Handing Over the Keys

A growing number of older homeowners are arranging for their houses to go to charity, deciding it's the ultimate good deed (with great tax benefits to boot).

Full-text article by Jenna Pelletier is available via The Boston Globe, 3.22.09.

Small Towns with Big Money

Businessweek.com worked with Zillow.com to come up with a list of the 32 smallest towns with the highest home values. They set a cap on population of 10,000 people, although most of the towns populations fall well below that. In fact, many have fewer than 1,000 residents. They also only selected one property per Metropolitan Statistical Area, a geographical designation used by the U.S. Census, because otherwise the list would have nearly entirely dominated by towns near New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. (They did, however, include more than one home from the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA MSA because, frankly, it covers so much space.)

Full-text article by Prashant Gopal is available via BusinessWeek, 12.1.08.

Land-Rich Universities Weigh New Options for Real-Estate Development

Real-estate-rich universities are taking advantage of new ways to develop their holdings through corporate partnerships, says a report released this week by Moody's Investors Service, a credit-rating agency. Those partnerships pose a wide range of payoffs and risks, the agency says.

Full-text article by Paul Fain is available via the Chronicle of Higher Education, 6.27.08. [Subscription required.]

The 100 Most Powerful People in New York Real Estate

Article listing the top 100 most powerful people in New York real estate.

Full-text article published by The New York Observer, 5.13.08.

America's Richest Counties

Forbes recently published a list of America's richest counties based on median household income data from the 2006 census. Fairfax County, Va., Loudoun County, Va., and Howard County, Md., top the list.

Full-text article by Matt Woolsey is available via Forbes.com, 1.22.08.