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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tradelite who wrote (25925)	12/13/2004 4:36:44 PM
From: ild	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

U.S. Faces a New 'Space' Race By SHEILA MUTO Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL December 13, 2004; Page A10 America is going to need more room. By 2030, the U.S. will need 44% more total built space than existed in 2000 to accommodate population and job-growth projections, according to a new study by the Brookings Institution. The study, expected to be released today, estimates that only about half of the total 427 billion square feet that will be needed for residential and other uses by 2030 is currently standing. About 131 billion square feet of the total will need to be new construction, while 82 billion will be needed to replace the amount lost to disasters, demolition and other reasons. Given that nearly half the space needed in 25 years h as yet to be built, "it's not too late to change the built environment and make things better, or even a lot better, than what they are now," said Arthur C. Nelson, the author of the report and director of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Universi ty's urban affairs and planning department. That means creating more-compact communities -- where homes, work and recreation can be found closer together and don't require getting into the car as much. Most of the new demand will occur in the South and the West, which together will require 251.5 billion square feet of space in 2030, up from 160.5 billion in 2000, the report by the institution's Metropolitan Policy Program says. About 136.3 billion feet of new and replacement space will be needed in the two regions. The price tag for construction in the U.S. during the period is expected to total more than $20 trillion, assuming construction costs of about $100 a square foot, the report says. Adding infrastructure costs, the total investment in development wil l reach at least $25 trillion. Much of the space needed will be housing. About 109 billion square feet of new and replacement residential space, or nearly 59 million units, will be needed by 2030, the report says. In 2000, about 176.7 billion feet of resid ential space, or nearly 116 million units, existed. EDIT: Will there be enough energy to heat and cool houses in 2030?

To: Tradelite who wrote (25925)	3/11/2005 2:10:38 AM
From: Doughboy	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 306849

Just following up on my tale of selling my house in Chevy Chase. The sale was scheduled for last Tuesday. It was a bit nip and tuck, and when I made the call to the settlement attorney the morning of the closing, I had no idea whether it was going to happen or not. The builder, who put my house under contract without setting foot into it, not only wanted to tear down the the 1850 sq ft ranch, but he came up with a plan for a 7000 sq. ft. 3-story colonial monstrosity. It may have not been so bad, but he also insisted on putting it back on the MLS with its plans for public viewing. He had priced the unbuilt house for $2.75 million. (I didn't realize you could do that when he hadn't even closed on it yet.) He proudly faxed me the plans and the moment I saw them, I knew we were in trouble. The plan, of course, infuriated the neighbors, mostly older couples and young families, who did not want some mansion dwarfing their one- and two-story homes. The bizarre retired government worker with the rusted car in his front driveway unloaded first, refusing to sign even a form that acknowledged that he had been provided with a copy of the plans for the purpose of letting the builder apply for a building permit. He threw everything he could think of to stop the building: would lead paint be knocked loose? would asbestos fill the air during the demolition; was the new house going to block natural drainage off his property; and on and on. I helped knock down some of the wilder allegations. While I didn't especially like the plans myself, I also wasn't going to let my old wacky neighbors separate me from my payday. Next came the housewife from across the creek. She claimed to hold a right of way across my property to build a driveway. Never mind that her husband the owner never recorded the right of way; never mind that he had signed a contract with me (when I bought the property) disclaiming and abandoning the right of way that didn't exist in the first place. Her claim?--her husband had no right to sign away her property right in the right of way. This argument had the intended effect of having all the settlement and town lawyers go scrambling to find out whether she could possibly be right that she still had some right to a driveway across my land that never existed. Gosh, it was a long time ago in law school, but I seem to remember that a wife's right to dower was abolished decades ago, and besides, I think it required the husband to be dead (which at that point, I was ready and willing to make happen myself). The town council tabled the approval discussion for two weeks while they chased this nut down the rat hole. Fortunately, I was not paying for the settlement attorney because it seemed like he was trying to research the history of English feudal property rights law. I almost flew to Washington just to enjoy the spectacle of the lawyer giving his disquisition on dower and curtesy to the 5 drowsy council members and a mob of neighbors. The council meeting was scheduled for Monday night (at 10:45!); settlement was scheduled for the next morning. I called the settlement attorney Tuesday morning to find out what happened. He told me that the council argued for 2 and 1/2 hours over the approval and ultimately voted 3-2 to table the application and have the town attorney research the matter further. The builder was apoplectic, and wanted to blow up the deal. The settlement attorney suggested putting some money into escrow as a contingency that the building plans were not approved. I refused. The builder consulted with his investors by phone, and a half an hour later he called me back and said that they decided that they would close and take the property. So it was done.