The Fifth Luxury Condos

Royal Oak is redefining the notion of Detroit's 'burbs, fashioning a downtown that appeals to urban dwellers and cultural creatives. It's latest addition --and the community's tallest building-- brings a touch of the metropolitan to this Metro Detroit hotspot.

With stunning (or dizzying, depending on your stomach) views, top-of-the-line features and a choice locale, this 18 story midrise is the next evolution in RO's walkable, workable downtown.

Tom Hendrickson takes you on a tour. All you have to do is click the magic YouTube link below!

As New Home Sales Stall, Deals Abound

On Nov. 20, the residential real estate industry seemed to finally get an unexpected dose of much-needed good news. After four consecutive months of declines, the number of new homes being built crept up by a stronger-than-expected 3% in October, according to the Commerce Dept.

But on closer look, the October numbers may just be an aberration. Building permits, an indicator of future construction, plunged 6.6% as homebuilders faced mounting inventories of unsold homes and sluggish demand from buyers.

The annual rate for houses and apartments rose to just over 1.2 million in October. But the rate for single-family homes dropped 7.4% to 884,000 -- the lowest level since the early 1990s. Overall, the pace of groundbreaking dropped 16.4% from October, 2006. The small increase in overall housing starts in October was driven by multi-family dwelling starts, which tend to fluctuate widely from month to month.

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Survivor's guide to a slowdown

The credit market is still in turmoil, economic growth on both sides of the Atlantic looks likely to be weak in 2008, and the prices of a variety of assets are worryingly high. Asset prices should already have discounted that negative outlook for next year, and it is foolish to try to predict their path too precisely, but for the average investor trying to manage their wealth, it is worth considering a scenario in which the slowdown becomes worse.

A shock in the US housing market has hit construction, produced losses for banks and lenders, and caused a reappraisal of the right price for risk. Financial sector profits have been hit and credit will be harder to come by. The next stage could be a wider slowdown in investment and consumption that hurts corporate profits still further, causing layoffs and rising unemployment, and therefore still weaker US demand. In the worst case, the result could be a global recession.

Central banks will cut interest rates in a recession, so the obvious place to hide is government bonds, but those markets have already reacted. Five-year UK gilts yield only 4.5 per cent and three-year US Treasuries less than 3 per cent. Given the inflationary risks of high oil prices and the falling dollar, the Federal Reserve's ability to cut interest rates may be limited, and cash may produce better returns.

The risk of further falls in the dollar is severe. Currencies have a marked tendency to follow trends and to overshoot estimates of "fair value" once they start moving. The great danger - to which the pound sterling is also exposed - is foreigners losing confidence and selling assets. East Asian currencies still look cheap, however, as do those of oil exporters that peg to the dollar.

Adjusted for the economic cycle, equities look too expensive, and if a slowdown hits corporate profits, they are likely to fall. Lower prices are good for long-term investors who buy regularly for their pensions, but for short-term investors, buying is hard to justify. The S&P 500 index is up this year in spite of the flow of bad economic news.

That leaves property: the asset class at the centre of the US slowdown. Real estate prices look high relative to incomes and rents in many countries, and while that has been true for several years, it means they are at risk of falls. It will always make sense to own a residential property - it hedges our own demand for somewhere to live - but as a pure investment, real estate looks vulnerable. Investors should note that new risk-management tools, such as house price contracts listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, are now available.

After 20 years of strong growth and benevolent markets, few assets look cheap. For those investors worried about tougher times there are a few simple rules: avoid leverage, keep cash to hand and remember that lower asset prices are an opportunity as well as a cost.

Copyright 2007 Financial Times

Foreclosure lists long, grim

Counties publish property tax delinquencies

From the well-heeled streets of the Pointes to the desolate neighborhoods of Detroit, thousands of people are facing foreclosure of their properties because they haven't paid taxes for at least two years.

In 121 printed pages of the Sunday Free Press, Wayne County Treasurer Raymond Wojtowicz listed more than 18,000 properties across Wayne County facing foreclosure. Notices sent to homeowners since March have whittled the list from 161,000 properties that had been delinquent on tax payments.

The advertisement will run the next two Sundays. The printed pages cost the county more than $400,000, and are required by law. It's just one more way the county tries to make sure property owners know that they're facing foreclosure.

"No one should ever be embarrassed if they have some debt," Wojtowicz said. "We all get into a scrape every so often, and during these tough economic times, we want to do everything we can to keep people in their homes."

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Real Estate Weekly -- Nov. 23

It wasn't the "average" home buyer who got us into the current real estate mess. Most folks buying a house in the last five years or so, even if they knew they were paying prices that seemed just a bit over the top, were buying for any of the reasons that make perfect sense in any market: they needed a bigger house for a growing family, they relocated for a better job, they wanted more modern amenities and remodeling the old house didn't make economic sense, they wanted better schools for their kids, they retired, etc.

Who did get us into this mess? Real estate investors flipping condos they never intended to buy, mortgage lenders pushing inappropriate products on overly stretched borrowers, Wall Street investors who in their greed snapped up those questionable loans, home builders rushing to construct units ahead of real demand, banking regulators who sat and watched, etc.

You know, though, who is going to pay the most for the debacle. It will be "average" homeowners, who now will be lucky to get a mortgage of any kind if they need to move up or move on, assuming they even can move at all, given how chilly the market has become and how shaky their home price is looking. The only bailout for most people will come in the form of years of waiting for a return to normalcy.

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Rodents Head Indoors for Fall and Winter

(ARA) - A cozy home is the perfect escape when temperatures begin to dip. Unfortunately, rodents think so too.

According to pest control professionals, cooling temperatures and dwindling food sources send rodents scurrying into 21 million American homes each winter.

"Rodents normally feed on seeds and plant life, but when these are eliminated by freezing temperatures or drought, rodents are forced to invade human structures in search of food," says Stoy Hedges, entomologist and director of technical services for Terminix.

Mice and rats enter homes through small exterior openings. A 1/2-inch opening is large enough for a rodent, and mice can squeeze through voids as small as a 1/4 inch.

Rodents are also great climbers and can scale rough surfaces like trees or vertical pipes to gain entry to homes through vents and utility openings.

Living with rodents can be harmful. They are considered a fire hazard because of their habit of gnawing through electrical wiring, and they are a health threat because of the diseases they spread through their bites and excrement.

Rodents are known to carry more than 200 human pathogens. Some of these diseases, such as Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome and the plague, are potentially deadly.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, HPS, which is spread through the airborne urine, saliva or fecal material of infected deer mice, has been identified in 30 states during the last 14 years. Of the 465 reported cases, nearly 35 percent have been fatal.

Although rare, approximately 12 cases of the plague are reported in the United States each year.

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Ignoring root causes of Freddie Mac fiasco won't fix anything

The markets did their best to treat Freddie Mac as an isolated incident yesterday. It isn't. Freddie Mac is just the latest turn in the expanding spiral of trouble for financial markets, one that won't go away just because investors stuck their heads in the sand for a day.

Freddie Mac is a publicly traded company created by U.S. Congress to provide funds to mortgage lenders. It does so by buying existing mortgages from these lenders and repackaging them to investors as mortgage-backed securities, guaranteed by Freddie Mac itself. In the current environment, that's the business equivalent of playing road hockey on a freeway.

Freddie Mac yesterday reported that it lost $2-billion (U.S.) in the third quarter, took a $1.2-billion provision for credit losses and absorbed $3.6-billion in mark-to-market losses. Now it is threatening to cut its dividend in half and is seeking other sources of financing, just to keep its capital levels above mandated minimums.

The news sent shares of Freddie Mac and its larger government-created mortgage cousin, Fannie Mae, off a cliff. Freddie opened down 33 per cent, Fannie down 23 per cent, and they stayed around there all day.

Play the currency game to pay your mortgage

If you had put a £1m mortgage into US dollars at the start of the year and left it without making a single payment, then thanks to the falling dollar that mortgage would have decreased in value by more than £70,000.

Such is the beauty of foreign currency mortgages, and the reason that a growing number of high-net- worth individuals are employing them. If you back the right currency, you can significantly reduce the capital value of your debt.

With the pound at its strongest against the dollar for more than a quarter of a century, multi-currency mortgage specialist ECU Group has converted its entire loan book into US dollars.

Cormac Naughten, director, says ECU Group expects the dollar to weaken even further against sterling.

But rather than convert a loan into a currency you think has hit rock bottom, the way to benefit from foreign currency-denominated loans is to catch the currency on its way down, says Ray Boulger of John Charcol mortgage brokers.

Foreign currency mortgages change the underlying currency of your mortgage loan to a different mainstream currency such as US dollars, Japanese yen or euros. Monthly repayments are made by you in sterling, which is then converted to the currency the mortgage is in and used to pay it off.

Loans managed by a debt manager can be switched regularly between currencies such as the pound, dollar, Canadian dollar, Swiss franc and euro, based on macroeconomic views.