The House has defeated the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) on a vote of 205 – 228. NAR supported the package. Media reports about it did not present the case for the many ways it would have supported the real estate industry. The summary below presents all the bill’s provisions, condensed into some general subject [...]
BY DOUGLAS HANKS – Miami Herald Jeffrey Soffer already has construction crews building a Fontainebleau casino in Las Vegas. Is he putting the finishing touches on one in Miami Beach, too?With Friday’s news of a secret push for a change in Florida’s Constitution allowing gambling at the oceanfront resort, the real-estate magnate’s ambitious plans and [...]
BY MATTHEW HAGGMAN – Miami Herald South Florida home sales rose in August at a rate not seen in more than four years, amid signs that lower prices are drawing buyers back into the region’s long-slumping housing market. The market still has a long way to go: The inventory of homes for sale actually rose [...]
By MARTHA BRANNIGAN – Miami Herald South Florida business leaders are generally upbeat about the federal government’s proposal to buy up to $700 billion in bad debt from ailing U.S. banks and institutions, with many predicting the effort would speed the recovery of the region’s battered housing market.”Certainly, [the bailout] is giving banks and other [...]
BY MATTHEW HAGGMAN – Miami Herald At a time when banks and builders are struggling for survival, two developers are seeking government approval for Miami Worldcenter — a nine-block, 25-acre mixed-use project that would be Miami’s biggest urban development in years.The multibillion-dollar project between the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts and the central [...]
By ANDY WANG – NY Post The Fontainebleau Miami Beach is undergoing a “$1 billion rebirth”. Miami and Las Vegas aren’t just top tourist and second-home destinations. They’re also extensions of New York City, with the same developers, hotel brands, celebrity chefs and nightclub promoters that define Manhattan luxury. So it’s really no surprise that [...]
By JUNE FLETCHER – Wall Street Journal Andre LeBel knew he had come home when he walked into a bar in St. Petersburg, Fla., ordered a Bloody Caesar and the bartender made it without cocking an eyebrow. The spicy drink — a blend of vodka, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce and tomato and clam juices — is [...]
By Helen Chernikoff NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York home foreclosures rose in August from July, signaling a potential drop in prices, but the Los Angeles and Miami markets showed a slight improvement, real estate research website PropertyShark.com said on Wednesday. The number of newly scheduled auctions of foreclosed properties in New York grew 13 [...]
By Bob Ivry Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) — Sales of distressed Miami properties have begun, signaling a bottom for south Florida’s real estate market and the end of waiting for vulture funds armed with about $30 billion to spend. The sale of 120 condominiums last month to a Philadelphia private equity firm and Related Group of [...]