NAHB Lauds Urban Condos, Affordable Rentals

April 18, 2007 -

The famous but deteriorating RCA building remade into trendy loft apartments; an artist colony for seniors, and Elvis Presley’s childhood apartment that was saved as part of the rehabilitation of an old public housing development were among this year’s innovative winners of the prestigious Pillars of the Industry Awards, bestowed by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).

NAHB’s Pillars of the Industry Awards honor excellence in apartment and condo design, development, marketing and management, and are considered the most prestigious national awards in the multifamily housing industry. NAHB recognized winners for excellence and superior leadership in more than 30 categories as part at its annual conference for apartment and condo developers, held last week in Hollywood, Fla.

“These award-winning projects are proof positive that multifamily housing in this country just keeps getting better and better, “ said Leonard Wood, managing partner of the Atlanta-based Wood Partners, LLC, and chairman of NAHB’s Multifamily Leadership Board.

“We saw tremendous innovation across so many categories—from luxury condos to student housing—but what is most impressive is what multifamily builders are doing to serve the needs of families with low- and moderate incomes, including military personnel.”

Wood noted that this year’s awards competition had the highest number of entries ever in the affordable housing categories, including four large-scale redevelopments of whole neighborhoods into mixed-income and mixed-use communities. Clark Realty Capital took top honors in the Best Neighborhood Revitalization category for its Monterey Bay (Calif.) Military Housing development.

The Multifamily Community of the Year Award, which is sponsored by Freddie Mac, went to the Chicago architectural firm Pappageorge/Haymes for its University Commons condominium community developed by The Enterprise Companies in downtown Chicago.

The site of a former fruit and vegetable warehouse, the condo project had won the top award in the Best Adaptive Reuse (from a non-residential product to a Condominium Community) category. NAHB named Forest City Residential the Freddie Mac Multifamily Development Firm of the Year.

The Cleveland-based development firm with apartment and condominium projects nationwide was lauded particularly for its ability to seek out and successfully complete highly complex developments on a massive scale, such as redeveloping the former Denver airport into a residential community.

AvalonBay Communities of Alexandria, Va., was honored as the Property Management Company of the Year.

ABOUT FREDDIE MAC: Freddie Mac is a stockholder-owned corporation established by Congress in 1970 to support homeownership and rental housing. Freddie Mac purchases single-family and multifamily residential mortgages and mortgage-related securities, which it finances primarily by issuing mortgage passthrough securities and debt instruments in the capital markets. Over the years, Freddie Mac has made home possible for one in six homebuyers and more than four million renters. For additional information about Freddie Mac, see the company’s web site: www.freddiemac.com.

From Inman News, April 2007.

Visit our website for Myrtle Beach Condos for Sale

Marketing by Myrtle Beach Web Design

Real Estate News from NAR

Daily Real Estate News
May 8, 2007
NAR: Soft Landing for Home Sales

The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® still expects more than 6 million existing-home sales in 2007, but stricter lending standards and a decline in subprime mortgage origination have contributed to somewhat lowered expectations compared with earlier forecasts, according to the latest projections from NAR.

Lawrence Yun, NAR senior economist, says one benefit for the market is the disappearance of speculative behavior, which contributed to abnormal price growth.

“Home buyers today are purchasing for the long term, generally with a realistic expectation of modest gains over time,” Yun says. “Housing first and foremost is shelter. Second, it’s a long-term investment that slowly builds the greatest amount of wealth for most families. It’s good that we’re getting beyond the tendency of some buyers to view housing as a temporary asset to accumulate short-term wealth, which is not to be expected in a normal market.”

Housing ProjectionsNAR expects the following in home sales this year:

Existing-home sales are likely to total 6.29 million this year and 6.49 million in 2008, compared with 6.48 million last year.

New-home sales are projected at 864,000 in 2007 and 936,000 next year, lower than the 1.05 million in 2006.

Housing starts should total 1.46 million units this year and 1.52 million in 2008, down from 1.80 million last year.

“If it weren’t for a favorable economic backdrop, housing would probably have a hard landing,” Yun says.

“As it is, we see this as a soft landing with home sales rising gradually in the second half of the year and prices recovering a bit later.”

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage should rise slowly to 6.5 percent by the fourth quarter, NAR predicts. Last week, Freddie Mac reported the 30-year rate was 6.16 percent. The national median existing-home price is forecast to slip 1 percent to $219,800 this year, and then rise 1.4 percent in 2008.

The median new-home price is expected to be essentially unchanged at $246,400 in 2007, and then rise 2.2 percent next year.

The unemployment rate will probably average 4.6 percent this year, unchanged from 2006. Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, is estimated to decline to 2.5 percent in 2007, down from 3.2 percent last year.

Growth in the U.S. gross domestic product is projected at 2.1 percent in 2007, lower than the 3.3 percent growth last year. Inflation-adjusted disposable personal income should rise 2.6 percent in 2007, the same as last year.

— REALTOR® Magazine Online

Reprinted from REALTOR® Magazine Online,
May 8, 2007, with permission of the
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.
Copyright 2007
All rights reserved.

See the new compendium of Myrtle Beach Condos at www.myrtlebeachcondos.net