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Today’s big story out of the Dakota comes to us in pieces. The Times has a lavish description of the building’s latest listing, for a 3BR, 3BA asking $29.6 million. The Post reports that the head of the building’s co-op board is leaving the city and wants to downsize his real estate holdings. 

Daily Intel comes to the entirely logical conclusion that the “very private person” who owns the apartment described in theTimes is none other than co-op board head and former hedge funder Bruce Barnes. Above, a look at Barnes’s place. He’s gone for the original 1884 style—with the approval of an aesthetics committee we’re not at all surprised to learn the building has. (In fact, the building keeps a storage room for any original doors or fireplace mantels that residents remove, because they’re forbidden to throw them away.)

Barnes’s quotes to the Times about his fellow building residents are glowing—the sorts of things we’d expect a co-op board head to say. But a source speculates to the Post that building drama is precisely the reason Barnes wants out. According to that source, it all goes back to the lawsuit filed by Alphonse Fletcher Jr. last year, in which Fletcher accused the board of denying his request to purchase the apartment next to his as part of a building pattern of mistreatment of minorities. The apartment in question has since sold for $5.45 million. But perhaps the drama didn’t end with the closing.

This story was originally published by Curbed.

NEW YORK (CNN) – Renting used to be cheaper than buying, but in many U.S. cities that’s no longer the case, as rents continue to climb and home prices stagnate.

While asking prices for homes declined 0.7 percent over the past 12 months through March, rents rose 5 percent, according to a report released Thursday by real estate listing site Trulia.

The median rent for all types of rental homes hit $1,350 a month in March, up from a median of $1,285 a month 12 months ago, Trulia reported.

“Buying a home is more affordable than renting now in almost every part of the United States,” said Jed Kolko, chief economist for Trulia.

Several metro areas recorded double-digit percentage increases in rental rates.

In Sarasota, FL., the average rent jumped 12.9 percent year-over-year, the biggest increase of any of the 100 largest metro areas Trulia surveyed. Miami and San Francisco saw the next biggest increases, with rent hikes of 12.1 percent and 11.1 percent, respectively.

The metro areas that sustained the highest rent increases were a decidedly mixed bag, but obviously shared one factor: rising demand for a limited supply of rental units.

The national vacancy rate for apartments fell 0.3 percentage points during the first quarter to 4.9 percent, its lowest point since late 2001, according to a separate report from Reis Inc., a real estate research firm. With such limited availability, it has put pressure on rentals of all types.

In cities like Miami that were hit hard by the housing bust and recorded a high number of foreclosures, all of the displaced residents have to live somewhere.

“A lot of people who were owners lost their homes in the bust in these places,” said Kolko. Many of them turned to the rental market, boosting demand and driving up rents, he said.

Other cities have put constraints on the construction of new multi-family housing, thereby limiting supply. For example, in San Francisco, where the median rent is a whopping $2,625, there are few tracts of land available to develop, raising demand for housing and pushing rents there higher.

Several Rust-Belt cities also saw large rent increases in the past year, including Indianapolis, where rents went up 9.7 percent, and Columbus, OH, where they jumped 9.3 percent.

These cities have seen big gains in the industrial sector, which have led to a growing number of jobs and higher rents, said Kolko.

As hiring levels off, he does not expect the big rent increases to continue.

Meanwhile, asking prices for homes nationwide crept lower over the past 12 months, according to Trulia.

That, along with record low mortgage rates, has made buying a home more affordable than it’s ever been and a bargain compared to renting. However, many Americans will not be able to seize this historic opportunity to become homeowners, said Kolko.

Unemployed, too broke to come up with a down payment or with credit scores too battered to qualify for a mortgage, many people simply cannot qualify to buy a home right now, according to Kolko

With fewer consumers able to make the leap into home ownership, rents could continue to climb higher, he said.

Copyright 2012 CNN. All rights reserved.

(c) 2012, The Washington Post.

Of the many categories of waste in American politics, consider the resources that go into cable-TV live shots. Thousands of barrels of fossil fuel are expended hauling a person to where the cameras are or a camera to where the person is.

James Carville and Mary Matalin are examples of an apparently better way. A new cable-news luxury allows them to comment, live on CNN, whether the topic is exploding oil rigs and imploding candidacies, without ever leaving the splendor of their New Orleans homestead.

“We’d have to hire a crew in our Gulf Coast bureau every time,” said Sam Feist, CNN’s Washington bureau chief. “These things take a lot of time and advance planning. It’s not something you can do on the spur of the moment.” Now he can, with the flip of a switch.

For professional political talkers, a cable-news contract used to be the ultimate. The residuals were limousine rides, paychecks, e-mails from names not heard from since homeroom. But D.C. greenrooms can feel stifling — a windowless, schmooze-or-be-schmoozed cell.

Sure, the power schlep is still a fun ride for some, but what if you could have the power without the schlep? So far, half a dozen on-air commentators are getting the upgrade of in-home cameras. This is just the beginning.

In the Carville-Matalin house, CNN’s team of techies mounted a smallish camera — called a Cisco link — that gets steered and focused by engineers in D.C. or Atlanta or Hong Kong or whichever CNN nerve center has booked either half of the power couple.

“This is an option that turns out to be cost-effective and also smart for the contributor and the network,” Feist said.

It’s also awesome, or “inexpressibly gratifying,” Matalin said in an e-mail. Then she found some words to express it, “For us personally, the system allows us to be available when CNN needs us without having to miss out on our kid’s many happenings.” On that day, for example, she had her daughter Matty’s induction into the National Honor Society to attend and a school dance to chaperone that weekend. The work-family balance, thus, can finally teeter in the family direction.

“It eliminates travel time, set-up time and all the rigmarole that attends any segment, no matter how short,” she wrote. “Bottom line: I love love love Cisco.”

Their opposites-attract back story is seen here and there in their backdrop. His-and-her items include a speckled, white end table (Mary) and an autographed LSU football helmet (James). Bookshelves are stocked and curtains are drawn in their pundit cave. In many ways, it’s like the typical man cave, where a suburban dad could dial in rants to WFAN, except now the sport is politics and the analysis is more polite.

Some pundits have a camera peering into a Harvard office (CNN’s David Gergen) or Philly radio studio (MSNBC’s Michael Smerconish). That’s too formal, with none of the same pundit-to-public intimacy — or pundit-to-pundit status differentials. When ranking perks, it’s only luxurious if the cameras allow the commentator to maintain proximity to a patch of green. And a bed. And a fridge — and not the green-room mini-fridge that holds all the diet Dr Peppers.

Cisco newcomer Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary, recently welcomed a CNN-paid crew to his house in Westchester County, N.Y. “Considering they invaded my property to build a studio, it was a smallish invasion with smallish equipment,” he said. In their wake, they left a little camera that “hibernates into one position,” some glaring lights, and a white X made of tape on the floor — his mark to stay in frame.

Shelby West Commerce Center.

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — The hangover appears to be lifting for the Birmingham area’s commercial real estate industry.

That’s the underlying message of EGS Commercial Real Estate Inc.‘s just-published “2012 Annual Market Report,” which provides a year-end snapshot and assessment of Birmingham’s industrial, office and retail markets. The report is closely followed in commercial real estate circles.

With the lingering efforts of the economic downturn that hit the real estate industry particularly hard, one wouldn’t expect the EGS report to be full of sunshine and rainbows. But the progress shown in the last year in the sector is an encouraging sign for all three property types, EGS officials said.

Here is a rundown of the report, mailed to real estate professionals and clients, and what EGS experts had to say.

Retail sector

By the numbers: Birmingham’s retail market was the definition of “flat” for 2011, ending the year with 87.6 occupancy, which is exactly where it began the year. The average rental rate of $15.27 per square foot per year was actually a little lower than the $15.77 a year ago.

That’s not to say there was no activity. Some submarkets posted higher vacancies — led by a net loss of 93,000 square feet in the western area (Fairfield, Hueytown, Bessemer, Pleasant Grove, McCalla) — while others posted gains in occupancy, led by the 18,125-square-foot net gain in the U.S. 280 market. The U.S. 31 South submarket (Pelham, Alabaster, Helena, Calera) was the only one with occupancy over 90 percent, ending the year at 94.6 percent.

The expert: Emris Graham, senior vice president over retail at EGS

Assessment of 2011: “The occupancy in the Birmingham market was flat last year from a percentage standpoint. We actually had a negative absorption in 2011 of about 144,000 square feet. In the eastern submarket the negative absorption in 2011 was primarily due to a grocery store space and another big box space becoming vacant during the year. Both of these spaces were in Trussville and totaled almost 75,000 square feet. Likewise in the western market, two boxes totaling 84,000 square feet accounted for the majority of the negative absorption last year.

Prediction for 2012: “I think we will see a slow but steady increase and we will end the year a little bit more positive than last year. I think things are picking up generally in the economy along with retail sales and we will see some growth from that. Other than the Brookwood Village Target, I don’t know if we will see any significant new construction, other than a possible grocery-anchored center somewhere in the market.”

Industrial sector

By the numbers: Birmingham’s industrial space ended 2011 with overall occupancy of 84 percent, up from 78.9 percent at the end of 2010. The improvement is encouraging for the sector, which includes distribution centers, warehouses light manufacturing facilities and so on. Rental rates climbed to an average $4.44 per square foot per year, up from $4.23 in the previous year.

The market absorbed 730,127 square feet for the year and only the eastern submarket — Eastwood, Roebuck, Irondale, Leeds — ended the year with more vacant space. The southwestern area — Bessemer, Hueytown, McCalla — had the strongest gain, with more than 390,200 square feet space leased during the year than was vacated.

The expert: Mark Byers, executive vice president over industrial at EGS

Assessment of 2011: “Industrial space finished strong last year and had a good recover. We’re still below the norms, but several of the submarkets improved, particularly the southwest market.”

Prediction for 2012: “Outlook for this year is positive. I wouldn’t say strong, but positive. First quarter numbers are coming in and it looks like there was some modest increase over the year-end numbers. I don’t anticipate or expect any new speculative construction in 2012. One of the big challenges right now is having a sizable piece of land prepared and ready to be marketed.”

Office sector

Morgan Keegan.

By the numbers: Birmingham’s office market took a baby step backwards in 2011, ending the year at 87.6 occupancy– a drop from 89.9 percent at the end of 2010. The average rental rate was $19.44 per square foot per year, up slightly from $19.20 at the end of 2010.

The biggest jump in vacancy came in the downtown market, where there was a net 286,500 square feet of vacated space. The bulk of that was due to the vacated 211,000-square-foot Regions Plaza, which was emptied when the bank consolidated its offices. Developers had plans to renovate the building at the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue North and 20th Street into a hotel, but their plans never materialized. In March 2011, Flint, Mich.-based West Second Street Associates LLC bought the vacant 18-story building.

The expert: Bill Pradat, president of EGS

Assessment of 2011: “If you look at it overall, there was negative absorption of 386,000 square feet, and on the surface that is perplexing. But it really is deceiving because when you look at it 211,000 square feet was from the Regions Plaza being brought back on the market. That kind of distorted things. One positive trend is we were able to chip away at the amount of sublease space available… That was very much a positive trend. The overall occupancy for the entire market of nearly 88 percent is still a pretty healthy market. We have an institutional guy who said the midtown submarket (91.3 percent occupancy) in Birmingham is as stable as any market in which he works across the country.”

Prediction for 2012: “We think 2012 is certainly going to bring more activity. A lot of companies have been sitting on the sidelines getting their balance sheets in order, and there is some good, steady growth out there. There has been no new supply other than sublease space. We still think somebody will build a new building in the midtown submarket (Homewood, Vestavia Hills and Mountain Brook) here…

“I went to a meeting with our counterparts from around the country in Austin, Texas, a couple of weeks ago and when we told people about our downtown ballpark, that was the talk of the meeting. It was really uplifting to have something positive to throw out there and Birmingham be a little bit the envy of the meeting.”

Join the conversation by clicking to comment or email Tomberlin at mtomberlin@bhamnews.com.

Bakersfield apartments filling up fast

BY COURTENAY EDELHART AND ANTONIE BOESSENKOOL Californian staff writers cedelhart@bakersfield.com

aboessenkool@bakersfield.com

| Sunday, Apr 08 2012 09:00 AM

Last Updated Sunday, Apr 08 2012 09:00 AM

Lori Blattenberg didn’t expect to find herself looking for an apartment on her own again.

But because she and her husband are separating, she was at a downtown property management office Friday morning, looking through the listings.

“It’s tough,” Blattenberg said of her apartment search. She’s been online and through the newspaper, up and down city streets, looking for the perfect place for herself and her 6-year-old son.

“To get in a decent area, in a good school district, it’s a little bit higher than what a single mom can pay,” Blattenberg said. She’s looking for something below $800 a month and which, ideally, would allow her son to keep his dog. She hasn’t found that yet, but she has found waiting lists at some apartments.

It’s the same story all over Bakersfield. Apartment complexes throughout the city have extremely low vacancy rates. Those that are vacant are snatched up. And some complexes have waiting lists.

Housing crisis refugees explain some of it, but that’s not the whole picture.

While local foreclosure rates remain extraordinarily high — 328 last month alone — they’ve actually fallen consistently for a couple of years now. Last month’s foreclosures were down 48.7 percent from March of 2010.

“The economy is pretty strong here, so there’s been more hiring, and as people are feeling more optimistic they’re moving out from their parents’ homes and leaving their roommates,” said Marc Thurston, senior vice president, investment services at ASU Associates.

Blattenberg said her parents offered her a place in their home, but she wants her own place.

“They have a house that would’ve been more than accomodating,” she said. “But I just feel like I need to be with my son and he needs his own space and I need my own space.”

There have been waiting lists off and on for the last six months at the Villa Mondavi and Polo Villas apartment complexes in northwest Bakersfield.

Property manager Robin Coleman hasn’t seen a lot of applicants fleeing short sales or foreclosures. It’s generally traditional renters coming from other apartments, but they’re finding a tough market.

“We just don’t have a lot of turnover,” Coleman said.

The local multifamily housing market has been strong at least since last spring, which has given landlords the confidence to demand higher deposits from tenants with less than stellar credit, and raise rents across the board.

Last month, the average apartment rent within 10 miles of Bakersfield was $891, up from $729 in March 2010, according to housing search engine RentJungle.com.

But recently some apartment seekers have discovered they can’t find a place at any price. There just aren’t any openings.

Rafael Gonzalez, a high school teacher of English as a second language, said he’s been looking for an apartment for himself and his two children for three months. But he’s not been finding exactly what he wants.

“That’s because I’m being somewhat selective because of where I want to rent,” he said.

Gonzalez is looking for a place in northwest Bakersfield that will allow his 9-year-old son to stay in the same school district, but also will be cheaper than the $1,500 a month he pays now.

“I’m looking for another location (in the northwest), a little bit less pricey. It’s tough to find,” he said.

Gonzalez was switching tactics on Friday, driving around town to look at apartments during his midday break, because looking online hadn’t netted solid results.

About a year ago, Gonzalez sold his home through a short sale. He’d prefer to buy a home again.

“I have to wait another two years before I can actually apply to get another home,” he said. “I’d rather be paying into a home than be paying rent.”

At Canyon Creek Apartments in northeast Bakersfield, assistant manager Alex Parker said it’s been a busy week. But that’s not surprising to her.

“During the holidays, people aren’t generally wanting to move and uproot,” she said. Post-holidays, people have a little more money from tax returns or because Christmas shopping is long done, and “then it picks up,” she said.

Of the 112 units in the complex, a couple are expected to open up next month, she said. Those currently vacant are already spoken for for next month.

Part of what’s fueling demand is corporate relocations, said Richard Chapman, president of the Kern Economic Development Corp.

“We’ve finally got the economy running on all four cylinders now, so that’s helping,” he said.

Particularly in the oil and health care sector, some of those newcomers are contract workers who aren’t interested in buying, Chapman said.

But even those who want to buy may not be in a position to.

Since the housing market crash, lenders have strengthened credit standards, among other things requiring larger downpayments. That’s put homeownership out of reach for some.

Even if home shoppers have a downpayment and good credit, they’re competing with real estate investors who can pay cash for limited inventory.

The supply of existing single-family homes in the Bakersfield area dropped 7.3 percent to 1,430 from February to March, a decline of more than a third year-over-year, according to the Preliminary Crabtree Report.

However, that is not a true picture of what’s available.

The supply of active listings — excluding homes with contingent offers awaiting bank approval — dropped 21 percent for the month to 583.

Even as inventory contracts, demand is rising, driving the median price of a Bakersfield house up 9.2 percent from February to March to $131,000.

Melissa Baca, resident manager at Whispering Meadows in north Bakersfield, says the 240-unit complex is about 96 percent full, but the few vacancies generally last less than a week.

“I love it,” she said, barely able to contain her delight. “I’ve got 12 applications on my desk that I’m processing right now.”

It’s a far cry from 2008, when local occupancy rates got pretty lean.

“Everybody was getting laid off then and they moved out of the apartments and in with their family,” Baca said.

Her advice to frustrated apartment seekers is to check in regularly about new openings, and look presentable when handing in an application.

“Don’t walk in with your just woke up look,” Baca said. “Now that it’s a landlord’s market, we can be choosy, so you want to be prepared when you go in and dress your best.”

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