Yule Heibel's Library tagged real_estate →  View Popular, Search in Google

Article about popularise.com - sounds intriguing:
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“We found a lot of the answers people were putting out were not directly answering our question, which is what do you want here?” Miller says. “It was ‘what do I want in my neighborhood?’”

But this isn’t a bad result. If anything, the flood of random ideas reflects the fact that no one has been asking these people what they want at all. It’s like they’ve just been waiting to plead for a fitness center, and these are the first folks to come along remotely broaching the topic.

Miller says one of the Popularise front-runners – a local bar manager who wants to open his own spot – was even offered a property two blocks down the street and $150,000 in build-out capital by another developer in the neighborhood, thanks to the display of enthusiasm on the site.

“When we saw that it was like, ‘OK, this is not a zero-sum game on our property,” Miller says. “We should rethink of it as what do people want in their neighborhood?”
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atlantic_cities real_estate urban_development

I like the retail-on-ground-floor/apartments-above model. Standardize away. Most towns and cities could use more of it.
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Leinberger, an urban land-use strategist and professor at the University of Michigan, includes the Grocery Anchored Neighborhood Center on his list of the 19 standard real estate product types dominant in post-war America. Also on the list: suburban detached starter homes, big-box anchored power centers, multi-tenant bulk warehousing and self-storage facilities. All of these products are designed for drivable suburban communities. (...)
(...)
But we overbuilt these 19 models, he says.

“We built the wrong product in the wrong location, and nobody wants it any more,” he says. “That’s the reason for the housing crisis, and therefore the mortgage crisis, and therefore the Great Recession.”

(...)
...Leinberger estimates that a good 90 percent of new development in the [DC] area has lately been planned for walkable, high-density living... These are the real estate products Leinberger believes we’ll need going forward: ground-floor retail with rental apartments on top, hotel/convention centers with condos above and a subway corridor below. These models may very well become standardized, too.
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urban_renewal suburban_style suburbia christopher_leinberger atlantic_cities real_estate malls

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It's said there are around 64 million empty apartments in China.
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Fascinating video report on China's ghost cities, a potential real estate bubble, and questions around quantity versus quality, especially of GDP.

china gdp bubble real_estate cities

A trend that might balance out the trend toward online retail?
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As retirement looms for the older Boomers, 17 million, or 25 % of the cohort, will be senior citizens within the next decade.

Baby Boomers have indicated in analyses that they are most concerned with obtaining affordable housing. They will also want to be in communities that are walkable or have public transit for both philosophical and physical reasons.

It is likely they will prefer and eventually have to stop driving. For this reason, it is likely they will seek smaller, easier shopping formats that are closer to home.

Indeed, walkability has become an important factor. Zillow, the popular online real estate database, in July 2007 began rating the walkability of the property to retail and transit infrastructure and other services on a scale of 0 to 100.

For these reasons, we believe the Baby Boomers will either be inclined to move to or remain in urban areas. Also in the near term, they are unlikely to retire at typical retirement age.
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retail shopping cities urbanization urbanism boomerism real_estate

Fascinating. Valuable land being squatted by plats (as it were) that will never be built, vs. being occupied by humans or wildlife or flora and fauna. Meanwhile, I'd say places like Victoria are on to something when they allow for legal secondary suites in traditionally single-family homes. How else to make sense of 6K-sq.ft. McMansions that will sit idle?
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...recognize the changing market for housing that is steadily turning away from the purchase of single-family homes, said Arthur C. “Chris” Nelson, professor at the University of Utah. In the coming years, households with children will drop, and the market will be dominated by aging baby boomers -- but millions of them will be trying to sell their own homes, creating oversupply, and more interested in multifamily and renting. “We’re overbuilt by about 28 million homes on large lots considering demand by 2020,” Nelson said.
The bottom line, said Holway, who is leading research on what is also known as obsolete or premature subdivisions: “It’s not just a crash. It’s going to be different when (the market) comes back.”
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subdivisions suburbs cities housing zombie_economy zombie_real_estate real_estate boston_globe

Call it real estate p0rn, call it social envy, but Zillow.com put together some interesting eye candy here...
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After learning of Steve Jobs’ soon-to-be demolished historic home, and Mark Zuckerberg’s life as a month-to-month renter, we decided to see what other types of real estate today’s tech titans like to call home. Here’s where some of the biggest (and richest) tech-industry moguls take a break from their web-ruled world.
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Whatever excess is displayed bothers me less than the fact that so many of these "titans" have squirreled themselves away in suburban settings. Kudos to Ev Williams for choosing an in-town abode; ditto Zuckerberg (although the house looks suburban enough).

real_estate moguls

Who knew that Bob Rennie (Vancouver's "Condo King") was amassing a huge art collection with a focus on "marginalization, oppression and resistance"? Very interesting article about a very interesting collector indeed. I would certainly love to visit his new museum.
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"The Downtown Eastside is marginalized, and a lot of what I have is about marginalization, oppression and resistance," Mr. Rennie said as he walked through construction chaos a few days before opening. Some workers were installing the complex pieces created by Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum, while others were putting in more pedestrian items like air vents and doorknobs.
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bob_rennie vancouver condo_king art_museum art_collection real_estate

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"chashama supports thriving cultural communities by transforming temporarily vacant properties into spaces where art can flourish. By recycling and repurposing buildings in transition, we invest in neighborhoods, foster local artists, and sustain a vast range of creativity and culture. "
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Really love this concept: work with property owners to let artists use currently empty/ unleased space as galleries.

chashama arts public_art retail real_estate