Regions

By Erin Brereton, Midwest Correspondent Kill Devil Hills, N.C.–Dare County, located on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, is a popular tourist location–but its cost of living is extremely high compared to neighboring counties. As a result, local teachers had a hard time finding a place to live. However, a new program sponsored by local counties is offering area teachers reasonably priced housing options, such as an apartment building with 24 two-bedroom units in Hertford County, where 31 teachers now live. The SECU Foundation also broke ground this month on a new affordable housing project for Dare County teachers. Approximately…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorNew York–Riverdale, Parkchester and Spuyten Duyvil are the three most popular Bronx neighborhoods for home seekers in New York City, according to ResidentialNYC.com, the Web portal created by The Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), which for the first time is making thousands of New York home listings available to the public. Previously, New York City properties were not on any kind of Multiple Listing Service.ResidentialNYC tracks neighborhood searches in each of the five boroughs. Riverdale ranks number one in popularity for the Bronx, based on roughly nine million hits on ResidentialNYC.com since the…

Los Angeles–KB Home–the fifth-largest U.S. homebuilder–announced its fourth quarterly loss in a row Friday, Bloomberg reports.The Los Angeles-based company’s fiscal first-quarter net loss was $268.2 million–more than twice what analysts had expected. KB’s revenue dropped 43 percent to $794.2 million; net orders plummeted 75 percent to 1,449 homes. In addition, Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Mezger said in a statement that the housing market isn’t improving and probably won’t rebound soon. In the first quarter of 2007, KB Home posted a net income of $27.5 million.

Miami–Homebuilder Lennar Corp., headquartered in Miami, posted a fiscal first-quarter loss due to the housing slump and ongoing credit crisis, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Lennar–one of the biggest U.S. homebuilders–announced a net loss of $88.2 million, compared with a 2007 net income of $68.6 million in the quarter ended Feb. 29. Lennar’s revenue plunged 62 percent to $1.06 billion, not counting charges connected to valuation adjustments and write-offs of option deposits and pre-acquisition costs. Gross margin on home sales increased to 17.1 percent–excluding valuation adjustments–from 15.6 percent. Orders dropped to 3,045, a 57 percent decreased. Deliveries fell 60…

By Erin Brereton, Contributing Editor Charlotte, N.C.–Group projects. Environmentally oriented activities. “Happy hours” in the building where your dog can mingle with other residents’ pets. They’re all part of Crescent Multifamily Development Group’s new Circle concept–designed to encourage social interactivity in multifamily buildings. After reviewing and analyzing current industry trends and marketplace needs, Crescent created the concept, which involves creating apartment complexes that encourage neighbors to connect. Circle communities are under construction in North Carolina and Florida featuring upscale amenities and environmentally friendly design that focuses on enriching social experiences. “Circle promises to be a distinct choice for apartment living,”…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorPortland, Ore.–JB Matteson Inc. in partnership with a large institutional investor recently acquired the Harrison Tower Apartments, a 24-story, 185-unit property in downtown Portland, Ore. for $45 million.Harrison Tower Apartments is one of three high-rise residential towers built in 1965. The original name of the three-building community was the Portland Center Apartments. In Sept. 2005, local developers acquired the property from Equity Residential with a plan to convert the entire property to condominiums on a per building basis in three phases. They renamed the property Harrison West, Harrison East and Harrison South. Harrison South became…

By Lisa Iannucci, Green Building CorrespondentRaleigh, N.C.–Advanced Energy, a Raleigh-based nonprofit, completed the first large-scale, multifamily, mixed-income community in North Carolina to achieve Energy Star certification.The 168-unit Chavis Heights development located in downtown Raleigh features affordable housing town homes, condominiums–half of which are handicapped-accessible–as well as a senior center.“Building energy efficiency into low-income homes is not an impossible venture as some developers perceive it to be,” says Brian Coble, director of affordable housing programs at Advanced Energy. “By building affordable housing units to Energy Star standards, we not only make homes more efficient and more comfortable, but we also make…

New York–Ariel East, Extell Development Co.’s luxury condominium on New York’s Upper West Side, has just begun a daily breakfast service delivered to residents’ homes. Residents of Ariel East now get daily continental breakfast delivered to their front door from 7 am to 10 am on weekdays and from 8 am to 11 am on weekends. The cost of the breakfast is included in the common charges.Residents have to fill out an order form with their requests the night before and leave it with the concierge. The breakfast menu features croissants, muffins and bagels; an assortment of Starbucks coffee; herbal and…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorCharlotte, N.C.–Crescent Multifamily Development Group, a division of Crescent Resources LLC, a joint venture between Duke Energy and Morgan Stanley Real Estate Fund, has unveiled its new apartment concept for the multifamily industry called Circle.Crescent expects to have 1,300 residences under construction by April 2008 that will be part of Circle. With additional communities planned to start construction this year in North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, Crescent is also exploring other high-growth cities including Dallas and Washington D.C.“The Circle communities will be places where neighbors connect and become stewards of the larger community,” says Todd…

San Antonio–Vidorra Condominiums has signed the AT&T Connected Communities agreement to bring cutting-edge, fiber-based AT&T U-verse(SM) TV and high-speed Internet services to Vidorra residents.The agreement with Vidorra is part of the AT&T Connected Communities program, a marketing initiative between AT&T and regional or national single-family builders, developers, real estate investment trusts, apartment ownership and management groups, and homeowners’ associations to provide communications and entertainment solutions to residents and home buyers.“Today’s urban dwellers expect the latest technology and the best products and services in a new development, and we are pleased to work with AT&T to deliver that to our residents,”…