Houston Office Market (Real Estate Appraisal)

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The downtown Houston office market is a hot topic these days. Recent months have seen a flurry of activity, whether it be leases, move-outs, or acquisitions. It’s no secret that the downtown market continues to be plagued by average vacancies painfully close to 20% and stagnant rents. With the thought that things will improve in the near future, investors have been purchasing properties in earnest. The fourth quarter news was encouraging, notably EPCO, Inc.’s acquisition of 1100 Louisiana, a building in which they have subsequently occupied 300,000 square feet. Also, Wells Real Estate Funds paid the highest per-square-foot price in the Houston office market’s history ($286 psf) for 5 Houston Center. Rumor has it that ChevronTexaco is interested in purchasing the remaining vacant former Enron building, while other energy companies have begun to reclaim shadow space downtown.

Unfortunately, the Central Business District’s recovery is anything but a slam dunk. Two major tenants, Burlington Resources and Bank One, are expected to vacate CBD space in 2006 after acquisitions by ConocoPhillips and Chase, respectively. In the same building Burlington is expected to vacate, Calpine Corp. reduced the amount of space they lease and subsequently lost naming rights to the former Calpine Center, now known by its address, 717 Texas.

Questions still remain about when the downtown office market will see a substantial improvement. It did not happen with the recent influx of New Orleans office tenants, as some thought it would. However, strong job growth has many experts predicting a healthy 2006 for the Houston office market overall, and with the positive fourth quarter numbers, it appears the market is moving in the right direction.

To view this entire article and more market research updates on apartments, offices, industries and retailers and to learn more about the services O’Connor & Associates offers, please visit {A HREF = http://www.poconnor.com}houstoncommercialproperties

About the Author

Patrick O’Connor, MAI is president of O’Connor & Associates. The firm, in business since 1974, specializes in nationwide real estate appraisals, research, and state and federal tax reduction services. O’Connor is frequently acknowledged by national publications as a respected source of information on real estate trends.

Real Estate Appraisal – New incentivised schemes for affordable housing in offing: Planning – Newstrack India

New incentivised schemes for affordable housing in offing: Planning – Newstrack India
New Delhi, Jan 14 (ANI/Business Wire India): In its forthcoming mid-term appraisal, the Planning Commission is likely to unveil couple of new incentivised schemes for real estate sector so that it acquires a priority status at times of meltdown and

Butkovitz uses report to hit tax assessing – Philadelphia Daily News
City Controller Alan Butkovitz renewed with a new twist yesterday a standing complaint he has about the city Board of Revision Taxes: a lack of information to explain why property taxes were reduced on some properties. Butkovitz hired a private real

Paulson calls for replacing Fannie/Freddie – Pittsburgh Business Times
Market on the move Rival acquires Ceterus Networks Fannie, Freddie foreclosure pause extended Paulson suggests replacing Fannie/Freddie Judge rules against Grocery Outlet in dispute over use of Lucky name Outgoing U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry

Essential Tips (Real Estate Appraisal) for Real Estate Appraisals

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When you have the perfect home picked out and you know this is the home you want, your lender will require you to have an appraisal upon the request to use the home as security for a loan. A real estate appraisal will help in establishing a property’s market value, the sales price it would probably bring the seller, if offered in an open and competitive real estate market.

The reason the lender requires the real estate appraisal is because they want to ensure that the property would sell for at least the amount of money you require for your loan. Simply put, if the lender should ever have to foreclose, they want to ensure they would be able to get their moneys worth.

A real estate appraisal is not to be confused with a comparative market analysis (CMA). Real estate agents commonly use a CMA as a tool to determine a realistic asking price for home sellers. Although, an experienced agent may come extremely close to an appraisal price with the CMA, an real estate appraisal’s report include a lot more detailed information, not to mention the fact that it is the only evaluation report a bank will accept when making the decision of whether or not to loan money.

When having a home appraised for this purpose you should have an appraiser that is an objective third party. The appraiser should have no financial or any other connection with either party involved. If you have never experienced a real estate appraisal before, here are a few things that are included in the report.

There will be many details about the property in question as well as side-by-side comparisons of three different properties like it. There will be an evaluation of the areas overall real estate market. Any issues an appraiser feels can be harmful to the value of the property. Notations about any serious flaws will also be made; these are all coupled with many other items on the detailed appraisal report.

Real estate appraisals come in two different methods for appraising homes. There is the sales comparison method where the market value is estimated by comparing the property to other similar properties that has been sold in the same area. This method uses the similar properties to make several estimates of what they would have sold for if they had the same feature as the property in question.

Then there is the cost method, this is generally used for new properties when the costs of building is known. In this method, the appraiser estimates the costs involved in replacement of the structure if it were to be destroyed.

It is important to note that you should not depend on an appraisal to help you determine if the home is in satisfactory condition. This is a job for a home inspector. During a real estate appraisal, the appraise may take notes about obvious issues, however they will not test appliances, inspect the chimney or roof.

About the Author

Rory H. Hawkins writes about real estate appraisal and other interesting topics. For more information on real estate appraisals visit us today.

Donald Trump’s Real Estate Tycoon (Real Estate Appraisal)

Donald Trump’s Real Estate Tycoon Customer Review: Where did the tutorials go?
I played the game through all levels of the tutorials and advanced to ‘one-on-one’ with D. Trump… I did okay. Then I didn’t play the game for while and when I went to play it again and get a refresher from the tutorials they were “GONE”! Now the game will not play at all…… No help from the ‘Website’ either.. That is just an order site only. So I would not buy this again.