Real Estate Ramblings

As national retailers go bankrupt left and right and retail real estate owners hustle to maintain profitable occupancy and rent levels, Center City Philadelphia continues to enjoy a relatively healthy retail market. Sure there are still empty storefronts in Center City, but the restaurant scene r...

Chestnut Hill College, a picturesque college in the Northwest Philadelphia neighborhood of Chestnut Hill, recently announced plans to expand its campus from the current 45 acres to a total of 78 acres. It will grow its footprint to include the 32 acre property known as Sugarloaf across Germantown...

Philadelphia's zoning code is ridiculous. It's a patchwork accumulation of hundreds of years worth of laws piled on top of each other and it's sorely in need of a massive overhaul to make it more uniform and comprehensible to the average property owner, investor, or developer. Not to mention that...

Just wanted to bring this great article from today's Daily News to your attention - lots of great information about various developments going on in North Philadelphia. There's also an article in today's Inquirer more specifically about Temple's efforts to recenter its campus along North Broad St...

West Philadelphia's Parkside neighborhood is blessed with some of the most beautiful architecture in the entire city, an unbeatable location adjacent to Fairmount Park, and easy transit access to the Center City and University City job markets. Most of the beautiful old buildings along Parkside A...

This article from Globest.com brings news from Florida that local municipalities are finding the bargains in the South Florida commercial real estate market too good to pass up. The town of Sunny Isles Beach (which I visited in May and is absolutely lovely even in the midst of a cratering condo m...

After a recent tragedy in which two people fell from a Center City fire-escape the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections (L&I) is feeling pressure to prevent the same thing from happening again. They announced today that they will be conducting spot-checks on multifamily buildings to look...

This article from RealtyTrac profiles five investors in different parts of the country who are still having success at short-term investing or flipping. Flipping was hugely popular during the real estate boom of 2002-2007, and many people who got the timing right made gobs of money by buying prop...

If you need to sell your home, but have been waiting for the market to recover now may be a good time to take a shot at selling - especially if your home is one that would appeal to first-time buyers rushing to close deals before the November 30th expiration of the first-time buyer tax credit. Yo...

According to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada an extension of the $8,000 first-time-buyer tax credit is something that, politically anyway, can (and will?) be done. Additionally, by 'extension' he refers to extending the program beyond its current expiration date of November 30th, and ...