Miscellaneous
The Yahoo-Microsoft Soap Opera Continues
June 3, 2008
The Yahoo-Microsoft fiasco continues. Attorneys for investors won the right yesterday in court to release meeting minutes and other details behind the so far non-acquisition of Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). Not much of a commercial real estate angle here except to say that Yahoo owns a bunch of land in Santa Clara [...]
Read More >>Housing Pain: Developer Offers Buy One Get One Free
June 2, 2008
In a sign of where the housing crisis currently is, Michael Crews Development in Escondido has opted for a nover approach to selling homes: they’re offering a second home for free! If you buy into one of their more expensive subdivisions in Escondido, they’ll throw in a home from their less expensive Cityscape subdivision.
The offer has [...]
Janitor Strike Over; New Contract Ratified
May 29, 2008
Bay Area janitors, who first went on strike May 20th have approved a new contract. The contract increases their wages by $2.40 per hour over the next four years, which represents a 22% increase.
The janitors who walked off the job are responsible for cleaning approximately 80 percent of the commercial real estate in the South [...]
The Next Victim of the Housing Crisis: Privacy of Mortgage Professionals
May 24, 2008
Buried in a housing bill which was passed by the Senate housing committee by a vote of 19-2 on Tuesday is language attacking the privacy of those in the mortgage profession. Eessentially anybody receiving compensation for a loan or accepting an application will be required to provide their fingerprint into a newly created National Fingerprint Registry. The [...]
Read More >>And The Landlord of The Year Award Goes To….
April 24, 2008
Tenant-Landlord relationships in San Francisco can often be “delicate”, particularly in rent-controlled buildings, but I just read a story in the SF Chronicle which is astounding, to say the least.
The story is that a pair of 33-year old landlords purchased a building, began the eviction process, and when things didn’t go entirely their way, a chemical [...]
Mile High Tower in Saudi Arabia
March 31, 2008
The owner of the Savoy Hotel in London, Prince al-Walid bin Talal, is proposing a Mile High Tower in a sea port town near Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. This building, if it is even possible, would be more than twice the height of its nearest competitor.
Estimated to cost approximately $10 Billion dollars to construct, this [...]
Economic Stimulus Act Includes Provision For Commercial Construction
March 24, 2008
Under current law, only 2.5% of a improvement costs to a commercial (or residential) property could be written off in the first year. The new economic stimulus package now allows for up to 50% of the improvement costs to be written off the first year provided the work is started and completed this year.
This will [...]