Brooklyn Falling Short | Real Estate Tax Breaks for Wealthy | Parisian Rent Control

July 16th 2013

A view of the downtown Brooklyn skyline (Cassandra Giraldo/The Wall Street Journal)

  1. Brooklyn’s bid for higher buildings fails to impress. “Brooklyn’s population overtook that of Manhattan around 1930. But its skyline never has approached the magnitude of its sister borough, nor ever will if current design trends continue.  Lately, in a boom of trendiness and economic vitality, Brooklyn has been growing skyward again. The results still don’t, unfortunately, present any sort of visual competition.” [Wall Street Journal – 07/14/13]
  2. How the rich get a big real estate tax break. “‘The idea of the program was that tax subsidies can be an important tool to create residential housing and affordable housing that otherwise wouldn’t be built,’ said Vicki Been, the faculty director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. ‘I don’t see how giving a tax break to a building like One57 helps either of those goals.’” [New York Times – 07/12/13]
  3. Housing sector update with Shaun Donovan “You may have noticed that houses are selling a little faster and prices are going up. But not everyone is feeling the benefits. Host Michel Martin speaks with U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Shaun Donovan, about what happened, and what’s next in the housing sector.” [NPR – 07/11/13]
  4. Robert Moses redux. “His name is less familiar to us now, but Philadelphia’s Edmund Bacon was once as famous as his New York counterpart Robert Moses. A visionary and autocratic planner, Bacon used his political wiles-and the heaps of federal urban renewal cash available during the post-war years-to reshape the bedraggled industrial has-been into something resembling a modern city.” [New Republic – 07/11/13]
  5. Homeownership, the key to happiness? “If trying to buy an apartment in New York City has been making you miserable, consider this: actually getting that home may not make you happy.A growing body of research suggests that spending money on real estate doesn’t necessarily mean investing in contentment. Indeed, the conventional advice to cut back on vacations, restaurant meals and other extras in order to save money for a home may actually be detrimental to felicity.” [New York Times – 07/12/13]
  6. Hotels check into Herald Square. “Three new hotels have opened in the Herald Square area in recent months, joining numerous others that have been built nearby over the past several years.Last month, a 167-room Courtyard by Marriott opened on the corner of Sixth Avenue and 35th Street, immediately adjacent to a 298-room Hilton Garden Inn that opened in 2009 and a 146-room Hampton Inn that opened in late 2008.” [Wall Street Journal – 07/11/13]
  7. Why we need to treat America’s poorest neighborhoods like developing countries. “The average life expectancy in Japan right now, home to one of the healthiest, longest-living populations in the world, is about 83 years. That’s four years longer than in the United States, a decade longer than in much of North Africa, and as many as 30 years longer than some war-torn parts of the world like Sierra Leone.These global patterns are well-known, but we seldom look at our own communities in the same way. ” [Atlantic Cities – 07/15/13]
  8. How the Inclusionary Housing Program is bringing the public and private together. “Meet Chris Kwak, an entrepreneur in real estate and affordable housing, if you can believe it. Chris and his associate, Arjuna Sunderam, have an amazing story to share about a social need they saw and commercially viable solution they are bringing to market through their company, SRH Development, and a New York City law that is enabling their activity. ” [Forbes – 07/11/13]
  9. Miami tops U.S. foreclosures as banks sell in boom. “Miami’s foreclosure rate ranked at the top of major U.S. metropolitan areas last month as auctions more than tripled, signaling lenders are preparing to sell a backlog of distressed properties amid rising home prices.One in 236 housing units in the area that includes Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Pompano Beach received a foreclosure filing in June, more than four times the national average, RealtyTrac Inc. said in a report today” [Bloomberg – 07/11/13]
  10. New rent laws aim to keep Paris from becoming only for the rich.  “The term laissez-faire may be a French import, but you can’t accuse France’s new government of taking a hands-off approach when it comes to rent. The country’s socialist-led coalition is introducing a slew of new, groundbreaking laws to control rents and cap real estate agent fees. Counterbalancing these tenant-friendly measures, there will also be decrees giving property owners a state insurance system against unpaid rent, and limiting taxes for landlords who offer rental apartments in high-demand areas.” [Atlantic Cities – 07/15/13]
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