Real Estate Development Plans For West Philly

The proposed 24-story Drexel University dorm building at 34th and Lancaster in West Philadelphia was discussed during the Planning Commission monthly meeting. The building will contain 351 residential units, accommodating 1,361 residents, and commercial space on the ground floor. Also, it would include 89 onsite parking spaces [I recommend more onsite parking spaces for 1361 residents].

The planning and zoning processes in Philadelphia are not proceeding perfectly. The new zoning code requires real estate developments to go through a fairly rigid series of steps, and the city generally wants to avoid piecemeal amendments to the zoning maps. At the same time, the Planning Commission is performing a neighborhood-by-neighborhood remapping, which is not supposed to be complete for the next few years.  To learn more…

Philadelphia City Council mulls “gentrification relief” from property taxes

For more than a decade Graduate Hospital area of Philadelphia, PA has been one of the city’s fast developing neighborhoods. It continues to grow with new homes and skyrocketing home prices. While half the homes are filled with newcomers in Graduate Hospital, some homes are not.

These longtime residents in fast-growing areas are considered most effected to the real estate tax changes from Philadelphia’s property tax reform. Moving from the old real estate tax system to one based on the current market value of a property could mean an enormous tax increase to a home in Graduate Hospital.  To read more….

Philadelphia exempts itself from lead paint law

Worthwhile read   about the Lead base paint rule that only effects landlords that rent to non-subsidized tenants.

Community Input on Rezoning of the old Coke Site in Bridesburg

When you are driving on interstate 95 from the Navy Yard into Bucks County, most all residential neighborhoods are to your left except one. Bridesburg is unique, servered from the delaware river not by highway, but by industry, and the ruins that remain there.

The industrial site, home of the former Philadelphia Coke Company, was changed from industrial zoning to an experimental Waterfront redevelopment zoning district in 2007. A development company planned to build a 720-unit housing development on a portion of the 67-arce site, but then later fell though. Now, the bulk of the site sits empty, zoned RMX-2, a residential mixed use category.

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Navy Yard in Philadelphia unveils updated master plan

If all goes according to an updated master plan, in ten to fifteen years the number of people working at the Philadelphia Navy Yard will double to 20,000 and could reach 30,000. The employees will work in a mix of manufacturing, energy, technology, and research jobs, among other types. There will be companies located within neighborhood-like districts, which will include a mix of re-purposed historical buildings and environmentally conscious new ones. They will all be linked to each other and the river with a series of parks, trails, and bodies of water.  Great for Philadelphia real estate.

To read more..

US Sues S&P Over Pre-Crisis Mortgage Ratings

The U.S. government says Standard & Poor’s, a credit rating agency, knowingly inflated its ratings on risky mortgage investments that helped trigger the 2008 financial crisis. They gave high marks to mortgage-backed securities because it wanted to earn more business from the banks that issued the investments.

The case is the government’s first major action against one of the credit rating agencies that stamped their approval on Wall Street’s soon-to-implode mortgage bundles. The Justice Department, which has long been criticized for failing to act aggressively against the companies that contributed to the crisis, marked a milestone.  To read more of this story…

Pending Home Sales Fall Due to Dwindling Supply

Signed contracts to buy existing homes fell 4.3 percent in December from the previous month, according to a monthly index from the National Association of Realtors.

Much of last year’s gains in existing home sales was driven by investor demand for foreclosures and other distressed properties. Millions of dollars, largely in cash, from private equity, flowed into the market, pushing supplies down dramatically and even causing bidding wars in some of the previously hardest hit markets. To watch the video…

Guess Who’s Driving the Demand for Rental Apartments?

Even as housing and the greater economy slightly improve, a shift in demographic trends will likely favor the rental apartment market for the foreseeable future. It is all about women. Women are getting married later, having kids later and out of wedlock, all prompting them to seek the convenience of large, full-service rental apartment buildings.

There is also a tremendous amount of pent-up demand for the rental market, as nearly 23 million young adults, male and female, under age 35 (31 percent of the cohort) are currently classified as ‘living at home’ with parents, according to Raymond James’ analysis. As job growth improves, they will move to rental apartments; the homeownership rate for this group is only 34 percent.  To read more…

A New Residential Development in University City Phildelphia

Another real estate development in University City section of Philadelphia, PA. The University City Science Center announced earlier in January that it will begin construction of a new 27-story apartment building at 3601 Market Street.  Construction is to be complete in 2015.

The new 400,000 square-foot building will include 364 apartments (one-bedroom & two-bedroom apartments). The building will also include parking, retail space, a fitness center, a resident lounge and a rooftop pool.  These apartments will be luxury apartments that will appeal to young professional and graduate students. To read more….

 

Toll Brothers’ Next Frontier

Toll Brothers, are known for their building of mansions in the suburbs and now a thriving business selling condos in urban settings. So, what’s next for the Horsham, PA natives? Their next goal is to break into the college dormitories market. They have two East Coast universities in mind but aren’t releasing any names. The housing would feature amenities as a bathroom for every resident, movie screening rooms, gyms and tanning beds. Also, the housing would be operated privately and not by the the schools.

To read more of this story, click the link.