RealEstateRama

SAN ANTONIO, TX - November 22, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- The Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas (FHLB Dallas) and Jefferson Bank are pleased to announce they have awarded a $176,445 Affordable Housing Program (AHP) grant to St. Peter-St. Joseph Children’s Home to assist with the construction costs of a 32-bed emergency center for adolescents between the age of 12 and 18 years old.

WASHINGTON D.C.- November 22, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- More than 6,000 environmental and economic development officials, finance and insurance providers, risk managers, planners, attorneys, civil engineers and students are expected to attend the U.S. EPA co-sponsored National Brownfields Conference, April 3-5, 2011, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.

WASHINGTON, DC - November 22, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of the Treasury today released the November edition of the Obama Administration’s Housing Scorecard (www.hud.gov/scorecard). The latest housing figures show continued signs of stabilization in house prices and high home affordability due in part to record low mortgage interest rates. The housing scorecard is a comprehensive report on the nation’s housing market.

WASHINGTON, DC - November 19, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Senior U.S. District Judge Jack T. Camp Jr., pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Atlanta to possession of controlled substances and conversion of government property, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division, Special Agent in Charge Brian D. Lamkin of the FBI’s Atlanta office and Director Vernon Keenan of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

WASHINGTON, DC - November 19, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Exemplary achievements in the development of workforce housing are being celebrated tonight by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Terwilliger Center for Workforce Housing. Four developments --33Comm in Chestnut Hill, Mass.; Capitol Quarter: Phase 1 in Washington, D.C.; Fire Clay Lofts in Denver; and Miller’s Court in Baltimore have been selected as the winners of the ULI Terwilliger Center’s Jack Kemp Workforce Housing Models of Excellence Awards.

NORFOLK, VA - November 19, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Erica Campbell, former senior manager of new media marketing for For Rent Media Solutions, a leading resource for searching apartments nationwide and a division of Dominion Enterprises, has been promoted to director of marketing. As director of marketing, Campbell will oversee business to consumer marketing initiatives for For Rent Media Solutions and its sister site

HELENA, AR - November 19, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Helena National Bank and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas (FHLB Dallas) are pleased to announce that they have awarded a $4,000 Partnership Grant Program (PGP) award to Main Street Helena. Representatives from the banks joined Main Street Helena officials for a check presentation Tuesday in historic downtown Helena

San Antonio, TX - November 18, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- USAA Real Estate Company announces the purchase of Patterson Court, a Class-A multifamily community located at 8112 Patterson Wood Drive in Little Lake Bryan, a master development in Orlando. The property was purchased from Atlanta-based Woods Partners. Details of the transaction have not been disclosed.

WASHINGTON, DC - November 18, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Improving financial conditions and recent encouraging signs from the labor market should set the stage for an above-par growth trend by mid 2011, according to the November 2010 Economic Outlook released today by Fannie Mae's (FNMA/OTC) Economics & Mortgage Market Analysis Group. Despite challenges, including uncertainty on the domestic fiscal policy and international fronts, improvement in economic activity will likely occur at a gradual pace moving into 2011. The economy showed a slight pickup in growth in the third quarter to 2.0 percent at an annualized pace, up from 1.7 percent in the previous quarter, and consumer spending posted the best showing since the end of 2006. Even with stronger than expected economic growth in the third quarter, the group forecasts continued sluggish growth at least through the first quarter of 2011.

PLEASANTON, CA and LA JOLLA, CA - November 18, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Ellie Mae®, the enterprise mortgage origination technology provider for mortgage bankers, mortgage brokers, community banks, credit unions and other mortgage lenders, and Closing.com, the largest one-stop-shop for real estate closing services on the Web, have announced the launch of Encompass Assured GFE™ service powered by Closing.com’s SmartGFE® Service. With Encompass Assured GFE, Encompass360™ users can now create Good Faith Estimates, which are backed by a ClosingCorp compliance guarantee, directly from their Encompass360 systems.

CHICAGO, IL - November 17, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- A national listing of energy efficient commercial buildings in the United States that are included in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ENERGY STAR program is now available on a new mobile phone application offered by LessEn, an Urban Land Institute (ULI) initiative to help lessen energy consumption in commercial buildings around the globe

WASHINGTON, DC - November 17, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Commercial real estate visionaries from both academia and industry painted a fairly optimistic picture of what the industry will look like in the next ten years during 2020: A Vision for Commercial Real Estate, a thought leader symposium presented by the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) Foundation and the Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies and its Masters of Professional Studies in Real Estate Program held last Tuesday in Washington, D.C. Their predictions point to a future in which property management is increasingly important, buildings are carbon neutral and shifting demographics create a greater demand for real estate.“Our inaugural Thought Leader Symposium was an inspiring glimpse of what our industry will look like a decade from now,” commented BOMA Foundation Chair Marilyn Wilbarger, director of property management, City of Key West, Fla. “Attendees heard from the best and brightest minds in real estate, finance and sustainability and walked away with a better idea of how to prepare for future success.”

WASHINGTON, DC - November 17, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Today Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) held an oversight hearing investigating problems in the mortgage servicing industry. The Committee heard testimony from state officials, industry executives, and experts in law and consumer protection, and explored how mortgage servicing practices may have prevented modifications and even resulted in unjustifiable foreclosures.

NEW YORK, NY - November 16, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- J.P. Morgan Worldwide Securities Services today announced that it has been appointed by True North Management Group LLC to provide real estate fund administration services for its True North High Yield Investment Fund II which closed in April 2010 with $330 million of equity commitments and is expected to finish with $500-$600 million of equity commitments.

New York, NY - November 16, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- SL Green Realty Corp. (NYSE: SLG) announced today that leases covering 141,887 square feet with new or expanding tenants have been signed within the past 30 days

November 16, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Mortgage Cadence, LLC, a leading provider of Enterprise Lending Solutions (ELS), Loss Mitigation Technology and Document Services for the financial services industry, announces the direct integration with EarlyCheck in support of Fannie Mae’s Loan Quality Initiative (LQI). EarlyCheck provides users with access to Fannie Mae’s data checks at any point in the lender’s business process. Validating critical data prior to delivering a loan to Fannie Mae provides increased certainty for the lender and ultimately reduces funding and pooling delays after submission

FAYETTEVILLE, AR - November 16, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- A $55,000 Affordable Housing Program (AHP) grant from Bank of the Ozarks and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas (FHLB Dallas) will assist the Fayetteville Housing Authority with much needed repairs to apartments for very low-income residents.

Forecasting the Upstate's real estate market is best determined by local data that focuses on the supply of houses that are entering the market. Real estate is local -- meaning there is no such thing as a national real estate market.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has issued a letter re-emphasizing the importance of strong capital and loan loss allowance levels, and robust credit risk-management practices for state nonmember institutions with significant concentrations of commercial real estate (CRE) loans, and construction and development loans.

March 18, 2008 - Single-family housing starts continued on a downward trajectory in February, posting a 6.7 percent decline to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 707,000 units, according to figures released today by the U.S. Commerce Department. Meanwhile, production in the more volatile multifamily sector registered a 14.4 percent gain to 358,000 units, limiting the decline in total housing starts to a rate of 1.065 million units -- 0.6 percent below the revised January pace.