Some cities, mostly in places where the market has slowed significantly in the last year, are offering incentives in the form of tax abatements to help developers unload slow-selling condominiums.

The neighborhoods tend to be pre-gentrification, but the savings can be significant. For instance, the buyer of a two-bedroom condo in a 180-unit development in a former school in Grand Rapids, Mich., will save about $5,300 a year in taxes until 2018. The savings is transferable to a buyer.

Kansas City, Des Moines, Brooklyn, Harrisburg, Columbus, Tacoma, Wash. and Richmond, Va. have dangled similar tax holidays in front of buyers.

Anyone who is buying a condo for investment should read the fine print. In many new projects, developers limit the number of investors to as little as 10 percent of total available units. And that’s despite more lenient standards set by Fannie Mae, which buys many condo mortgages from lenders. Fannie Mae permits an investor-owned level as high as 30 percent.

Source: Forbes, Matthew Swibel (06/04/07)

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It seems impossible to get a clear look at the housing situation these days. Where there is hope there is despair, if good news there is bad, existing home sales plummet while new home sales climb toward recovery, ying begets yang. And in that spirit, The National Association of Realtors (NAR) just released its annual report on the sales of what we will call “additional homes,” that is vacation residences and residential investment properties.

According to NAR’s Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey, the sale of vacation homes rose 4.7 percent to a record 1.07 million units last year. In 2005 1.02 million vacation homes were sold. However, the sale of investment homes fell a stiff 28.9 percent to 1.65 million units from 2.32 million in 2005. The latter figure is even starker when compared to the sales of primary residences which were down 4.1 percent from 5.02 million in 2005 to 4.82 million last year. Read more

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Osaka, Japan, New York City, and Washington, D.C., rank as top markets for real estate investment in 2007, according to an analysis by Urban Land Institute and PricewatearahouseCoopers.

The report took into account market expectations of top industry professionals. The top markets shared some key qualities:

• Located along global pathways with major international airports and ports
• 24/7 living and working environments
• Attractive settings in comfortable climates
• Geographic barriers limiting sprawl
• Brainpower jobs attracting an affluent, highly educated workforce

“Clearly, location is becoming ever more important in real estate investment,” says ULI President Richard Rose.  Read more

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Hospitals, universities, and other employers increasingly are offering financial assistance to employees to help them achieve homeownership or make home improvements.

Employer-assisted housing programs first emerged in the 1970s as a means for businesses to revitalize struggling neighborhoods and protect their investments in these areas, says Phil Hardwick of Mississippi State University’s John C. Stennis Institute of Government.
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