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.

Welcome to Gay Matters, a new home for gay news and commentary at The Baltimore Sun. As website real estate, this blog is something new and perhaps long overdue. But we've been doing this work -- covering news relevant to the gay community -- for a very long time. I took a look back -- all the way back to microfilm -- and found the evidence. In 1955, for example, there were 162 men and women arrested on charges of disorderly conduct at the Pepper Hill Club on North Gay Street in "the largest night-club raid ever made in Baltimore," after male patrons among the club's largely gay clientele were seen kissing each other.

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.

A prominent Ellicott City blogger and businessman was stabbed to death by his daughter's 19-year-old boyfriend, who plotted with the 14-year-old girl to kill him so the two could run away together, Howard County police said Friday. Dennis Lane, 58, was found before dawn in his Winding Ross Way home. Police charged Jason Anthony Bulmer and Morgan Lane Arnold, both students at Mount Hebron High School, as adults in his killing; they both face conspiracy and murder counts. Both were held without bail, according to online court records.

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!

Singer Art Garfunkel, a real estate magnate and an investor are putting $2 million in gold bullion on the line to inspire researchers to cure blindness by 2020, establishing through Johns Hopkins Medicine one of the world's largest prizes for a scientific advancement. The men, one-time roommates at Columbia University, intend for the prize to trigger research into the variety of diseases that cause blindness — 80 percent of which are preventable — in 39 million people around the world.

Donald E. Grempler, an owner of the real estate company that bore his name, died Wednesday of complications from pneumonia and leukemia at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 72 and lived in the Worthington Valley in Baltimore County. Grempler Realty Inc., which he and his wife operated from the 1960s until they sold it last year, once was Maryland's busiest. In the 1970s, the Grempler "For Sale" sign was on approximately 15 percent of homes sold in the Baltimore metropolitan area. "He brought the real estate world in Baltimore into the modern times," said R. Dennis German, director of commercial services for O'Conor, Piper & Flynn ERA, a real estate firm.

A Howard County couple is suing one of the largest residential real estate brokerages in the state and a Columbia title company for more than $11 million, alleging that the firms had financial ties that violated federal law. The case is a proposed class action that could involve thousands of plaintiffs, all home buyers who bought a home with the Creig Northrop Team of Long & Foster Real Estate since 2000 and used a settlement firm called Lakeview Title...

Herbert A. Davis, a Baltimore real estate broker and decorated World War II veteran, died Monday of progressive supranuclear palsy at Keswick Multi-Care Center. He was 87. "Herb was always very enthusiastic and just a great guy," said Dorothy F. "Patsy" Ross, who works in real estate sales for Chase Fitzgerald & Co. "He was enthusiastic, positive and was always thinking on the bright side, and he really knew the business," said Mrs. Ross. "He was a great salesman. " Judy L. Bushong, a real estate agent, worked with Mr. Davis for 28 years.

Frances T. Kidder, a former real estate saleswoman, museum docent and world traveler, died Thursday from a stroke at the Blakehurst retirement community in Towson. She was 96. The daughter of Bayard Turnbull, a prominent Baltimore architect, and Margaret Carroll Turnbull, an educator, the former Frances Litchfield Turnbull was born in Baltimore. She was a direct descendant of 18th-century Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, who also was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Jesse S. Weinberg, who practiced law for seven decades and made a specialty of Baltimore's ground rents, died of respiratory failure March 20 at Sinai Hospital. The Pikesville resident was 94. Born in Baltimore and raised near Druid Hill Park on Lakeview Avenue, he was the son of Harry M. Weinberg, a haberdasher, and Minnie Needle Weinberg, a homemaker. According to an autobiographical sketch, he was born on his parents' 11th anniversary. He attended the old Robert E. Lee School, No. 49, and was a 1935 City College graduate.

If you want to live in Howard County, one of Maryland's fastest-growing jurisdictions, where it's competitive - and can be pricey - to buy a home, consider attending the 7th Annual Come Home to Howard County Housing Fair. The fair is expected to have more than 1,000 attendees and dozens of real estate professionals on hand for group and individual education sessions about buying and renting. The free event, sponsored by the Howard County government, is scheduled for Saturday, April 13 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Long Reach High School in Columbia.

In the past five months, nearly 100 homes in metro Baltimore went under contract in 24 hours or less, according to data complied by real estate brokerage Redfin. “The inventory shortage plaguing real estate markets across the country, paired with extremely high homebuyer demand have caused the pace of the market to accelerate dramatically,” the firm said in a statement. “Already frustrated homebuyers are finding it necessary to move very quickly to keep up with their market's selling velocity.” Metro Baltimore ranks 12th in the nation for the number of homes sold in their first day on the market over that five-month period, according to Redfin's data.

Many retirees are opting to stay closer to the communities where they lived during their working years, deciding to be near their families and the areas they know. And builders and real estate agents are working to meet this demand by creating and finding communities where homeowners can have recreation, maintenance-free living and first-floor amenities as they choose a place to retire. Nearly six out of 10 homeowners said they expect to move to another home when they retire, according to the annual Baby Boomer Report by Del Webb Corp.

Dawn Wooldridge of Keller Williams American Premier Realty in Bel Air has earned the prestigious Certified Distressed Property Expert designation, having completed extensive training in foreclosure avoidance, with a particular emphasis on short sales. At a time when millions of homeowners are struggling with the possibility of foreclosure, the skills and education amassed by Wooldridge will help benefit Harford County-area residents and communities. Short sales allow the distressed homeowner to repay the mortgage at the price that the home sells for, even if it is lower than what is owed on the property.

"Is there any way out other than the main stairs?" I asked. My husband, our real-estate agent, the seller's agent and I were standing in the finished basement of a home in Owings Mills. It was a vast space: a nice bathroom, a media room, a room big enough to waltz in and another room with hidden panels in the walls for stashing who knows what. There was even a fireplace at the bottom of the stairs, creating a spa-like atmosphere. But no, the selling agent said that there was just the one staircase, noting that some people like having only one way into the basement because exterior doors attract thieves.

Frank Simms Dudley Jr., an Eastern Shore real estate broker and property appraiser, died of complications after surgery March 3 at the University of Maryland Medical Center. The former Baltimore resident was 93. Born in Baltimore, he was the son of Frank S. Dudley, a banker, and Edith Shriner, a homemaker. He lived on Roland Avenue and attended Roland Park Country School before graduating from Gilman School in 1939. His studies at the University of Virginia were interrupted by his service in the Navy during World War II. A lieutenant, he commanded a sub chaser and initially patrolled anti-submarine nets off the New York Harbor and later off San Diego and San Francisco.