Escape from Pianosa

A recent report by the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore shows positive signs for job and population growth in downtown Baltimore.

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Well maybe.. Here’s the link to the Sun Article. The community association is not pleased about having a 240 foot skyscraper(?) built on the waterfront..although I’m not really sure why. Right now the site is a parking lot, and there are lots of tall buildings there on the waterfront.

Anyway, this type of development seems inevitable–real estate on the Canton waterfront is so valuable and parking lots are clearly not the highest and best use. And for the city, highest and best use in this case also translates to higher tax revenue.

As for me, I have to see a better argument than “it obstructs some views” to oppose it. I think it’s wonderful that people want to build here. Ten years ago I doubt anyone imagined Canton as such a desirable place to live and shop.

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I was looking for information on the redevelopment of the Oldtown Mall area and YouTube brought me this video short by some up and coming Baltimore film makers. If any developers are looking for some visionary ideas, these girls might have it… Or a good laugh if you’re into dark humor at Baltimore’s expense.

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Not in Baltimore, at least not at the high-end of the market.

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…I won’t be getting my land this way.

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At the Washington Post Real Estate Mail bag, a discussion about whether or not buyers should ask sellers the question: “why are you selling?”

As a buyer, I always ask this question, and you should too. A good seller’s agent won’t give up any info, but you should still ask. Every bit of information that you can get your hands on about the seller and the circumstances of the sale will give you an advantage in the negotiation.

So find out what you can, and if the seller is in a hurry or doesn’t have a lot of options, use this to get better terms or a lower price. Be nice about it, but definitely use it.

Of course if you’re selling, don’t give up this information, especially if you’re in a bind.

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Last night I went to a premier party for Season 6 of The Apprentice. My good friend Aaron Altscher is on the show this year and his parents threw a big bash to celebrate. He was also kind enough to link to me from his site. Something tells me he’ll be sending me more traffic than I send him!

We’re all super excited for him and so far it looks like he’s been playing the game well. Early on, you want to fly under the radar, something that Aaron managed quite well in the first episode. And something that Frank seems to have trouble with. NBC has dubbed him “The Mouth” and you’d be hard pressed to come up with a better nickname.

Being the project manager is always hard when you just met everyone on your team and you have no idea what their strengths might be. And the PM is almost always on the hot seat for the losing team, unless one of the team members screwed up royally, putting the PM in the awkward position of blaming his team for the failure. I’ve never been to B-school but something tells me that “When things go bad, blame your team” isn’t something they teach you in leadership class.

On the other hand, all that fighting makes for some good TV… I’ll be interested to see how Aaron handles this sticky situation if it happens to him.

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For anyone who believes that Baltimore lacks affordable housing… I was talking with my commercial broker last week, driving around Northern Virigina, looking at some potential projects. I asked her about the market there, i.e. what’s selling these days, how’s the inventory, etc.

She said “well the mid range is doing very well, but the lower and higher ranges aren’t doing so well.”

I asked her what the middle range was. $700,000 to $1,100,000!

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Looks like Maryland is going to tackle ground rent at the state level:

Proposals being discussed include:

• Prohibiting ground rent owners from taking someone’s house over unpaid rent. They would be allowed to collect only back rent and “reasonable fees.”

• Phasing out existing ground rents through a system by which they either are redeemed by homeowners or disappear if the ground rent owners don’t register their ownership within a certain time period. Tens of thousands of Baltimore City homeowners pay rent on the land under their houses, and ground rents also exist in Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties.

• Prohibiting property owners from creating new ground rents.

As for prohibiting ground rent owners from foreclosing on unpaid rents.. I don’t mind this as long as they have some way to legally collect what is owed to them, like something akin to a mechanic’s lien that has to be paid off when the house is sold.

As for phasing out ground rents… that would certainly make home ownership more simple for Baltimoreans, and I don’t really see any benefits that ground rents serve. On the other hand, you have to be careful not to do something that would effectively negate the value of ground rents already in existence.

Some people own thousands of ground rents, and to nullify them would be a horrible violation of property rights.

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If I wasn’t going to be on vacation, I would be going to this.

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