Archive for June, 2006

Former Homestore CEO Wolff Convicted of Fraud

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!The former CEO of the Homestore, now Move, Inc., has been convicted of insider trading and conspiracy to defraud investors. The company bought their own revenues to increase market value of the company during the tech bubble. Homestore and [...]

23Jun2006 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

Estate Tax Compromise May Protect Housing Assets From Taxation

Congress looks like it is shying away from an outright repeal of the death tax, but they are making the terms much more realistic for homeowners not to be burdened by an outrageous tax on the assets of the deceased.
The House of Representatives has approved legislation that limits the reach of federal taxes at death. [...]

23Jun2006 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

Ohio Woman Faces Eviction From Apartment Because Of Service Dog

Robin Dudley was in a car crash and suffered brain damage. She was outfitted with a service dog, Asiah, who helps her get through the day. Her landlord citing barking complaints and aggressive behavior by the dog is evicting Robin from her apartment. The problem is that service dogs like Asiah are protected from eviction [...]

22Jun2006 | Tom Royce | 2 comments | Continued

Waveyard Development Building Super Water Park

If you are looking for a theme park in Pheonix do not despair, one is coming. Waveyard is developing a 250 million dollar theme park that will offer many different outdoor activities.
There will be a surfing pool that will have waves up to 12 feet, There will be a skatepark, a diving and snorkeling lagoon [...]

22Jun2006 | Tom Royce | 2 comments | Continued

The Brady Bunch House is Worth a Million Dollars

I found this via “The Walk-Through” and was caught somewhere between amazed and horrified. The Brady Bunch House is a real house and is worth over 1 million dollars according to Zillow.
While not an earth shattering revelation, this still is fun in a nostalgic way reminding me of the childhood crush on Marsha and wondering where [...]

22Jun2006 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

Housing Bubble Deflation Will Not Cause Recession

While we know that certain parts of the country are watching the housing bubble deflate, overall the declines seen in the housing industry will not be enough to put the state of California into a recession. California is in the heart of the housing boom and its aftershocks and the fear was that of all the places [...]

21Jun2006 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

Top 10 Real Estate Brokerages in Sales for 2005

Real Trends Top 10 List of Real Estate Sales has come out and NRT is leading the way. NRT is a subsidiary of Cendant Corp and was the top brokerage in the country in terms of closed sales volume in 2005. The rest of the list with links to their sites is.

NRT Incorporated
HomeServices of America, [...]

21Jun2006 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

Government Taxation Stunted NY Real Estate Industry

The New York Sun has an interesting article on the effect of the Cuomo tax on real estate in New York. Experts now say this tax stunted the real estate market and created the boom in New York real estate when it was repealed.
Bad taxation leads to more headaches and allows the law of unintended [...]

21Jun2006 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

Boston Area Rents Rise For First Time Since 2001

Interesting to see that as the Boston real estate market slows, demand for the rental market is picking up and rents are rising in the city for the first time since 2001. This would indicate to me that there is a surplus of people sitting on the sidelines waiting to see the direction of the [...]

21Jun2006 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

Real Estate Fraud The Next Identity Theft?

It looks like real estate fraud cases are occuring much more often then you would expect. The crimes are so difficult to investigate and consume too much manpower that police jurisdictions are overwhelmed to the point that they will not investigate some of them.
This is scary as it is a major crime that can impact many [...]

21Jun2006 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued