Regions

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorNew York–In the wake of a recent spate of high-profile construction accidents on multifamily high rises in New York City, the city’s buildings commissioner, Patricia Lancaster, has resigned.Patricia Lancaster submitted her resignation to Mayor Michael Bloomberg today morning, amid accusations that the department failed to adequately deal with safety violations at construction sites.“Today I submitted my resignation, which Mayor Bloomberg accepted,” Lancaster said in a statement. “After six years in public service, I made this decision because I felt it was time to return to the private sector.”The announcement comes less than a week after…

Colorado Springs, Colo.–While property management sometimes seems to be taken for granted, outstanding management performance was recently recognized in the form of four prestigious Multifamily Pillars of the Industry Awards, presented during the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) conference in Colorado Springs, Colo. attended by apartment and condominium developers. NAHB presents the Pillars awards annually to single out excellence in apartment and condominium design, development, marketing and operations. Among the property managers honored was Pinnacle Investment Manager Kevin M. Charcut, who took home the Regional “Property Manager of the Year” award. Based out of Minneapolis, Charcut manages a Midwest…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorLos Angeles–Sperry Van Ness has completed the sale of Jessie D’Arche Apartments, a five-unit apartment community near University of Southern California (USC), to Malibu, Calif.-based L33T Student Housing for $1,175,000.The property is located near the 10 and 110 Freeways at 1155–1157 West 27th St. in Los Angeles.Omar Ting and Jeff Pierce of Sperry Van Ness in Los Angeles represented the buyer as well as the seller, Los Angeles-based Circle Park Holdings LLC.  Built in 1925, the two-building property is situated on .18 acres of land, and was 100 percent occupied at the close of escrow….

By Erika Schnitzer, Associate EditorSan Francisco–The Essex, an 84-unit green affordable housing redevelopment project, recently opened in San Francisco. Originally a mixed tourist and residential hotel, the property was rehabilitated for homeless adults with disabilities.Citi Community Capital and Enterprise Community Partners financed the project, located in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood.“It’s a neighborhood with a large number of homeless people, low-income and immigrant families, who, 10 years ago, were on the street and in really terrible SRO (single room occupancy) units,” says Rich Gross, vice president of California initiatives at Enterprise.“Anytime any of the SRO hotels are developed into housing, it’s…

London–To soothe the British financial markets, the Bank of England announced Monday that it would let banks exchange mortgage-backed securities valued at about $100 billion for government bonds, the New York Times said.Banks will deposit the securities–which have become hard to sell since credit markets began contracting last summer–in the central bank as collateral at a discount. To increase lending among banks, they in exchange will receive easy-to-trade government bonds.If the securities drop in value, the banks will have to weather the loss; however, there is no “arbitrary limit” on how much can be lent. Banks had suggested previously that…

Charlotte, N.C.–Hurt by higher credit costs and writedowns, Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America said Monday that its first-quarter earnings had fallen nearly 80 percent to $1.2 billion, the Financial Times said.Bank of America–which is the largest U.S. bank by market value–said home equity, homebuilder and small business loan issues caused its provision for credit losses to increase by $4.78 billion to $6.01 billion.Fallout from the credit and U.S. housing market collapse has hurt the investment bank. With $1.47 billion in writedowns on its collateralized debt obligations and $439 million on its leveraged loan commitments, Bank of America’s numbers were down…

Baltimore–Smaller banks–such as Provident Bankshares Corp. of Baltimore–may experience some of the losses that larger banks have suffered during the subprime crisis, according to The Wall Street Journal.Provident posted a $17.6 million quarterly net loss last week after cutting its dividend and issuing $115 million of new securities to fix a balance sheet filled with real-estate securities. Plainfield, Ind.-based Lincoln Bancorp.’s first-quarter $181,000 earnings were lower than previous forecasts because more than a dozen borrowers–including commercial real estate developers–showed difficult financial conditions.During the economic boom, many small- and mid-sized banks started working in new markets and offered new products; some…

Washington, D.C.–The FBI will investigate more corporate fraud cases in connection with subprime mortgage issues, FBI director Robert Mueller says.In a speech to the American Bar Association in Washington, D.C. on corruption and white collar crime, Mueller confirmed that the FBI is investigating 19 subprime-related institutions and the financial and investment vehicles the firms used, ABC News reports.”We likely will see more corporate fraud cases in the months to come because of the ripple effect of the subprime crisis and its impact on the credit market,” Mueller said.The FBI is targeting accounting fraud, insider trading and deceptive sales practices, which…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorSan Antonio–Daniel Markson, senior vice president of development at the NRP Group LLC, recently received the Cesar E. Chavez Eagle award at the Cesar E. Chavez Legacy and Educational Scholarship Recipients dinner awards, held at the La Villita Assembly Hall in San Antonio.“This award is given to special individuals who are fighting in the spirit of Cesar E. Chavez for the poor people,” says Jaime P. Martinez, chairman, Cesar E. Chavez March for Justice.Chavez was a farm worker, labor leader and civil rights activist in the 1950s.“The new frontier of civil rights is affordable housing,”…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorWashington, D.C.–The Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008 (S. 2636), recently passed by the Senate, has received mixed reaction from the multifamily industry. The Act provides $3.92 billion in emergency funding to enable states and cities to work with local nonprofits to acquire and rehabilitate foreclosed homes.“The passage of the Foreclosure Prevention Act will help mitigate the growing problems brought on by the foreclosure crisis,” says Doris W. Koo, president and CEO of Enterprise Community Partners. “Productive occupancy of foreclosed homes will help stimulate economic activity and help prevent further loss of home equity in struggling…