Curbed: All Posts by Alexei BarrionuevoLove where you live2016-04-20T12:32:24-04:00https://archive.curbed.com/authors/alexei-barrionuevo/rss2016-04-20T12:32:24-04:002016-04-20T12:32:24-04:00Marijuana Industry Lights Up Denver Housing Market
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<figcaption>Colorado law allows homeowners to grow up to six marijuana plants. | <a href="http://benjaminrasmussenphoto.com/">Benjamin Rasmussen</a></figcaption>
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<p>A burgeoning pot industry, plus new tech and oil jobs, has spurred a real estate rush in Denver</p> <p id="fSMtlr">Colorado's legalization of marijuana has brought its share of benefits to the state's economy and inspired a new generation of entrepreneurs. And for home inspectors like Ken Peter, finding evidence of "grow homes" has become a moldy daily adventure.</p>
<p id="QD3O98">During one recent inspection, Peter found that the previous owners had excavated next to the house's foundation under a patio, tapped an underground electric line under the home's service entrance, and set up a separate electrical panel in the basement—all to grab free electricity to power lamps for pot cultivation.</p>
<p id="NbqUDd">"We ended up doing a mold test and it came back terrible," said Peter, the owner of a Pillar To Post home inspection franchise in the Boulder-Denver area. "We have done more mold tests in the last two years than we have ever done before. I can't say it is all because of marijuana, but it certainly is playing a big role."</p>
<p id="f9C1ue">Besides the moldy results of many a legal—and illegal—marijuana operation, inspectors say pot-growers are also creating dangerous electrical situations. At one home Peter's company inspected, residents took cables intended for the hot tub and spliced them to power their grow lamps—boosting the chances of a fire or electrocution.</p>
<p id="BXMPcS">But prospective home buyers aren't too concerned these days about the risks posed by the state's new pot-growing freedoms. They are too busy waging bidding wars against dozens of others in the Denver metro area—one of the hottest sellers markets in the country. And marijuana, which was legalized for recreational use in 2014, has, well, helped light up the market even more.</p>
<p id="wjeI6H">"Sellers are not willing to do much of anything unless it is a life safety issue," said Michelle Ackerman, a Denver-based agent with Redfin. "In the end, buyers absolutely are taking a house as-is" these days.</p>
<p id="pmgW7H">Buyers have "not seemed to care," agreed Scott Lunsford, a Denver-based inspector. "As long as there has not been real damage they just go, 'Oh, that is interesting.' There has become a little more acceptance" of home pot plants.</p>
<p id="GRIeu4">Denver's housing market has been on a tear the past three years. The average sales price in the Denver metro area was $345,000 in March, up 9.9 percent over 2015, according to Redfin. The number of active listing on the market <a href="https://public.tableau.com/shared/8TSWDSQNC?:display_count=yes">fell 9.4 percent in March</a> over the previous year.</p>
<p id="nREwbc">Homes in Denver are spending an average of 26 days on the market, <a href="https://public.tableau.com/shared/J8QFR2MC5?:display_count=yes&:showVizHome=no">up from 19 last year</a>. While the speed to sale may appear to be slowing, it's misleading, Ackerman said. Sellers are fielding so many offers that they are now settling into a pattern of taking the weekend to review them before responding.</p>
<p id="e8ZAYb">"I am definitely seeing the word 'buying' taken out of the buyers' vocabulary," she said. "Everybody here is using the word 'bidding. I am bidding on a house.'"</p>
<p id="HrTIs5">The competition has been especially fierce for first-time buyers vying to get a house in the $200,000 to $250,000 range. Interest for one home in the Perl Mack neighborhood near Boulder reached a fever pitch earlier this month. The owners of the one-story brick ranch-style home, with three bedrooms and two baths, received 32 offers in one weekend after listing it for $235,000. Brokers showed the home 215 times in one weekend, Ackerman said.</p>
<p id="PscSTz">"I can't imagine that you hear there are 28 other offers, and you want to be number 29?" she said. "But now that will be the new comp for that neighborhood."</p>
<p id="p2Q8bg">Another four-bedroom, two-bath home in Denver, <a href="https://www.redfin.com/CO/Denver/2510-Vine-St-80205/home/34087429">listed by Redfin</a>, sold in March for $530,000 after 98 showings over two days. The owners received 19 offers the first weekend, a Redfin spokeswoman said.</p>
<p id="B6I69I">The buying environment has been tough, especially, for a wave of millennials flocking to the state (Colorado's median age is 34), many of whom would rather live in moderately priced condos than rent apartments or buy single-family homes. The state's developers haven't been building new condo units because of a "construction defect law" dating back a decade.</p>
<div class="float-right" id="3PZNa5"> <figure class="e-image">
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<cite><a href="http://benjaminrasmussenphoto.com/">Benjamin Rasmussen</a></cite>
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<p id="XYqKft">The law, installed to protect consumers against shoddy construction, allows as few as two condo owners to bring a class-action lawsuit against a builder. The fear of lawsuits has led developers to stop building affordable condos and pushed them instead to build apartments, said Kelly Moye, an agent with RE/MAX Alliance and a spokeswoman for the Colorado Association of Realtors. Only 3.4 percent of home starts in 2015 were condos, down from 25 percent in 2007, <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29372355/climate-construction-defects-reform-colorado-much-changed">according to one report</a>.</p>
<p id="e1Y2Av">"There has been a condo drought, statewide," Moye said.</p>
<p id="vxbNuD">That reality has done little to stem soaring rents, which have doubled in downtown Denver the past five years, and has kept the focus on single-family homes to serve the influx of out-of-staters, said Kyle Malnati, a commercial broker with Madison & Company Properties.</p>
<p id="bLmHud">"A lot of people want to say that marijuana is solely responsible for our recovery," Moye said. "I don't think that is the case. I think it is one piece of a very big puzzle that all relates to jobs."</p>
<p id="9dcONI">Indeed, Colorado has been adding thousands of jobs, especially in the tech and oil and gas sectors. Google and <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_29528999/twitter-plans-expansion-boulder-doubling-office-space-and">Twitter</a> are building or expanding offices in the Boulder area.</p>
<p id="xGq4Jj">Still, people in the pot industry are popping up everywhere. Redfin has worked with one client who sells security systems for marijuana businesses, another that sells software to track sales, and yet another who sells and distributes bags that are used to package weed, Ackerman said.</p>
<p id="eTpGQV">On the commercial side, more than one-third of the total industrial space that was absorbed between 2009 and 2014 went to legal pot growing operations, said Jessica Ostermick, director of research at CBRE, which released a study last year on the topic. In recent months, that activity has slowed, she said, as the industry has matured.</p>
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<cite><a href="http://benjaminrasmussenphoto.com/">Benjamin Rasmussen</a></cite>
<figcaption>A commercial marijuana greenhouse in Colorado Springs.</figcaption>
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<p id="wtZZRm">On the home front, the opportunities for Coloradans to indulge in marijuana money-making opportunities—or just to indulge—has made life interesting for agents and inspectors. <a href="http://www.fcgov.com/mmj/pdf/amendment64.pdf">The new law</a> allows residents aged 21 and over to grow up to six pot plants in an "enclosed, locked space."</p>
<p id="8QcD3t">"Once a month I go into a house and say, 'Oh, there's a grow house in the basement. Let's get out of here,'" Moye said. "It used to be, 'Oh god, I am totally freaked out.' Now it is like, 'Oh, here we go again.' It has become almost standard practice now."</p>
<p id="bDfjZT">Inspectors encounter pot-growing residents doing everything from stealing power from neighbors; to cutting huge holes in floors, basements, through closets, attics and roofs, for ventilation purposes; to installing elaborate piping and ducting to reduce humidity and smell.</p>
<p id="b1F85Q">Mold is the biggest worry. Humidity is a natural outgrowth of growing the plant. When mold gets into dry walls or in roofs it can cost thousands of dollars to get rid of, Lunsford said. And there is the health concern. Lunsford said his inspectors have been finding more toxic-type molds like Stachybotrys—the infamous toxic black mold—than in previous years, though they note that flooding in the area the past two years is also a likely contributor.</p>
<p id="crvxMc">Still, the risks don't seem to be dissuading many entrepreneurs and pot enthusiasts. Peter said one of his franchisees who recently inspected a "dump" in the rural Pueblo area asked him, "Why is someone buying this and not even looking at it?" The prospective buyers' only concern, it turned out, was that it had sufficient electrical service. "They are going to turn it into a grow house," Peter said.</p>
<p id="6KdZLy">"It's a little scary," the inspector said. "It is certainly a little bit of the Wild West out here right now."</p>
<ul>
<li id="FlulR4"> <a href="http://www.curbed.com/property-lines">Property Lines</a> [archives]</li>
<li id="9bSifP"> <a href="http://ski.curbed.com/marijuana">High Times</a> [Curbed Ski]</li>
</ul>
https://archive.curbed.com/2016/4/20/11466602/marijuana-denver-housing-marketAlexei Barrionuevo2016-04-06T13:00:06-04:002016-04-06T13:00:06-04:00Millennial Influx Helps Cleveland Shake Rust Belt Reputation
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<figcaption>Kenneth Sponsler / Shutterstock</figcaption>
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<p>Downtown Cleveland's population grew 79 percent in the last 16 years, and developers are taking note</p> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="The Cuyahoga River bends past downtown Cleveland by the Veterans Memorial Bridge." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5gMLSswdw3e7msfTti7WBAFJLRI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6297391/shutterstock_229574623.0.jpg">
<cite>Kenneth Sponsler / Shutterstock</cite>
<figcaption>The Cuyahoga River bends past downtown Cleveland by the Veterans Memorial Bridge.</figcaption>
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<p id="4ibiuZ">Cleveland once held a vital place in America's industrial landscape. John D. Rockefeller kicked off his oil empire there, and the city was an early center for car production and later diversified into other manufacturing sectors.</p>
<p id="cKmGcQ">But when American cities began de-industrializing and the American dream became a picket fence in the suburbs, Cleveland struggled with growing blight, and people started leaving in big numbers.</p>
<p id="0q8TwR">"Cleveland is the poster child for white flight out to the suburbs," said Conor Coakley, a broker with CBRE in downtown Cleveland. The 5.4 percent fall off in residents in 2000 actually accelerated in <a href="http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/bigeight.html#.Vv6jzRMrKL8">the 2010 census</a>, to 17.1 percent.</p>
<p id="qqeMzR">But Cleveland has begun to embody another trend: The nationwide phenomenon of Americans, especially millennials, wanting to live a hipper, less-car dependent lifestyle in the urban core.</p>
<p id="h2A5Rb"><q class="left">"Cleveland is the poster child for white flight out to the suburbs."</q></p>
<p id="O5vwnr">Cleveland is <a href="http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20150716/BLOGS03/150719863/cleveland-among-cities-where-rising-downtown-population-is-spurring">among a group of mid-sized Midwest cities</a>, including Cincinnati, Columbus, Kansas City, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Louisville, and Detroit, experiencing a downtown Renaissance.</p>
<p id="84kzZA">Aided by historic preservation tax credits, Cleveland has been climbing back since the 1990s. The credits and low property costs have lured developers and other investors, including <a href="http://detroit.curbed.com/dan-gilbert">Dan Gilbert</a>, the Detroit billionaire whose purchases of dozens of vacant buildings in that city are setting the stage for a downtown population boost there.</p>
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<img alt="Cleveland Ohio's trendy Warehouse District, with the Justice Center rising behind." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Wnn9jwA3bZgnpihddoa3DgaQhgo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6297485/shutterstock_57248761.0.jpg">
<cite>Kenneth Sponsler / Shutterstock</cite>
<figcaption>Cleveland Ohio's trendy Warehouse District, with the Justice Center rising behind.</figcaption>
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<p id="XBlXjz">Lately, Cleveland's downtown population growth has been accelerating. It increased 79 percent between 2000 and 2016, and is projected to top 18,000 by the end of 2018, based on housing developments currently planned or under construction, according to new numbers released last month by the<a href="http://www.downtowncleveland.com/marketupdate/state-of-downtown-2015-report.aspx"> Downtown Cleveland Alliance</a>.</p>
<p id="kmSASt">Cleveland's downtown residents are getting younger and more of them are making more money. Between 2000 and 2014, the number of millennials rose by 77 percent, and the number of baby boomers by 97 percent. Households with income of at least $100,000 jumped by 91 percent.</p>
<p id="osgJSc">Of course, with progress comes rising home values. Some of the same millennial pioneers who chanced it and bought properties in the wake of the recession in places like Ohio City, a near-west neighborhood, now find themselves struggling to continue living there.</p>
<p id="1IRivL">Anne Hartnett and her then-fiance bought a rundown 900-square-foot home out of foreclosure for $22,000 in 2010. They secured a $57,000 loan that covered the purchase price plus renovations, she said.</p>
<p id="Az47Of"></p>
<p id="wNv6mo">They gutted the two-bedroom home and converted it into a one-bedroom loft. The couple got married and started a family, converting a walk-in closet into a nursery. But with their second child on the way—and home prices beginning to soar—they sold their home last year for $130,000 and moved to Rocky River, a suburb about 10 miles away.</p>
<p id="5a5qWk">"Housing prices have gone up again but small business owners and artists are getting priced out," said Hartnett, 32. She said that Ohio City has begun to suffer from a lack of "mid-market" housing ranging from $175,000 to $250,000—the price point they were shopping in. "Five years ago Ohio City was more affordable than Rocky River, so this is pretty crazy."</p>
<p id="3Rfmy6">Ohio City was once a fierce competitor to Cleveland. In 1836, violence broke out between the two during the "Battle of the Bridge," when Ohio City residents tried to prevent the use of Cleveland's new Columbus State Bridge, which was pulling traffic to Cleveland before it could reach Ohio City's mercantile district. In 1854, Cleveland annexed the town.</p>
<p id="hhltKY"></p>
<p id="gK0rn8">Today, <a href="http://www.ohiocity.org">Ohio City</a> is rebounding quickly. The neighborhood is home to 9,000 residents, including 250 businesses, 60 of which were established there in the last three years.</p>
<p id="MCwJZr">One of those businesses is Hartnett's Harness Cycle, which Hartnett opened in Ohio City after spending time at Soul Cycle in New York. The demand has been overwhelming, she said, and she is in discussions to open a second location in the heart of downtown.</p>
<p id="XiypoG">Though they would have liked the option to stay, Hartnett wasn't convinced that the urban core offered enough amenities. Downtown Cleveland's first grocery store, a Heinen's Fine Foods, opened in early 2015. On a recent visit, Coakley toured me through the store, which has a spectacular stained-glass rotunda.</p>
<p id="kJML9E">The building, at the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 9th Street, adjoins the <a href="http://www.metropolitancleveland.com/">Metropolitan hotel</a> and The 9 residences, a conversion of a 1971 skyscraper co-designed by modernist architect Marcel Breuer. Johnny Manziel, the quarterback recently cut from the Cleveland Browns, <a href="http://www.cleveland.com/browns/index.ssf/2015/05/johnny_manziel_moves_out_of_th.html">lived there until last year</a> (leaving, reportedly, after a 10-week stint in rehab).</p>
<p id="AILjJB">In all, 29 projects with more than $3.5 billion in investment are slated to open from 2016 to 2018. They will add 3,315 residential units and 1,500 hotel rooms, after converting 1 million square feet of commercial space into residential.</p>
<p id="YdqYmn">Workers are also racing to finish three new hotels that will service the Republican National Convention in July. They will <a href="http://www.cleveland.com/travel/index.ssf/2015/10/hotels_coming_to_cleveland_in.html">add more than 900 rooms</a>.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Rendering of the nuCLEus development, which will bring 500 new housing units to downtown Cleveland." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/9NebaoPVwxr6xHWGYI-X-n4z-6k=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6297533/nucleus-rendering-cleveland.0.jpg">
<cite>Via <a href="http://www.starkenterprises.com/properties/nucleus/">Stark Enterprises</a></cite>
<figcaption>Rendering of the nuCLEus development, which will bring 500 new housing units to downtown Cleveland.</figcaption>
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<p id="6ubE2n">Longer-term projects include the $395 million <a href="http://www.flatseastbank.com/">Flats East Bank</a> project along the waterfront; the $400 million <a href="http://www.starkenterprises.com/properties/nucleus/">nuCLEus development</a> that will add 500 housing units; and the <a href="http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2015/11/weston_citymark_capital_plan_a.html">Weston Citymark</a>, a $400 million project that ultimately will add 1,200 apartments and 100,000 square feet of retail space.</p>
<p id="iCyzae">Unlike Detroit, where <a href="http://detroit.curbed.com/2016/3/30/11327192/detroit-downtown-development-dan-gilbert">two billionaires are essentially driving downtown construction</a>, Cleveland has a variety of developers involved, including some national players. It's a sign that Cleveland is viewed as less risky and much further along in its rebound than Detroit, which has less than 6,000 downtown residents and declared bankruptcy in 2013.</p>
<p id="EW40Xr">Gilbert's Bedrock Real Estate Services is among the investors making noise in Cleveland. Last month, Bedrock said it had <a href="http://www.dbusiness.com/daily-news/Annual-2016/Detroits-Bedrock-Expands-Presence-in-Downtown-Cleveland-with-Retail-Center-Acquisition/">acquired The Avenue Shops at Tower City Center</a>, a three-story retail center with more than 100 retail shops and restaurants, and a multiplex movie theater complex.</p>
<p id="Sb8ImJ">Gilbert has been well-known to Cleveland residents since 2005, when he bought the Cleveland Cavaliers, renaming their home court Quicken Loans Arena, or "The Q." One of his subsidiaries also owns The Ritz-Carlton and an attached five-story commercial office building, while another owns a downtown Cleveland casino.</p>
<p id="xfoHSr">Tower City Center and the hotel are connected to each other, and share indoor walkways to the basketball arena and Gilbert's Jack Cleveland Casino.</p>
<p id="EgXbky">Gilbert's entertainment venues have added to the appeal of downtown as a walkable place to live. Neighborhoods like the Warehouse District, which was home to warehousing and distribution terminals for more than 100 years, today are filled with millennials enjoying the ample nightlife options. I walked through it on a sunny Saturday recently and was moved by how it is bordered by some of the city's most prominent skyscrapers, including iconic buildings like the 17-story Rockefeller Building, a lasting symbol of how the oilman helped build Cleveland into an industrial powerhouse.</p>
<p id="2Ciq3Q">·<a href="http://www.curbed.com/property-lines">Property Lines archives</a> [Curbed]<br>·<a href="http://detroit.curbed.com/2016/3/30/11327192/detroit-downtown-development-dan-gilbert">Detroit's Billionaires Hope to Change Downtown with Development Spree</a> [Curbed]</p>
https://archive.curbed.com/2016/4/6/11376826/cleveland-downtown-development-housingAlexei Barrionuevo2016-03-22T15:40:40-04:002016-03-22T15:40:40-04:00In Retirement, Boomers Back Down From Massive Homes
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<img alt="An aerial view of Sun City, Arizona." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/X46I9muXzyGwCpq88yGm8z921M8=/155x0:1933x1334/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/49141707/shutterstock_118484230.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>An aerial view of Sun City, Arizona, a development that helped turn retirement into a real estate market. | Shutterstock</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Developers aim to cut the average baby boomer home size in half</p> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="An aerial view of Sun City, Arizona." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nb5Na7TXiqgLdE3TBaN7QFQt9zs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6229903/shutterstock_118484230.jpg">
<cite>Shutterstock</cite>
<figcaption>An aerial view of Sun City, Arizona, a development that helped turn retirement into a real estate business.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ever since builder Del Webb opened Sun City Arizona's first five model homes in 1960, retirement has been a big business for real estate developers.</p>
<p>For decades, the number of retirees living in multi-unit housing has been shrinking, <a href="http://www.trulia.com/blog/trends/americans-larger-homes/">according to Trulia</a>. But condo developers haven't given up. In Florida, they are targeting buyers who can afford large homes—but who are willing to accept much smaller spaces in retirement, provided the location is cool. It's part of a Baby Boomer downsizing that is becoming a niche industry.</p>
<p>Take the <a href="http://thekoltergroup.com/">Kolter Group</a>. The Florida developer has been luring boomers to condo units that are considerably smaller than their former homes, in tall towers in Sarasota, St. Petersburg, and north Palm Beach.</p>
<p>"Most of our buyers are used to having 3,000-to-5,000-square-foot homes," said Bob Vail, president of Kolter Urban, an affiliate of Kolter Group. "We are trying to cut them in half."</p>
<p>While the majority of millennials and GenXers dream of living in bigger homes (unless they want to <a href="http://www.curbed.com/2016/3/15/11235986/micro-apartments-tech-industry-millennials">squeeze into micro units</a> of 350 square feet or less), the 55-and-over-crowd is divided these days between those wanting more space and those wanting to downsize, <a href="http://www.trulia.com/blog/trends/americans-larger-homes/">studies show</a>.</p>
<p>Baby boomers are just as likely to <a href="http://demandinstitute.org/baby-boomers-and-their-homes/">buy a bigger home</a>, and take out a mortgage in retirement to do so, as they are to downsize to a condo in Florida.</p>
<q class="left">"Most of our buyers are used to having 3,000-to-5,000-square-foot homes. We are trying to cut them in half."</q><p>Questions about when and where boomers will retire—and what they will choose to buy—are on <a href="http://www.realtor.org/news-releases/2016/03/nar-generational-survey-millennials-increasingly-buying-in-suburban-areas">the minds of economists</a> trying to predict what will happen to housing markets. Boomers are the second-largest group of homebuyers (31 percent) after millennials (35 percent). More than half the homes owned and occupied by boomers (53 percent) are between 1,400 and 2,600 square feet, with 12.5 percent measuring 2,600 square feet or more, according to Trulia.</p>
<p>The questions come as low inventory is stalling home buying across the country. A <a href="http://www.trulia.com/blog/trends/inventory-price-watch-q116/">new Trulia report</a> out this week contends that America has a housing shortage. The number of starter homes on the market has dropped by 43.6 percent since 2012, while the number of trade-up homes has fallen by 41 percent, Trulia said.</p>
<p>At the same time, the median prices of so-called premium homes have distanced themselves further from middle-tier homes, the report shows, and now stand at $542,805 versus $267,845 for trade-up residences.</p>
<p>All this has potential ramifications for boomers who are considering moving into a bigger and more expensive home in retirement.</p>
<p>"The more that price gap increases, the more difficult it will be for an existing trade-up home owner to then move into a premium home," said Ralph McLaughlin, the chief economist for Trulia. "And if that can't happen, then it may be difficult for boomers to find buyers for their homes."</p>
<p> </p>
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<p> </p>
<p>Thousands of cars lined Grand Avenue in Sun City on that New Year's Day 56 years ago. Within a few weeks, more than 100,000 visitors had come to see what the nation's first planned community for people 55 and over was offering. For Webb, who had built the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills and the Flamingo in Las Vegas, it was the biggest gamble of his career. The overnight success of Sun City ultimately landed him <a href="http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19620803,00.html">on the cover of Time magazine</a> as the Man of the Year.</p>
<p>Housing experts predicted Sun City would fail. "Seniors didn't leave their family back in 1960," Bill Pearson, the past president of the Del Webb Sun Cities Museum, told <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sun-city-comes-of-age/%20">CBS News</a>. "You just didn't pull up roots to move away from the family unit."</p>
<p>But leave they did, and oftentimes for smaller homes than they had before. The original Sun City homes were one-story bungalows of 860 square feet that started at $8,500. Refrigerated air conditioning, a luxury in those days, fetched another $600.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/PXyEE-L97pExAjHZ94YAD7FTSDg=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6229887/AP_534205878960.jpg">
<cite>AP Photo/Matt York</cite>
<figcaption>Residents of Sun City play a game of pickleball.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today the place is still going strong, with some 40,000 residents living in about 27,000 homes. Residents have tons of activities to choose from, including pickleball, a tennis-like game played with paddles and a whiffle ball.</p>
<p>When they can find buyers for their homes, some retirees seem willing to eschew traditional retirement homes for a taste of the urban lifestyle. And that's where Kolter is focused.</p>
<p>At three Kolter condo developments—in Sarasota, St. Petersburg, and north Palm Beach—units ranging from 1,800 square feet to 2,400 square feet are priced from about $900,000 to $1.5 million, with penthouses asking more than $3 million.</p>
<p>For many of Kolter's buyers, at first there is hesitation about living in units so seemingly small. "Our sales manager frequently gets the comment from the husband or the wife that they haven't lived in something that small since their first house," Vail said. "But they still buy."</p>
<p>What attracts them, in large part, are the locations of the developments, which are all in the urban core of the mid-sized cities, in "center ice," as Vail puts it.</p>
<p>At 41 stories and 450 feet, <a href="http://onestpetersburg.com/building">ONE St. Petersburg</a> will be the tallest building in downtown St. Petersburg, overlooking the bay and the city's downtown, and feature a 5,000-square-foot fitness complex. <a href="http://www.vuesarasotabay.com/">Vue Sarasota Bay</a> will feature a dog park atop the parking garage. And <a href="http://www.waterclubliving.com/north-palm/">The Water Club</a> in north Palm Beach will be three towers of 22 floors each, and have dedicated boat slips and an adjacent full-service marina.</p>
<p>All three buildings, which are in varying stages of construction, will have water views.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FZQulRjGJRDYBh00EvrORVNGeOU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6229787/north-water-club.jpg">
<cite>Via <a href="https://www.facebook.com/WaterClubNorthPalmBeach/photos/a.282030101947442.1073741828.269199799897139/582398368577279/?type=3&theater">Water Club North Palm Beach</a></cite>
<figcaption>The Water Club, an under-construction Kolter Group development in North Palm Beach, has attracted baby boomers looking to downsize.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The units were designed with efficiency in mind. They are part of a shift away from traditional to more modern design. There is no living room, family room, or dedicated dining room. "None of those things exist anymore," Vail said. "They chewed up efficiency of square footage."</p>
<p>Instead, the units all have a central "great room" with very few or no hallways, higher ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows. There is less compartmentalization of spaces – the units feel bigger than they are on paper, Vail contends.</p>
<p>SB Architects, which is designing the Kolter buildings, has managed to pack a three-bedroom with a den that used to require 3,800 square feet into 2,600 square feet. And the firm has shaved a two-bedroom with a den that was once 2,400 square feet to 1,800 square feet. "Everything has gone on a big diet," Vail said.</p>
<p>So far, the strategy seems to be working just fine. In Sarasota, the Vue project has eight units left to sell out of its 141, from a three-bedroom for $1.5 million to a four-bedroom penthouse listed for $3.4 million. The Water Club has signed contracts for about 75 percent of its 164 units in the first building, which is scheduled to be completed in the fall. And at ONE St. Petersburg, which broke ground in mid-January, Kolter has contracts for just under half of its units, Vail said.</p>
<p>The boomers moving into Kolter's buildings are more accepting generally about smaller spaces. They are looking to do more outside their homes, to enjoy downtown and waterfront activities. They don't want to be gardening and working on the lawns on the weekend. "Their lifestyles are changing at the same time they are changing square footage," Vail said.</p>
<p>Will boomer downsizing send ripples throughout the rest of the housing market?</p>
<p>"It is going to depend on how quickly boomers decide to pack up and retire," McLaughlin said. "Are they going to fade away rather than quickly burn out? We'll have to wait and see."</p>
<ul>
<li> <a href="http://www.trulia.com/blog/trends/inventory-price-watch-q116/">House Arrest: How Low Inventory Is Slowing Home Buying</a> [Trulia]</li>
<li> <a href="http://www.trulia.com/blog/trends/americans-larger-homes/">Dreaming Big: Americans Still Yearning for Larger Homes</a> [Trulia]</li>
<li> <a href="http://www.curbed.com/2016/3/15/11235986/micro-apartments-tech-industry-millennials">High-Tech Millennial Lifestyle Inspires Micro Apartment Boom</a> [Curbed]</li>
<li> <a href="http://www.curbed.com/property-lines">Property Lines archives</a> [Curbed]</li>
</ul>
https://archive.curbed.com/2016/3/22/11285052/baby-boomers-housing-retirementAlexei Barrionuevo2016-03-15T14:06:11-04:002016-03-15T14:06:11-04:00High-Tech Millennial Lifestyle Inspires Micro Apartment Boom
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZwPzsgjDlO_B-IZnnbXxlM3_HrI=/389x0:3500x2333/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/49086625/shutterstock_370770656.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>The on-demand lifestyle favored by millennial tech workers is influencing the housing market in San Francisco and beyond. | Shutterstock</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A new generation of tech millennials values location over square footage, and housing unit sizes are shrinking across the country</p> <p id="mTK5ef">Since the 1980s, cities around the country have been contracting serious cases of Silicon Valley envy. Everyone, it seemed, was looking for the magic formula to create their own high-tech incubators with educated, upwardly mobile work forces that would drive their cities to modernize and grow.</p>
<p id="zaNtzl">"You always heard about cities vying to become the second Silicon Valley and I thought, 'What a joke,'" said Glenn Kelman, the chief executive of Redfin, the real estate firm. "Well, now that is happening. The future happened first in San Francisco, but it is happening everywhere."</p>
<p id="zzp0OH">From <a href="http://seattle.curbed.com/">Seattle</a> to Portland, and from Denver to <a href="http://austin.curbed.com/">Austin</a>, new tech hubs are prospering. Many of them are filling up with emigres from the Bay Area who simply couldn't afford to work in tech there any longer.</p>
<p id="AOoy7g">But it's not just the workers themselves who are spreading their wings. The lifestyle trends pioneered by a new generation of tech millennials, and by technology itself, are also spreading from coast to coast. And that is influencing housing trends.</p>
<p id="UBjqll">Millennials are demanding an "on-demand lifestyle," as Kelman puts it, that values location over square footage and amenities. They want to be close to the city center, close enough to walk, bike, or rely on public transportation.</p>
<p id="YIoOSX"><q class="left">Millennials are demanding an "on-demand lifestyle" that values location over square footage and amenities.</q></p>
<p id="zdKAmh">The absence of a garage used to be a deal-breaker in the Bay Area. Uber and Lyft helped change that. The kitchen was once the first room that people looked at when they toured an apartment or condo, even before the master bedroom. Not anymore. Today people can order from any number of food delivery services; cooking has become a lost art for many. And when you have teams of chefs at work preparing free or subsidized meals—as <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2014/04/25/eating-your-way-through-facebooks-11-campus.html">employees of Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Uber do</a>—why bother stocking your refrigerator at home?</p>
<p id="tBeDaC">Even the living room has become less relevant. The younger generation doesn't want to bother with the hassle of parties anymore. You can socialize online. Do you really need to throw a party to meet your girlfriend or your boyfriend?</p>
<p id="wKcV9d">"I don't know people under 30 who entertain," Kelman said. "There is so much social capital that is being re-invested elsewhere. I think almost the whole home has become a private space."</p>
<p id="eeuWc9">The tech lifestyle leanings have given developers confidence to build smaller. From 2002 to 2008, the average unit across the country held steady at 995 square feet, according to <a href="https://www.realpage.com/mpf-research/">RealPage/MPF Research</a>. In the current housing cycle, it has fallen almost 5 percent, to 950 square feet.</p>
<p id="J83bJS">On the West Coast, the falloff has been even more pronounced. Average units grew from 954 square feet to 963 square feet between 2002 and 2008-2009, but have since fallen to 919 square feet, with unit sizes even smaller in San Francisco.</p>
<p id="oTZJXf">Much of the unit size reduction, in actuality, came from developers building more studios and one-bedrooms, which increased from 40 percent in 2002 to 50 percent in the current cycle, according to <a href="http://www.sb-architects.com/">SB Architects</a> in San Francisco.</p>
<p id="0nWTuK">Still, the trend toward more efficient units has pushed designers to get creative. Architects have worked to make the kitchen more a part of the living space—and to make the finishes in both exactly the same. "You really have to think about the cabinetry, the built-ins, furniture placement," said Scott Lee, president of SB Architects. "It is a much more granular level of design."</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Inside a 302-square-foot micro unit in New York City." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Hbs6XvSRa1HWbYOsnXVuAjv93rw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6194851/AP_403956018506.0.jpg">
<cite>AP Photo/Julie Jacobson</cite>
<figcaption>Inside a 302-square-foot micro unit in New York City.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="8kyX4G">As Curbed has documented, a move toward micro units of 350 square feet is on the extreme end of the trend. These units have become popular in cities like <a href="http://sf.curbed.com/micro-apartments-san-francisco">San Francisco</a>, <a href="http://ny.curbed.com/micro-apartments-nyc">New York</a>, and <a href="http://seattle.curbed.com/tiny-houses-seattle">Seattle</a>. They generally command higher per-square-foot rents, but <a href="http://uli.org/wp-content/uploads/ULI-Documents/MicroUnit_full_rev_2015.pdf">studies have shown</a> that resident satisfaction is lower in buildings with only micro units. (The satisfaction and retention is higher when the micro units are mixed with larger units, as tenants see the homogeneity of everyone living the same way to be oppressive, Lee said.)</p>
<p id="eGcYVl">The recession played a role in developers' apprehension about building more, of course. Many have engaged in a form of "cautious construction," Kelman said, building projects with fewer units to hedge risk, even in a region thirsty for housing.</p>
<p id="M6GGtx">Facing tight margins because of soaring land costs, developers in San Francisco have pushed to right-size units for the current market, Lee said. But the city's <a href="http://www.hcd.ca.gov/housing-policy-development/housing-resource-center/rtr/chp4r.htm">tough entitlement environment</a> can get in the way. Developers face more reviews, must submit more documentation, and face greater uncertainty over approvals than most other cities in the country, and local community groups exert tremendous pressure on politicians to preserve the character of neighborhoods.</p>
<p id="Kq7wwu"></p>
<p id="csniZS">The previous developer of <a href="http://www.kbhome.com/72townsend">72 Townsend</a>, a 74-unit luxury development in San Francisco's South Beach/SoMa district, designed the project for the pre-recession market, with units averaging 1,150 square feet. The current developer, KB Home, who purchased the project in 2013, would have preferred to decrease the units to 950 square feet, but with construction documents already completed with the city, they decided to move forward with the old plan, Lee said.</p>
<p id="nIlaqz">A spokesman for KB Homes declined to say how the units are selling, citing company policy. They range from 619 square feet for a one-bedroom to a 1,740-square-foot penthouse. KB Home is selling a two-bedroom, two-bath unit with 1,198 square feet for $1.459 million.</p>
<p id="1Q2iHO">With technology that allows us to do a lot of work almost anywhere, there is a growing acceptance about seemingly more efficient communal live and work spaces.</p>
<p id="iaT4Kd">Forget about cubicles. At the SB Architects offices in San Francisco, a decade ago staffers occupied glass offices on the top floor. Today they are on a lower floor and Lee no longer has an office. "We have people all over the top of each other," he said.</p>
<p id="WkaF5V">The "new media" world is no different. At <a href="http://www.fastcocreate.com/3034207/creative-cultures/take-a-look-inside-the-headquarters-of-vice">Vice Media's Brooklyn offices</a>, writers, designers, and coders mostly sit shoulder-to-shoulder, walking about the offices with their laptops in hand and their phones attached by headphones when they want to have a semi-private conversation. The same is true at Vox Media (Curbed’s parent company) in Manhattan.</p>
<p id="JGLmhw">"It is a shared culture," Lee said.</p>
<p id="2hTf3z">Lee believes that the new acceptance of communal space stems from the popularity of Airbnb. With people camping at other people's private homes, "there is not going to be a greater resiliency to not have your own space and not have your own stuff, and not have your own privacy."</p>
<p id="QJ40bT"><q class="center">"San Francisco has become this scientific experiment about what happens when you create thousands of jobs without adding any housing."</q></p>
<p id="HMybFV">Nevertheless, not everyone is prepared to live a cramped lifestyle at home. In San Francisco, real estate agents have jousted with tech workers over their obsession with living in the city. As San Francisco has become more expensive, Redfin's agents have recommended "jumping the bridge" to more affordable towns like Fremont, Danville, or Walnut Creek.</p>
<p id="DwA8KG">"With this new generation of millennials, those conversations haven't been going well," Kelman said. "People really want to stay in the city."</p>
<p id="orHlzX">That, in turn, has put enormous pressure on big tech firms like Google to build San Francisco campuses. And expansions beyond the Googleplex are <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/morning_call/2015/06/google-hunters-point-san-francisco-office-goog.html">under way</a>.</p>
<p id="HEyWpd">For some Silicon Valley techies, the pressures of rising housing and median rents in San Francisco—which surpassed New York last year before falling back 20 percent so far this year—have become intolerable. "San Francisco has become this scientific experiment about what happens when you create thousands of jobs without adding any housing," Kelman said.</p>
<p id="O9uaGC">And so many are now leaving. Last year the region lost more than 7,500 residents to other parts of the U.S., the first net migration from the Silicon Valley since 2011, according to the <a href="http://svcip.com/files/SVCIP_2016.pdf">Silicon Valley Competitiveness and Innovation Project</a>.</p>
<p id="vge4kt">The number of buyers in Portland originating from the Bay Area more than tripled from 2014 to 2015, and more than doubled in Phoenix and Seattle, <a href="https://www.redfin.com/blog/2015/10/the-second-silicon-valleys.html">Redfin research showed</a>.</p>
<p id="FeIb4g">The Bay Area's losses are other cities' gains. And even places like Tucson, still considered an "urban planning nightmare," are gaining traction in their quest to be the "Second Silicon Valley," Kelman said.</p>
<ul>
<li id="sIeFF3"> <a href="http://www.curbed.com/2016/2/24/11102278/bay-area-housing-crisis-bubble">Lack of New Construction Pushes Bay Area to the Brink of a Bubble</a> [Curbed] </li>
<li id="khO4f0"> <a href="http://www.curbed.com/property-lines">Property Lines archives</a> [Curbed] </li>
</ul>
https://archive.curbed.com/2016/3/15/11235986/micro-apartments-tech-industry-millennialsAlexei Barrionuevo2016-03-08T14:19:57-05:002016-03-08T14:19:57-05:00The Era of the Mammoth NYC Apartment Is Fading
<figure>
<img alt="One57, home to an 11,000-square-foot penthouse that sold for $100.5 million." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2EzOLmDps9PjPmSKywXNTmFM_6c=/63x0:970x680/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/49022167/Screen-Shot-2016-03-08-at-12.15.57-PM.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>One57, home to an 11,000-square-foot penthouse that sold for $100.5 million. | <a href='http://tectonicphoto.com/'>Via Tectonic Photo</a></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The era of the mammoth apartment is fading as developers chop up sprawling condos</p> <p id="WffLUf"></p>
<p id="Aok1kp">During Manhattan's luxury boom, apartments of 4,000 square feet or more—some occupying all of a single floor and featuring soaring ceilings and ballroom-sized "great rooms"—were the <em>maisons du jour</em> for the super-wealthy.</p>
<p id="cfPZn5">I remember how stunned I was, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/realestate/rising-tower-in-manhattan-takes-on-sheen-as-billionaires-haven.html)">during a 2012 tour</a> of the under-construction <a href="http://ny.curbed.com/building/969/one57">One57</a>, to see that a full-floor apartment of 6,240-square-feet would have unobstructed Central Park views on one side, and of the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty (from an oversized bathroom) on another.</p>
<p id="eGoV9q">It was, to say the least, a heady moment. Buyers bought condos from only the floor plans, and developers eagerly sought to build for those who could afford to pay $20 million or more. And at that price point, they were more likely to do so in cash.</p>
<p id="TC8vom">Now those winds are shifting. Signs are mounting that the era of the mammoth apartment is fading. Developers, sensing mounting softness in the luxury condo market, are starting to carve up units and adjust their plans for buildings under development.</p>
<p id="OKjGXJ">"There was a huge focus on large apartments for a long time," said Leonard Steinberg, the former Douglas Elliman superbroker who is now president of <a href="https://www.compass.com/">Compass</a>. "Now the focus has definitely shifted to a more attainable price point."</p>
<p id="YChqed"></p>
<p id="RQVifF">One57 went up during the height of the luxury craze, at a time when the 22-year-old daughter of a Russian billionaire purchased, at least on paper, a 10-bedroom apartment at 15 Central Park West <a href="http://ny.curbed.com/2011/12/19/10414666/worlds-93rd-richest-person-buys-88m-15-cpw-penthouse">for $88 million</a>. Extell Development's Gary Barnett targeted global billionaires, and who else could afford a nearly 11,000-square-foot duplex penthouse that sold last year for <a href="http://ny.curbed.com/2015/1/17/10001200/100-million-one57-ph-officially-closes-breaks-nyc-record">a record $100.5 million</a>?</p>
<p id="qNIIef">The luxury big-unit craze "all kind of made sense until you could look out the window and see your competitors building all around you – and there were more coming," said Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, the consulting and appraisal company.</p>
<p id="LSyMRF">Today, just under 20 percent of One57 remains unsold, including pending contracts, an Extell spokeswoman said this week, declining to provide more detail. Extell has been selling about one unit every three months, Miller said. At that rate, it will take five and a half years for the building to sell out.</p>
<p id="tdccxo">The luxury competition has become fierce. Just down the street, at <a href="http://ny.curbed.com/building/53/220-central-park-south">220 Central Park South</a>, Vornado is selling units at an even higher price per square foot level than One57. Hedge fund manager <a href="http://ny.curbed.com/2015/9/8/9923632/is-this-220-central-park-souths-rumored-200m-shopper">Kenneth Griffin reportedly agreed</a> last year to purchase three full floors there for $200 million.</p>
<p id="YckSlV">"In the case of New York, it is not that there are too many units being constructed, it is that there are too many competing units in a narrow price bandwidth that are being constructed," Miller said.</p>
<p id="JWRI73">So far, Extell hasn't shown much willingness to negotiate sizable price reductions nor to divide units, brokers said. But other developers have opened up recently about the need to scale back their offerings and to trim prices.</p>
<p id="ujvttg">Last week, Kevin Maloney of Property Markets Group said he had chopped up an 8,400-square-foot triplex apartment at <a href="http://ny.curbed.com/building/3304/10-sullivan-street">10 Sullivan Street</a> into <a href="http://ny.curbed.com/2016/2/29/11133136/10-sullivan-soho-penthouse-split-up">two smaller units</a>. The penthouse was priced at $45 million, but he was concerned about the slowing Manhattan market. "The air is very thin up there in that buyer pool," he told <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-29/manhattan-penthouse-gets-sliced-in-two-as-luxury-market-falters">Bloomberg</a>.</p>
<p id="VNzfOT">Now PMG is selling a 5,400-square-foot duplex for $29.5 million, and a 3,000-square-foot apartment below it for $11 million.</p>
<p id="J5SjOg">Maloney's move followed news in November that CIM and Harry Macklowe, the developers of <a href="http://ny.curbed.com/building/129/432-park-avenue">432 Park</a>, the city's tallest residential tower, were <a href="http://ny.curbed.com/2015/11/10/9901918/some-432-park-avenue-condos-get-split-up-amid-slowing-sales">splitting five full-floor apartments</a> in half. The smaller units, on floors 91 to 95, have asking prices of about $40 million each, <a href="http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20151110/REAL_ESTATE/151109865/developers-at-citys-tallest-luxury-tower-shrink-full-floor-condos-by-half-as-demand-for-pricey-apartments-wanes">Crain's reported</a>. That compares to an 8,000-square-foot unit on the 88th floor listed at $76.5 million.</p>
<div class="float-right" id="gvqm6w"> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="432 Park Avenue in Manhattan" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HSjNApACFY3Ar7zEJnDmdL5zL0c=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6161673/shutterstock_373031323.0.jpg">
<cite>Shutterstock</cite>
<figcaption>432 Park Avenue in Manhattan</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p id="tloVvg">The developers have sold more than 70 percent of the building's 106 units, including the 8,000-square-foot penthouse on the 96th floor, which is under contract for $95 million.</p>
<p id="Bfa1ve">Then there is Ziel Feldman, who has said he plans to build smaller than the competition at <a href="http://ny.curbed.com/building/3407/501-west-17th-street">501 West 17th Street</a>, a West Chelsea development. Feldman paid $870 million last year for a full square block in West Chelsea, one of the most expensive land deals on record, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-21/nyc-developer-shuns-ultra-luxury-condos-at-chelsea-lot">Bloomberg reported</a>.</p>
<p id="MeogLn">In a telling statement, the HFZ Capital Group chief said he didn't "want to be hostage to the $10-to-$20 million condo market."</p>
<p id="Yomr9h">Rather than reduce the price-per-square foot, Feldman plans to offer apartments in the 1,500-to-2,000-square-foot range—about half the 3,311 square feet that Manhattan apartments averaged during 2014 and 2015, according to Miller Samuel.</p>
<p id="zx9sPh">But developers need to be cautious not to get greedy on the way down. They need to respect that larger contiguous spaces generally command a premium in price-per-square-foot terms, a "1-plus-1-equals-2.5" axiom Miller likes to tout.</p>
<p id="ZLcnOw">Other developers are quietly adjusting their prices downward. At <a href="http://ny.curbed.com/building/1816/50-united-nations-plaza">50 United Nations Plaza</a>, Zeckendorf Development had sold less than half of the 87 available units in the 43-story tower as of December, after starting sales in 2013, <a href="http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20151207/REAL_ESTATE/151209917/zeckendorfs-say-their-half-empty-u-n-luxury-tower-is-really-half-full">Crain's reported</a>. Nearly two-thirds of the condos closed at discounts of up to 16 percent, the publication said.</p>
<p id="Oakiqd">While not exactly a fire sale, William Zeckendorf said the developers may have over-priced some of the upper units, while also noting that 10 sales were in discounted bulk purchases, including four units sold last year to Qatar's United Nations mission for $45 million.</p>
<p id="TYU7nj">Brokers say buyers' changing attitudes are driving developers' new thinking. "There is a frumpy stock market that is scaring people who afford those types of large apartments," said Ryan Serhant, a broker with Nest Seekers International. "People today will save their money. That is exactly what happened in 2009."</p>
<p id="JvWJYC"><q class="left">"The emphasis on billionaires has been embarrassing, almost."</q></p>
<p id="u4PNMv">Developers are deciding that "relying on a very small finite group of buyers is too much to swallow," Steinberg said. "The emphasis on billionaires has been embarrassing, almost."</p>
<p id="5vX7e8">The buzz today is a "broad awareness" of the need to build more for "middle class" New Yorkers, which in Manhattan means apartments below $4 million, Steinberg said.</p>
<p id="YzQFzD">For Serhant, slicing up floor plans "worked in our favor" at Ben Shaoul's East Village redevelopment at <a href="http://ny.curbed.com/building/3408/100-avenue-a">100 Avenue A</a>. Instead of doing one penthouse floor at the 32-unit property, the developer created four penthouses that are in line with the other one- and two-bedroom units in the building. One penthouse, a 991-square-foot two-bedroom, is <a href="http://streeteasy.com/building/100-avenue-a-new_york/pha">in contract for $2.5 million</a>. Contracts are also out for another, a <a href="http://streeteasy.com/building/100-avenue-a-new_york/phc">632-square-foot one-bedroom</a>, for $1.635 million, said Serhant, who is marketing the property.</p>
<p id="fgoRVm">The danger in all the concern over constructing apartments that are too big to sell in the emerging climate, of course, is that Manhattan developers will veer too far from the boom years, too fast.</p>
<p id="wHj221">"Manhattan has a tendency to have herd mentality where everyone does exactly the same thing at exactly the same time," Steinberg said. "There may come a moment pretty soon where all of a sudden people say, 'We need bigger apartments.' But do we need bigger apartments at $30 million, or at a more attainable level? We'll have to see."</p>
<ul><li id="Jb6bCT"> <a href="http://www.curbed.com/property-lines">Property Lines archives</a> [Curbed]</li></ul>
https://archive.curbed.com/2016/3/8/11179946/luxury-condos-nyc-billionairesAlexei Barrionuevo2016-03-03T14:06:52-05:002016-03-03T14:06:52-05:00Hot Houston Housing Market Chills As Energy Prices Dip
<figure>
<img alt="A recently sold home in a Sullivan Brothers Builders's Houston development." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8yFsX9PfU00TANY1N5DwgoU_eCo=/132x0:1198x800/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/48989399/harper_woods_houston_2.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>A recently sold home in a Sullivan Brothers Builders's Houston development. | Alexei Barrionuevo</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Houston is expected to lose its crown as the king of new home construction this year</p> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A recently sold home in a Sullivan Brothers Builders's Houston development." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/P_9QcP-P5UEcagsJ8PXh_f0sY14=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6139411/harper_woods_houston_2.jpg">
<cite>Alexei Barrionuevo</cite>
</figure>
<p>When energy prices dipped to 12-year lows in December, <a href="http://www.sbbtexas.com/">Sullivan Brothers Builders</a> decided to try to spur sales of its single-family homes in the Houston area by offering a $5,000 bonus—and payment of buyers' electric bills for one year.</p>
<p>"The price of oil has stalled some buyers," said Karen Travelstead, director of sales and marketing for Sullivan Brothers. "There were buyers ready to make decisions that kind of decided, 'Let's wait three to six more months before we decide.'"</p>
<p>Two months later Sullivan Brothers is <a href="http://sbbtexas.com/harper-woods-available-homes.html">still offering the incentives</a>, and likely will continue them through the spring, to see if the global energy downturn deepens for the nation's most important oil and gas corridor, Travelstead said.</p>
<p>Houston, the nation's number one market for housing starts last year, is starting to show signs of a slowdown. Still, home prices in the metro area, whose job market is about 50 percent energy-related, may prove surprisingly resilient, in large part because supply has been struggling to keep pace with demand for the past few years – making for a hot market that more resembled San Jose, California, than any city in Texas, said Bill Gilmer, director of the Institute For Regional Forecasting at the University of Houston.</p>
<p>But due to the energy fall-off, Houston is expected to lose its crown as the king of new home construction this year to its in-state rival, Dallas. "In 2016 you will see Dallas be the leading market in terms of single-family growth, followed very closely by Houston," said Scott Davis, the Houston regional director for <a href="http://www.metrostudy.com/">Metrostudy</a>.</p>
<p>Both Houston and Dallas have been on a housing-expansion tear since 2012, with home prices rising at double-digit rates across most of the state. Last year Houston had 27,899 housing starts, down 709 from 2014, compared to 26,905 for Dallas-Fort Worth, up 917 from the year before. The third place metro area–Atlanta--was nearly 8,000 starts behind the Texas leaders in 2015, according to <a href="http://www.metrostudy.com/">Metrostudy</a>, a real estate marketing and intelligence company.</p>
<p>Sizzling job growth spurred developers to build and expand further north in both Dallas and Houston. The Dallas area added 123,000 jobs in 2014, and another 98,900 jobs last year.</p>
<p>Houston has added 514,000 jobs in the last six years, or about 6 percent of all jobs added in the country. But now, with the oil downturn, Houston is expected to have lost some 40,000 energy-related jobs last year, for net job growth of about 20,000.</p>
<p><q class="left">Houston has added 514,000 jobs in the last six years, or about 6 percent of all jobs added in the country.</q></p>
<p>Sales are at near-record levels, and supply of vacant finished homes in Houston stood at just 2.3 months in December, up from 1.5 months at the end of 2014. "On the surface it looks not just like a healthy market, but a hot market," Gilmer said. "Unfortunately, I think that is a negative symptom. The Texas growth model has always been built on the low cost of living and the low cost of home construction."</p>
<p>In Gilmer's view, what Houston and Dallas have is a "lots problem." With tighter lending practices imposed by the Dodd-Frank Act, builders have struggled to find the financing to create more single-family lots and keep up with demand. The legislation has hurt smaller regional banks more than larger banks, studies have shown. "The requirements to hold capital against land development are just prohibitive," Gilmer said.</p>
<p>"Unless you can reach into national markets, like one of the big builders, or can get a hedge fund, or put half of your own money into the project, it has been very difficult to get lots on the ground," he said.</p>
<p>The shortage of lots has pushed up the price of land, making it more difficult to build a house. That has contributed to an uptick in housing prices. In Dallas, new home prices rose by 51 percent from 2010 to 2015, to $299,300. In Houston, the median sale price of a new home rose 49 percent over the same period, to $282,700, Metrostudy said.</p>
<p>Still, builders tried to keep pace with the stunning job growth in Texas generally. Places like Frisco, the top sub-market for housing starts in the Dallas area in 2015, have morphed from the smattering of farms I remember from when I worked for a local newspaper in Dallas in the early 1990s, into a luxury home destination, with prices ranging from $400,000 to $749,000.</p>
<p>And the jobs keep coming. Toyota North America is relocating its headquarters to Plano (north of Dallas), which will bring 4,000 jobs, and State Farm and Liberty Mutual are building call centers in the area that will add another 13,000 jobs.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Exxon Mobil's sprawling new headquarters in Houston." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XmkWTe4bOJBqpNmcxYJOMGaVESI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6139695/houston_campus_promenade_energy_center.0.jpg">
<cite>Exxon Mobil</cite>
<figcaption>Exxon Mobil's sprawling new headquarters in Houston.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As diversified as Dallas's economy is, energy still rules Texas. "Overall we are seeing a little more caution about spending money in Dallas because it is part of Texas," said Paige Shipp, Metrostudy's regional director for Dallas-Fort Worth. "That is a 2016 revelation. It was kind of no-holds barred in 2015 – buy as much land as you can, get as many deals as you can."</p>
<p>In Houston, with the complications around creating new development lots, builders contracted a case of "Exxon fever," as Gilmer put it. When the energy giant began construction in 2011 on <a href="http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/company/worldwide-operations/locations/united-states/houston-campus/overview">a new global headquarters</a> in Spring, a city north of Houston, developers seized on the opportunity to create luxury housing that would feed a new white-collar energy corridor. A third outer loop called the Grand Parkway—Houston already has two highways that loop around the city—also promised to ease traffic.</p>
<p>The resulting development activity further fueled the transformation of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woodlands,_Texas">The Woodlands</a>, a master-planned community developed by oil investor George P. Mitchell, into a suburban megalopolis, with a population that has nearly doubled since 2000 to 108,000. But developers overreached, building homes averaging from $400,000 to $800,000—about double what most buyers expect to pay in Houston—and now some of that new housing is lingering on the market for longer.</p>
<div class="float-right">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/72VSU380gdbfVRPia-ezoIeH784=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6139595/harmony_houston_texas_5.0.jpg">
<cite>Alexei Barrionuevo</cite>
</figure>
</div>
<p>"That north Woodlands area has been one of our prime growth corridors, and right now it is really slowing," Davis said. "We haven't seen a big movement of Exxon relocations to buy housing in that area. What has happened is we are offering product at a price point in communities that don't have the amenities that attracts the consumer segment that buys at that price point."</p>
<p>I took a drive through Spring and The Woodlands recently. Signs advertising new homes and new lots were everywhere. Communities like <a href="http://www.harmony-houston.com/">Harmony</a>, which is selling homes from the $250,000s to the $600,000s, had signs pitching the benefits of hike and bike trails, high-speed internet and alarm monitoring.</p>
<p>In Springwoods Village, a 2,000-acre master-planned community just south of The Woodlands, I passed by the 385-acre ExxonMobil campus, which currently employs 8,000 and is designed to grow to 10,000.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Homes for sale in Houston." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/TxYzNHefREO47C2bwWCuPVak2sk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6139605/harper-woods_houston_sullivan_brothers_3.0.JPG">
<cite>Alexei Barrionuevo</cite>
<figcaption>Homes for sale in Houston.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I saw a lot of unsold homes and home sites. At Audubon Grove builder <a href="http://springwoodsvillage.com/builder/taylor-morrison/">Taylor Morrison</a> was pitching 51 single family homesites starting in the $500,000s. At Harper Woods, green and silver balloons still adorned the entrance to the community. There was a row of three "available" signs on one street. Homes there range from the low $400,000s for a townhouse to $650,000 for a home just under 3,000 square feet, Travelstead said.</p>
<p>Since 2013, Sullivan Brothers has sold and closed 23 homes out of 34 available. There are nine currently for sale. The plan is to expand to 88 homes, but the oil downturn may force the developer to redivide the land to "bring down the density," Travelstead said. In recent weeks, the company reduced some prices by up to 6 percent, including on a three-bedroom, 2,805-square-foot house with antique brick exterior and a butler’s pantry, which is <a href="http://www.sbbtexas.com/7-bowers-pine-court.html">now selling for $549,000</a>.</p>
<p>The free electricity and $5,000 bonus are attracting attention, she said, though so far they have resulted in just two closings.</p>
<ul>
<li> <a href="http://www.curbed.com/property-lines">Property Lines archives</a> [Curbed]</li>
</ul>
https://archive.curbed.com/2016/3/3/11154552/houston-dallas-housing-pricesAlexei Barrionuevo2016-02-24T10:30:02-05:002016-02-24T10:30:02-05:00Is the Bay Area on the Verge of a Housing Bubble?
<figure>
<img alt="A dearth of new development in San Francisco compounds the Bay Area's housing problems." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vE-qt_OMthFcDLXtl1WpVm6h3D0=/0x0:4608x3456/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/48920521/shutterstock_154884305.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>A dearth of new development in San Francisco compounds the Bay Area's housing problems. | Shutterstock</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Has the Bay Area housing market finally peaked?</p> <p>The San Francisco Bay Area’s booming tech industry is transforming lives and changing habits around the world. But it is also deepening one of the nation’s worst income gaps, and setting up the region’s housing market for a potentially nasty correction.</p>
<p>Consider the latest numbers. Silicon Valley home sale prices rose for the third year in a row in 2015, to $830,000, more than double the median price of $411,000 in California. One-bedroom rentals are averaging $3,500/month in San Francisco, the highest rent in the nation.</p>
<p>Looming behind the buzz over whether <a href="http://sf.curbed.com/2016/2/9/10953444/record-bay-area-home-prices-are-reaching-bubble-stage">a bubble is primed to burst</a> is the dysfunction: new construction in the Bay Area is not keeping up with job growth. Neither are salaries, as high as they seem for the tech crowd. Even as the clamor for more affordable housing gets louder, new development remains politically risky, and it's tough to see where, when, or how relief will arrive.</p>
<p>"Bay Area housing prices have been growing at a large margin faster than incomes," said Marc Gilbert, an analyst at Fitch Ratings, who <a href="http://media.bizj.us/view/img/8513612/us-rmbs-sustainable-home-price-report4q15.s.%20rmbs%20sustainable%20home%20price%20report_4q'15.pdf">co-authored a report</a> earlier this month showing that home prices are now 10 percent above their prior peak in 2005. "At current levels it puts the area at risk of a greater fall than other areas" of the country, he said.</p>
<p>Median household income in Santa Clara County, home to Intel and Sun Microsystems, is $91,520, which is 72 percent higher than the U.S. level of $52,746 according to the National Association of Realtors.</p>
<p><q class="right"> The average income in the top 20 percent of Bay Area households is $263,000 greater than the bottom 20 percent—a spread that is 50 percent higher than the nationwide gap of $178,000.</q></p>
<p>While many Americans complain about the growing disparity between the haves and have-nots, in the Bay Area the gap has gotten particularly egregious. A study last year by the Joint Venture Silicon Valley found that the average income in the top 20 percent of Bay Area households is $263,000 greater than the bottom 20 percent—a spread that is 50 percent higher than the nationwide gap of $178,000. (The study was based on 2013 census data.) The Bay Area had the highest percentage of income earners over $250,000 in the nation last year, according to the <a href="http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/29/bay-area-income-gap-now-more-than-250000-between-top-and-bottom">National Association of Realtors</a>.</p>
<p>While Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook and Tim Cook at Apple are paying many of their employees sizable salaries, others in Silicon Valley may not be so lucky. For them, the solution involves, for sure, more housing.</p>
<p>Across the Bay Area, housing is tightening up at a time when the region's job market is among the healthiest in the country.</p>
<div class="float-left">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mxShU2DmeA3lcN91xPClKxe6S0o=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6095329/shutterstock_142334026.jpg">
<figcaption>Shutterstock</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p>In San Francisco, unemployment is 3.5 percent, compared to the national average of 5.5 percent. Even with looming layoffs at Yahoo and Twitter, "a lot of firms are desperate for tech and marketing people," said Alan Mark, president of The Mark Company, a real estate marketing firm.</p>
<p>Still, "we can talk about how great it is to have so many job opportunities every year but if we don't have enough housing to actually place these people it becomes a problem," said Trisha Motter, president of the Santa Clara Board of Realtors.</p>
<p>Consider that in 2015 the Bay Area added 64,000 new jobs, most of them in the Silicon Valley, but less than 5,000 new homes were constructed, Motter said.</p>
<p>The inventory of Silicon Valley housing has declined by 10 percent since 2014, and the region has experienced a shortage of nearly 25,000 units since 2007, according to the Joint Venture Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies.</p>
<p>In San Francisco, there are less than 600 condo units for sale on the market, said Mark. Looking at the construction pipeline for the rest of the decade he doesn't expect more than 1,500 units to be on the market at any given time.</p>
<p>Some 5,500 apartments currently under construction will provide some relief for the San Francisco rental market.</p>
<p>Broadly, Bay Area construction seems stuck in the mud. Last year, there were 2,451 housing starts in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, down from 2,624 the year before. The high point in housing starts was in 2006, with 6,289, according to figures from Metrostudy,
<q class="left">In 2015 the Bay Area added 64,000 new jobs, most of them in the Silicon Valley, but less than 5,000 new homes were constructed.</q>
a housing market intelligence firm. In the Oakland-San Francisco-Hayward area there were 5,096 housing starts, more than 3,000 of them single-family homes, up from 4,606 in 2014.</p>
<p>In San Francisco, developers have struggled more than in most cities to win approval for condo projects. "In this economy the biggest hurdle is not economics, it is entitlement risk and political risk," Mark said. "There are a huge number of 'developers' that are not developers, they are entitlers. They are looking to flip the buildings" before they get built.</p>
<p>Flip artists often add another year to the development timeline until new developers take over the projects, Mark said.</p>
<p>Citizens are known to push back, especially when the housing situation has gotten downright scary for middle class residents. Affordable housing discussions are heating up in San Francisco and San Jose, especially after the California Supreme Court sided with San Jose last June by ruling that developers had to set aside a percentage of units in new projects for affordable housing. The court noted the scarcity of such housing had reached "<a href="http://www.ktvu.com/news/4719941-story">epic proportions</a>."</p>
<p>San Francisco is looking to address the crisis even more aggressively, with Supervisor Jane Kim <a href="http://sf.curbed.com/2016/2/3/10942390/inside-the-fuzzy-math-of-40-pe">introducing a charter amendment</a> to more than double the city's affordable housing requirements for market-rate projects to 25 percent.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cq-lvktWR7J_EFZvPMJb8JuQ0sA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6095079/shutterstock_142011013.jpg">
<cite>kropic1 / Shutterstock</cite>
<figcaption>The Bay Bridge between San Francisco and Oakland.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_29440938/drummond-oakland-affordable-housing-battle-heats-up">discussions of "impact fees"</a> in Oakland, home to Uber, which would join a host of other cities with such fees in place to try to alleviate suffocating rents. Governments charge these fees to developers in exchange for permission to develop the land; in the Bay Area, the fees have gone toward affordable housing projects.</p>
<p>It's unsettling how fundamentally different housing regions can be. In Miami, enough out-of-town foreigners have been buying up condos and spec homes to make the question, "Is there job growth to justify all this construction?" an almost meaningless query. It helps explain why the high-rise Brickell neighborhood is again awash in a sea of construction cranes.</p>
<p>But in the Bay Area, the market has shifted more acutely to a local buying phenomenon. While international buyers, in particular from Asia, helped super-fuel the area’s housing surge a in recent years with speculative investment purchases, over the past year that trend has been dying down, brokers and marketers say.</p>
<p>"Most of the over-bidding or multiple offers taking place over the last year are from locals in Silicon Valley," Motter said.</p>
<p>Is there a breaking point? A day of reckoning coming soon? History suggests that a housing correction, if it comes, won't be as painful as in other places.</p>
<p>After the 2001 dot-com boom—where the surging tech industry was built on a less solid foundation of questionable startups stoking their stock prices more than building sustainable businesses—prices only dipped by 10 percent and started rising again a year later. The secular rebound in the national housing market lifted the Bay Area up, dulling what could have been more pain, Gilbert said.</p>
<p>The recession was tougher. Prices plummeted 27 percent over three years. But developers managed to move forward on a new clutch of tall towers, including the 16-story Madrone in Mission Bay, which started construction in 2010 and opened in the summer of 2011.</p>
<p>"Everyone was just focused on getting this town going again and half the economists in the U.S. said we are slipping into a second recession," Mark recalled. "We were selling 7 units a month, which is pretty good, and then finally by March of 2012 the market took off and we were selling 30 a month."</p>
<p>By 2013 Madrone had sold all 329 of its units for an average of $1.36 million. Buoyed by a new community of tech startups and companies that went public, like LinkedIn, the Bay Area market found its footing and began its surge. And the rest, for now, is history.</p>
<ul>
<li> <a href="http://www.curbed.com/2016/1/27/10843266/buying-homes-major-cities-unaffordable-new-york-san-francisco-la">Why Homes in Major U.S. Cities Are Nearly Impossible To Afford</a> [Curbed]</li>
<li> <a href="http://sf.curbed.com/2016/2/9/10953444/record-bay-area-home-prices-are-reaching-bubble-stage">Record Bay Area Home Prices Are Reaching Bubble Stage</a> [Curbed]</li>
</ul>
https://archive.curbed.com/2016/2/24/11102278/bay-area-housing-crisis-bubbleAlexei Barrionuevo2016-02-17T09:30:00-05:002016-02-17T09:30:00-05:00Flint Water Crisis Hurts Rebounding Housing Market
<figure>
<img alt="Saginaw Street in downtown Flint on February 7. Photo by Sarah Rice / Getty Images." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HcyVlxxJYAe4ptlqGQVYtUsYRd8=/42x0:618x432/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/48899073/GettyImages-508987294-thumb.0.0.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Saginaw Street in downtown Flint on February 7. Photo by Sarah Rice / Getty Images.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="leadintro"><em>Welcome back to </em><a href="http://curbed.com/tags/property-lines"><em>Property Lines</em></a><em>, a column by veteran real estate reporter </em><a href="http://curbed.com/archives/2015/10/13/alexei-barrionuevo-curbed-editor-at-large.php"><em>Alexei Barrionuevo</em></a><em>. Every week, Barrionuevo will report on housing trends, real estate deals, and major business moves right here on Curbed.</em></p>
<p id="DMimyo">There is a joke making the rounds in Flint, Michigan, these days that says a lot about how the historical fortunes of the town were turned on their head.</p>
<p id="4zzH5S">It goes that in the 1970s the factory jobs were in Flint and you couldn't drink the water in Mexico. "Now all the factory jobs are in Mexico, and you can't drink the water in Flint," said Scott Hoyt, co-owner of <a href="http://changingstreets.com/">ChangingStreets.com</a>, a brokerage that serves Flint.</p>
<p id="1DMd2R">The discovery of <a href="http://www.michigan.gov/flintwater/0,6092,7-345--375133--,00.html">widespread lead contamination</a> in the city of 102,000 people has drawn national scorn for the way leaders at all levels of government bungled such a devastating health issue. Still, as real estate brokers working in the city reminded me in recent days, <a href="http://curbed.com/archives/2016/02/05/flint-water-crisis-real-estate-mortgage-industry-challenges.php">Flint's housing market</a> was already struggling to regain its footing after a series of economic blows dating back to 2005.</p>
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<p id="nmjB4T"> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/N6jf1rbN98Dn2Zdt2SQ9_4BgBOs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6052103/woodcroft-estates-flint.0.jpg">
</figure>
<span class="credit">Homes in Flint's Woodcroft Estates neighborhood. Photos courtesy Scott Hoyt of ChangingStreets.</span></p>
<p id="xLayv4">Flint is no stranger to bad news. The crime rates and housing vacancy numbers have been high for years now, and the town is no longer the symbol of American industrial and economic strength that it was in the prime days of General Motors.</p>
<p id="QVQEbJ">"This is a city that has been punched in the mouth, constantly, for the last 10 years," Hoyt said.</p>
<p id="SdAwuZ">Today, the median household income is just over $27,000, unemployment has hovered around 9 percent, and in recent days <a href="http://www.realtytrac.com/statsandtrends/mi/genesee-county/flint/">RealtyTrac has reported</a> that the city has the highest vacancy rate in the country, at 7.5 percent, beating out Detroit, at 5.3 percent. According to RealtyTrac, Flint has 11,605 vacant homes, 87 percent of which are investment properties.</p>
<p id="Q8IlRy">Ryan McFarlane, a broker with ChangingStreets who specializes in bank housing sales, said many of the properties declared vacant are so rundown that no one will ever live in them. Still, brokers there agreed that the nation-leading vacancy rate illustrates how far the city has fallen.</p>
<p id="h6rSdB">Not surprisingly, there are signs that the water contamination is likely to make an already challenged real estate market worse by scaring off some investors.</p>
<p id="blHix1">"Are the prices being affected? I would say yes," said Chris Theodoroff, president of the local <a href="https://www.move2midmichigan.com/">East Central Association of Realtors</a>.</p>
<p id="z0U7ZA">He said he lost a deal in late January. An investor had agreed to buy a three-bedroom home in the <a href="http://collegeculturalneighborhood.org/">College Cultural</a> area for $25,000 and then backed out. He decided there was too much work to do to make it sellable. "But his lawyer also contacted him and said, 'What the heck are you doing buying a house in Flint while this is going on? Why don't you hold off until some sort of resolution is made'" Theodoroff said.</p>
<p id="PoLARb"></p>
<p id="tRT8Tw">While the water issue has scared off some out-of-state investors, McFarlane said, Theodoroff has been seeing more local investors starting to circle around the city's vacant properties in the past three to four months, offering cash to buy homes at a discount, especially those priced at $15,000 or less, of which there are hundreds.</p>
<p id="fXiiLP">They are typically buying anywhere from two to 20 properties, he said. "They are starting to look around really hard and say, 'this is the time to buy.'"</p>
<p id="UNefGB">Despite its historic challenges, Flint had appeared to be turning a corner, with its average sales price-per-square foot rising to $18.55 this past December, up from $13.84 in October of 2014, according to figures compiled from the East Central Association of Realtors.</p>
<p id="MPIkF6">"We had some momentum," Theodoroff said. "This is probably going to knock down some of that momentum."</p>
<p id="645qQG">But McFarlane doesn't completely agree that Flint was experiencing a rebound. He said that banks are creating an "artificial lack of inventory" in the market by deciding not to go through the foreclosure process. "What you are seeing is a shortage of properties, not that the price of them is rising," McFarlane said. "Many of these properties aren't hitting the market, and because of the deferred maintenance many of them end up getting torn down. This isn't anything positive for the economy" in Flint, he said.</p>
<p id="3PYLZG">For many years, Flint's economy was all positives. After World War II, General Motors built one of the largest planned developments in the United States in Flint to house its plant workers and others moving into the area to work in the burgeoning auto industry. The company built bungalow-style homes for workers in what became the Mott Park neighborhood.</p>
<p id="CKmxam">By the mid-70s Flint had one of the highest per-capita average income levels in the country. Then the gasoline crunch of the late '70s caused the car manufacturers to build smaller cars, and Flint began to feel the effects of the auto-industry downsizing.</p>
<p id="vBvQZy">But real estate continued its ascent through 2004. Then, in 2005, Delphi, an auto parts manufacturer, filed for bankruptcy and shuttered more than 20 plants in the United States, including the one in Flint.</p>
<p id="x56HSl">"I was honestly heading for probably a record year that year," Theorodoff recalled. "After June of that year, I could have stood on the corner of Saginaw and First Street in the middle of downtown with a box of keys that said 'free' and I couldn't give them away. I think I had one or two closings for the balance of the year."</p>
<p id="1kiAGT">As the national economy began to crater in 2008, Flint residents were in a panic. They were losing jobs in droves. Then GM and Chrysler started to file for bankruptcy. "And people were scared," Theodoroff said.</p>
<p id="8tK1il">By 2012, the city seemed to have come out of the worst of it, having passed through the gauntlet of foreclosures and bank sales.</p>
<p id="xBrNKt">But high unemployment and rising level of abandoned properties spurred a crime wave that made Flint one of the most dangerous places in America. The theft of copper wire and water heaters became "chronic," Hoyt said, with thieves typically selling the stolen goods back to investors.</p>
<p id="ogz3vF">By 2014, Flint had a murder rate nearly six times higher than the national average and a burglary rate more than three times higher than the rest of the country, according to RealtyTrac.</p>
<p id="bSRpp9">Flint's economic woes caused the level of lender-owned homes to balloon to 64 percent, a level that has since fallen to 35 percent. The average sales price in the city was $28,735 in January, up from $19,612 in January of 2015.</p>
<p id="TNmbm7"></p>
<p id="Vpwdwg">Once-elegant neighborhoods like Woodcroft Estates—with neo-classic and Tudor-style brick mansions up to 9,000 square feet adorned with Honduran mahogany trim, bespoke Italian tile, and plaster columns—have fallen into disrepair, and many of the trained craftsmen that could restore them have left the area, brokers said. Built by the doctors, lawyers, and small business owners servicing the General Motors plant, the custom homes now struggle to fetch more than $200,000. Since January of 2006 only 20 properties over $250,000 have sold in Flint.</p>
<p id="jTTiPc">Still, with national attention focused on fixing the lead problem and promises of many millions of dollars to clean up the mess, some brokers are clinging to the notion that the city's crumbling infrastructure will be upgraded, making the city's housing stock more attractive.</p>
<p id="Ect0Nq">"I am betting that in the next 90 days you are going to see some tremendous changes come to Flint," Theodoroff said.<br>· <a href="http://curbed.com/archives/2016/02/05/flint-architects-find-water-crisis-and-infrastructure-issues-create-more-questions.php">Flint Architects Find Water Crisis and Infrastructure Issues Create More Questions</a> [Curbed]<br>· <a href="http://curbed.com/archives/2016/02/05/flint-water-crisis-real-estate-mortgage-industry-challenges.php">Flint Water Crisis Creates Stigma, Uncertainty in Real Estate Market</a> [Curbed]<br>· <a href="http://curbed.com/tags/property-lines">Property Lines</a> [Curbed]</p>
https://archive.curbed.com/2016/2/17/11028606/flint-michigan-housing-market-water-crisisAlexei Barrionuevo2016-02-04T13:30:00-05:002016-02-04T13:30:00-05:00New Plans to Unmask Secret Buyers Rattle Real Estate Power Players
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<p>Welcome back to <a href="http://www.curbed.com/property-lines">Property Lines</a>, a column by veteran real estate reporter Alexei Barrionuevo. Every week, Barrionuevo will report on housing trends, real estate deals, and major business moves right here on Curbed.</p> <p> <figure class="e-image">
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<span class="credit">Super wealthy buyers in new condo buildings like One57, pictured here in October 2015, in New York may no longer be able to hide behind anonymous LLCs. Photo: Roberto Machado Noa / Getty Images.</span></p>
<p>During the heady years of Manhattan high-end real estate, one dirty little secret was that buying a condo in a pre-construction development was an easy way for buyers to avoid scrutiny.</p>
<p>A wealthy buyer who had cash knew that a new development had yet to form a condo board, which meant fewer questions about the buyer's identity and source of funds. It fell to developers to ask those questions, and to press lawyers to provide proof that the buyer wasn't using ill-gotten gains.</p>
<p>Amid a buying wave—like the one Manhattan saw over the past five years—not every developer was willing to rock the boat, despite potential liability. "It was a no-questions-asked" environment, one prominent high-end Manhattan broker recently said.</p>
<p>The new condo development loophole is just one way in which the real estate transaction system had become all too opaque. Wealthy buyers, both in the United States and abroad, have also widely used limited liability companies, or LLCs, to shield their identities, mostly for privacy reasons, but also to avoid scrutiny back home.</p>
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<p>While the real estate community likes to say that the number of illicit transactions taking place is "minuscule," as one broker put it to me, how could we ever be sure without someone other than developers, title companies, and self-interested lawyers reviewing the process?</p>
<p>Last month the federal government decided it was time to shine more light on the situation. After an investigation by <em>The New York Times</em> <a href="http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2015/02/09/scandalplagued_foreigners_park_millions_in_midtown_condos.php">last year</a> revealed that real estate professionals often do not know much about buyers or how they made their money back home, especially those buying mega-expensive condo units in buildings like Time Warner Center, the Treasury department <a href="http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2016/01/13/feds_will_now_id_anonymous_buyers_of_manhattan_real_estate.php">announced rules</a> that will require title companies to disclose the true buyers of all-cash purchases of residences in Miami and Manhattan. Those cities have been the most popular U.S. real estate markets for wealthy international buyers in recent years. Sales of $3 million or more in New York and $1 million or more in Miami will be <a href="https://www.fincen.gov/news_room/nr/pdf/20160113.pdf">subject to Treasury review</a>.</p>
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<span class="credit">The Time Warner Center in New York City. Photo by Robert Cicchetti/Shutterstock.</span></p>
<p>The rules will go into effect on March 1 and last until August 27. The fact that the government would target two specific markets, and for such a short period of time, says the feds are likely casting for potential criminality—or they are simply trying to scare away some prospective buyers.</p>
<p>"This seems like a test," said Jeff Miller, a broker in Miami Beach with Brown Harris Stevens Zilbert. "Time will tell."</p>
<p>Nevertheless, some prominent brokers and at least one developer who deals with international and billionaire clients said the new rules have set off alarm bells in the real estate community.</p>
<p>"The minute this hit there was a lot of drama," said Leonard Steinberg, president of Compass and a former longtime broker with Douglas Elliman.</p>
<p>"When we first heard about it everybody thought, 'Oh my god, this is going to kill our market.'" said Emily Beare, a broker with CORE.</p>
<p>Raphael De Niro, an Elliman broker with a host of international clients, put it more bluntly. "There are people that for whatever reason probably won't buy apartments right now because of these new Treasury laws," he said. "I think there will be some lost business associated with this."</p>
<p>The new rules come at a time when the New York and Miami markets were already showing signs of a slowdown due to international conditions. With the collapse of Chinese demand, the fall in value of the Russian ruble and the Brazilian real, and the "visceral image" of 5,000 to 7,000 units coming on the market in Manhattan in the past two years, "I would think the big reaction would be a pause in activity," said Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, a property appraiser. "A wealthy individual isn't going to risk ending up on a list somewhere. They can wait six months."</p>
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<span class="credit">The new towers, including 432 Park Avenue and One57, on New York's Billionaires' Row, as seen from Central Park in July 2015. Photo by Alexey Rotanov / Shutterstock.</span></p>
<p>Some New York developers along West 57th Street, or "Billionaires' Row"—where Extell, JDS Development, and Property Markets Group are building mega-towers near to the original billionaire's den, One57—expressed concern about how the rules could spook potential buyers.</p>
<p>"Additional regulation is the last thing that we need to hurt potential business that really creates jobs for American workers," said Gary Barnett, president of Extell. "This is another layer of difficulty that is going to potentially hurt further development."</p>
<p>Barnett disagreed with the premise that criminals were parking money in real estate, saying it was the "worst place" because law enforcement could easily seize properties. "They take art work, they take jewelry and diamonds, and gold, they put it in their pocket or they put it in their safe deposit box and we never see it," Barnett said. "You put it in real estate and it isn't going anywhere."</p>
<p>Among the collateral effects of the new rules could be an apprehension by buyers with multiple homes that a Treasury examination could bring scrutiny from the Internal Revenue Service, who could come after them for avoiding U.S. income tax. "A lot of people are afraid of being exposed by the IRS," De Niro said.</p>
<p>Some in the industry insist that developers have tightened up their internal policing of buyers in the past two years, in large part because of cases where foreign governments have sued developers over accepting allegedly dirty money. One such case, recently settled, involved developer Joseph Chetrit, who a city in Kazakhstan <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-12/real-estate-baron-chetrit-settles-kazakh-money-launder-case">accused of helping launder money</a> stolen from the central Asian nation by putting it in units at Flatotel and the Gramercy Square condos.</p>
<p>"When things like that happen you have the industry realizing that there is too much exposure and they can't afford that type of exposure," said Edward Mermelstein, managing partner of the law firm Rheem Bell & Mermelstein. "So they will take it on themselves to make sure something like that doesn't happen in the future."</p>
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<span class="credit">Rendering of 220 Central Park South. By Neoscape.</span></p>
<p>In response, at newer developments, like <a href="http://ny.curbed.com/places/220-central-park-south">220 Central Park South</a>, prospective buyers' lawyers cannot make appointments to see the sales center until they can document to developer Vornado where their clients got their money from, Mermelstein said. "The expectation is that if they can't google your client and find out how they made their money they are not going to let you in the door," he said. (Barnett called the policy a "wonderful marketing ploy" by Vornado.)</p>
<p>But getting to the bottom of who the real buyers are can stretch the investigative capabilities of most developers and brokers. Among the thorny issues the <em>Times</em> series addressed was the fact that buyers often used "straw buyers," or fronts, to act as the named buyers in the LLCs. <em>Times</em> writer Louise Story wrote that it took the better part of a year to penetrate LLCs at Time Warner Center to discover the true buyers of some units.</p>
<p>Developers "are not in the business in going abroad and doing a financial research to see if the beneficiary of the LLC is a real person," Miller, the appraiser, said. "The onus can't be on them because that is not what they do."</p>
<p>And yet, in the case of condos, the burden has fallen on developers to sort it out. Still, as Steinberg emphasized to me, there is a difference between "illegal" funds and potentially "illegitimate" funds—those that were derived through political machinations in other countries, but not necessarily through blatantly criminal activity.</p>
<p>"Legitimacy is one thing and legality is another thing," Steinberg said. "I think this is about legality and not legitimacy."</p>
<p>In the end, most people I spoke to welcomed more government scrutiny—so long as it doesn't scare away buyers. But if Treasury chooses to extend the rules beyond six months, as Barnett believes is likely, or to apply them more uniformly throughout the rest of the country, it could require forming another government department akin to the IRS to monitor the transactions.</p>
<p>"If you change the way real estate is transacted in the United States I can only imagine the madness," said Miller, the appraiser.<br>· <a href="http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2016/01/13/feds_will_now_id_anonymous_buyers_of_manhattan_real_estate.php">Feds Will Now ID Anonymous Buyers of Manhattan Real Estate</a> [Curbed]<br>· <a href="http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2015/02/09/scandalplagued_foreigners_park_millions_in_midtown_condos.php">Scandal-Plagued Foreigners Park Millions in Midtown Condos</a> [Curbed]<br>· <a href="http://curbed.com/tags/property-lines">Property Lines archives</a> [Curbed]</p>
https://archive.curbed.com/2016/2/4/10941922/luxury-condos-nyc-miami-secret-buyersAlexei Barrionuevo2016-01-26T12:30:00-05:002016-01-26T12:30:00-05:00Film Industry, Zombies Boost Atlanta Area Housing Market
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<p>Welcome back to <a href="http://www.curbed.com/property-lines">Property Lines</a>, a column by veteran real estate reporter Alexei Barrionuevo. Every week, Barrionuevo will report on housing trends, real estate deals, and major business moves right here on Curbed.</p> <p id="Eq519T">For seven months of the year, real estate developer Scott Tigchelaar and his family are just as likely to see zombies roaming the streets of their Senoia, Georgia, neighborhood as they are to see their actual neighbors. But fear not.</p>
<p id="LEg6NE">"When there are 200 zombies standing outside your house, and one of them is having a cigarette and the other is eating a granola bar, it does sort of take the scary factor away," said Tigchelaar, whose family also owns a local film production company.</p>
<p id="guq3cj">The zombies are actually actors in the hit AMC series <em>The Walking Dead</em>, which has been filming in Senoia since the show began six seasons ago. In the show, a 15-foot steel fence surrounding the collection of brownstones and single-family homes is supposed to keep the humans safe from the monsters. But is anyone safe from the temptation of Hollywood's deep pockets?</p>
<p id="nRU1ZL">Certainly not those in the Atlanta area and other parts of Georgia, who are reaping the benefits from film and television production incentives that kicked off in earnest in 2008. The incentives have ushered in a wave of film and TV projects, boosting the housing market and even changing the timeline on construction projects, especially in the Atlanta area.</p>
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<span class="credit">Aerial view of Senoia, Georgia before producers of the Walking Dead built a 15-foot wall around a new development in town. Photo courtesy Scott Tigchelaar.</span></p>
<p id="EffPz7">Take Senoia, which is 40 miles from Atlanta. When a group of post-apocalypse survivors in the fifth season arrive in the "safe zone" of Alexandria, Virginia—the town Senoia doubles for—the <em>Dead</em> producers asked in 2014 to halt construction on an in-fill housing development and construct a wall around it so that the look could be maintained for the show. The result is that the seven families already living there, including Tigchelaar's, struck deals to live in the zombie zone during the filming months of May to November.</p>
<p id="Ecot13">Such arrangements aren't so spooky for residents of Senoia, which has been a Hollywood backlot, from time to time, for more than two decades. Some two dozen film and television shows have been filmed there, including such southern classics as <em>Fried Green Tomatoes</em>, <em>Driving Miss Daisy</em>, and <em>Sweet Home Alabama</em>.</p>
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<br><span class="credit">In 2014, producers of the Walking Dead asked to halt construction on an in-fill development and constructed a 15-foot wall around the buildings. Photo by Alexei Barrionuevo.</span></p>
<p id="rSE6vq">But <em>The Walking Dead</em> has made made the sight of production trailers more common in Senoia the past few years, and lately, dozens of Hollywood productions, both big-budget and small, have been flowing into all corners of the Atlanta area as a result of the film incentives. That has helped to tighten up the rental markets and create A-list celebrity sightings. And with the expansion plans on the books for Pinewood Studios Atlanta, the market is about to get even busier.</p>
<p id="7j1xV0">With the high-cost of unionized labor in Los Angeles, and the need for varied locations, the film industry is always looking around the country and around the world for tax incentives, usually in the form of rebates for money spent, to lower the cost of their productions. Canada lured Hollywood over the border in the late 1990s with a highly competitive tax-credit program before states like Louisiana, New York, and Georgia started fighting back.</p>
<p id="kxoieE">Georgia passed an incentive in 2005 and then upped the ante in 2008 with a more competitive 30 percent tax credit. It is now the state with the third-highest level of film production. There were 248 films shot in Georgia in fiscal year 2015, with production budgets totaling $1.7 billion, according to state figures.</p>
<p id="dXve1c">The movie-making boom is changing the outside perception of Atlanta. Just <a href="http://atlanta.curbed.com/archives/2016/01/21/everyone-agrees-atlanta-killing-it-right-now.php">this month</a>, Atlanta topped <a href="http://www.moviemaker.com/archives/news/2016-best-places-big-cities/">MovieMaker Magazine's list</a> of "Best Places to Live and Work as a Moviemaker" in 2016, rising from No. 16 last year. Relatively affordable housing ($1,003 per month average rent) helped, but it was also the realization that Atlanta was building a powerhouse industry that was less paparazzi-infested than La-La land.</p>
<p id="Jf97iL">Big-budget productions have drawn the big stars, leading some residents to make their stately homes available for rent for $10,000 or more, sometimes at more than double their normal rate, said Chase Mizell, an agent with Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby's International Realty.</p>
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<span class="credit">Actress Amy Adams leased this house, located in Atlanta's prestigious Tuxedo Park, while she was filming Trouble with the Curve. It features a pool and guest house. Photo courtesy Chase Mizell.</span></p>
<p id="rr4LtH">Tom Cruise recently rented a home in Buckhead for $50,000 a month while working on his upcoming film, <em>Mena</em>. Mizell said he has rented a six-bed, six-bath home with a wine cellar and movie theater in Smyrna, to actresses Jennifer Hudson and Elizabeth Banks, for $12,000 a month. Amy Adams paid $18,000 a month to rent a six-bed, eight-bath home in Tuxedo Park in 2014 while she was filming <em>Trouble With The Curve</em>, he said.</p>
<p id="Scq0zZ">Then there are the freelancers—the lighting, sound, and camera crew members who make the actors look good—who often travel where the work is. With steadier and steadier opportunities around Atlanta, they are flowing in from California, Louisiana, and the Northeast and looking to sign longer-term leases, said Maura Neill, an agent with RE/MAX Around Atlanta. They generally want a central location, and most want townhouses and condos, especially in the downtown and Midtown areas.</p>
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<span class="credit">This house, located on 10 private acres at 65 Valley Road in Tuxedo Park, was leased by a production company to shoot scenes for What to Expect When You're Expecting (starring Cameron Diaz & directed by Kirk Jones). Photo courtesy Chase Mizell.</span></p>
<p id="2jni7w">In the early days of the film incentives, these crew members' particular requests sometimes unnerved residents not used to film industry types. Neill recalled a professional sound guy who in 2012 requested a townhouse with a climate-controlled garage with no windows. "I was asking listing agents and property owners what could be construed as easily misunderstood questions," she said. The man needed the garage for a few massive crates of sound equipment. He ended up renting a townhouse in the Fourth Ward area.</p>
<p id="Gw7EQi">The real Atlanta gamechanger is Pinewood Studios. Pinewood is the legendary British studio where the James Bond movies are filmed. But four years ago, Dan Cathy, the chief executive of the Chick-fil-A chain, helped persuade the Brits to build another mammoth <a href="http://atlanta.curbed.com/archives/2013/02/07/major-film-tv-producers-want-atlarea-compound.php">movie-making complex over 288 acres</a> in rural Fayette County.</p>
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<span class="credit">The sign for Pinewood Studios near Atlanta. Photo by Alexei Barrionuevo.</span></p>
<p id="y0fHSj">The Atlanta version of the studio, which started with an initial $20 million plan to build five sound stages and offices totaling 305,000 square feet, soon became the go-to production house for big-budget Marvel superhero films, including <em>Ant-Man</em> and the soon-to-be-released <em>Captain America: Civil War</em>.</p>
<p id="z5PYEN">With a pipeline of projects several years into the future, Pinewood has big expansion plans that include a lot of new housing. According to documents filed with the state of Georgia, Pinewood plans to add nearly 2 million square feet of studio space, while building more than 1,300 housing units, hotels, and offices, over the next seven years. And <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2015/10/06/georgia-film-academy-planning-sound-stage-at.html">new school to train future filmmakers</a>, the Georgia Film Academy, plans to teach classes in Pinewood and build a dedicated sound stage there.</p>
<p id="tJ7kB1">While some speculate the expansion will create a virtual "movie city," Tigchelaar said the housing was needed for the area and that Pinewood's ambitions would simply "accelerate" housing growth there.</p>
<p id="Br7G5B">Unquestionably, the movie industry has the power to do that.</p>
<p id="JoNaVc">As Tigchelaar explained to me on a recent visit to Senoia, the Mayberry-like town was on life support before film production generally—and zombie fanatics especially— breathed new life into the place. A decade ago, growth in the 150-year-old town had "flat-lined," he said. There were only five businesses on Main Street. Five families owned all the property downtown and didn't want to sell. But in 2007 Tigchelaar's real estate development company was finally able to persuade the owners to relinquish some 22 commercial properties—the majority of the developable downtown.</p>
<p id="UerGZJ">Before <em>The Walking Dead</em> started they set in motion a development to build up to 75 homes on 12 acres just across the train tracks from Main Street. Tigchelaar, who with his uncle also owns a film studio, Riverwood Studios, intended for the development to be used as a Hollywood backlot as well. There is a street that will be all brownstones—the first five of a planned 15 are already up—and another street of single-family homes, a sort of "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisteria_Lane">Wisteria Lane</a>."</p>
<p id="oFC7Zl">"It gives us the ability to cheat different looks from different places," Tigchelaar said. "The brownstones can cheat Charleston, New York, Georgetown."</p>
<p id="tJYXw2">Tigchelaar got about halfway through development when the producers of <em>The Walking Dead</em> decided they wanted it to remain as-is. Alexandria had become the zombie survivors' safe haven. So they built the quarter-mile-long steel wall and essentially walled in the seven families, who were paid undisclosed sums for their inconvenience during filming months. A security guard sits in a car all day to prevent non-residents from entering the development, lest they see series spoilers.</p>
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<span class="credit">Main Street in Senoia features a Walking Dead Store and a Waking Dead Cafe. Photo by Alexei Barrionuevo.</span></p>
<p id="vk0BCh">The residents aren't complaining. The town has prospered. Today there are more than 50 businesses on Main Street and the population has doubled to 4,200. Senoia has become a tourist attraction for <em>Dead</em> fans and nearby residents of Peachtree City, who don't have a main street of their own. There are <em>Walking Dead</em> tours, a Walking Dead Store with all manner of action figures and comic books, and the subterranean Waking Dead Cafe.</p>
<p id="tOtfO1">Tigchelaar is racing to capitalize on the growing need for housing in the area. He has another project underway on Main Street to build eight retail spaces and 10 upscale lofts, which he expects will be finished by the summer.</p>
<p id="44tlyA">"There is no shortage of people wanting to rent them," he said.<br>· <a href="http://atlanta.curbed.com/archives/2016/01/21/everyone-agrees-atlanta-killing-it-right-now.php">Everyone Seems to Agree: Atlanta is Killing it Right Now</a> [Curbed]<br>· <a href="http://curbed.com/tags/property-lines">Property Lines</a> [Curbed]</p>
https://archive.curbed.com/2016/1/26/10843422/atlanta-georgia-walking-dead-housing-film-industry-incentivesAlexei Barrionuevo