Blog Assignment Seven

For this blog post I chose to write about French Family Science, Math, and Technology Center at Ursuline Academy. I went to Ursuline and I saw the creation of this building, which has followed the trend of sustainability. This building was the first schol building in the Southwest to be certified LEED Gold, and it is one of the most environmentally sustainable high schools in the United States.

The building was designed by SmithGroup/F&S Partners of Dallas. The building is incredibly environmentally friendly, and includes perks such as 25% lower energy consumption and 50% lower water consumption than regular high school buildings. They even used recycled materials to construct parts of building, with a total of 44% of the construction materials being recycled. The most memorable parts of the building to me were the walls of windows in all our classrooms, allowing the rooms to be lit by natural light, and the courtyard outside where we would get lunch, which had drought resistant plants, which didn't require much water to thrive, and a feature that collected rainwater. The picture below is one from when I went to that high school. The silver structure is the water collecting structure.
https://www.ursulinedallas.org/ftpimages/316/misc/misc_62660.pdf

Blog Assignment Six

In Dallas County for summer 2013, you should attempt to invest in office space in West Plano. They have a vacancy rate of 6.8%, with an absorption of 1,254,000 SF. This indicates that there is a demand for office space in this area and that demand is growing, so investing would be a good idea. Furthermore, according to information found in a market overview of Texas, the price of the office space has been steadily increasing over the past four years in the Dallas-FortWorth Region. This means that there is demand for this space and that the payoff for investing in this real estate is steadily increasing. 

Also according to a Market Overview of Texas, the average prices of homes selling in 2010 and 2011 have no changed, but there has been a decline of 34% of houses for sale, which indicates that the housing market is not a good place to invest in at the moment. Not only that, but sales have been declining and the amount of homes in inventory that could be sold is increasing. For these reasons investing in the housing market in Dallas is not a good decision at this point in time. 

http://recenter.tamu.edu/mreports/2012/DallasFWArl.pdf

Blog Assignment Five

Not all home foreclosures happen to the less fortunate; in fact, the foreclosure of million dollar homes has become more of a common occurrence after the economy took a turn for the worse. I read an article about a former basketball player Robert Smith. He was injured and eventually ended his basketball career in 2011. After quitting basketball and losing that source of income, he suffered from some financial woes which resulted in him being unable to pay the mortgage on the 1.3 million dollar home in Seattle that he had purchased when playing for the Sonics. For these reasons his house for foreclosed upon. The home sold for around half of what he purchased it for, and he was unwilling to leave the premises at first. This was a form of judicial foreclosure, or foreclosure that is settled through the court system. The bank sold his home when it was foreclosed on, and when he was unwilling to leave his home, the new owners claimed that they would simply let the courts deal with it.

http://offthebench.nbcsports.com/2013/02/22/former-seattle-supersonic-loses-20-million-home-to-foreclosure-refuses-to-leave-video/

http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/02/24/robert-swift-seattle-supersonics-foreclosure-eviction/

Blog Assignment Four

My Hometown

I am from Dallas, Tx, and I love my hometown. The city is a great place to live and a great place to have grown up in, with plenty of things to do with family and friends, beautiful homes and parks, and amazing food, restaurants, and shopping. Dallas has many attractions to visit, where you can take the DART train all around the city, and trolleys around our downtown area.

Growth Patterns: In the past decade, there has only been a 1% growth increase in the city of Dallas. There has, however, been larger growth outside the city in the suburbs and in the surrounding counties. This is most likely due to the fact that city does not have much room to grow any more, so the growth is being pushed to suburbs.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27ttdallas.html?_r=0)

Demographics: Dallas is almost split evenly between males with females, with 50.4% male and 49.6% female. The races in Dallas are slightly less equally distribution, with a 50.83% white, 25.91% black, and 35.55% mexican population. The major demographic of Dallas is that of primarily male, white, 25 to 34 years olds.
(http://dallas.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm)

Economics: The unemployment rate in Dallas, TX is 8%, the job growth is 1.2%. They predict a future job growth rate of 34%. In February the national unemployment rate was at 7.7, so the Dallas unemployment rate is average compared at a national level.
(http://www.bestplaces.net/economy/city/texas/dallas)
(http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000)

My Favorite Places: 

Northpark Mall- This is one of my favorite malls in Dallas, which went through a renovation and expansion that was completed in 2006.












Dallas Arboretum- The Dallas Arboretum has a wide array of flowers, trees, and shrubbery, as well as beautiful ponds located throughout the premises.

Dallas World Aquarium- The Dallas World Aquarium is one of my favorite places to visit in Dallas, with not only a huge variety of fish, but also animals that can be viewed, including monkeys, penguins, and sloths. 

Blog Assignment Three

On February 28th we had two wonderful guest speakers, Mike Gentry and Samuel Harrison. They came to speak to us about a major project that they had been working on, with Samuel Harrison being the owner and land developer, and Mr. Gentry the attorney for that land. Both of these gentleman were alumni of A&M and former members of the Corps.

They are currently working on a project in town that is off of Briarcrest and Highway 6. They spoke of the difficulties that have arisen from this project, which are not too uncommon when working on development projects. One of their major problems was involving a leak of an oil pipe after the pipe was removed. Though it was only a very small leak, it is a huge concern when developing homes, and rather than forgoing the entire project they paid $250,000 to replace the soil that was contaminated by oil with clean soil. Another problem that they came across was the town it was located near, which happened to be a historical site. When they were digging the foundation, they were praying they would not find any artifacts as that would put them even farther behind than already and may even ruin the chance of finishing the project. Fortunately for them, none of these artifacts were found.

I enjoyed learning about how volatile these development projects are the entire way through. It doesn't matter if you spend thousands on the perfect location with all your permits filled, if something goes wrong, like an oil spill, discovery of artifacts, even endangered species or plants are found, then the entire project can be halted or even stopped, more than likely with no return of investment. Though I found their speech very interesting, it also made me realize how risky the business can be and that anyone who wants to succeed in it would have to have very thick skin.

Blog Assignment Two

Private Restrictions on Ownership 

Definition: Private restrictions on ownership are restrictions that are not made by the government, but made by developers. They are also known as encumbrances, which restrict your rights of ownership of your land. These include

• Covenants, conditions, restrictions
• Liens
• Easements
• Profit a prendre
• Adverse possession
• Encroachments 

Article:

I read an article entitled "Brazilian Man Attempting Adverse Possession of 25 Million Boca Mansion."A man has decided to try and use adverse possession in Florida to take control of a $25 million dollar mansion. It was listed as owned by the Bank of America in July 2012, and a man named Andre Barbosa decided to take advantage of that fact and file for adverse possession of the home in the same month. His neighbors and the bank are both displeased with this turn of events, and are trying to ensure that he leaves the premise. A neighbor noted that he turned on the lights but was not using water, which would mean that he was not using the home as a permanent residence, which he hopes will help them with their mission to get this man to leave the million dollar home.


http://abcnews.go.com/Business/brazilian-man-attempting-adverse-possession-25-million-boca/story?id=18303253

Public Restrictions on Ownership

Definition: Public restrictions on ownership are government limitations on the rights of ownership of property. Examples of public restrictions of ownership include

• Taxation
• Eminent Domain
• Police Power 
• Escheat

Article: I read an article called "Does the State Have Your Money." This article talks about an increasing problem of states taking and liquidating escheated properties to produce revenue for the state, without following proper protocol. According to one woman, her mother received a check $16,000 from her Uncle after he passed away, but didn't move to cash it for several years. When she did, she was told it was escheated to the state, though no one had even attempted to contact her about the money before then. The state has been doing the same thing regarding real estate that someone may have forgotten about, preferring to keep the revenue rather than attempt to get ahold of the owners.

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/investing/states-grab-unclaimed-property-1.aspx

Blog Assignment One

About Me:

My name is Avery Magee, and I am a Supply Chain Management major graduating in May of 2014. I am from Dallas, Texas. I have never been very athletic, so my favorite hobbies are baking, reading, and painting when I have free time. I am an active member of Phi Beta Lambda and am very involved in that as well.

I hope to learn more about real-estate and how to value different properties from this class. I am personally interested in the contracts and legal aspects of real-estate, as I worked as a lease analyst in an internship last year. I also think that knowing about real estate will be a great asset in the future, especially when buying property in the future.

In the short run, I would like to gain some experience in my field through internships, and find a company that can train me and teach me about the industry, hopefully in the oil and gas field. In the future I would love to become an expert in whatever industry I choose, and move up in the company. I love holding leadership positions and I hope to one day become a leader in my company.

I am the oldest daughter in a family of 4 girls. I own 8 pets, divided among my two households, and I used to own frogs as a little girl. Before I die I would like to visit Europe, see the Aurora Borealis, and hike around mountains with someone I love. My favorite sites to visit online are imgur.com, cracked.com, and pinterest.com.

Favorite Real Estate: The Reunion Tower

The Reunion Tower is my favorite piece of real estate. It is located in Dallas, Texas, and I love it because it is the first thing I see in the skyline when I drive home. When I see it I know

It is 560 feet, and was built in 1978. It has a tall spherical dome, about 118 feet in diameter and is covered in 260 lights. It was renovated for 23 million dollars and is now the home of a restaurant called Five Sixty by Wolfgang Puck. The restaurant inside rotates so you can get a full view of the city, and it rotates once every 55 minutes.