Envy Apartment

The Oasis Terraces housing complex in Singapore and the original cast of “Rent” How to tell if one has made it in America? See if they own a home. For decades, homeownership has been one of the cornerstones of the American dream, and the U.S. housing market was the envy of the world. But that’s changed. The federal mortgage subsidy complex , which turned (white) America into a nation of homeowners in the postwar decades and helped build the world’s largest middle class , is no longer doing what it’s supposed to. Faced with stagnating wages and ballooning property prices , fewer Americans can afford to buy their own homes. The mortgage interest deduction and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are turning into regressive subsidies, channeling taxpayer money to rich homeowners and driving up housing costs while a growing group of middle-income renters must fend for themselves. Rent-stabilization laws have become weaker over time. And New York is dealing with a crumbling public housing infrast...

Lon Horwedel | AnnArbor.com Ann Arbor’s Hidden Valley Club apartment complex is a local example of a $ 70 billion national real estate problem : Securitized commercial loans that are in default. A foreclosure notice on the 324-unit complex near Briarwood was filed in late April, despite months of ongoing conversations initiated by the owner to modify the loan. The loan itself - which totals $18.1 million - is complicated, since it’s one among billions in real estate investments that were repackaged and sold to Wall Street investors during years of peak real estate prices . So are the circumstances behind the loan default, said Hidden Valley Club co- owner Jeff Starman . The most obvious is the drop in the property’s value as rental rates fell below levels to cover loan payments . Other factors include a national real estate climate in which banking consolidations after the lending crisis and the sheer volume of properties in securitized loans - known as Commercial Mortgage B...

by Jimmy Thomson With a Sydney University report this week claiming that holiday rentals are having a significant negative impact on the residential housing market , whether you're a resident owner of an apartment or an investor, you should be concerned about what is happening with holiday rental laws in Australia. NSW and Victorian state parliaments have already had one shot at devising legislation on holiday letting and fluffed it. Now they are having another go. For many MPs, it's irrelevant. But for a minority in popular holiday areas , it's the poisoned chalice of pulling in tourists while driving out locals. And in apartments, it's about some investor owners boosting rental income while residents wonder who will be living next door from one weekend to the next. The Sydney University Urban Housing Lab report claims that holiday letting, predominantly though Airbnb, has taken 6000 homes out of the Sydney residential market . Airbnb disputes the findings. Mea...