From the NYT:
Spring failed to inspire a surge in home sales nationally this year, even though mortgage rates are still reasonably low. Although economists insist that the housing market is on an upward trend, abnormal conditions left over from the recession continue to be a drag.
Mortgage applications for home purchases as of June were down 15 percent from the same period last year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. And sales of existing homes were about 6 percent weaker this spring compared with 2013, the association said. (In May alone, sales were down 5 percent from the previous year, the National Association of Realtors reported on Monday.) So what is holding buyers back? At least three major dynamics are at work.
…
MISSING SUPPLY OF HOMES Many markets are undersupplied with the homes buyers are looking for. One reason is that homeowners who refinanced when interest rates were very low now have little incentive to sell, as they would almost certainly have to buy at higher rates. According to Mark Fleming, the chief economist for CoreLogic, a real estate information service, almost half of all mortgaged homeowners obtained financing at rates of less than 4.5 percent.
…
UNEMPLOYED YOUNG ADULTS The engine of recovery is dependent upon young people forming new households, but they are still struggling, said Jed Kolko, the chief economist for Trulia, a real estate website, and another conference speaker.Joblessness among adults 25 to 34 was among the highest of all age groups during the recession. From 2009 to 2012, the employment rate for young adults dipped as low as 73 percent, compared with 81 percent in 2001, Mr. Kolko said. It is currently at about 75 percent.
…
INVESTORS DRIVING UP PRICES In some areas like Las Vegas and Phoenix, first-time buyers are in competition with institutional investors, who are buying up cheaper homes by the hundreds to turn into rental properties. Last year, strong investor demand helped drive a rise in home prices that was significantly ahead of household income growth, according to a recent report by Mark Palim, a vice president in the economic and strategic research group at Fannie Mae.But investor activity appears to have peaked, which means the market will shift to what Mr. Kolko describes as “a slower but more sustainable recovery.”
More evidence of a quiet shuffling toward the exits . . . .
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101788027
Read into it what you like, but don’t say it was “unexpected”.
Dare I say it, but isn’t conspicuous overconsumption of the rich an economically better position for all of us than a move to conservatism? In fact, if the rich don’t spend, it’s the middle and lower classes that will suffer.
Quick, someone get a bottle of Dom.
Get ready to pay even more for a new house in NJ…
From the Record:
Bill requiring sprinklers in new single-family homes passes N.J. Assembly
A bill requiring new homes in New Jersey to include fire sprinklers passed the full Assembly Thursday, but its future remains uncertain.
Opponents say the measure would impose excessive costs on developers and prospective homeowners. A previous version of the requirement passed the full Legislature in its previous session, only to be pocket-vetoed by Governor Christie in January. This time around, it has yet to be introduced in the Senate.
Supporters say the bill, which would apply to new single- and two-family homes, is about saving lives.
“Just earlier this year, a Paterson house fire – unfortunately one of multiple fires in the city in recent months – put the residents, their neighbors and dozens of firefighters in grave danger,” Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter, D-Paterson, said in a statement. “The severity of that tragic incident and others like it serves as a poignant reminder of why having residential fire sprinklers in new homes is so crucial.”
The “suffering” that we speak of is relative but permanent. An underclass of untrained and insufferable illiterates is probably deemed desirable to those in the elite classes. As long as said kids have their beats headphones and unlimited data they can stream whatever drivel they are currently hypnotized by. As long as they can take an order over an intercom. All is well.
Grim I’m going to put you in touch with someone who has been in the food technology sector forever she wants to chat through your business model cause she thinks it may be a tough sell for your chemist request. look for something from me on linkedin today
For the rest of us. Those with resources. We’ll further isolate ourselves from the peasants and try to continue to live off the land. Even if the land is constantly shifting and the risk of falling from one class to a lower one is ever present.
Joyce, what are they talking about? I thought there was no such thing as “hoarding”? I must be an idiot.
“Hoarding
If that view’s widely held, you would imagine those with the money are already braced for it.
And one glaring and enduring observation of the post-crisis years is the extent of cash hoarding by large companies and the wealthy. This at least partly reveals the level of anxiety among these groups that changes to taxation or income regimes are only a matter of time.
Read MoreThe rich get richer as stock buybacks surge
Estimates of the amount of cash that non-financial U.S., European and Japanese companies are sitting on is as high as $5 trillion—twice the levels of 10 years ago as capital expenditure and investment has largely seized up. A pick up in mergers and acquisitions this year is modest by comparison with bloated balance sheets.
Moreover, the CapGemini/RBC survey showed rich investors still stored a whopping 27 percent of their expanding portfolios in cash or equivalents through last year—more than they held in any other asset class and twice pre-crisis levels.”
Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:
June 27, 2014 at 8:05 am
More evidence of a quiet shuffling toward the exits . . . .
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101788027
Read into it what you like, but don’t say it was “unexpected”.
I hereby apply for the whiskey taster position at grim’s distillery.
I have plenty of relevant experience.
One reason is that homeowners who refinanced when interest rates were very low now have little incentive to sell, as they would almost certainly have to buy at higher rates.
Bullsh1t. They can’t sell because they’re underwater. Tell the truth. To0 many land-locked ball and chain bag holders.
Nom,
[40] Eddie,
Yes and no. He knew how to go along. Aside from the impeachment, he did not really distinguish himself as a leader when tested. How many issues did he walk back, or waffle on, or compromise away?
I despise Obama as a president but I do respect him for one thing: his willingness to try to move the country to a better place on issues. On most of them, I fundamentally disagree but I respect that he has a vision, however misguided, and is pursuing it.
———–
A better place on issues? He hates 150,000,000 Americans because they refuse to transform into a social utopia. He sneers at success and is pushing the low IQ muppets into hating anything to do with wealth and achievement. His motive is to distract and cause indignation among the hoards. He’s forever pessimistic and never speaks about the greatness of America. He has no vision.
Aren’t they all?
grim says:
June 27, 2014 at 8:22 am
Supporters say the bill… is about saving lives.
-Customer: So I want to buy this SUV.
-Dealer: Got plenty in stock and can get you out the door in a base version for $521/mo ($30k loan, 60 mth term, 1.7% APR). Whatcha say?
-Customer: Darn… my budget is $500/mth and I really can’t go any higher than that.
-Dealer: Hmmm… lemme talk with the folks in finance and see what we can come up with.
(Dealer steps away, comes back 5 minutes later and hands the Customer a sheet of paper)
-Dealer: Good news, we got your payment down to $409/mo ($30k loan, 84 mth term, 4.0% APR). We gotta deal?
-Customer (looking down at term sheet, a broad smile forms from ear to ear): Not only do we have a deal, but now I can get 4WD and the tech package! How’d you do that?
-Dealer: They’re running a special on 7 year loans at a modestly higher rate. Everything else is the same.
(Satisfied customer drives away in an SUV with an ATP nearly 20% higher than the base price). At the end of the month the published data shows higher sales and higher ATPs, giving the image of improved mix when precisely the opposite is occurring. We think more attention should be paid to the risk of consumers being taken out of their normal trade cycle, creating a vacuum.
“As it turns out, a number of SWAT teams in the Bay State are operated by what are called law enforcement councils, or LECs. These LECs are funded by several police agencies in a given geographic area…
Some of these LECs have also apparently incorporated as 501(c)(3) organizations. And it’s here that we run into problems. According to the ACLU, the LECs are claiming that the 501(c)(3) status means that they’re private corporations, not government agencies. And therefore, they say they’re immune from open records requests.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/06/26/massachusetts-swat-teams-claim-theyre-private-corporations-immune-from-open-records-laws/
7- Everything stated in the quote supports the notion, that our economy has no growth, because too much money is at the top. When too much capital is located at the top in a consumer based economy, the economy stagnates. When capital reaches the masses, it creates demand. This demand creates a place/need for investment. With all the money at the top, there is no demand for investments, hence, there is no where to invest.
They dropped the rates to 0 to force these people to take a risk and invest, yet they still won’t invest. In a working capitalist society, the money was never meant to stay in someone’s hands, it is always supposed to be circulating. This is the negative result of capital accumulation in a capitalist system. We are witnessing it, up close and personal.
Things will change, why? Because it is inevitable, or the system will eventually collapse. Wage inflation is the cure, and I promise you that we will see it within the next 7 years. That doesn’t mean that wage inflation will continue for the next 20-30 years, it just means an injection into the wages of the consumers is needed right now to bring back balance to the economy. Once that balance is met, the balance will once again shift to large profits for people at the top. The balance is always short lived and is in a constant struggle between the worker and the wealthy. The balance is almost always shifted to one side or the other. Right now the balance has shifted totally to one side, and needs to come back, which it will.
Exactly!! The lobbyists in the health insurance industry did their job well!
“Some Republicans, particularly Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Representative Fred Upton of Michigan, have decried this program as an insurer bailout.”
chicagofinance says:
June 26, 2014 at 7:05 pm
So I branded you an idiot. You argued the point quite convincingly on your own behalf, and now some prima facie evidence for you……
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-06-26/obamacare-s-prognosis-grows-dimmer?cmpid=yhoo
chicagofinance says:
June 26, 2014 at 1:16 pm
You seemed to answer your own question here….good work.
(9) BS on you, Eddy. I refinanced income properties two years ago. Got historical low rates. That increased my cash flow significantly. Why should I sell these properties if the cash flow after tax is much less than what I am making now, which is tax-sheltered income? And, don’t exclude the multis from those numbers. They are a good percentage of sales.
And that is the same for Single families. Many refinanced at low rates when they were above water and remain above water. Why should they sell when they are sitting pretty, mortgage-wise?
WSJ
Jumbo Jungle
Boom-Era Bill Comes Due
Jumbo borrowers rushed into interest-only mortgages during the housing run-up; now many face loans entering their principal-repayment period
By Daniel J. Goldstein
Jumbo-mortgage borrowers feasted on interest-only loans during the housing boom, enticed by low down payments and monthly outlays. But a monthly sticker shock could be ahead for these borrowers.
During the peak of the housing boom, from 2004-07, interest-only mortgages gave some buyers access to bigger or better homes than they likely could have afforded with a traditional principal-and-interest monthly payment.
The interest-only mortgage was meant for borrowers who had variable cash flow, such as independent contractors or salespeople who got large year-end bonuses. The loans attracted people who expected their income to rise over time, allowing them to handle principal payments later.
But a product meant for a select few was oversold, says Mark Livingstone, president of Cornerstone First Financial, a mortgage broker in Washington, D.C. Borrowers in high-price markets who had steady incomes and could afford a principal-and-interest payment instead opted for interest-only loans. Many borrowers who put down less than 20% with these loans were told that the rising real-estate prices would cover their lack of equity.
An estimated $934 billion in jumbo interest-only mortgages of all types were sold during the peak years of the housing boom, averaging about $234 billion a year, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, a research group that publishes data on the mortgage industry. By comparison, just $55 billion in jumbo interest-only products were originated in 2002, and $140 billion in 2003, Inside Mortgage Finance says. (Jumbo loans exceed $417,000 in most markets, and $625,500 in high-price markets such as San Francisco and New York.)
Interest-only mortgages come in various forms, including five-year and seven-year initial periods, but the 10-year type, followed by a reset, was popular when the housing market was hot. Now with those loans starting to enter the principal-payment period, borrowers face a dilemma: They can refinance or take their chances on a new, possibly higher, payment. When the payment resets, the principal typically must be paid back over the remaining 20-year life of the loan, instead of over 30 years, says Mr. Livingstone.
Moreover, borrowers with adjustable 10-year interest-only mortgages will see their rate start to “float” from year-to-year. They could save money in the short term with current rates, but could be vulnerable to rate increases.
Mr. Livingstone knows this situation firsthand. He purchased an investment property in Odenton, Md., with the help of a 10-year interest-only, nonjumbo loan with a fixed rate. The monthly payment recently shot up to $2,424 from $1,463 with the start of principal payments. He plans to list the property this month because the rental price won’t cover the cost of the new payment.
Despite low rates, refinancing won’t be as easy. For one, many banks now require jumbo borrowers to have at least 20% equity in the property.
Greg McBride, the chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com, which tracks mortgage rates, says most jumbo-loan borrowers already have anticipated the reset and have refinanced, or can handle the higher payments because they likely have the cash flow.
For jumbo-loan borrowers facing a reset, here are things to consider:
• Refinance: With rates still low, refinancing is a good long-term option, especially for borrowers with good credit, sufficient equity and plans to stay in the home.
• Stay calm: The good news about the interest-only period ending is that, for borrowers with fixed-rate loans, the rate won’t go up. If you have a floating rate, you might even see your payment fall.
• Test the market: An improving real-estate market means listing your home might be an option, along with buying a new home.
An interesting read brings out the true meaning on “Light My Fire” for JJ
“…My recording studio is in an old onion barn just a two-minute walk from the house…”
House Call
José Feliciano Warms to a Home With Fires and Beautiful Sounds
The musician relocates to a historic former tavern in Connecticut.
Singer-songwriter and guitarist José Feliciano, 68, has recorded hits such as “Light My Fire” and “Feliz Navidad.” This summer he will release an album with Israel’s Raananá Symphonette Orchestra and a duet single with Balkan singer Dragana Mirkovic. He spoke with reporter Marc Myers.
At first, I didn’t want to move to rural Connecticut from Orange County, Calif.—my wife, Susan, did. She’s from Michigan and she missed the changing seasons. I worried about losing the warm West Coast sun, but since relocating here in 1990, I’ve adjusted to the New England winters and, I have to admit, it’s pretty exciting here. Even though I’ve been blind since birth, I experience the seasons changing in an equally fulfilling way as Susan.
We found our home in Yankee Magazine. Susan saw an ad for a real-estate company that markets historic homes in Connecticut and she ordered a brochure. That’s where she saw a photo of the Fairfield County house we live in now. Yes, from the comfort of our California veranda, we shopped for a house by mail. When we traveled to visit the house, we immediately fell in love with it and the 5-acre property.
A small building on the property used to be a tollhouse. Dorothy Hong for The Wall Street Journal
Soon after we moved in, Susan began doing research on our three-bedroom house. Apparently, it dates back to 1730. From 1780 to 1860 it was a tavern, before being converted into a residence by the family that wound up living here for generations. In 1954, the house passed through several families until we bought it.
We learned some amazing things at the local historical society and by chatting with old-timers. We discovered that when our house was a tavern, people in the area rode their sleighs here on winter nights, putting warm ashes from their fireplaces into sacks and placing them on the sleigh floors to keep their feet warm. We also learned that the tavern made a drink called a flip that included ale, rum, egg whites and molasses. You’d stir the drink with a hot poker to keep it warm. I love little things like that because they tell you about the humanity of people from another time and make us feel connected.
People who don’t know me assume I move around our house gingerly. But being blind doesn’t mean I can’t see. I have a photographic memory and know exactly where everything is. The house is an old, soulful place that creaks and reminds me of my aunt’s home in the Bronx that I used to visit as a boy. It has character.
Our floors creak beautifully, by the way, because they’re made of different types of wood. The floors upstairs are pine while downstairs the dining-room floor is pear, the working kitchen is oak and the floor in the kitchen’s dining area is cherry.
Upstairs, the pine floorboards are original to the house, and many are as wide as 20 inches. Back in the 1700s, it was illegal for colonists to take down trees larger than 12 inches in diameter. They were considered property of the king, who needed large trees for ship masts since much of England’s forests were exhausted. Royal surveyors would mark large trees to keep them off-limits, but colonists took them down anyway in protest and used them for upstairs floors, where they’d be out of sight.
Our house has four working fireplace. My favorite is in the kitchen. When we make fires there in the cold months, I sit in the rocking chair Susan gave me when we were first dating and listen to the wood burning. I hear the sap sizzling and the logs snapping. It makes me imagine how hard life must have been hundreds of years ago. I also like playing guitar and composing in front of the fire, which warms my soul. Last fall, we had to take down an old maple tree that was near the power lines, so now we have eight cords of wood.
On our property is an 8-by-15-foot tollhouse that used to stand by the road when it was a turnpike in the early 19th century. My recording studio is in an old onion barn just a two-minute walk from the house. I go there when my engineer comes over. We also have a greenhouse, a carriage house that we converted for guests and a gazebo by the river. We even have a smokehouse that we’ve been threatening to use.
I love feeling the seasons change. In the spring, I smell the greenery and hear things coming alive, like the songbirds and sparrows. The Saugatuck River is just 50-feet wide here and cuts through our backyard, so I can hear the river’s motion and cascading waterfall from our bedroom. The water attracts river otters, deer and wild turkeys to our land. Summer has its own vibrant sounds.
I also love hearing my neighbors going about their lives. Our house is private and remote, but we’re not isolated. We wouldn’t want that. When you isolate yourself too much, you lose your compassion for others. I don’t ever want that to happen to us.
Real Estate
High-End Homes With High-End Air Purification Systems
The demand for ‘particle-free’ living spurs some luxury developers to install elaborate filtration systems.
By Candace Jackson
Alongside infinity pools and gourmet kitchens, more high-end developers and luxury-home builders are pitching a new amenity: freshly circulated, highly scrubbed air.
Developers of 155 East 79th Street, a condominium under construction on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, boast that its ventilation technology first cleanses air via a hospital operating-room-grade purification system and then brings the fresh filtered result into each unit. In San Francisco, luxury developer Troon Pacific says it has built several speculative homes in the $5 million-plus range that fully exchange their indoor air at least three times a day.
In New York’s Hamptons, developer Peter Sabbeth installed a $5,000 air-ventilation system with a heat-exchange feature into his speculatively built home that not only exchanges air—it also uses heat from the outgoing stale air to warm fresh air coming in and maintains a comfortable level of humidity as well. The home also includes low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) paints that emit fewer chemicals—he estimates they probably cost a couple thousand dollars more—and other chemical-free building materials. The 5,500-square-foot, six-bedroom, five-bathroom home is listed for $5.95 million.
Fed by such concerns as the occurrence of indoor mold and the growing prevalence of asthma, demand for such systems has grown. Barry Stephens, business development and technology director for Zehnder, a Switzerland-based company that sells energy-efficient ventilation systems, says sales have nearly doubled every year for the past several years.
“There’s a real big conversation in the building industry and building-science community about these things,” he says. “Things are changing rapidly.” Prices range from about $4,500 for a typical apartment-size system and ductwork to about $10,000 for a very large home. A similar system for a large condominium or apartment building can cost more than $1 million, though Mr. Stephens says once such a system is installed, bathroom vents are no longer needed and a smaller HVAC system can be used, offsetting much of the cost.
In large Asian cities like Beijing, where outdoor air pollution is a major health concern, wealthy expat buyers and renters commonly purchase their own filters, spending a couple thousand dollars to do so. According to James Macdonald, head of research for Savills SVS.LN -0.16% China, more new high-end developments are installing building-wide air-purification systems.
Developers and home builders say the growing prominence of green building is also bolstering demand, as energy-efficient buildings are built so tightly they sometimes offer very little natural ventilation when windows are closed. Though draft-free homes use less energy to heat and cool, they can lack the natural coming and going of air and in certain conditions (like use of exhaust fans) can result in a depressurization if a proper ventilation system hasn’t been installed. Mr. Stephens says this can sometimes result in compromised indoor-air quality.
In the U.S., a number of the new developments are in densely populated Manhattan. Though the New York metro area’s air quality has improved in the past 10 to 20 years, according to the American Lung Association, it still gets an “F” grade when it comes to high-ozone days and particle pollution.
Giselle Martin-Kniep, an education consultant who lives in New York, purchased a 1,750-square-foot, three-bedroom condominium at the Visionaire in Battery Park City in 2009. It was one of the city’s first residential buildings to circulate fresh, filtered air to each apartment. That, along with the building’s environmentally sustainable design, were key selling points for Ms. Martin-Kniep, who declined to say how much she spent on the condo. (Listings in the building today range from $825,000 for a 600-square-foot studio to $4.25 million for a corner three-bedroom unit on a high floor.)
Ms. Martin-Kniep says she feels better and notices that she really only feels she needs to open the windows on the nicest days when conditions are perfect outside. She says she has also noticed that friends with cat allergies no longer react to her cat when they come over. “I actually think we take for granted that air quality is good until we somehow don’t have it,” she says.
In suburban areas, a handful of high-end developers of single-family homes are promoting their project’s indoor-air quality. In tony Westport, Conn., a 5,800-square-foot Colonial-style house that will soon list for $2.8 million was built using “passive house” building methods that minimize energy usage with a mathematically precise, airtight building technique, and the strategic placement of high-performance windows to take advantage of daylight and shade. Inside, the air will be filtered through a two air-exchangers, says Douglas Mcdonald, the founder of the Pure House, the company that built the home. Pollen-free fresh air will circulate into living and sleeping spaces; other air will be removed from kitchens and bathrooms, where odors tend to accumulate the most.
“The air quality is amazing,” says Mr. Mcdonald. Paint, flooring and cabinetry will be made from chemical-free materials to eliminate what Mr. Mcdonald describes as harmful off-gassing. He estimates that the speculatively built home, slated to be completed in September, is priced about 10% higher than a traditionally built house.
Troon Pacific, the San Francisco-based developer, has an eco-minded home on the market for $13 million that is built with a focus on air quality, among other things. In the garage, an exhaust fan minimizes the home’s exposure to carbon monoxide, says Gregory Malin, the company’s chief executive officer. To mitigate potential toxins in the ground underneath the home, an impermeable membrane is installed with PVC piping to bring air from underneath the home out from above the roof. There are even vented shoe cabinets near the entrance, which Mr. Malin says helps prevent further contaminants from entering the house.
Selling something as immaterial as air can be can be tricky. “It’s not really a sexy topic,” says Stephen Glascock, president of Anbau, the Manhattan-based developer that is building 155 East 79th Street. Prices in the seven-unit building range from $9 million for a three-bedroom duplex to $17 million for a penthouse. Mr. Glascock says he has spent about $2.3 million on the building’s filtered fresh-air HVAC system, compared with about $1.55 million for an average condo building without fresh-air ventilation.
Brett Singer, a scientist in the Indoor Environment Group of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, says his research has found that indoor-air pollutants often exceed the standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency for acceptable outdoor-air quality, and that indoor air is often worse in densely populated multifamily buildings in low-income urban areas. While air-purification systems and the like can be helpful, he says, fairly basic, energy-efficient ones are typically sufficient. “Most people don’t need to live in a particle-free environment.” Mr. Singer says that research also shows many people forget to change the filters regularly enough for some systems to be very effective.
Installing such systems can require considering a building’s design from the earliest stages. Rick Cook, a New York architect who specializes in “biophilic” design, which is focused on designing buildings with a strong connection to nature, says for his latest residential project, 301 East 50th Street, he oriented the building to take advantage of natural air quality and daylight. “Most design has been kind of obsessed with the two-dimensional pictures and glossy magazines,” he says. “But we experience our indoor environment and spaces with all our senses.” The 29-story limestone building has a fresh-air filtration system that removes 95% of the particulate matter and costs about $500,000, according to the building’s developer, Scott Shnay. Units are priced between $1.7 million and $10.5 million.
In some buildings and homes, air quality is just a small part of the wellness pitch. Paul Scialla, founder and CEO of Delos, a wellness-focused building company, says his firm’s latest residential project in New York has more than 50 different wellness-centered features, including vitamin C-infused shower heads and ultraviolet lights that “aid in sterilizing harmful airborne microbes and irritants.” Prices range from $15 million to $50 million.
Jan Flanzer, a former psychotherapist in the New York area, says mold and air-quality issues forced her out of her 1920s-era Tudor home several years ago. About three years ago she founded a company called Healthy Home Builders that focuses on building nontoxic, eco-minded homes with better air quality.
She and her contractor, Pete Donovan, with whom she co-founded the business, recently listed a six-bedroom Colonial-style home in Scarsdale, N.Y., for $3.45 million that uses recycled denim as insulation, which they say contains fewer toxic chemicals. Formaldehyde- and chemical-free materials were used throughout the home, as were reclaimed oak floors with a UV-cured finish they had tested for indoor air quality by an environmental consulting company. An energy-recovery ventilator brings in fresh air from the outside, filtering it with carbon on the way in.
Mr. Donovan says the 6,950-square-foot home’s air supply can be changed over in less than an hour. He says the home, which was also built with energy efficiency and water conservation in mind, probably cost about 10% more to build than a regular house.
“Although we would like to emphasize and lead off with the clean-air stuff,” he says, “you gotta still lead with the fact that it’s got a beautiful gourmet kitchen.”
Real Estate
High-End Homes With High-End Air Purification Systems
The demand for ‘particle-free’ living spurs some luxury developers to install elaborate filtration systems.
By Candace Jackson
Alongside infinity pools and gourmet kitchens, more high-end developers and luxury-home builders are pitching a new amenity: freshly circulated, highly scrubbed air.
Developers of 155 East 79th Street, a condominium under construction on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, boast that its ventilation technology first cleanses air via a hospital operating-room-grade purification system and then brings the fresh filtered result into each unit. In San Francisco, luxury developer Troon Pacific says it has built several speculative homes in the $5 million-plus range that fully exchange their indoor air at least three times a day.
In New York’s Hamptons, developer Peter Sabbeth installed a $5,000 air-ventilation system with a heat-exchange feature into his speculatively built home that not only exchanges air—it also uses heat from the outgoing stale air to warm fresh air coming in and maintains a comfortable level of humidity as well. The home also includes low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) paints that emit fewer chemicals—he estimates they probably cost a couple thousand dollars more—and other chemical-free building materials. The 5,500-square-foot, six-bedroom, five-bathroom home is listed for $5.95 million.
Fed by such concerns as the occurrence of indoor mold and the growing prevalence of asthma, demand for such systems has grown. Barry Stephens, business development and technology director for Zehnder, a Switzerland-based company that sells energy-efficient ventilation systems, says sales have nearly doubled every year for the past several years.
“There’s a real big conversation in the building industry and building-science community about these things,” he says. “Things are changing rapidly.” Prices range from about $4,500 for a typical apartment-size system and ductwork to about $10,000 for a very large home. A similar system for a large condominium or apartment building can cost more than $1 million, though Mr. Stephens says once such a system is installed, bathroom vents are no longer needed and a smaller HVAC system can be used, offsetting much of the cost.
In large Asian cities like Beijing, where outdoor air pollution is a major health concern, wealthy expat buyers and renters commonly purchase their own filters, spending a couple thousand dollars to do so. According to James Macdonald, head of research for Savills SVS.LN -0.16% China, more new high-end developments are installing building-wide air-purification systems.
Developers and home builders say the growing prominence of green building is also bolstering demand, as energy-efficient buildings are built so tightly they sometimes offer very little natural ventilation when windows are closed. Though draft-free homes use less energy to heat and cool, they can lack the natural coming and going of air and in certain conditions (like use of exhaust fans) can result in a depressurization if a proper ventilation system hasn’t been installed. Mr. Stephens says this can sometimes result in compromised indoor-air quality.
In the U.S., a number of the new developments are in densely populated Manhattan. Though the New York metro area’s air quality has improved in the past 10 to 20 years, according to the American Lung Association, it still gets an “F” grade when it comes to high-ozone days and particle pollution.
Giselle Martin-Kniep, an education consultant who lives in New York, purchased a 1,750-square-foot, three-bedroom condominium at the Visionaire in Battery Park City in 2009. It was one of the city’s first residential buildings to circulate fresh, filtered air to each apartment. That, along with the building’s environmentally sustainable design, were key selling points for Ms. Martin-Kniep, who declined to say how much she spent on the condo. (Listings in the building today range from $825,000 for a 600-square-foot studio to $4.25 million for a corner three-bedroom unit on a high floor.)
Ms. Martin-Kniep says she feels better and notices that she really only feels she needs to open the windows on the nicest days when conditions are perfect outside. She says she has also noticed that friends with cat allergies no longer react to her cat when they come over. “I actually think we take for granted that air quality is good until we somehow don’t have it,” she says.
In suburban areas, a handful of high-end developers of single-family homes are promoting their project’s indoor-air quality. In tony Westport, Conn., a 5,800-square-foot Colonial-style house that will soon list for $2.8 million was built using “passive house” building methods that minimize energy usage with a mathematically precise, airtight building technique, and the strategic placement of high-performance windows to take advantage of daylight and shade. Inside, the air will be filtered through a two air-exchangers, says Douglas Mcdonald, the founder of the Pure House, the company that built the home. Pollen-free fresh air will circulate into living and sleeping spaces; other air will be removed from kitchens and bathrooms, where odors tend to accumulate the most.
“The air quality is amazing,” says Mr. Mcdonald. Paint, flooring and cabinetry will be made from chemical-free materials to eliminate what Mr. Mcdonald describes as harmful off-gassing. He estimates that the speculatively built home, slated to be completed in September, is priced about 10% higher than a traditionally built house.
Troon Pacific, the San Francisco-based developer, has an eco-minded home on the market for $13 million that is built with a focus on air quality, among other things. In the garage, an exhaust fan minimizes the home’s exposure to carbon monoxide, says Gregory Malin, the company’s chief executive officer. To mitigate potential toxins in the ground underneath the home, an impermeable membrane is installed with PVC piping to bring air from underneath the home out from above the roof. There are even vented shoe cabinets near the entrance, which Mr. Malin says helps prevent further contaminants from entering the house.
Selling something as immaterial as air can be can be tricky. “It’s not really a sexy topic,” says Stephen Glasc-ck, president of Anbau, the Manhattan-based developer that is building 155 East 79th Street. Prices in the seven-unit building range from $9 million for a three-bedroom duplex to $17 million for a penthouse. Mr. Glasc-ck says he has spent about $2.3 million on the building’s filtered fresh-air HVAC system, compared with about $1.55 million for an average condo building without fresh-air ventilation.
Brett Singer, a scientist in the Indoor Environment Group of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, says his research has found that indoor-air pollutants often exceed the standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency for acceptable outdoor-air quality, and that indoor air is often worse in densely populated multifamily buildings in low-income urban areas. While air-purification systems and the like can be helpful, he says, fairly basic, energy-efficient ones are typically sufficient. “Most people don’t need to live in a particle-free environment.” Mr. Singer says that research also shows many people forget to change the filters regularly enough for some systems to be very effective.
Installing such systems can require considering a building’s design from the earliest stages. Rick Cook, a New York architect who specializes in “biophilic” design, which is focused on designing buildings with a strong connection to nature, says for his latest residential project, 301 East 50th Street, he oriented the building to take advantage of natural air quality and daylight. “Most design has been kind of obsessed with the two-dimensional pictures and glossy magazines,” he says. “But we experience our indoor environment and spaces with all our senses.” The 29-story limestone building has a fresh-air filtration system that removes 95% of the particulate matter and costs about $500,000, according to the building’s developer, Scott Shnay. Units are priced between $1.7 million and $10.5 million.
In some buildings and homes, air quality is just a small part of the wellness pitch. Paul Scialla, founder and CEO of Delos, a wellness-focused building company, says his firm’s latest residential project in New York has more than 50 different wellness-centered features, including vitamin C-infused shower heads and ultraviolet lights that “aid in sterilizing harmful airborne microbes and irritants.” Prices range from $15 million to $50 million.
Jan Flanzer, a former psychotherapist in the New York area, says mold and air-quality issues forced her out of her 1920s-era Tudor home several years ago. About three years ago she founded a company called Healthy Home Builders that focuses on building nontoxic, eco-minded homes with better air quality.
She and her contractor, Pete Donovan, with whom she co-founded the business, recently listed a six-bedroom Colonial-style home in Scarsdale, N.Y., for $3.45 million that uses recycled denim as insulation, which they say contains fewer toxic chemicals. Formaldehyde- and chemical-free materials were used throughout the home, as were reclaimed oak floors with a UV-cured finish they had tested for indoor air quality by an environmental consulting company. An energy-recovery ventilator brings in fresh air from the outside, filtering it with carbon on the way in.
Mr. Donovan says the 6,950-square-foot home’s air supply can be changed over in less than an hour. He says the home, which was also built with energy efficiency and water conservation in mind, probably cost about 10% more to build than a regular house.
“Although we would like to emphasize and lead off with the clean-air stuff,” he says, “you gotta still lead with the fact that it’s got a beautiful gourmet kitchen.”
We found our home in Yankee Magazine.
Didn’t he lose his career in Yankee stadium?
Idiot, no sympathy for him.
More BS:
n New York’s Hamptons, developer Peter Sabbeth installed a $5,000 air-ventilation system with a heat-exchange feature into his speculatively built home that not only exchanges air—it also uses heat from the outgoing stale air to warm fresh air coming in and maintains a comfortable level of humidity as well. The home also includes low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) paints that emit fewer chemicals—he estimates they probably cost a couple thousand dollars more—and other chemical-free building materials. The 5,500-square-foot, six-bedroom, five-bathroom home is listed for $5.95 million.
Duh, the heat exchanger technology has been around for decades. That whole article is fluff.
[10] Eddie,
At the risk of sounding RINO, there are a few (and I stress, a few) issues on which I (mostly) agree with Chairman O.
However, he is going about his agenda in amateurish fashion, as if he really doesn’t want to achieve anything except to paint the other guy as intransigent.
Sorry if that is a bit too nuanced. I respect the office, and I think he is probably a decent enough person. But I agree with you that he has been the most divisive, and probably the second most feckless, president in our lifetimes. Only Clinton was more feckless but he had simply astonishingly good luck so he isn’t despised. In reality, he did nothing meaningful except to not fcuk up a good thing. Carter, for all his fecklessness, managed to achieve something acclaimed and enduring in foreign policy, but suffered from astonishingly bad luck. Largely the same for Bush-41.
A little light summer entertainment for clot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX5PwfEMBM0
In reality, he did nothing meaningful except to not fcuk up a good thing.
Regarding Clinton, I agree. And it helped that domestic and global conditions were relatively tame during his tenure. But this current guy ordained King is beyond arrogant and entirely reckless. He s.ucks. I don’t appreciate the way he slights my country. And I don’t like the fact that he’s asking the ones he hates to endorse and fund his f.ucked up ideas. Let his min1ons pony up and support their fellow cows and sheep.
[13] Joyce,
I know some cops who are members of NEMLEC. So I am gonna stay out of this one.
In fact, I am staying out of the pool for awhile. Going to check out a place that is supposed to be great for guys’ haircuts but at $26 it ought to be. Then its back to the salt mine. Full schedules lately.
http://www.mrctv.org/videos/morgan-freeman-sounds-racism-and-wealth-distribution
I had to come back with this:
Someone on twitter writes “Can we put an angry Luis Suarez in a room together with Ann Coulter for an hour?”
I’m no fan of Suarez but isn’t that over the top? I think the FIFA ban is punishment enough.
19. Have a complete Honeywell ultraviolet system installed. I’ll find out soon enough if it helps resale…
“I’ll find out soon enough if it helps resale…”
Unless you advertise your home in the back of the Sharper Image catalog…it won’t.
The ‘DREAM Act’ I Saw: ‘It Sure Doesn’t Look Like Ellis Island’
June 26, 2014 – 2:57 PM
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/brittany-m-hughes/dream-act-i-saw-it-sure-doesnt-look-ellis-island
Ellis Island – Circa 1908
http://www.gjenvick.com/Immigration/EllisIsland/1908-04-TheImmigrantProcessingAtEllisIsland.html#axzz35rGip1lm
And the same applies to starter homes, coops and condos. If you have it paid off or locked in an all time super low rates and have low property taxes with rent rising why would you sell it at a bargain.
I have no mortgage on either of my places. I won a big tax grievance on primary and have a tax grievance pending on secondary. If I bought a trade up and did not sell big deal I would just have two income checks flowing in.
My primary rents for maybe $2,500 a month. I got taxes down to $300 a month and insurance is only $200 a month. That is $2,000 positive. Buyers wont pay me a huge prem for my low taxes as a significant remodel or sale of home they can reassess. Granted it would phase in over several year but nevertheless in around 5-10 years they would be back to full taxes.
16.Xolepa says:
June 27, 2014 at 10:54 am
(9) BS on you, Eddy. I refinanced income properties two years ago. Got historical low rates. That increased my cash flow significantly. Why should I sell these properties if the cash flow after tax is much less than what I am making now, which is tax-sheltered income? And, don’t exclude the multis from those numbers. They are a good percentage of sales.
And that is the same for Single families. Many refinanced at low rates when they were above water and remain above water. Why should they sell when they are sitting pretty, mortgage-wise?
No wonder his music stinks he records it in an old onion barn.
Comrade… I don’t understand; what is there to stay out of?
Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:
June 27, 2014 at 11:50 am
[13] Joyce,
I know some cops who are members of NEMLEC. So I am gonna stay out of this one.
I can just picture you (if I knew what you looked like) playing acoustic guitar in an onion barn singing Light My Fire…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dLtiFrykqQ
JJ says:
June 27, 2014 at 1:03 pm
No wonder his music stinks he records it in an old onion barn.
re: 14. Michael,
Were you referring to this article? in your response there, I made it halfway thru page 2 and instantly thought of your post and came back here with the link. Now off to finish the article
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html#.U623_41dXT5
Dude, I don’t know who you are, but thank you.
I’m getting chills reading this, because he says everything I have been saying for a long time on this board. Since I was put down, it caused me to lose confidence in these theories, but I always came back, due to logic guiding my thought process.
I didn’t read about these ideas, I thought about them on my own. Because I was blasted for not having sources, I had to start finding articles that presented evidence for my arguments. Unfortunately, a lot of these articles were from the left side of the political spectrum, so I was automatically accused of being a lefty, and not taken seriously. It’s not my fault I couldn’t find any material from the right to support my theories. Now a billionaire comes out and states the truth. FINALLY SOMEONE SEES WHAT I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO SAY!!! I hope these billionaires start listening before it’s too late for them.
Holy shi!, how many times have I brought up revolutionary France? But I was called an idiot, lefty, and just jealous of the 1%.
“But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html#ixzz35rxoMCrL
Lurker says:
June 27, 2014 at 2:36 pm
re: 14. Michael,
Were you referring to this article? in your response there, I made it halfway thru page 2 and instantly thought of your post and came back here with the link. Now off to finish the article
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html#.U623_41dXT5
37- I’m going to finish reading the rest of this article. Thank you so much for sharing that article. I truly appreciate it!!
37- please go check prior dates on this board and you will have plenty of evidence that I have been saying this for a while now. Pretty much obsessively, because I see this as blaring problem for the economy and society. I don’t need my little girl growing up in a revolution because a certain group got a little too greedy and ruined the economy.
Been trying to explain this to the board, but I was called “pea brained”. If you understood this, you would understand why raising the minimum wage brings more benefits than negatives, but like I previously stated, you are stuck on economics 101, which are basic 100 year old economic theories, and by adhering to these theories and principles, you will never be able to understand how it brings more benefits.
“It’s when I realized this that I decided I had to leave my insulated world of the super-rich and get involved in politics. Not directly, by running for office or becoming one of the big-money billionaires who back candidates in an election. Instead, I wanted to try to change the conversation with ideas—by advancing what my co-author, Eric Liu, and I call “middle-out” economics. It’s the long-overdue rebuttal to the trickle-down economics worldview that has become economic orthodoxy across party lines—and has so screwed the American middle class and our economy generally. Middle-out economics rejects the old misconception that an economy is a perfectly efficient, mechanistic system and embraces the much more accurate idea of an economy as a complex ecosystem made up of real people who are dependent on one another.
Which is why the fundamental law of capitalism must be: If workers have more money, businesses have more customers. Which makes middle-class consumers, not rich businesspeople like us, the true job creators. Which means a thriving middle class is the source of American prosperity, not a consequence of it. The middle class creates us rich people, not the other way around.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014_Page2.html#ixzz35s4pJhys
I see we’ve entered the troll hour here.
Michael 37 & 38: you’re welcome, and you don’t know who I am because I mostly just Lurk :-D
you’ll see some posts of mine if you do a google search like:
site:njrereport.com lurker montville
or same thing but morris county instead of montville
Michael 39: I know, I’ve read enough of yer posts over the past few months :-)
It’s official. Caesar’s to close Showboat Atlantic City on August 31.
http://newjersey.news12.com/news/ap-caesars-says-it-will-close-showboat-aug-31-1.8588907
Tear down that mf’ing casino.
woops moderated…is c@sino a banned word?
The town that privatized. Of course they aren’t counting schools, I suspect. NJ should consider this. http://isil.org/the-town-that-privatized-everything/
Ragnar,
Love that example. I posted at least twice over the years. Once to shut up Fabmax who was running a similar meme that there are ONLY two choices to everything. Just FYI, the police/fire are not privatized… and the schools are run by the County.
They should disband their police; go to a volunteer fire dept; and for the time being I think there’s nothing they can do school wise… unless they secede ;-)
But who will build the roads?
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/06/a-500-mile-free-market-road-in-alaska.html?m=1
[47] Joyce
“They should disband their police; go to a volunteer fire dept; and for the time being I think there’s nothing they can do school wise…”
That’s how it is here. Uber wealthy townships with no local police, volunteer fire, and great schools. State roads suck but local roads kept up nicely–all the local roads near me that were shattered by this past winter were repaved already or are in the process of it.
Ragnar,
Wouldn’t that be awesome if we could privatize like that on the local, state and federal level. But then, the dem0crats wouldn’t have a voter base nor the means to extort money.
Give me a dirt road to my house, then surround my house with razor wire and Claymores. Soon there will be no gubmint.
Off to LBI with a stop at one of the remaining casinos in AC on the way down. Smell you from the beach.
Off to LBI with a stop at one of the remaining c@sinos in AC on the way down. Smell you from the beach.
Pictures do no justice, go see for yourself. The yard is sloped on a 30 to 40 degree angle and the house overall is worn and tired. Like most of the inventory out there, slice the price by 15% if you’re a serious seller.
http://www.njmls.com/listings/index.cfm?action=dsp.info&mlsnum=1413924&dayssince=&countysearch=false
What a bunch of bs propaganda. The author should have pointed out what happens when privatization stops taking caring of the road (at a lack of need) and pushes it on the govt. That’s what I see in that story. This author is complaining about govt, and at the same time he is waiting for govt to do something? Who’s stopping these trucking companies from taking care of the roads themselves? Is the govt going to stop you from taking care of the road? Tell this guy to go practice what he preaches. No one is stoping private sector from taking care of that road. The govt had to take it, because no one else will take care of it.
joyce says:
June 27, 2014 at 11:47 pm
But who will build the roads?
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/06/a-500-mile-free-market-road-in-alaska.html?m=1
Thank you for the good writeup. It in fact was a amusement
account it. Look advanced to mor added agreeable from
you! However, how can we communicate?
I guess that article didn’t give you the chills… cause you didn’t agree with it.
Michael says:
June 28, 2014 at 9:21 am
Correlation does not imply causation…….when Michael read the first article, he neglected to mention that he took an entire tray of ice cubes and dumped it into the front of his pants before he started reading…..
joyce says:
June 28, 2014 at 10:56 am
I guess that article didn’t give you the chills… cause you didn’t agree with it.
Michael says:
June 28, 2014 at 9:21 am
Fast Eddie, Ragnar, and other Ayn Rand’s undies sniffers.
What you gentlemen keep forgetting is as it was said in a well known play ” The fault dear Brutus lies not in the stars, but in us as we are the underling”.
I’m may be too cynical, but all of you are too damn naive. Your fantasy driven Ayn Rand undies worshiping world would become Lord of the Flies in 15 minutes and all of you become “piggie”.
Enjoy,
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/jeb-bush-forms-new-company-and-gets-privatized-disaster-response-business
http://www.afn.org/~iguana/archives/2002_03/20020314.html
Hey Godzilla,
There are eight levels of control that must be obtained before you are able to create a social state, according to Saul Alinsky. The first is the most important. Obama writes about him in his books.
1) Healthcare – Control healthcare and you control the people.
2) Poverty – Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.
3) Debt – Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.
4) Gun Control – Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state.
5) Welfare – Take control of every aspect of their lives. (Food, Housing, and Income)
6) Education – Take control of what people read and listen to take control of
what children learn in school.
7) Religion – Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools.
8) Class Warfare – Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will
cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.
Any Questions?
Fast Eddie:
Look over here, look over here (Benghazi,Immigration, Voter Fraud). Don’t look here, don’t look here (Corporate Welfare – Military/Agricultural/Financial Industries).
Of all the issues you talk about ALL are PR “don’t look over here/ look over here moments”.
Enjoy,
http://youtu.be/5IGBKu6qM7Y
Godzilla,
First, the whole Bush family is scum and deserve a public flogging. Second, the article says nothing about whether or not that company has any government contracts. The implication is that they will get govt. contracts very soon; am I correct? If I am correct, who is going to “give” them the contract ?… Will it be various individuals voluntarily giving their money for certain services, or will it be the government forcefully taking money from everyone and giving it to Bush Co.?
The article about Sandy Springs is not an example of “privatization”; it is about outsourcing or subcontracting. It is a fractional step in the correct direction.
Maywood, CA
The number of people it now has on its payroll? A big, fat zero.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-us-town-that-outsourced-everything-2036929.html
Maywood’s cash-strapped city council decided to respond to its myriad problems with a revolutionary initiative: it voted to contract out every single public service the city once provided, from the management of parks and libraries, to the book-keeping at City Hall, to the running of its police department.
Godzilla,
Admire your King! Champion his causes! Endorse and pay for your ideology out of your own pocket! Why do you defend your majesty by talking about other politicians? Aren’t you strong enough to stand on your own merits? Or, perhaps you believe the F.uhrer isn’t strong enough to stand on his own. He makes that case very well every day. C’mon, let it out, be truthful. For the first time in your life, say, “I’m weak, I’m l1beral and I’m proud!” Let’s stand and applaud as we watch you defend one of your long-standing beliefs: http://tinyurl.com/kpcj52v
Everybody on the Bojangles side = take them out and shoot them
Everybody on the Bush side = take them out and shoot them.
They are one and the same. They are working from the same playbook. They both benefit when they play their idiotic games. The leaders of both sides are laughing at us.
None of this ends until these people start taking bullets to the head.
Look at the Patriot Act. It’s the shining example of how politicians from opposite camps can mysteriously “come together at times of national crisis”.
Bullshit. They come together at times when the opportunity presents itself to take away personal freedoms and further subjugate the sheeple.
Booyah!
http://nypost.com/2014/06/28/the-return-of-the-worlds-most-dangerous-theme-park/