Real Estate

MANY interesting and alarming things have happened to the economy in the last 15 years. But we haven't had a good old-fashioned commercial real-estate crash, the kind that had bank regulators popping Pepcid while half-finished office buildings languished for months or years. Are we paving the way for one now? Commercial real estate valuations are coming on strong even as rents and occupancies in many markets are only so-so. Of more than 200 Maryland-based mutual funds, six of the top 10-best performing in the second quarter were real estate funds, according The Sun's quarterly survey.

Corporate Office Properties Trust said Monday that it had sold two office buildings and land in Rockville for about $48.7 million, part of the Columbia-based real estate investment trust's strategy of selling off non-core assets. COPT, which develops, owns and manages office buildings primarily for government agencies and contractors in the defense information sector, has sold $116.9 million worth of properties and land since the beginning of the year. Since last April, the company has been selling suburban office buildings to focus on high-security offices for defense tenants.

Baltimore Comptroller Joan M. Pratt is hiring her campaign manager and former investment partner in a string of rental properties to run the city's real estate office.Julius Henson, a rising political strategist who was the architect of Ms. Pratt's victory to the city's third-highest elected position, is to start this week.As real estate officer, Mr. Henson will oversee the city's portfolio of 350 buildings valued at $3.2 billion. He will report directly to Ms. Pratt and will be paid $79,900 under a one-year contract up for approval tomorrow by the Board of Estimates.

Karen Gaylord, a sales associate with Long & Foster Real Estate Inc.'s Bel Air sales office at 3004 Emmorton Road, Abingdon, has been named top lister and top producer for 2011. A 10-year real estate professional, Gaylord is president of the Harford County Million Dollar Realtor's Association, a board member of the Harford County Association of Realtors and an active member of the Maryland Board of Realtors. Consistently a high achiever since she entered real estate, Gaylord has frequently been cited as a top real estate producer.

NEW YORK - Twenty years ago, when I was a banker," recalled David Csontos, a managing director at Insignia/ESG, "real estate was a bad sector. Everybody was scrambling to get out." Now - in New Jersey, at least - said Csontos, who specializes in advising those thinking of investing in commercial real estate, it is the opposite. Investors are elbowing each other to get in. With the rate of return on stock market investment somewhere between rotten and "recovering," and bonds generating 3 percent to 5 percent, commercial real estate has taken on luster as a stable, advantageous investment, according to people in the field.

A LITTLE noticed special provision in pending tax and budget legislation would restore tax breaks for real estate that were repealed in the bipartisan 1986 Tax Reform Act.Before 1986, there was a brisk market in paper real-estate tax losses. A developer could put little of his own money into a building, falsely claim the property was losing value over time ("accelerated depreciation") even though it was actually appreciating -- and then sell the paper losses to wealthy absentee investors in exchange for cash.

Now that life insurer First Executive is a basket case, having filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, what are the next insurance nightmares that short-sellers are dreaming up? I checked with a short who specializes in financial scams -- he had been screaming for years that First Exec was headed for trouble because of its junk-bond holdings and his message is: "Junk bonds are going to seem like Sunday School compared with commercial real estate."This short, who doesn't want to be identified, isn't the only one talking about a looming commercial real-estate debacle in the insurance industry.

THE DUBIOUS honor of officially declaring the economy in recession used to belong to the National Bureau of Economic Research, a venerable, official-sounding private institute based in Cambridge, Mass. NBER's arbitrary definition two consecutive quarters of decline in economic output had the virtue of being precise and intuitively approriate.By that test, we are not quite in recession yet. But last Tuesday, the upstart National Association of Business Economists jumped the gun and declared a recession on the basis of a far softer, but more contemporary, indicator a poll!

Malcolm "Mal" Sherman, a former Rouse Co. executive and real estate agent who battled blockbusting and worked tirelessly for integrated neighborhoods during the 1950s and 1960s, died Thursday of pneumonia at the Broadmead retirement community in Cockeysville. He was 87. Mr. Sherman was born in Philadelphia and spent his early years there. After the death of his father in 1927, he was sent abroad to a boarding school in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he lived until returning to New York City in 1932.

Scott Miller named to Who's WhoScott Miller of Re/Max Columbia has been named to Who's Who in Residential Real Estate in North America.Mr. Miller, an Ellicott City resident, is a certified real estate specialist, a graduate of the Realtors Institute and has served as a board member of the Howard County Real Estate Master's Club. Vince Montsinger has joined Revisions Design Center in Columbia as a sales manager and project consultant.Mr. Montsinger, who previously worked with Bell Atlantic, will coordinate all aspects of major design and building projects.

A Reisterstown synagogue facing foreclosure is one of an increasing number of U.S. houses of worship suffering in the continuing financial slump. Susquehanna Bank filed to foreclose on Adat Chaim in March, saying in court papers that the 27-year-old synagogue had defaulted on an $800,000 loan taken out in 2005. The Lititz, Pa.-based bank, which filed the case in Baltimore County Circuit Court, listed remaining debt of more than $756,0000. Once nearly unheard of, foreclosures on houses of worship jumped to record numbers nationally in the past two years, showing that religious facilities are not immune to the wave of foreclosures that followed the bursting of the credit bubble.

Mark your calendars for area housing expos and events intended to provide information on the housing market, anti-discrimination practices and increasing homeownership. Below you'll find a round up of some upcoming events.   -          Friday,  11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Oak Crest retirement community's annual Home Expo in Crestview Hall at 8800 Walther Boulevard in Parkville. Attendees can tour apartments and attend seminars to learn about the community's realty and moving services.

Shirley M. Boyer, a well-known Anne Arundel County real estate investor and former bank director, died Thursday of cancer at her Severna Park home. She was 75. A daughter of farmers, the former Shirley Milhausen was born in Baltimore and raised on the family farm on Kinder Road in Millersville, which is now Severna Park. She was a 1954 graduate of Glen Burnie High School and a year earlier, had married her husband, Harold G. "Bud" Boyer, a master electrician. Mrs. Boyer was a real estate investor and owned many properties in Anne Arundel County.

As Howard County works to keep its housing stock affordable for people across the economic spectrum, local officials hope the annual housing fair scheduled for next week will help give people a better understanding of what the wealthy county has to offer. The fair will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 14, at Long Reach High School and feature more than 40 real estate agents, mortgage lenders and housing specialists to answer questions and provide information. "Basically, anyone that is interested at all in buying a home, renting a home, improving a home" should attend, said Tom Carbo, the county's housing director.

Thousands of fans spent Friday's Opening Day cheering the Orioles at Camden Yards, but Russell M. Woolford is still reliving painful memories from last year's home opener. Accusations of a punch thrown over a seat dispute and a disagreement over who said what to whom landed this week in Baltimore Circuit Court, pitting Woolford, a waiter from Canton, against Kevin W. Havens, a real estate agent from Hunt Valley. Woolford's lawsuit seeks $12 million in damages. At first glance, it appears nothing more than a run-of-the-mill ballpark scuffle.

This week is is lighter on marquee shows than last, when we had both BRUUUCE and Van Halen. We have Rye Rye and Real Estate, plus a Hunx and His Punx and Big Freedia in our regular round-up of the week's most notable concerts. Ticket prices do not reflect any additional surcharges and taxes.  On Monday , hardcore band Converge plays the Ottobar ($15). And the acid jazz band Incognito are at Rams Head on Stage in Annapolis ($35). On Tuesday , several members of Wham City perform at Whole Gallery as part of their new comedy tour, "the Wham City Educational Seminar.

Helen Anna Ferrell, a retired real estate agent, died of lung cancer Dec. 20 at the Cockeysville home of her daughter. She was 80. Helen Anna Ena was born in Baltimore and spent her childhood in Highlandtown with her seven siblings. She graduated from the Catholic High School of Baltimore in 1947 and married Frank J. Ferrell in 1950. The couple, who celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in October, raised three children in Lutherville. Mrs. Ferrell obtained her real estate license in 1975, and specialized in residential real estate.

ADVERTORIAL CONTENT Investing in the housing market was once practically a no brainer. Through the downturn, however, many of the fixed  assumptions about housing - that property values would  always rise and equity would naturally grow - became variable, leaving many consumers questioning the extent to which the real estate market was a good investment option for them, or if now was the time to purchase that new home they have always wanted....

Growing up in a Baltimore row house, Elaine Northrop had a happy, if somewhat unconventional, childhood. Her father was a dreamer and a gambler, recalls Northrop, who grew up to build one of the most successful real estate companies in Howard County from the ground up. Her mother was the family's breadwinner and dealt with their money woes, but her father was an eternal optimist who taught her to believe in herself. At age 23, such life lessons would be called into play when she agreed to marry her first husband on their second date.