Real Estate Investing Blog

How does a luxury home look like? Well, if you really think about it, only you can answer this question. What you deem as desirable or luxurious may differ from that of another individual. Depending on your interests and liking for certain designs and spaces, how a luxury home should look like really lies in what you deem as comfortable and worth the indulgence. Nonetheless, there are certain general characteristics that most people would agree such houses should possess.

The house does not have to be extravagantly decorated or furnished with elaborate fixtures to be considered as luxurious. In fact, many people today have decided to go “simple” with their home decor. What most consider when they are house hunting is the spaciousness and simplicity that it offers. People love having personal space to themselves and the ability to be in control of their surroundings. Zen-like approaches are common as people wish to transform their houses into nests where they can be away from the competitiveness of this stressful world. This is why more and more people have designed their houses to contain glass fixtures amidst earthy colors like white and beige as their master themes.

You will also find that many homeowners today opt for long and wide windows that overlook their backyards or gardens, fancy kitchen designs to entertain guests and conduct mini projects, as well as walk in closets to house clothes and shoes. Thus, how luxurious your home feels or appears to be boils down to the way your house is designed and structured.

Luxury houses usually have 2 or more bedrooms with a corresponding number of bathrooms. Some have high ceilings and are tiled with marble flooring or are carpeted. More expensive property would also include gardens and garages, coupled with security services.

There are various types of luxury properties on sale today, such as condominiums, semi-detached houses, high-rise apartments, serviced apartments and private houses. All of these houses offer different things and cater to different needs. When choosing a suitable luxury home for yourself, take into consideration its location, price as well as amenities offered. Weigh the pros and cons of the properties that you have narrowed down and see which is more worthy of your investment. Do not hesitate to seek help from real estate agents and advisors, as the expertise they possess will aid in your decision making process.

Bear in mind that you do not have to be restricted to the designs of the house that you purchase. This is because re-modeling or renovating your house is always something that you could do to give your house the look you desire. As such, do not be afraid to make massive changes to its appearance. Removing walls or reconstructing entire units are common practices that take place prior to moving in to a new place.

There are many types of luxury homes today that provide the comfort and pleasure of living in one. Thus, how does a luxury home look like ultimately depends on how you design and make it out to be one.

It has been recently suggested in a national newspaper that we must all start to think ‘tiny home for a tiny planet’ – an interesting concept. However, it seems a very un-North American concept, given that we are all used to houses twice the size of, say, our European counterparts.

How do they live in those small houses? Would we want to? Will we have to? How would we plan to scale down our own living space without giving up the ease and efficiency of our life style?

These questions could sound scary, yet less so, if we consider the streamlined designs of motor homes and fifth wheels. The benefits of living in smaller homes are fairly obvious: less land, less property tax, less building materials, less space to heat, less floor to carpet – you get the idea! The whole picture spells a life that costs less to live. More money to enjoy!

If you have ever thought of down-sizing (and in these days of rising food and energy costs, many of us have!), one of the first questions that arises, is what could we do without? Or rather, what would we want to do without?
Nothing.
Right!

So where is the wasted space that we can do away with? This is best answered by considering the way each of us live. The National Builders Movement suggests one way to streamline our living space is to become aware of what we use it for.

This can be done by writing a list of all the activities we do in the house, recording where we do them and charting the exact part of a room that we do them in. Already you can probably think of ‘unused’ parts of certain rooms.

Once you have these activities planned you may realize that only certain parts of each room is required, and you could plan a house with the new ‘great room’ design and incorporate all your living needs into one area. While giving a very spacious feeling, this idea could actually save square footage as it eliminates corridors and doorways (not to mention whole rooms!).

Two or three obvious areas represent wasted space to many designers, these are: formal dining rooms, bathrooms and garages.

In the case of the formal dining room, if yours is only used three or four times a year, visualize managing without one. Problem here: many of us would still want to have a formal dining atmosphere occasionally.

However, it is possible to set up a kitchen/dining area in such a way that the ambiance could be changed to ‘formal’ but only when required. This would be achieved by clever use of lighting and a non invasive system for separating the two functions of food consumption and food preparation.

Use of moveable or sliding decorative screens is also an option that could be utilized only when the formal atmosphere was required. In a new home this could save up to 100 square feet and many thousands of dollars.

Next comes the bathroom and the realization that most of us actually use it as a reading room, a boudoir for applying make up or to escape for a minute’s peace from the children! If we had a more efficient bathroom set up maybe we could manage with one bathroom only!

The European idea of separating the bath tub/shower from the actual toilet means that people may pop in and out of the smallest room in the house more quickly as there is not much of interest in there!

In the room that European’s call the toilet there is no mirror (so teenagers do not hang about!) and there is a petite wash basin which juts out about nine inches from the wall for the perfunctory hand-rinse. The room is very small – no point in lingering!

The garage, even if you have one, can be converted into a mother-in-law suite or teenage den by a simple insulation and dry wall job. A car port offers almost as much protection to a car as a garage in temperate climates. If the man of the house is chafing at the bit, consider converting part of the garage into a workshop! A solid workbench and one wall covered in pegboard to hang tools will free up a lot of cupboard space everywhere else.

Now that you realize how much space you don’t need, you will need to buy a new smaller house, and with the savings maybe book a cruise or two!

Celebrities are big spenders in the fashion industry, motor industry and real estate as well. It is not always a success for all of them. Some have created their wealth and have maintained it for a good period, while others have shot to fame and lost the wealth that comes with it within a very short period.

Celebrities and their homes

Zillow, a company that performs rankings on real estate for celebrities, stated that Windermere listed a home in a neighborhood called Leschi for sale. It is to be sold for slightly over one million U.S dollars. Jimi Hendrix is said to have lived in this house.

Katherine Heigl, a star in the Grey’s Anatomy series, plans to sell her home which is in Los Angeles for a total sum of about 1.7 million U.S dollars. She had bought this lavish house in the year 2006 for about 1.5 million U.S dollars.

Oprah Winfrey estimated her condo in Fisher Island, Florida, to be two million U.S dollars. Her condominium is not as lavish as would be expected of a house that costs that much, though location also counts when determining its worth.

Kiefer Sutherland’s Silver Lake house cost him 4.895 million U.S dollars. He transformed the warehouse and made it his home. His taste and superiority in the Real Estate industry clearly indicates his status in society. Kiefer does his recording in his high quality studio from the comfort of his home.

Sylvester Stallone, a Beverly Hills inhabitant, purchased two mansions in an area called Thousand Oaks. One was estimated at 5.5 million U.S dollars while the other was projected to be 1.7 million U.S dollars.

Cary Grant’s Daughter, Jennifer Grant, has her home estimated at 2.195 million U.S dollars. Another celebrity, Angela Bassett put up her French home for sale at a price of 3.8 million U.S dollars. By the time of the sale, the house had depreciated by 1.1 million. Chris O’Donnell, an actor, had his home sold for about 5.3 million U.S dollars. Rachel Zoe also had her house sold for 2.5 million U.S dollars. It was a two-bed roomed apartment situated in the Hollywood Hills.

There are quite a number of celebrities in the entertainment industry who made it big at some point in their lives but ended up bankrupt. Gary Coleman is such an example. This leads to demonstrate the importance of managing ones finances however small or large the income.

Between 1892 and 1893 Frank Lloyd Wright designed a series of eight houses, many of them similar in style, in and around Oak Park, Illinois. The popular tale says that Wright, then under contract with Louis Sullivan, was forbidden, by his contract, to ‘moonlight’ and do independent designs. That tale is contradicted in Thomas Heinz’s 2006 book, ‘The Vision of Frank Lloyd Wright’. Heinz says that Wright was not forbidden to do independent work, and that Sullivan would have encouraged it because Wright owed him money. Heinz says Wright left Adler and Sullivan on his own terms, amidst an economic downturn.

1892 – Thomas H. Gale House (1027 Chicago Ave.)

Robert P. Parker and Thomas H. Gale Houses

The most obvious trait about the Bootleg Houses is that unless you know about them you probably wouldn’t associate them with the early modern mastery of Frank Lloyd Wright. They show Wright at an early stage in his career, while he was still developing his own design philosophy. The Thomas Gale House and the Robert P. Parker House are very similar architecturally, and located close to each other; along with the Walter Gale House (which we will see tomorrow), they are both located on Chicago Avenue in Oak Park. These two houses demonstrate a geometric purity not common to traditional residential styles. Both Gale houses and the Parker House derive, to a certain extent, their designs from the Robert Emmond House in La Grange, Illinois. The Parker, Thomas Gale, and Emmond Houses were constructed in 1892.

1892 – Robert P. Parker House (1019 Chicago Ave.)

1892 – Francis J. Woolley House (1030 Superior Street)

Woolley House

Back to back with the Parker House and the Gale houses is the non-descript Francis J. Woolley House. The home’s massive bay windows and roof massing contribute to its place as a “Queen Anne splendor”, in the words of Thomas O’ Gorman. Similar to commons styles of the day, the Woolley House is a good early example of low-cost housing designs by Wright. The Woolley House was built in 1893.

All three houses are recognized as integral contributing parts to the whole of the Frank Lloyd Wright-Prairie School of Architecture Historic District in Oak Park. The historic district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and includes 80 structures that were designed by Wright and other Prairie School architects.

Online Resources

*Wikipedia: Thomas H. Gale House, Robert P. Parker House, Francis Woolley House, Frank Lloyd Wright Historic District (all by me, for you)

*Thomas H. Gale House: Oak Park Landmark Nomination Form

Spanish is a very exclusive, gated golf community around 30 minutes west of Austin in the small Hill Country city of Bee Cave. Sitting on 1,200 acres, but with only 400 home sites, Spanish Oaks gives people a sense of community, but with a degree of privacy. Some home sites have nice golf course views while others have tremendous Hill Country views. In addition to the custom home sites, there are villa sites for homes ranging in size from 3,000 to 4,400 square feet.

Being a private, gated community in the Central Texas Hill Country, one might think that Spanish Oaks is removed from civilization, but that is not at all the case. The neighborhood is just minutes from the new Hill Country Galleria Mall and other shopping. Close to Lakeway and Lake Travis, Spanish Oaks is not at all far from more golf courses, the lake and to the downtown Austin area. Hamilton Pool, Krause Springs, Westcave Preserve and other Hill Country treasures are also within 20 minutes. With a new regional medical center being built in Lakeway, almost anything anyone needs will be within minutes of Spanish Oaks.

Concierge services at Spanish Oaks are wonderful. The staff there will stock your refrigerator when you are ready to drive in from Houston, they will house sit when you are away, wash your car while you play golf, take care of your dry cleaning, take care of your pets and much more. The January/February issue of Travel & Leisure Golf rated Spanish Oaks as one of the top 100 golf communities in the country.   Estates West rated Spanish Oaks as one of the 50 best developments in the western U.S.

In addition to the wonderful dining at the Member’s Grille, residents of Spanish Oaks can take the kids to the stocked fishing pond, enroll in the Austin Tennis Academy or take a cruise on Lake Travis in the 27 foot boat that Spanish Oaks keeps at the lake. The community also has a clubhouse with a spa, fitness center and salon.

Homes are not inexpensive, but they are works of art by some of the Austin area’s finest custom home builders. Current home listings in Spanish Oaks range from around $900,000 to over $3 million. Home sites currently range in price from $250,000 to $650,000.

Living in Tennessee presents a varied lifestyle for many. Residents enjoy an alternative lifestyle, community lifestyle, family lifestyle, opportunity lifestyle, parenting lifestyle; relationship lifestyle to teen’s lifestyle. And the best part of living in the wonderful state of Tennessee is that you can choose your lifestyle in accordance with your taste and preference.

Here are important focal points about the classic lifestyle of the state:

1) An alternative lifestyle in Tennessee includes the Venus project that is meant to maintain the dynamic equilibrium in human beings. The lifestyles that are counted as the alternative lifestyle in Tennessee are categorized at omplace, science connection, green matters, angel coin, love and pride, urban outings, tipi tarot, Wendi and other websites.

For details on how to make the family lifestyle more lovable in the Tennessee, it’s advisable to use lifestyle themed online resources such as family tree magazine, Venus project; we are family foundation, Alateen, American family safety, concerned united birth parents, centre for successful fathering, OneGreatFamily, sittercity and family on board.

2) The exotic region of Tennessee is famous for the variety of lifestyles that are found there such as the traditional and modern lifestyles. One can find any and every kind of happenings there; for example, the nightlife in Tennessee is categorized as the most chic and happening for party goers; pubs, bars and other places of adult entertainment abound.

3) Tennessee is among the best places available for retirees, as the cost of living is low here. Retired people can afford buy homes at reasonable rates.

4) Tennessee is also the perfect destination for those looking for a rural lifestyle. Residents can also get a taste of world class city life in major cities like Memphis and Knoxville.

5) Tennessee offers world class health services and affordable housing to residents. And one of the best parts of enjoying a Tennessee lifestyle is assisted living: a non- institutional setting promoting individual liberty and dignity for the residents and also encouraging community and family involvement.

6) Another popular benefit in the state is the low cost property that is available here in good numbers. Quality living at a reasonable cost means a sought after place among those looking for a reasonable yet quality lifestyle with the average expenditure on housing, transportation, food and groceries, health care, utilities, clothing and entertainment at about ten percent lower than the national average.

7) Another excellent aspect of living in Tennessee is that the residents are free from a state property tax burden. Their property taxes are usually determined and collected on the basis of the locality. Other beneficial features of living in Tennessee are its low sales tax of about six percents on food ingredients and zero tax on prescription drugs.

Tennessee is also famous for its cowboy lifestyle and western way of life. There are dude ranches and guest ranches spread all over Tennessee promoting cowboy lifestyle. You can still see cowboys in their cowboy boots with western gun holster, riding on their horse, herding the cattle and performing other tasks. You can also get a taste of this cowboy lifestyle by visiting these ranches as a tourist or working their as a help during your visit.

With so many tax benefits and low cost of living, Tennessee for sure offers an affordable yet classy lifestyle. Check it out for yourself!

For some time now the city of Jacksonville NC with its population of 72,000 has been drawing national attention for a number of reasons. It was back in 1992 when Jacksonville was named an “All-American City” by the national civic league that got things started but that was just the beginning.

A Safe Port in the National Storm

It was the general national decline in real estate and home values in recent years that once again has shown a light on Jacksonville. Not for declining home prices though, but rather due to its overall ability to withstand the financial storm that has ravaged the rest of the nation as a whole.

Constant Measured Growth

Any real estate agent in Jacksonville NC can tell you why. To begin with, Jacksonville NC has never been a part of the boom to bust market that so many market areas have been. Jacksonville is home to the 2nd Marine Division’s sprawling Camp Lejeune which has kept the local economy going at a nice steady pace.

A Low Average Home Price

All the local surrounding communities in the area have made sure over the years that there is an abundance of affordable housing to accommodate the younger then average population that Camp Le Jeune attracts and fosters. So, while in similar communities in other parts of the U.S. affordable housing in nice neighborhoods is difficult to find, Jacksonville NC stands out as an oasis with an average median home price of just over $100,000.

An Excellent Place to Retire

Also, as any real estate agent in Jacksonville will tell you, its so much more then that. Its also Jacksonville’s lower overall cost of living that is drawing the retiring baby boomers who are now flocking to the area. Add to that its close proximity to the Atlantic ocean and North Carolinas pristine mountain ranges and its easy to see why Jacksonville is now shining so brightly.

Liberty Station homes in Point Loma ranked one of the top six neighborhoods in America to retire in. However, Liberty Station, is great for young professionals as its steps from shopping, the harbor parks and easy to commute in and out of. Liberty Station community is comprised of 170,000 square feet of retail shops, grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops and office space. The community even has its own schools.

Liberty Station homes are comprised of several courtyards connecting to a central and historic promenade. This promenade is adjacent to the waters edge. There are 125 acres of open space in the Liberty Station master planned community. Included in this space is a public golf course and bike trails.

Liberty Station is a short 10 minute commute to downtown. So you can get home quickly, walk the dogs in one of the many parks, walk to the grocery store for fresh food or choose to dine in one of the many restaurants only steps away. Owning a home in Liberty Station empowers you to a great lifestyle in a community where the weather is some of San Diego’s best. With the ocean on one side and the bay on the other, the temperature is more consistent and moderate than most other parts of San Diego.

Prices of Liberty Station townhomes and single family homes generally range from $500,000 to $1.0 million. Square footages range from approximately 1,000 to 3,000. Because Liberty Station is such a popular community the available inventory has always been very low and is expected to remain tight. Available inventory levels usually run about 2% of the total homes at any given time are for sale.

Baby Boomers and Empty Nesters are doing it. Frugal retirees are doing it. Downsizing, selling a larger home and moving into a smaller one, is the option some couples or families are choosing as the right solution to their current residential needs. Myrtle Beach, SC offers many types of downsize options, everything from ocean front condos to golf villas and bungalows in retirement communities.

What are the benefits of buying a smaller home?

- Selling a larger home to buy a less expensive one might mean more money in your pocket to pursue activities you’ve been postponing. If you spend most of your time working just to pay a high monthly mortgage, it is logical that you will have to work fewer hours to pay a lower mortgage.
- Think of all the hours and dollars saved cleaning and maintaining a smaller home.
If you spend less time cleaning, you can spend more time with friends and family.
- Home heating and cooling costs will decrease with a smaller home, benefiting your pocketbook and the environment. Are you heating unused rooms in the winter and cooling empty spaces in the summer? Couldn’t you put that money to better use?
- Smaller homes have less storage space and if you can’t “stock up” you probably won’t buy it in the first place, saving you money every month.

What are the disadvantages to buying a smaller home?

o You are going to have to toss out a lot of “stuff”. It’s hard to let go of treasured possessions but other than renting an offsite storage space, it’s your only option.
o Your entertaining style will change. Your house may not accommodate overnight guests and the dining room may not be big enough to host Thanksgiving dinner for 12.
o Privacy and a quiet spot to call your own might become a thing of the past in smaller quarters.
o A smaller home may represent a lower value to the casual onlooker. But if other peoples opinions don’t matter that much to you, then buy the size home you are comfortable with.

The professionals in the Orlando Florida property scene, the Orlando Regional Realtors Association, tell the story of market conditions in their February 11th 2009 report, extracts of which are:

“The median price of Orlando homes sold in January ($148,274) decreased by 33.06 percent compared to January 2008.” “Buyers are responding to lower prices and mortgage rates but uncertainty about the economy is creating hesitancy and pent-up demand.” “Homes of all types spent an average of 104 days on the market before being sold in January 2009″ “There are currently 22,613 homes available for purchase through the MLS.” “The inventory level reflects a 23.63-month supply at the current pace of sales.”

What a difference a few years makes. In December 2005 we wrote a newsletter to our clients containing the following views of the Orlando real estate market:

“After Disney-area property prices built to a frenzy by the late 1990s, the only significant slowdown happened around the year 2000 with the US economic downturn followed by the Sept 11th 2001 terrorist attacks in New York. This resulted in approximately 12 to 18 months of virtually no growth in home price.

The past 2 years have certainly reversed that flat growth – and then some! Individual accounts of buyers purchasing a new home to be built, then selling it for a $50,000-$100,000 profit or more at closing, are commonplace.

However, this recent period is one that we would be surprised to see ever repeated. Orlando Florida property builders ran out of building lots, home prices spiked by $50,000-$100,000 and the inventory of available re-sale homes almost went to zero. This caused a seller’s market and multiple bidding, which resulted in homes selling for above the asking price.

It has now finally slowed down to a more manageable level. Although no one has a crystal ball and can say what home appreciation will be next year, it appears that it may maintain a lower, more reasonable but still positive pace. We believe that this is a very welcome event: if the appreciation rate of last year continued, home prices would soon reach the million dollar level and the discrepancy between personal incomes and home prices would become unsustainable.

Somewhere between the talk of a real estate bubble and corrections in real estate prices are the middle ground opinions, which suggest that Florida real estate will continue to fare well. Florida is one of the top states in job growth and approximately 1000 people per day are relocating here. The most recent statistics show apartment rental occupancy at 96%, which represents virtually full occupancy and is indicative of housing demand here.

So our overall view of the Florida real estate market? Opportunities to make money still exist and we remain bullish on real estate investment with one caveat. Last year, a purchaser almost anywhere in Florida, and of any type of property, could hardly go wrong. With the market returning to normal, buyers need to use more discretion in their selection process – for example, does the property represent good value for money, is it the right property in the right place, and so on. In addition, we believe that real estate purchases should again be viewed as minimum 2 year if not 3-10 year investments. Although last year saw individuals flipping properties in 6 months, this is usually not the formula that works most successfully in normal markets.”

At that time, there was effectively no inventory available because buyers snapped up almost whatever they could the moment it was listed. Builders became addicted to monthly price increase running into the thousands of dollars. And buyers and investors suspended any doubts about how long the party could last in a frantic effort to join in the riches that seemed to be unending. Clearly it could not last, as our newsletter predicted, but even we didn’t see the fall being so fierce or long lasting.

Will it ever recover? Well, just like the good times appeared to be never-ending, so do the bad ones now. But things will change. It may take the rest of this year or even longer, but almost inevitably we are convinced that we will eventually return to the sort ot situation described in the newsletter – when Orlando Florida property will represent good value for money if viewed as a medium to long term investment. That will benefit both buyers and sellers!