Is That Like Charlie Sheen “Winning?” John Paulson, one of the winners of the subprime crisis, is having a bad year. Investors are showing unusual patience. –“Despite Losses, Investors Stick With Paulson“; The New York Times (11/2/2011) Did you know that the housing bust has also had big “winners?” People like hedge fund titan John Paulson,...Read More
No Standard Terms In theory, “rent-to-own” is a tailor-made strategy for today’s housing market, where lots of would-be Buyers have good cash flow but lousy credit, and lots of Sellers are, well, eager to sell. In practice, however, I’ve seen relatively few of these deals. My guess is that the following factors are responsible: –Although it’s...Read More
Want to know how much natural light a room — or an entire home — gets? Turn off all the lights. As my impressed open house visitors saw for themselves yesterday at 2275 Youngman, there’s practically no difference in how light the Kitchen (above) is with the lights on or off. The explanation? There’s a...Read More
You Know What They Say About Hindsight With 2011 winding down, my in-boxes — paper and email — are collecting the usual plugs for continuing ed classes promising insights about what to expect in 2012. So, I had to pause when I saw an upcoming class with the title, “Outlook 2003.” My first thought was that...Read More
Define, “Luxury“ Is everything now a “luxury rental?” Put it this way: driving around the Twin Cities, I haven’t seen many billboards trumpeting “spartan rentals” lately. So, are they? (Luxury, that is?) It’s sort of like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s line about pornography (“I can’t define it . . but I know it when I...Read More
Do two buildings make a trend? Maybe, if they’re high enough profile. That would seem to describe both Edina Realty’s new City Lakes office, about a mile west of Minneapolis’ Uptown neighborhood, and 1800 Lake, a new luxury rental building in Uptown just northeast of Lake Calhoun. Copper cladding not only gives these buildings a...Read More
