In Chicago, the NCO staff recently visited the sales center for the tallest residential building in the world being built called The Spire. I just read that to combat this real estate market, "Irish developer Garrett Kelleher is catering to investors by offering to rent out the high-priced units at a guaranteed 7.5% return for two years." This seems a bit unusual for other Chicago Condo projects. Typically this is seen in lower end buildings and not in luxury high rises but it may be a good lure to bring in buyers to the building. I am sure there will be a high demand to live in this building because the units are incredible. So far over 30% of the Chicago condo units in this building have been sold and over half of these buyers are International condo buyers.

The interesting thing to note is that this investment packages is not being advertised or heavily offered in the US and is being pushed overseas. With the current value of the dollar, US real estate is still a very attractive investment for International buyers and if they can build an income stream right away from that investment, it becomes even mroe valuable. Sometimes these offerings can be borderline legal according to the SEC, so the developer can't outwardly promote them.  Here at NCO, we have some amazing condos to choose from in the Chicago condo market.  Come check out all your choices here.

 

The Atlanta Condo market offers some amazing choices for buyers right now. After going to college in Atlanta and owning a condo in Buckhead for five years, I know the market down there pretty well.  At www.newcondosonline.com we do a lot of work with The Marketing Directors in Atlanta on some of the premier projects in the city including The W, Trump, Luxe, and more. Condos in Atlanta offer the consumer luxury living at a very affordable cost. The cost per square foot is much less than other major markets and it really is a great place to live. With many fortune 500 companies and a growing economy, Atlanta is also home to the busiest airport in the country. With so many college in town, parents are actually starting to buy condos for their students as an investment especially in this market when there are so many great deals out there. There are many new high rise condo towers especially in Buckhead and Midtown Atlanta.  The nightlife scene in both of these areas is great and offeres hundreds of restaurants and bars. Many new businesses are also popping up all around the new Atlanta condos offering a whole bunch of new job options.  Check out all your options for owning a new Atlanta condo here.

The founders of www.newcondosonline.com Brandon Fishman and Brent Gleeson along with long time NCO Directors David Fingerhut and Kevin Schnitzler have recently launched 3K Interactive, a full service Interactive Agency. www.3kinteractive.com focuses on website development, website maintenance, search engine optimization, email marketing, and more. With 7 new members already added to the sales staff and tech staff of 20 people, 3K Interactive has experienced a very successful launch. Adding roughly 3 to 4 new clients per week from small start ups to large established companies, 3K Interactive aims to provide unparalleled customer service and amazing technology work. The technology staff of 3K Interactive recently took over all SEO efforts for NewCondosOnline and after less than one month of working on the site, NCO saw their Google results catapult to the first page of organic rankings for hundreds of condo related terms.

With sales team members and project managers based in San Diego and a technology staff based in India, 3K Interactive is able to compete on price for just about anything while offering superb customer service with all reps being in the US and available at all times to meet with clients.  The speciality of 3K Interactive is completely taking over the Internet technology for companies. We can be your full time programmers while also running an entire search engine marketing and social viral marketing campaign. We are already working with many of the real estate clients of www.newcondosonline.com for their websites and SEO efforts.  Check out more at 3KInteractive.com.

Trump International Golf Club and Residences comes to NCO

We are very excited to advertise this incredible new project in Puerto Rico. I was actually just done there last month and saw the site for this condo project. As Puerto Rico grows in popularity as a destination for vacations, Puerto Rico Condos are starting to sell across the globe. With 850 units this large project changes the landscape of Puerto Rico and offers a lot of new housing options. This property offers a PGA golf course, Trump Tranquility Spa, A Beach Club, restaurants, and luxury dining. You will notice that this property in Puerto Rico is featured all across our website at www.newcondosonline.com. They are looking for buyers across the globe and so far the property seems to be a large success. We look forward to representing them and helping bring leads and buyers to the sales team for this amazing condo project in Puerto Rico. Check out all the details of this project here.

View all of our International Condo Listings Here

Right now is one of the best times in recent history to buy a new condo. With interest rates near all time lows and developers offering amazing incentives and discoutns to move units, home buyers have a lot of condo units to choose from across the country right now. There are also some great deals to be had right now if you would like to enter the world of condo investing.  We have a great new condo investment club here at NCO called NCO H Club. Our team has put together a great program that allows all kinds of investors from small to large to take advantage of this great opportunity in the market right now. Check out more about NCO H Club right here

http://www.newcondosonline.com/condos-investors/

We are bringing on new offerings every week along with a brand new project in Florida that we have an incredible deal on for 82 units. Consider signing up for free for NCO H Club and learning about our product offerings and how we have helped other investors enter this market.

www.newcondosonline.com is proud to announce that we have launched 8 new feeds today to expand our partnership with Boulevard Media and the city.com websites. All these sites have a special condo section sponsoreed by NCO and our clients that purchase listings on NCO will also receive a listing in the appropriate city on these new sites. This brings us up to over 30 xml feeds. The new sites include:

Indianapolis.com

Detroit.com

Minneapolis.com

Raleigh.com

Salt Lake City.com

Milwaukee.com

Memphis.com

San Antonio.com

Dallas.com

St. Petersburg.com

San Diego is one of those towns where most people think that they can't afford a condo. Growing up in Philadelphia, east coasters think living in San Diego is an unattainable Soutern California paradise. Frankly for awhile they were right. Prices were high and only getting higher. During the San Diego condo boom, thousands of new units went up and now there is somewhat of a glut of condos. This has made builders drastically drop their prices in some areas making some amazing deals out there and making the market affordable to all potential buyers. 2 years ago, you could not find a 2 bedroom San Diego condo for under $500,000. Now even 5 minutes down the street from my house you can pick up some nice 2 bedroom condo conversions or some slightly older condos for the high $200,000's.

The fantasy of living in this Southern California wonder land is finally attainable for most people. I don't think there is anywhere in the world I would rather live. The weather is amazing all year round and the people are incredible. If you are looking for some more affordable San Diego condos, you may want to check out areas such as North Park, Hillcrest, and southern San Diego in Chula Vista. They are some beautiful affordable single family homes down in Chula Vista.

As a San Diego resident now, I am heading down to the Padres game tonight where it is military night. The ballpark downtown is one of the best in the country and I would encourage people to make it out to a game if they make it to town.

With gas prices in some areas crossing $4 per gallon, people can hardly afford to coomute to work anymore. I remember back in 1999, I paid less thsn $1 per gallon for regualr gas. That is over a 400% increase in just 9 years. That is crazy! With the average commute to work beign 30 minutes each way, gas prices are really having a negative effect on people's budgets. The solution is living closer to work. The solution is buying a condo in or close to the area that you work. The majority of people in major cities work in the city and the closest single family home developments are relatively far away. With all the high-rise condos popping up in major metropolitan cities, more and more people are deciding to live in the cities because it is closer to their jobs and where all the action is at night. People like to live where they can work and play as well. In fact one of the slogans for living in downtown San Diego and buying a San Diego condo, is "Live, work, and play."

With gas prices so high and cities booming with development, it is almost a no brainer to buy a condo to live in or as a second home in a major city close to where most people work.  Chicago is a great example of a market where people are snatching up condos across the entire city because their average communte used to be 1 hour and now people want to live in the cities. I feel that the higher gas prices go up, the stronger sales will be for downtown condos.

There are some amazing deals on condos popping up in Las Vegas. During the condo boom out there, thousands of people put money down and signed reservation agreements. Now that the market is a bit softer out there, not everyone wants to follow through with their reservation and some people have even given up their initial deposits. This leaves the developers in a sticky situation because they thought they had the Las Vegas Condos sold and now they need to find another buyer. Usually they need to find another buy quickly in order to move forward with the condo project and go to the next phase on their construction loan.

I am personally going to explore some of these Las Vegas condo opportunities next week. Besides some great investment opportunities, it is always great to have an excuse to go to Las Vegas. There still are some high end projects doing very well such as City Center and Cosmopolitan, but some of the smaller ones are struggling with the market. A lot of investors called vulture investors are going into the Las Vegas condo market right now to pick up some amazing deals. If you can pick up a unit for a significant discount and rent it out for a few years until the market stabilizes, you can find yourself making a nice profit when you sell in a few years.

I am looking at three different condo projects in Las Vegas next week, so I will update the blog when I return about any possible condo deals out there right now.

www.newcondosonline.com has a division called NCO Capital for those of you that do not know. NCO Capital has grown in the last 2 years to be the leader in the industry in connecting buyers and sellers of bulk purchase opportunities in condos. NCO Capital also raises capital for developers. Right now our speciality is bulk closing on units. The groups that we represent typically look for a discount of at least 35% and they will come in and buy a large amount of condo units in the project or buy out the rest of the entire project. We are working on several Phoenix condo projects right now that are looking to sell the rest of their units to investors. We have completed several of these deals in the Las Vega Condo market and the Miami condo market. With the downturn in the market the last 2 years, a lot of developers want to move their condos quickly and NCO Capital helps them do this. We represent some of the larger funds in New York, Miami, and around the country.

It is only 2 months away from getting your taxes in so you are probably beginning to think about. You also may be thinking about buying a new condo because rates are low and prices are low. There are some amazing condo deals out there right now. You should definately consider all the tax implications of buying a new condo or if you already bought a new condo this year, you will also want to be knowledgeable about all the tax rules so you can get as many deductions as possible for your new condo. There was a great article on Yahoo Finance this morning that i would like to reference. It is called "Five HomeOwnerShip Tax Myths".

The Article breaks down exactly what you can deduct for your new condo or house and what are believed to be tax myths about owning a home. Take some time to read it as it may really help you out with your current taxes or give you a better idea about how buying that new condo will affect your tax bill in April.

With my job, I get asked at least 5 times per day about what condo markets I like right now. People want to know where they should put their money in this market. Now that rates have fallen again this week, it is much more affordable to purchase a condo if you have decent credit. I would like to discuss my favorite condo markets right now and why I like them.

1. New York City- New York City, especially Manhattan is the only market in the country where prices and sales continue to steadily increase. They will always be demand for living in New York as it is the most densly populated city in the country and the busiest. Even if you can't live there, rental rates in New York are higher than anywhere else in the country. If you can find a good building where the HOA's are not too high and the price is right, New York can be a great place to buy a condo. Search all the New York Condos that NCO represents.

2. Los Angeles- I am always in favor of buying and investing in condos in areas that have the highest population growth in this country because there will always be a high demand for housing. With the star power of Hollywood, many condo developers are almost giving some condos away to celebrities in order to get publicity for their condo project. Either way, high-rise condo living in Los Angeles is becoming very popular and there are some great projects at much more affordable prices than the homes in the hills in LA. Check out Los Angeles Condos here.

I was just down in Cancun for a wedding and it is amazing how many new condo developments are going up in Mexico. Mexico Condos are really taking over the skyline in many of the large cities down there. On this visit to Cancun, I went into downtown and there are cranes everywhere. I must have seen billbaords and ads for about 30 brand new condo towers all over the place. The prices are pretty affordable however it is a lot tougher to get a loan down there. Generally you have to come up with more money down than in the states. We actually represent a great new project in that area called Capricho. This is a very modern luxury project with 220 units. You can see all the properties that NCO represents in Mexico on our Mexico Condos page.

When you are looking to purchase a condo in Mexico, you can expect to also be courted to purchase a timeshare. Or if you are staying at a resort, you can also expect to be hounded to be a timeshare. I would caution people about this process. I was staying at a resort and the hotel concierge will offer you free gifts etc to come listen to a brief presentation. I of course did not go to this, but some of my friends did and they were kept there for 2 hours listening to all the presentations about the different timeshares they could buy. For some people this makes sense and you get to use it a few weeks a year or trade with other timeshare owners, but I would never personally buy a timeshare.

Yesterday the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 3/4 of a point. This was a surprise cut and it is a huge cut. It was done to surpress the possibility of a recession in this country. Many people are left wondering, how does this cut affect me? Well for condo owners, it could directly help you if you are trying to re-finance a mortgage or if you have an adjustable ARM payment about to adjust. Your payment will now adjust to a lower rate than it would have and your payment will be directly lower. If you are a borrower with good credit, this may also serve as a good opportunity to refinance your loan or purchase a new home or condo. This i actually the best market I have ever seen to buy a condo right now. Prices are insanely low, and discounts and incentives can be found widely across the country. The only thing is that you have to have good credit and be able to come up with at least 10% down in the market to get a good loan.

The reason loan rates drop is because investors were buying up treasuries and bonds. This causes long term mortgage rates to fall. The Fed dopping rates to an affordable rate also makes a difference to millions of people with adjustable rate loans. It was generally a mistake to get those loans in the first place and now these people have the opportunity to lock into a good fixed rate loan.

The Fed dropping rate has a direct effect on people that have home equity lines of credit, including myself. These loans are generally ties to the prime rate which falls when the Fed funds rate falls. For someone with a $100,000 HELOC, this cut could drop their rate by close to $100 per month in some case which is huge for the economy and helps to prevent our country from slipping into a recession.

Having Lived in Atlanta for 5 years and went to college in Atlanta at Emory, I tend to keep a close eye on the Atlanta condo market. I actually owned a condo there in Buckhead while I lived there and it took me a while to sell it because of the large amount of new condos coming to market. There are so many condos being built there because Atlanta has one of the fastest growing populations in the country and they have the busiest airport in the country too. Major corporation such as Coca Cola and Home Deport are based there and more companies are starting to move their headquarters there as well.

There are some great new projects going on in the Atlanta condo market with a lof of big names building them as well. Trump has a great new project there. Trump Atlanta is also featured on NCO. Other large projects going on right now include Luxe in Midtown and Aqua in Midtown. When I was living in Atlanta, Midtown was just getting to be the new hot spot. Now that real estate developers have pretty much bought out all the clubs and many restaurants in Buckhead, everyone seems to be flocking to Midtown Atlanta which is the new area for going out and living as well.

With the housing boom over the last 5-6 years, property taxes in local governments also rose. As housing values rose, so did association fees and local property taxes. The problem with this country is that governments take too long to fix things. As the market has cooled off quickly it could be several years before property taxes anre adjusted accordingly. In some local governments, property taxes doubled in the last 5 years and this is really putting the strain on some home owners. Especially in condos, where the homeowener do not own much land, the taxes need to be adjusted downward quickly.

"I either have to not pay my taxes or not pay my mortgage or stop eating and turn off all the utilities in order to make it, and that would be true even if I were still working, or darn close to being true," Gunyon said. "And I'm not the only person in this situation." source: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071223/taxed_out.html?.v=3&.pf=taxes 

All of us at NCO are calling for the goverment in all localities to look at this situation in a serious manner.

As 2007 comes to an end, I am taking some time to look back on the year and also look ahead for the best condo investment markets in 2008. Right now is the best time to buy a new condo. Interest rates are still low, prices are the lowest they are going to go, and the recovery should begin in early 2009. There are some markets that have a large amount of inventory where you can pick up a great deal on a condo right now. If you are able to sit on the unit for a few years and rent it out, the purchase will become a great investment over time. 

Seattle is one of these markets. With over 40 new high rise projects, there is a alot of Seattle Condos on the market right now and there are some great incentives being offered. The diversity of projects in Seattle is huge and there is something for everyone.  i would also look at Los Angeles. With a surging population and just being LA, there will always be a housing demand in Los Angeles. There are over 30 amazing new Los Angeles Condo Developments being offered right now on www.newcondosonline.com.

If you are open to investing in International condos, NCO is now the largest source in the country to search for International condos. We have some great options in Mexico, Belize, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, and other countries. You generally have to put a little more money down, but you can rent these out and enjoy them yourself. If you bought a condo in Mexico 10 years ago, you would have made out pretty well.  Mexico is our top choice for International Investments right now. Trump Baja in Mexico is a perfect option.

Largest Condo Website has Record Year in Down Market

www.newcondosonline.com is the largest and most visited new condo website in the country. The San Diego based company posted record profits for 2007, even though the state of the real estate market has been poor overall. With Over 1300 clients in 20 countries, www.newcondosonline.com proved that Internet marketing is the most cost effective resource for condo and townhome developers in this day and age. The company provides a free service to users where they can search and compare new condo developments by visiting property websites and requesting free information. Developers and marketing firms pay monthly fees to list their projects on the leading website in the industry.

On their success this year, CEO Brandon Fishman said, “We have proved the success of the Internet for generating condo buyer leads. Developers and marketing firms now understand the importance of website traffic and overall internet exposure.  www.newcondosonline.com is the leading website in the country because our site is simple and easy for our home buyers to use.”

Our President Brent Gleeson is in Phoenix this week on a large media tour. He has interviews with several radio stations and multiple newspapers and magazines. He will be discussing the Phoenix condo market and how www.newcondosonline.com helps developers sell units in this tough market right now. NCO also has some unique bulk buying programs where we can buy a large portion of units and we are working on some of the bulk buys right now in the Phoenix market. www.newcondosonline.com has the largest presence of any condo site in the Phoenix area. There were a lot of new projects planned for the downtown Phoenix condo market but some of those have been put on hold for now to allow demand to catch up to supply which we feel will begin to happen later in 2008. Overall condo sales have dropped off 37% since the peak of the real estate market back in 2005. With slower sales, developers need to use the most cost effective marketing methods as possible. 85% of all people start their new home search on the internet and www.newcondosonline.com is the largest and most visited new condo advertising site in the world. 57 different projects in the greater Phoenix area have chosen to advertise on NCO and developers have been able to sell a lot of units through e-leads generated on their listings on www.newcondosonline.com.   Check out the Phoenix condo market here. There are a lot of great incentives right now being offered by these developers such as free HOA's, no closing costs, free improvements, and more.

I just recently visited Philadelphia and toured all the new Philadelphia condo projects. Waterfront Square was the first major condo project in Philadelphia that was recently completed last year. The project is planned for 5 high rise condo towers and 2 are already completed. The 3rd tower just started construction last week. There are about 30 brand new condo developments in Philadelphia right now with several more recently announced.  Rittenhouse Square and Northern Liberties are the two hottest areas in Philadelphia right now. There are also several projects downtown that only have one unit per floor. We are not currently seeing projects like this in too many other markets besides the Philadelphia condo market. It will be interesting to see if these units get picked up quickly.

There is a great video about NCO out on www.thestreet.com  today.

Check it out here  

Potential Homebuyers Find a Gem in New Site

Our thoughts and prayers at NCO are with the families that have lost their homes and been evacuated from the fires. We are based in Mission Valley, San Diego and safe from the fires for now, but many of our friends and associates are affected.  We hope that we are able to put these fires out ASAP and that people in our city stay safe.

-Brandon

As the founders of NCO, myself and business partner Brent Gleeson always try to give back to the community whenever we can. We regular donate time and money to many charities that are near and dear to our hearts. An opportunity arose that has allowed use to use our entrepeneur skills to hopefully change the face of education in this country. We are now co-founders of a brand new website officially launching tomorrow called www.TutorZilla.com.  This is a full scale online tutoring site geared to students of all ages. We offer math tutoring, science tutoring, Language tutoring, SAT tutoring, and more. With certified expert tutors in each subject, we are working with schools and organizations across the country to help the children of our country excel at learning. We will also be working with children of our fallen soldiers from the War to offer free tutoring for them.  Check out more info at www.tutorzilla.com. The official launch is tomorrow.

NCO has officially launched NCO Capital. We offer several services:

1. We source financing for developers. We currently work with private equity firms and hedge funds that are interested in lending money to developers or being JV partners on projects. We have the capacity to source between $1 million and $500 million for developers. This financing includes bridge loans, mezz loans, and construction loans.

2. Bulk Purchasing- We work directly with investment groups that will bulk purchase up to 50% of the remaining units on a projects and we have investors that will close on the units.

For more information on NCO Capital, please contact Jon Thielen- Our Managing Director of NCO Capital at 619-787-2922 or email him at jt@newcondosonline.com

Finally, developers are starting to realize that when the market is slower, budgets need to be adjusted include the most cost effective advertising. The Internet is the most cost effective place in the world for developers to advertise and it works.  This is just the start of the change from print to online. We actually brought on over 30 new condo developments this week across the world. We also have a brand new luxury condo project in Reno called The Belvedere that had tremendous success this week from an NCO email blast. We have some amazing new condo project in Mexico coming on next week.

Home buyers can now find our banners and advertisements on Zillow.com, LasVegas.com, and Vegas.com.  This is the first part of our new advertising plan to be featured on many large real estate sites across the world.  Stay Tuned for more updates and news from NCO.

Here at www.newcondosonline.com we love the fact that the Federal Reserve just cut rates by 50 basis points. This is exactly what the economy and especially the housing market needed. This will allow mortgage rates to fall which should directly help the condo market right now. It will allow people to buy new homes and also make it easier for people to sell their current homes with more buyers being in the market.  All new home buyers care about is really the size of their mortgage payments. This rate cut will allow monthly payments to be lower and should encourage new buyers and help to stabilize the current market.

It will be interesting to see how this affects current mortgage lenders. Recently some have gone out of business and many have taken some of their loan programs off the market. With rates being lower, we may see some new programs come back on the market and less lenders leaving the market.  High prices condos which have been slow to sell recently might also get a boost, as this should also help the rates on jumbo loans as well.  Good Job Fed!   Long live the condo market!

Seattle Condos- NewCondosonline.com now controls 95% of the online advertising market for Seattle Condos

Through partnerships and advertising agreements, www.newcondosonline.com now controls roughly 95% of the online condo advertising market in Seattle. Now representing new condo projects in Seattle, www.newcondosonline.com started off in Seattle with a strategic marketing alliance with Urban Condominiums.  This unique group works with local builders on an overall online marketing and sales strategy.  Through the alliance created between the two companies, condo builders can now more effectively utilize technology and online resources to capture buyers at a fraction of the cost of traditional media.

NCO President and CEO- Brent Gleeson and Brandon Fishman will be traveling to Philadelphia, New York City, and Atlanta next week on our current PR tour. We have confirmed interviews with www.thestreet.com, INC.com, Forbes Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and others.

We always strive to get the largest amount of buyers to our website through every avenue possible. As the condo market has been soft this summer, it is essential buyers know that there are great deals out there right now with amazing incentives being offered. We enocurage condo buyers to look for financially based incentives such as no HOA's for a year, mortgage payments covered, or less money down. We caution buyers on incentives such as flat screen TV's because they are usually built into the price.  Stay tuned for more info on the NCO PR Tour.

 Condo Conversions have been big in California for the last 5 years and they are starting to make their way into more of California's cities.  Temecula is the latest town to face a large condo conversions and there are mixed feelings about it. See below a recent article on pe.com.

For more California Condos Click Here

source: www.pe.com TEMECULA - Two hundred apartments off Rancho California Road will become condominiums after the Temecula Planning Commission unanimously approved the city's second-ever condo conversion plan Wednesday night.

The conversion of the Morning Ridge Apartments means tenants will have to decide whether to purchase their units or leave. Tenants will have the first opportunity to buy the condos, which are expected to cost $225,000 to $285,000 based on the current market.

Morning Ridge owner Rich Battaglia said tenants will get an additional discount off the sales price. He said it will take at least a year before the conversion can start.

No members of the public spoke for or against the conversion.

Built in 1989, Morning Ridge consists of 48 one-bedroom and 152 two-bedroom apartments.

The complex is in good condition overall, according to a city planning report. Each unit will be renovated before it is sold, and a children's play area will be among the amenities added.

Condo conversions are seen by supporters as a way to provide homeownership opportunities in a region where new-home prices are often $500,000 or more. About 1,500 Inland apartments were converted to condos in 2005, according to a report by real estate research firm Hendricks and Partners.

Critics, however, say condo conversions reduce the number of apartments available for families who can't afford to own a home.

As some of you may know, www.newcondosonline.com has the exclusive feed on several city.com websites. We have just launched a new feed design and all feeds are sending a lot of traffic to NCO and our clients.

Check it out here:  http://www.sanfrancisco.com/realestate/   We have some brand new feeds in 4 new cities launching soon so stay tuned. www.newcondosonline.com now represents 28 new condo developments in San Francisco.  A very popular community on NCO has been Symphony Towers. With units starting from only $380,000 this is a perfectly prices project for this area and is gaining a lot of interest in NCO. San Francisco tends to be a market that runs in cycles in the real estate market. However, the market is still staying fairly strong and prices have not really dropped off. There are a lot of great opportunities and incentives being offered right now in the San Francisco condo market.  Check out all of them here:http://www.newcondosonline.com/california-condos/san-francisco-new-condos