations, boomers are staying in suburban single-family homes far longer than their parents did. That’s OK, because thanks to college loans and a tough job market, it’s taking millennials longer to gain the financial independence they need to buy a house. Despite witnessing one of the worst housing busts in American history, two-thirds of millennials recently polled by Zillow agreed with the statement that owning a home is necessary to living the “good life” and is central to the American dream.

 

 

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http://finance.yahoo.com/news/3-ways-boomer-housing-crisis-131500331.html

Housing’s Share of GDP: 15.5% for the Second Quarter | Cross River Real Estate

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Housing is an important source of economic growth. As of the second quarter of 2014, housing’s share of gross domestic product (GDP) was 15.5%, with home building and remodeling yielding 3.1 percentage points of that total.

housing gdp_2q14

Housing-related activities contribute to GDP in two basic ways.

The first is through residential fixed investment (RFI). RFI is effectively the measure of the home building and remodeling contribution to GDP. It includes construction of new single-family and multifamily structures, residential remodeling, production of manufactured homes and brokers’ fees. For the second quarter, RFI was 3.1% of the economy.

The RFI component reached a $496 annualized pace during the second quarter. This is the second highest quarterly total for RFI since the middle of 2008. Overall GDP expanded by 4.6% (annualized) for the quarter, with RFI adding 0.27 points of that total.

The second impact of housing on GDP is the measure of housing services, which includes gross rents (including utilities) paid by renters, and owners’ imputed rent (an estimate of how much it would cost to rent owner-occupied units) and utility payments. The inclusion of owners’ imputed rent is necessary from a national income accounting approach because without this measure increases in homeownership would result in declines for GDP. For the second quarter, housing services was 12.4% of the economy.

Historically, RFI has averaged roughly 5% of GDP while housing services have averaged between 12% and 13%, for a combined 17% to 18% of GDP. These shares tend to vary over the business cycle.

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http://eyeonhousing.org/2014/09/housings-share-of-gdp-15-5-for-the-second-quarter/

Trump executive allegedly drugged rival in GM Building bid | Katonah Real Estate

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The GM Building and Donald Trump The General Motors Building on Fifth Avenue and 58th Street — one of the priciest office buildings in America – has had its share of landlords over the years from Bill Zeckendorf to Harry Macklowe. But according to a new book, Donald Trump was its most notorious. When Donald Trump was in the midst of negotiations for the building, his head of acquisitions, Abe Wallach, allegedly drugged a rival with sleeping pills on a flight. While the man was out, Wallach went through the man’s valise in search of sensitive documents, Vicky Ward told the New York Post. Ward’s new book “The Liar’s Ball: The Extraordinary Saga of How One Building Broke the World’s Toughest Tycoons,” chronicles the history of the building. Wallach told Ward that at the time he worried that he gave his rival too big a dose and that his victim might die. “This is an exposé of the kill-or-be-killed world of these real-estate tycoons — the dark side of capitalism,” Ward told the Post

 

 

 

– See more at: http://therealdeal.com/blog/2014/09/27/trump-executive-allegedly-drugged-rival-in-gm-building-bid/?utm_source=The+Real+Deal+E-Lerts&utm_campaign=0c8e81f94d-New_York_Daily_Updates_9_29_14&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6e806bb87a-0c8e81f94d-385733629#sthash.yGwA5dv9.dpuf