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Friday, September 29, 2017
Neal Norman: What it’s like selling the high-end
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Realtor group frets that Trump's plan to eliminate property taxes could harm California
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All Kneel: Football Fantasy Home Near Lambeau Field Is The Week’s Most Popular Listing
Stacy Revere/Getty Images; Google Maps; realtor.com
Driving the most views on realtor.com® this week is an unassuming ranch-style residence. But this otherwise ordinary home is, in fact, a true football fan’s fantasy, thanks to its close proximity to Lambeau Field, home of the beloved Packers. Home prices near the place in Green Bay, WI, where the Packers play have spiraled upward this year.
We recently reported on a similar-style home on the same block going for a whopping $800,000. Now, this week’s most popular listing in the country is raising the stakes, with a $1 million asking price. And remember, this is in Green Bay—not the San Francisco Bay.
In addition to being within leaping distance of the stadium, the house is also in close proximity to a new Packers-themed development named Titletown. Plus, the home has been “professionally decorated in unique Packer theme and sleeps up to 16 people,” according to the listing description. Perhaps a bunch of die-hard Cheeseheads could pool their funds for this pricey pad.
Coming in at No. 2 this week is a one-of-kind design in Joliet, IL, asking $799,900. Built in the 1980s by the owners, the offering is a contemporary standout for the area. “It’s definitely a very modern and progressive home for the time that it was built,” says listing agent Ellen Williams.
We were also introduced to a lovely Waco home that hasn’t been featured on “Fixer Upper,” an intriguing opportunity in New Orleans, and a coastal getaway in Oregon.
For the full list of this week’s most popular places, simply scroll down…
10. 504 S Bonner Ave, Tyler, TXPrice: $129,900
Why it’s here: Here’s an ideal starter home! This charming two-bedroom cottage from 1938 has been renovated with fresh paint, a remodeled kitchen with fun checkerboard flooring, and refinished hardwood floors. The bathroom has been updated and the sunroom features an original lead glass French door.
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9. 1606 Salmon Harbor Dr, Winchester Bay, ORPrice: $325,000
Why it’s here: Meet your dream getaway along the sandy dunes. This three-bedroom condo has direct access to the beach, and the oversized garage can handle all your grown-up toys. So ride those dunes, go crabbing, fishing, or just enjoy long, long, sandy walks.
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8. 3200 Windsor Ave, Waco, TXPrice: $369,900
Why it’s here: Built in 1950, the five-bedroom “Smith Estate” has been meticulously maintained over the years. While it hasn’t been featured on Waco’s own “Fixer Upper,” we did spot some shiplap in one of the rooms. The 3,500-square-foot home sits on half an acre and also has a pool.
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7. 820 Octavia St, New Orleans, LAPrice: $699,000
Why it’s here: With six bedrooms, four baths, and two kitchens, this home can be creatively reconfigured into two units or one large single-family home. The kitchens and bathrooms have all been recently renovated, and the address is close to Audubon Park, and shopping and dining on Magazine Street.
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6. 458 Wolf Run Rd, Portville, NYPrice: $2,100,000
Why it’s here: Great getaway! It’s an upstate rural retreat for those craving a rustic life. Along with a custom-built four-bedroom estate, Hemlock Brook Farm comes with 25 lush acres, a glass-walled living room, indoor lap pool, and a “dream” kitchen. There’s also a two-story barn, indoor riding ring, pastures, two stocked ponds, fruit trees, and seven lawns.
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5. 1162 W El Burn Dr, Peru, INPrice: $489,900
Why it’s here: Where else can you row out to your gazebo to enjoy a cocktail? This custom-built home sits on nearly five acres, and offers privacy in beautiful surroundings, including a stocked pond, rolling wooded acreage, and hilltop views, which can be enjoyed from the balcony, terrace, or patio.
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4. 474 W 92nd St, Indianapolis, INPrice: $545,000
Why it’s here: Bypass the headaches of a DIY renovation and move into this fully updated four-bedroom home. Built in 1954, it was professionally redone by a local designer. Enjoy the massive kitchen with huge island, brightly painted walls, exposed wood beams, and charming enclosed porch.
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3. 2802 Fairhope St, Houston, TXPrice: $1,225,000
Why it’s here: The luxe house owned by the stars of “The Little Couple” captured a major amount of attention and topped our most popular listings last week. Interest in the pristine place is still high, due to its reality show tie-in. Not harmed by the recent flooding from Hurricane Harvey, the property is still on the market.
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2. 4 Eden Ln, Joliet, ILPrice: $799,900
Why it’s here: It’s no illusion in Illinois. Built in 1983 for the current owners, the contemporary design has drawn lots of looky-loos. The architectural three-story sits on five acres, offers natural light on all levels, and has an open kitchen visible to family room, dining room, and casual eat-in area. There’s also a master suite, a guest bedroom wing, and an in-law suite. The penthouse offers rooftop access, and there’s an indoor pool, whirlpool, and waterfall.
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1. 1261 Shadow Ln, Green Bay, WIPrice: $999,999
Why it’s here: Well, a fan can dream! In the shadow of Lambeau Field, Packers obsessives can gather for game-day parties and then saunter over to the stadium to catch the game. Or just listen to the roar of the crowd from the comfort of the couch. The two-bedroom home is outfitted in team colors, and claims to be one of the last available on the street, in the best location, and used by media outlets. The gutsy price speaks to its enviably close spot to the action.
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The post All Kneel: Football Fantasy Home Near Lambeau Field Is The Week’s Most Popular Listing appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.
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Thursday, September 28, 2017
These 6 Desert Dwellings Offer Hot Income Potential in Palm Springs
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If you ever dreamed of opening a fun little inn to bring in extra cash, we have a warm spot to start your search. Palm Springs—a desert destination just 120 miles from Los Angeles—is desirable not only for blissful winter weather but also adorable vintage inns rented out by the night. It’s an awesome Airbnb ownership opportunity and—bonus!—design fans love the Mid-Century Modern appeal of the area.
Is buying a multi-unit dwelling in the desert a savvy investment? Turns out the timing is perfect. What used to be mostly a haven for elderly snowbirds is now attracting a younger demographic in search of Coachella-type weekends and a party vibe.
If you’re in the room-booking business, that means serious cash flow. Even with Coachella seven months away, the average price of a room in April 2018 on Airbnb is $418 per night. Other peak-tourism times in Palm Springs coincide with the film festival (January) and Modernism Week (February).
“We’ve been targeting the driveable market and people (who) come here for pool parties or quick weekend getaways—so far, that has really been working,” says Nicky Faeth, communications manager at the Greater Palm Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We’re seeing a lot of restaurants that used to close down for the summer staying open year-round. Hotels are occupied (year-round) and their numbers are up drastically from years past. We’re seeing a shift from a seasonal destination to a year-round destination.”
In fact, the number of room nights has spiked, according to the destination bureau’s 2016 annual report, which reveals that 12.9 million people visited the Palm Springs area last year.
Despite this year-round hype, the winter season (October through April) continues to be the busiest, says Faeth. “A lot of the snowbirds are here from November for about six months. You’ll really see the entire valley is thriving during that time,” she says.
Here are six Palm Springs properties that could be your next vacation home—and pull in some sweet, sweet income…
1821 E. Amado RdPrice: $1.8 million
Booking info: Featured on the cover of Sunset’s April 2016 issue, this multi-unit beauty—operating as The Amado only since 2014—features a bright-orange door on each of the five units and a whitewashed exterior. Also included in the 1955-built compound are a pool, firepit, and daybeds (all outdoors). Each unit has a small kitchen that includes a stove.
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754 E. San Lorenzo RdPrice: $3.86 million
Booking info: The owners for the past 18 years are moving on, leaving 18 single-story bungalows—each with a patio and kitchenette. Currently known as A Place in the Sun, this 1950s retreat is named for the film of the same name starring Elizabeth Taylor. The grounds include gardens and a saltwater pool. Overnight bookings through 2018 mean good cash flow for the inn’s next chapter.
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888 N. Indian Canyon DrPrice: $1.99 million
Booking info: Currently operating as The Bearfoot Inn, a clothing-optional property with a loyal LGBTQ following, each of the 12 suites surrounds the courtyard’s pool, hot tub, outdoor bar, and firepit. Built in 1956, the property with a burnt-sienna exterior features modern updates like tiled walk-in showers, as well as an owner’s suite with two separate entrances.
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220 S. Patencio Road #8Price: $2.5 million
Booking info: Tucked into a tennis club near downtown Palm Springs, this Spanish Mission-style property dates back to 1930. It currently operates as Old Ranch Inn, taking reservations for eight guest suites, with access to a pool and a short walk to downtown Palm Springs. Each suite comes with a kitchenette.
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200 S. Cahuilla RdPrice: $2.25 million
Booking info: A green wall creates privacy at the saltwater pool for this seven-bedroom, single-family property just off of downtown’s Palm Canyon Drive. Claim the one-bedroom, one-bath house (with an outdoor living room featuring a pergola and fireplace) and rent out the remaining six suites (most have kitchenettes). According to the listing details, conversion to a boutique hotel would be a breeze.
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221 E. Sonora RdPrice: $2.19 million
Booking info: Freshly refurbished with modern updates, including LED lighting, stainless-steel appliances, and fun pop-color accents, this desert-modern property could serve as your vacation home (there’s a three-bedroom, three-bath unit) and still provide income, with the four additional casitas. That it’s only three years old means minimal upkeep for the next owner.
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Levittown’s Luxury Makeover
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When newlyweds Jean and William Heacock moved into their new 800-square-foot home in 1950, it had four small rooms, a carport and a built-in television—just like every other house on its street in Levittown, N.Y., America’s first planned suburb.
Today, that Levitt ranch home has morphed into a 2,700-square-foot Mediterranean-style villa with a wrought-iron balcony and a stone and stucco façade, thanks to a 2006 gut renovation by its current owner, Jeff Moran. Terracotta tilework and 7-foot sandstone columns decorate the living room, and there are three new bedrooms upstairs, including a master suite with a cathedral ceiling. The total cost of the remodel was about $200,000—or 25 times the home’s original $7,990 list price.
“We took the house down to the studs. I wanted to be more comfortable, I wanted to upgrade,” said Mr. Moran, 65, who works for the state government. He said that he and his wife, Becky, a 61-year-old teaching assistant, became the home’s third owners when they bought it for $154,000 in 1994.
Heather Walsh for The Wall Street Journal
When Ms. Heacock and her husband took a nostalgic drive through their old neighborhood eight years ago, she didn’t recognize her old home until she spotted the fire hydrant out front, a familiar landmark. “It’s amazing,” said Ms. Heacock, who is now 90. “You can hardly see the original house there—it’s completely encased in the new house.”
Seventy years ago, the first families moved into Levittown, N.Y.—a community of mass-produced homes built on a 6.9-square-mile chunk of Long Island once planted with onions and potatoes. Between 1947 and 1951, Levitt & Sons built 17,477 homes there. Since that time, most of Levitt’s modest cookie-cutter houses have been remodeled and expanded beyond recognition.
“In the past seven or eight years, the prices have really skyrocketed,” said Dara Crawford, a real-estate agent for Century 21 who has lived in Levittown since 1988.
William Heacock/Heather Walsh for The Wall Street Journal
“A lot of the houses are still on the original footprint, just gutted and completely redone,” she said. “The family up the street knocked down the house and rebuilt it at 2,800 square feet—it’s orange stucco, with a heated saltwater pool.”
Average home listing prices in Levittown have risen 5.4% in the past year, despite a 14.4% increase in supply, according to realtor.com. The average list price of the 117 homes currently on the market is $455,000, with about 5% of the listings priced over $600,000.
A dilapidated Cape Cod-style house on Corncrib Lane was recently demolished to make way for a new four-bedroom spec house, with construction to begin this fall. It is now under contract for $720,000, according to Chris Montalbano, an associate broker and partner in Realty Connect U.S.A., who represents the developer.
William Heacock/Heather Walsh for The Wall Street Journal
“The market is so vibrant now, we sold it based on the plans,” Mr. Montalbano said. “There’s no inventory for new construction in Levittown—the buyers in this particular situation wanted to stay and keep their kids in the schools.”
Levittown was the first of four planned suburban communities created by developer William Levitt. With affordable housing in short supply, Levittown touted a vision of quiet streets and well-kept lawns, along with new schools, swimming pools and shopping districts. Levittowns would later spring up in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Puerto Rico.
The developer’s marketing targeted service members returning from World War II. Veterans could buy the homes with no money down—but only if they were white. Levitt’s restrictive covenants prevented sales or rentals to African- Americans. Those restrictions were later struck down.
Heather Walsh for The Wall Street Journal
The Nassau County community’s proximity to New York City, as well as its affordability and schools, are drawing a diverse mix of home buyers now, according to Shehriar Islam, a real-estate agent with Coldwell Banker who moved to Levittown from Queens in 2015. “I’m a microcosm of what’s going on with other buyers,” Mr. Islam said. “When you go to open houses, 95% of the buyers are from the New York boroughs—it’s much more diverse than it was seven years ago.”
Other families have lived in Levittown for generations. Kevin Magnus, a 51-year-old former clerk at the New York Stock Exchange, bought his childhood home from his father in 2000.
“The house had plenty of potential—I came back here and blew this thing up,” said Mr. Magnus, who spent a decade and over $150,000 remodeling the house with his wife, Kathleen, 49.
They expanded the home from two bedrooms to five, put in a new kitchen, added a porch, and built a backyard gazebo with its own bar and television. When the Magnus’s youngest daughter graduated from high school, they decided to sell. After seven days on the market and multiple bids, the home went into contract for $670,000. “They gobbled it up,” said Ms. Crawford, who had the listing.
“It’s a good community—we have a lot of friends in Levittown,” said Mr. Moran, who occasionally finds an onion growing in his backyard.
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America’s 20 Hottest Markets for Real Estate in September 2017
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We’ve officially closed the books on summer, and the flurry of back-to-school sales and the Facebook posts featuring freshly scrubbed kids awkwardly posing for their big return to classes have finally subsided. So as September draws to a close, we’re taking a look back at this transitional month through the lens of our own realtor.com® data—all the better to take a snapshot of what the housing market across the country is like today.
Turns out, the picture isn’t a pretty one for many home buyers.
As the supply of homes for sale continues to decline year over year, homes are selling ever faster, and for ever-higher prices. For-sale housing inventory fell 1% between August and September, and is down 9% from September 2016 (when there was already a considerable decline in inventory from the year before).
The median time on market for properties on realtor.com in September is 69 days—meaning they’re selling 8 days faster than this time last year. And that’s with a median list price of $274,000, which is 10% higher than one year ago!
In such a tight market, buyers are running out of options, said realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale.
“Days on market and the number of new listings coming to market are lower than we typically see in the fall season, while listing views per property continue to move higher,” she said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the effects of hurricanes Harvey and Irma reversed earlier gains in Miami and Houston’s markets, Hale said: “Views per listing in those markets now show declines from a year ago, while just last month, they showed double-digit increases. Recovery will come to those housing markets, but it will take some time.”
There are quite a few markets, though, where “recovery” is far from being a problem. We took a look at the metro markets where buying and selling activity is still buzzing—where homes are selling fast and buyers are clicking up a storm on online listings. And for the first time since February, our monthly roundup of the hottest markets for real estate has a new champion! Is change in the air?
Well, not so much—it’s more like a minor reshuffle. Vallejo, CA, slid from first to third place, ending its seven-month reign. The new No. 1, San Jose (No. 2 in August), is about 67 miles to the southeast. San Francisco (No. 3 in August), which lies between the two, cemented the Northern California trifecta at No. 3.
(Metro markets can also include nearby towns or cities, so the market of San Jose also comprises Sunnyvale and Santa Clara; and the San Francisco market includes Oakland and Hayward.)
In total, California claimed 11 of the top 20 markets, but cities in eight other states also made a showing: Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, Colorado, Tennessee, Idaho, and Massachusetts. San Diego, CA, moved up four spots to crack the top five. Other top movers in September include Santa Rosa, CA; Boise, ID; Boston, and Los Angeles, moving up seven, six, seven, and eight spots, respectively, since August.
The hot list| Rank (September) | 20 Hottest Markets | Rank (August) | Rank Change |
| 1 | San Jose, CA | 2 | 1 |
| 2 | San Francisco, CA | 3 | 1 |
| 3 | Vallejo, CA | 1 | -2 |
| 4 | Fort Wayne, IN | 7 | 3 |
| 5 | San Diego, CA | 9 | 4 |
| 6 | Stockton, CA | 5 | -1 |
| 7 | Santa Rosa, CA | 14 | 7 |
| 8 | Sacramento, CA | 10 | 2 |
| 9 | Modesto, CA | 12 | 3 |
| 10 | Detroit, MI | 4 | -6 |
| 11 | Columbus, OH | 8 | -3 |
| 12 | Dallas, TX | 11 | -1 |
| 13 | Denver, CO | 18 | 5 |
| 14 | Oxnard, CA | 19 | 5 |
| 15 | Fresno, CA | 15 | 0 |
| 16 | Nashville, TN | 20 | 4 |
| 17 | Boise-City, ID | 23 | 6 |
| 18 | Colorado Springs, CO | 17 | -1 |
| 19 | Boston, MA | 26 | 7 |
| 20 | Los Angeles, CA | 28 | 8 |
The post America’s 20 Hottest Markets for Real Estate in September 2017 appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.
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Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Playin’ for Keeps, Jon Bon Jovi Spends $18.9M on NYC Condo
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Musician Jon Bon Jovi is no longer “Livin’ on a Prayer.” The rock legend is firmly ensconced in a luxe condo in New York City.
The best-selling singer and songwriter recently purchased a four-bedroom, four-bath Greenwich Lane condo in the West Village for a cool $18,940,564, reported the Real Deal.
The high-floor corner residence hits a high note. The apartment is one of 199 units built in 2013, and includes views of downtown Manhattan and the Hudson River. There are also views of New Jersey, in case the musician is feeling homesick for his home state.
The pad includes direct elevator access, a private south-facing balcony, and luxury finishes and details, according to the listing description.
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The interior space includes floor-to-ceiling windows, rich oak hardwood floors, “exceptional” custom millwork, and 6-inch baseboards throughout.
The private elevator opens into a spacious gallery that leads into a 40-foot living room and Juliet balconies. The separate chef’s kitchen features high-end appliances and walnut-paneled cabinetry, and includes a family room and dining area that leads to the private 44-square-foot balcony. The corner master suite features floor-to-ceiling windows, and a spacious, windowed master bath.
If Manhattan isn’t enough of a playground, the building offers all kinds of diversions: With the condo comes 24-hour concierge and maintenance services, access to the private valet parking garage, plus a state-of-the-art fitness center with a pool, whirlpool, steam rooms, golf simulator, and treatment rooms. Bon Jovi can also access a central garden and reflecting pool, residents’ lounge, dining room with chef’s kitchen, a 21-seat screening room, playroom, and bicycle and cold storage.
Not only does the 55-year-old appear to have a keen eye for real estate, he also seems to have mastered the art of the deal. The high-end apartment was last listed in June for $19.5 million, so the rocker managed to score a price reduction as well.
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‘Late Night’s’ Seth Meyers Close to Selling $4.5M West Village Condo
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Late-night television host Seth Meyers listed his two-bedroom condo in Manhattan’s West Village a couple of weeks ago, and already has offers on the $4.5 million property.
“The apartment is breathtaking,” says listing agent Max J. Kozower of Maxwell Jacobs, a boutique operation in New York. “We’ve had a lot of traffic and some offers.”
Aside from the celebrity cachet, we can see the draw of this charming and sunny prewar apartment.
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Let’s take “a closer look,” as Meyers might say. The 12th-floor apartment on West 12th St. sits high up in a 1910-built, full-service building. The 1,213-square-foot space was recently renovated and sports views of Village rooftops, midtown skyscrapers, and the Hudson River.
The living room is huge and sunken, with a wood-burning fireplace. The kitchen is white and open, the flooring is hardwood, and the ceilings are high. The apartment also boasts “immense” closets, along with two bathrooms.
The well-situated, coveted address is right across from the picturesque Abingdon Square Park, and is just a short distance from the Hudson River Park, the High Line, and the Meatpacking District.
Meyers and his wife, Alexi Ashe, a human rights lawyer, bought the condo in 2013 for $3.525 million, did some upgrading, and lived there for a few years. Once the sale is closed, we’re betting the couple and their year-old son will decamp to the 3,200-square-foot, Washington Square Park co-op they bought last year for $7.5 million.
An alumnus of the comedy sketch show “Saturday Night Live,” Meyers made his mark there as co-head writer with funny woman Tina Fey, and also anchored the “Weekend Update” desk.
In 2013, Meyers moved over to take on the role of host for NBC’s “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” which has received acclaim for its nightly skewerings of President Donald Trump. NBC recently renewed the comedian’s contract until 2021.
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Life in the Earthquake Capital of the U.S.: A Tale of Man-Made Disasters and Survival
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Janice Bryant had just gotten out of bed when she heard a thundering boom, like dynamite going off under her feet. Then the ground beneath the modest, one-story home in rural Oklahoma that she’s shared with her husband for about 45 years began convulsing.
The 71-year-old was thrown to the floor as the walls of her home were shaken out of alignment. Her husband, Johnny Bryant, 73, was buried in the bathroom under tumbling bottles of shampoo and cleaning products. Their crystal goblets, long-ago wedding gifts, flew off the shelves and shattered on the hardwood floors of their kitchen, along with mugs, plates, wine bottles, and just about everything else they owned.
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Trapped on the floor by the fury of this earthquake, Janice called out in a panic for her 10-year-old granddaughter. Kerstin, who has Down syndrome, was watching television alone in the living room just as the fireplace mantel crashed onto the floor.
Welcome to Pawnee, OK, which may be the earthquake capital of the United States.
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The Bryants, like just about everyone living in this north-central swath of the state, have been terrorized by near-daily tremors over the last few years.
The mild rumblings usually last just a few seconds, sometimes leaving behind cracked walls or foundations. But the quake that hit the outskirts of sparsely populated Pawnee (2,200 residents) in the early morning of Sept. 3, 2016, was different. It was the worst the state had ever seen, hitting 5.8 on the Richter scale.
And like countless others in the area, this quake wasn’t an example of Mother Nature’s unpredictable power. It was man-made, say scientists.
The near-daily convulsions have been blamed on the oil and gas industry—the very business that has powered the state for a century, lined the pockets of its residents, and kept entire communities alive. Oklahoma, whose most distinctive disasters used to be the tornadoes that routinely rip through its plains, is now the most earthquake-prone state in the continental United States. And Pawnee is ground zero.
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Since local oil operators began employing fracking and horizontal drilling methods, injecting wastewater deep into the earth, the number of earthquakes of a magnitude of 3.0 or above have gone from just 3 in 2009 to more than 900 in 2015. That fell to 623 in 2016, and continued to decline when the state began to limit the wastewater injections, fearing that they were the cause of the quakes.
Yet fast-forward a year, and the earthquakes are by no means over. A 4.2 quake hit central Oklahoma, near the town of Edmond, about 80 miles from Pawnee, on Aug. 2. It was the sixth tremor in just 24 hours. (There were no casualties.) Now not even scientists know if limiting the wastewater injections will be enough to prevent another big quake—or if permanent damage has already been done.
No one in the Bryant household was hurt badly in September last year, although Janice developed deep purple bruises from her fall. Their home, however, sustained about $200,000 of damage and will need to be torn down. They, like many Oklahomans, have filed a lawsuit to help them pay for some of the work. Even when it is rebuilt, the property values aren’t expected to rebound anytime soon.
“Every time there’s a little tremor now, you go gasp, bracing yourself for the next one,” says Janice Bryant, standing outside her four-bedroom house nearly two months after the disaster. Many of the tan-colored rocks lining the facade had tumbled off, exposing the white layer of sheeting beneath. Her chimney was crumbling, as were the stone columns holding up their carport.
“It could happen anytime,” she says.
What is it like to endure such terrifying seismic events on a regular basis, as most people might experience sunset or the morning dew?
Realtor.com® traveled to Pawnee to find out what daily life is like in the earthquake-prone region.
Welcome to Pawnee: A town that oil builtrealtor.com
The town and county of Pawnee were named after the Native American tribe that was moved from Nebraska to a reservation there in the 1870s. The county’s heyday, such as it was, came in the first half of 20th century, after oil was discovered. Black gold is still the lifeline of this struggling town. But many of those who have benefited the most from the industry live in the region’s bigger towns and cities, or closer to the larger oil facilities.
Walking through Pawnee is like stepping onto a long-abandoned set for an old Western movie. It’s nearly impossible to catch a Wi-Fi signal in much of it. About half of the shops in the two-stoplight town are boarded up or vacant. The hospital was shuttered in 2007. A sign says the movie theater is under renovation, but locals say it’s been that way for years. The hotel with the peeling paint and shattered windows has sat empty for decades, say locals.
There’s a small casino a few miles away, a Dollar General store in town, and the Pawnee True Value and Lumber shop, where the September 2016 quake opened up a fissure straight across the concrete floor of the lawn and garden showroom. There’s also a furniture store, a police station, and Subway and Sonic fast-food joints.
Pawnee’s only claim to fame is its native son Chester Gould, who created the Dick Tracy comic strips—and he decamped to Chicago in the 1920s. Today, many of the kids who have grown up in the town move to larger cities like Tulsa, OK, just an hour’s drive away, or to Oklahoma City, about 90 minutes away.
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Click’s Steakhouse serves as the area’s unofficial gathering place. Established in 1962, the restaurant is decorated with cowboy memorabilia: old photographs, chaps, and coiled ropes on the walls. It’s the kind of place where patrons still write checks for meals of fried pickles, heaping plates of sirloin, and pecan pie with whipped cream.
“Everybody’s nervous,” says Mike Hazlip in a slight Southern drawl, after several fellow diners at Click’s ask how he’s been doing. “But nobody’s going to leave because of it.” In the September earthquake last year, Hazlip’s barn caught fire and burned down.
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Hazlip, 61, is a ruggedly handsome retired oil and gas executive. The four-bedroom home he built to enjoy his golden years also sustained substantial damage in the quake.
But like many fellow Oklahomans, including the Bryants, Hazlip owns interests in various oil wells. And he understands just how devastating the loss of the industry would be to the region. The oil business is the largest direct employer and filled the state’s coffers with more than $2 billion in taxes in 2015, according to the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association.
It keeps struggling small towns like Pawnee alive—even if just barely.
Single drills dot the countryside, boring into the earth on farms passed down from generation to generation. And with few other local industries besides raising crops and cattle, families depend on those sources of income.
Hazlip got into the petroleum business as a roustabout when he was just 19, and worked his way up to become the president of a small oil and gas company in Oklahoma City. When he decided to retire about half a dozen years ago, he wanted to get out of the city with his wife, Linda. So they moved just outside of Pawnee proper and built their own personal retreat: a four-bedroom house set on 160 acres (not an uncommon spread in the area) that Mike festooned with ponds and hiking trails.
Man-made earthquakes were unheard of for most of his career. They only became a problem recently, when newer methods were used to extract more oil from the earth. The new methods bring up more brine—toxic, supersalty water—along with the oil. It’s the process of injecting that brine back into the earth that has been blamed for triggering the quakes.
“It’s not that we want to shut down the oil and gas industry,” says Hazlip. “It’s resolvable. The oil and gas industry can do what it has to do, and we can live without fear of earthquakes.”
Why oil production can lead to earthquakesThe problem is the overabundance of brine underground in north-central Oklahoma. Up to 50 barrels of the wastewater can be be produced for each barrel of oil in this part of the state. It’s usually only a fraction of that in other parts of the world. (The petroleum and brine come from a roughly 360-million-year-old former coral reef, called the Mississippian Lime, that sits thousands of feet underground).
That brine—anywhere from five to eight times more concentrated in salt than seawater—has to be disposed of. So it’s injected 1 to 3 miles underground. And when there are many operators pumping lots of brine into a small area, it exacerbates an already dicey seismic situation.
“You’re pushing a volume of water into faults that already exist, and that has the effect of unclamping the faults,” says William Yeck, a research geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center. “If they’re already predisposed to slip, you can actually cause an earthquake.”
And that’s what happens, sometimes several times a day.
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It is likely that many of these earthquakes would have occurred anyway—they would just have been spread out over centuries, or even thousands of years.
Now, the state is taking some action to prevent more quakes, but the long-term success of these initiatives is not yet assured.
Since 2013, the state has limited how much wastewater individual wells can inject back into the Arbuckle, the layer of limestone underneath the Mississippi Lime. About 800,000 fewer barrels of brine are now allowed to be deposited into that layer than in 2014, according to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the state agency that oversees the local oil and gas industry. More than 700 disposal wells have cut their volume of brine injections by at least 40% or more.
And in the most earthquake-prone areas, about 60 wells are on “indefinite shutdown” orders, and about two dozen others have stopped operating or injecting into the Arbuckle, says agency spokesman Matt Skinner. The state widened the scope of its restrictions in 2016 to cover a 15,000-square-mile area of the state, which includes Pawnee.
In addition, Newfield Exploration Company, a petroleum and natural gas exploration and production firm, broke ground in March on a wastewater recycling facility that can treat tens of thousands of gallons of the brine a day, to be reused.
“It’s all likely to help some, but I don’t know how much,” says Rall Walsh, one of the authors of a report on the impact of wastewater disposal in Oklahoma published in the academic journal Science Advances. “We’ve never seen a problem on this scale.”
The cutback in wastewater injections has led to a tapering-off in the number of earthquakes. But the tremors are by no means over, and as the 4.2 quake last month proved, they can still be strong. No one knows how bad the next one will be.
“Even after the well stops injecting water, the water is still in the ground, spreading out,” Walsh says. “That means you can get earthquakes even [years] after you shut the well down.”
Despite the devastation, there are reasons to stayrealtor.com
With few jobs or economic opportunities and now near-daily quakes, why would anyone choose to stay here?
Simply put, it’s not easy to leave. The same factors compelling homeowners to leave also mean there’s little attraction for home buyers—and that means that owners can’t even count on their equity to help them get a fresh start somewhere else.
Property values have fallen hard. The median sale price in Pawnee County was $112,500 back in 2014, the earliest year that data was available through realtor.com. While prices shot up in most of the rest of the nation, they fell in Pawnee to $101,600 in 2015 and to $92,900 in 2016. That’s a 17.4% decline in only two years. The median list price of a home in Pawnee is $160,000—but the median closing price is just a fraction of that, at $40,000, according to realtor.com.
Many Pawnee residents wouldn’t want to leave anyway. This is the small town where they grew up, raised their families, and where nearly everyone they know lives.
“That’s my neighborhood,” says Johnny Bryant, who met his wife in high school, and recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. “I’m going to die there.”
Before the big earthquake, the Bryants would have their daughters, sons-in-law, and eight grandchildren over each Sunday after church for supper. Janice would put a roast beef into the oven before church, and they’d prepare roasted potatoes, salad, and a lemon meringue pie when they got back.
But now that their home is no longer safe, they don’t do that anymore.
“The grandkids don’t really want to go there,” says the Bryants’ third daughter, Trinity Brown, 38, who still lives in Pawnee with her husband and three children.
“My little town is gone if the next big one hits. I’m probably going to lose a family member over it,” says Brown, a community educator for Oklahoma State University. “And that’s what scares me.”
Brown, whose home sustained cracks in the walls in the Sept. 3 quake, has been jumpy and stressed nearly every day since. Yet she refuses to leave the town where she and her family grew up.
“You’ve watched your grandparents work their whole lives farming and ranching … then you watch your dad and uncles do the same thing,” she says. “Home is still home.”
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Who’s paying for wrecked houses and ruined lives?Unfortunately, many homeowners weren’t eligible for earthquake insurance when the earth first started shaking. After all, this has traditionally been tornado, not earthquake, country. Of those who could get the insurance, many didn’t, because of the high premiums.
Trinity’s husband, Jerod Brown, a builder, saw an increase in business immediately after last year’s big quake. But it has slowed again. Many would-be clients simply don’t have the money to pay for the repairs, Brown says. They’re plastering over the cracks they hope don’t get worse and paying for the damages themselves.
Jerod Brown recommended that the Bryants tear down their home and rebuild it from scratch.
“I’m madder than hell,” Johnny Bryant says, as he surveys the fresh fractures snaking toward the ceiling above his doorways. He rolls a marble down the hallway to demonstrate how uneven his floors are now. “Every wall has a crack in it and there’s nails sticking out of my Sheetrock in my bedroom in my wall.”
The Bryants aren’t wealthy. Janice is retired, Johnny still works as the executive director of the United Community Action Program, a nonprofit group that administers government programs for low-income residents. They have about 240 head of cattle on their ranch and grow wheat and soybeans on their land nearby.
“It’s not a matter of whether I can afford it or not. I don’t think I have a choice,” says Johnny Bryant. “I’m worried that the next big one would bring my house down on top of me.”
They filed a lawsuit in February against the oil industry to pay some of their damages. And others in the area are also seeking legal help. In November, Oklahomans filed a class-action lawsuit against the wastewater disposal companies operating near where the earthquakes occurred. The case is ongoing.
“People’s homes are devastated, and no one’s helping them,” says Little Rock, AR-based attorney Scott Poynter, who teamed up with the law firm Weitz & Luxenberg, based in New York, to represent the Oklahomans who have suffered as a result of the tremors. Environmental activist Erin Brockovich, whose story was turned into a film starring Julia Roberts, is a consultant on the suit. “The industry is just sticking their heads in the sand and saying, ‘It’s not me,'” she says. “If there’s a greater earthquake in that area, it could be devastating.”
But with lower oil prices hitting the industry hard, at the same time as the new regulations limiting the injections, coming up with financial solutions “has been a struggle,” says Arnella Karges, executive vice president of the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association. The trade group represents about 60 companies.
“The issue is not solved, and the industry realizes this,” says Karges. “The companies are continuing to work with researchers, regulators, and our state leaders to continue finding ways to reduce seismic activity in Oklahoma.”
The burned-down barn that almost explodedrealtor.com
On the morning of the big earthquake, Linda Hazlip, 58, was jolted out of a dead sleep by the intense rumblings enveloping her home about 5 miles north of Pawnee.
Her three dogs began barking frantically as the picture frames, table lamps, and the stuffed buffalo head hanging over the fireplace crashed onto the home’s hardwood floors.
“It was like a huge giant was out there shaking” the home, says Linda, a thin slip of a woman sporting short brown hair, glasses, and several thin bangles on her wrists that clink together softly as she gestures.
Afterward, while surveying the damage, she smelled smoke coming from the direction of the barn—where her then-husband, Mike, the retired oil executive, stored tanks of highly flammable kerosene, propane, and hydraulic fluid for his tractor.
She was on the phone with Mike, who was a few miles away in his car, when she yelled, “‘I gotta go! I gotta go call the fire chief! The barn’s on fire.‘”
Firefighters had to come out twice to battle the blaze, which rekindled itself after the first bout. Although none of the tanks exploded, the barn still burned down to the ground, destroying about $200,000 worth of equipment, including a tractor, a flatbed truck, and a brand-new splitter for firewood. Two of the Hazlips’ four barn cats disappeared in the char as well.
The firefighters at the scene said the cause appeared to have been an electrical problem caused by the quake. The insurance company will cover the fire damages. But there is no earthquake insurance to cover the tens of thousands of dollars in damage to the porch, the foundation of the garage, and the cracks in the walls in the home.
Since the spike in seismic activity, he estimates that the dream home he built isn’t worth nearly as much as it once was. He’s considering legal action.
“It’s a scary feeling knowing that your house is damaged, and it could happen again,” he says. “The oil and gas industry has been good for Oklahoma. … [But] this area feels like it’s been condemned by earthquakes.”
The post Life in the Earthquake Capital of the U.S.: A Tale of Man-Made Disasters and Survival appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.
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Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Mike Dunleavy Sr. Ready to Pass His Fort Worth Mansion to a Willing Buyer
Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
Mike Dunleavy Sr. made his first foray into the college basketball coaching world when he was hired as head coach of Tulane University’s men’s team in 2016. His hiring ended a six-year break from the bench for the veteran coach.
Perhaps time down on the bayou has made him rethink his living situation. Dunleavy Sr. is selling his house in Fort Worth, TX for $2.3 million. Completely remodeled in 2015, this home offers 5,180 square feet of living space, three bedrooms, and 5.5 bathrooms.
Amenities include a state-of-the-art lighting system, Infinity HVAC system, and a surround-sound system. You’ll see the luxury as soon as you set foot inside, as the entryway features hardwood and marble inlay floors. In the spacious kitchen, there’s a beautiful bird’s-eye maple bar.
Outdoors, there’s a spacious courtyard and spa. Take an elevator from the kitchen to the second floor, or make your way up the spiral staircase, and you’ll find the master suite and two more guest suites.
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Dunleavy Sr., 63, played in the NBA for 11 seasons and is the father of Mike Dunleavy Jr., who had a successful 15-year NBA career of his own.
As head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, Dunleavy Sr. led the team to the NBA Finals in his first season as head coach in 1991. The Lakers wound up losing to the Bulls in the Finals, and the coach never made it back to the finals during the rest of his 17-year run on the NBA sideline.
Before becoming the boss at Tulane, he bounced around the NBA and also coached the Los Angeles Clippers, Milwaukee Bucks, and the Portland Trail Blazers.
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The post Mike Dunleavy Sr. Ready to Pass His Fort Worth Mansion to a Willing Buyer appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.
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