Luxury Real Estate

By Maureen Buckley of Buckley & Buckley Real Estate

Barefoot ContessaIna Garten gives you a private tour of The Kitchen of the Year, that has been in the process over 6 months. Learn about the Kitchen Triangle, what is the best sink, why she uses open cupboards and best of all, put two comfortable chairs in the kitchen!! 

By Jillian Parker

SEATTLE – (November 6, 2009) – Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt of the Philadelphia Phillies has recently listed his home on the market in the Admirals Cove Golf and Yacht Club in Jupiter, Florida. Schmidt purchased the home in 1991, two years after playing his last major league game. After 18 seasons with the Phillies, 10 winning seasons and 9 Golden Glove awards Mike Schmidt is ranked as the number one best Phillies player of all time according to PhilliesNation.com. With 548 career homers, Schmidt is No. 14 on the all time list of the top Major League homerun hitters.

Courtesy of: Ken Burnside of The Cliffs Communities

The Cliffs Communities is a luxury real estate community with rare opportunities for resale. “The Cliffs Communities^® are premier, private golf, master planned communities, extending between Asheville, North Carolina and Greenville, South Carolina at the leading edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains.” Cascading through protected woodlands, three national forests and one national park, The Cliffs Communities offer luxurious homes in a variety of beautiful landscapes.

The six separate communities offer home sites in different landscapes:

• The Cliffs at High Carolina—High mountain meadows
• The Cliffs at Keowee—Lakeside
• The Cliffs at Mountain Park—A mountain classic
• The Cliffs at Walnut Grove—Scenic Meadows
• The Cliffs Valley—Rolling Hills
• The Cliffs at Glassy—Mountaintop

By Gary De Martini of Hill & Co. Real Estate

San Francisco, CA – November 3, 2009 – Architect Richard Neutra (1892-1970) has long been considered one of Modernism’s most important architects. His design thought has been described as being based on a proposed “new realism” of focus; the realism of the “needs of the user,” the human. His concentration was based on designing specific relations among rooms and outdoor views. His open floor plan, wide expanses of glass, and use of industrial finishes have withstood the test of time and are popular choices for modern living today.

The home now for sale at 2056-2058 Jefferson is a stunning example of the Neutra style of architecture in a prime San Francisco location, near the Palace of Fine Arts and Marina.

By: Andrew Kirk of The Record Staff

Courtesy of: Peter Linsey of Park City Real Estate

Park City Board of Realtors president Lincoln Calder refused to say that the market has hit bottom, but on Monday he did acknowledge that his Third Quarter Report reveals signs of improvement.

During the first nine months of 2009, more than $575 million changed hands in real estate deals. That's down 33.7 percent from the same time period in 2008, and down 50 percent from the market's all-time high in 2007.

Still, anyone following the board's quarterly reports recognizes those numbers as improvement. At one point, Realtors in Summit and Wasatch counties were reporting numbers down 75 percent from the all-time high.

Since February, pending sales have only increased.

Courtesy of: Cathy Harrington of Prudential California/Nevada Realty

Pleasanton, CA – October 22, 2009 -- The San Francisco Bay Area real estate market continued to show signs of a slow recovery during the third quarter of 2009 behind a dwindling supply of foreclosed properties on the market and increased competition between cash-rich investors looking for deals and traditional first-time homebuyers trying to leverage low interest rates and a soon-to-expire federal income tax credit to completed a home purchase before home prices can edge higher. The report was compiled by the research division of Prudential California Realty, and is an analysis of MLS data.

In the nine-county Bay Area, 14,662 existing single-family detached homes changed hands during the third quarter, up slightly from 14,551 homes sold in the second quarter and 6 percent higher than the 13,895 homes sold during the third quarter of 2008. The median price of a Bay Area home remained essentially unchanged from the second quarter, falling by less than 1 percentage point to $495,327. A year ago, the Bay Area median home sales price was 22 percent higher at $633,786. The decline is attributed to a dramatic slowdown in sales of homes in the highest price ranges over the past year and a steady supply of distressed properties on the market.

Courtesy of: Jim Walberg of Caribbean Islands Realty

Many of you remember my article several months ago about the Save Lindbergh Bay initiative. This is a grass roots organization of people committed to keeping this beautiful Caribbean bay on St. Thomas from being the dumping site of the dredging material from Charlotte Amalie Harbor. The U.S. Virgin Islands signed a contract with the largest cruise ship in the world, Oasis of the Sea, to call on the port of Charlotte Amalie. The cruise ship holds over 5,000 people that will greatly add to the tourist revenue of St. Thomas. However, the agreement required Charlotte Amalie Harbor to create the ability for the Oasis of the Sea to dock which would require dredging the path of the ship into the harbor an additional 35 feet to the existing sea floor. The project was to take the 150,000 cubic yards of dredging material and deposit it into Lindbergh Bay. The GREAT NEWS is that Lindbergh Bay has been saved by Gov. deJongh, Jr. signing a degree to halt the dredging until a more suitable site can be found for the material.

Courtesy of: Jim Walberg of Caribbean Islands Realty

Jim Walberg states that all real estate is local, remember? The Bay Area home sales for September were up 8.4%. It doesn’t matter what the National averages are, it only matters what the stats are in our local market. And within our local markets are niche markets. Do you really care about what the statistics are in Kansas City? No. What you care about is what is happening with home sales in the East Bay real estate markets. But, here is the info from September’s home sales anyway. Last month was the largest monthly increase in home sales in the U.S. in the last 26 years! That is great news for our economy. I believe that the reason why September was so robust in home sales was because of the panic that the Home Buyers Tax Credit was ending on November 30^th. ( We now know that Senator Harry Reid is authoring a bill to extend it to April 30, 2010.) The September jump in homes sales revised the projected home sales for 2009 to 5.57 million! “There’s a mini-boom going on in the housing market,” said Thomas Popik, who conducts a monthly survey of real estate agents for Campbell Communications, a research firm.

Courtesy of: Jim Walberg of Caribbean Islands Realty

Tax Credit Update From Jim Walberg: Last week I sent out the alarm for home buyers to take action or lose out on the Federal tax credit that is ending November 30^th. Today Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that the Senators have actually agreed to extend the First Time Homebuyers Tax Credit past November 30^th. The proposal on the table has the $8,000 credit extended until April 30, 2010. PLUS, a $6,500 tax credit would be given to homeowners who have lived in their house for the past five consecutive that purchase their next primary residence. The credit would be available to individuals who make less than $125,000 a year, or couples who make less than $225,000. This is $50,000 to $100,000 more than the last income ceiling in order to qualify. A strategy that is being proposed in order to have it accelerate through Congress is by attaching the bill to the one extending unemployment benefits – a smart move by Senator Reid.

Courtesy of: Katrina Campins of The Campins Company

Katrina Campins, entrepreneur and star of Season 1 of  NBC's The Apprentice and Bravo's Miami Social, annonces that her Website has been revamped with a new and improved design. The Campins Company out of Miami, Florida launches its brand new website today! The Campins Company specializes in luxury real estate in the Miami real estate market. Featured on the website are virtual tours of several properties as well as a convenient search tool to find your perfect home in Miami! Visit the site now, and see how The Campins Company can assist you!