The existing weatherboard house was remodeled by Andrew Maynard architects by adding extension appears as an arrangement of timber boxes. Called the Barrow House, this sustainable residences was located in Brunswick, Melbourne VIC Australia. This Australian timber house have a variety of shapes, which united, create an interior of differing volumes and organizations, providing an [...]
European Coppe in Architecture Awards. The last two decades have seen their transformation from a UK-based programme highlighting craftsmanship, into a major, design-led Awards event for projects across Europe. Following the recent growth in entries – over 70 at the last event – from a wide range of countries, the 2009 Awards 14 will, for [...]
The Shanghai Design Center designed by Studio Twist is located in Shanghai, China. The design challenges the convention of linear segregated spaces for furniture showrooms by introducing vertical spatial variations, creating a fluid and interconnected showcase space within an existing unused concrete factory building. The interior was designed as a series of inter-related 3-dimensional spaces, resulting [...]
ONV house “architectural quality” at low cost that located in Vanløse, Denmark, was designed by ONV Architects. The ONVhouse is produced in six different variations which are based on the same plan solution to reduce costs. It has a furnished kitchen, bathroom, a utility room if necessary, and one or two rooms – the bigger [...]
Designed by JagerJanssen architects BNA, House Dijk Simplicity in barn-style design is located in Blauwestad, Netherlands. The façades and the roof of this dwelling comprise one entity. The skin, consisting of anthracite-coloured corrugated sheets, is worked open in strategic places in order to let the environment in. Maximising this effect, the entire dwelling is positioned [...]
Located in Jersey, Jersey classical design care home was designed by Robert Adam Architects. Robert Adam Architects have been given approval for a new classical design care home in Jersey designed with JS Livingston Architectural Services, for Barchester Healthcare Ltd. This is the second classical healthcare building designed by Robert Adam Architects to recently be [...]
The 24 City Modern Chengdu development focuses on youth market designed by Callison is located in Chengdu, China. Just seven months ago 4.8 million residents in China were made homeless and more than 69,000 killed by the Sichuan earthquake which measured 7.9 on the Richter scale. Less than three months later this devastation was overshadowed [...]
Just as busts follow booms, booms are supposed to follow busts. But there has been no boom, not even a boomlet, to light a candle in the gloom of the housing collapse. Many economists thought that a recovery from the real-estate meltdown that started in 2007 would be well on its way by 2011.
The unhappiness is understandable. But some extension of this pain would not be a terrible thing in the long run.
The latest news shows new-home construction down almost 11 percent in April from March, and housing starts were off by 24 percent from a year earlier. The causes are weak demand in a tough economy and hard-to-get home loans, but also a heavy dose of negative reinforcement.
Negative reinforcement is a principle of behavioral psychology whereby repeated punishment reduces the likelihood that a human or rat will continue doing something. If whenever the rat hits a lever, he gets a shock, he stops pressing after a while.
A parade of shocks on the housing front is delivering Americans much negative reinforcement. And they need it.
An American mystique about home ownership has kept us ignoring history and going back for more and bigger houses. In the recent real-estate bubble, consumers who couldn't afford it desired far grander digs than a simple nest with room for the chicks. They wanted media rooms, wine cellars and hotel-sized kitchens.
And they had the federal government cheering them on. Washington has long let homeowners deduct mortgage interest from their taxable income, thus encouraging bigger home loans. It has kept interest rates super low, providing incentive to borrow larger sums. And in the boom, because homebuyers could borrow more, they could pay more, thus launching real-estate prices into outer space.
Only constant negative reinforcement will change a society that never seems to learn that home ownership is not the low-risk path to wealth and happiness.
In the 1920s, Americans gorged on Florida real estate, some of it underwater. The Depression came, and - ka-boom! - property values fell like a rock in the Everglades.
Shabby lending practices and deregulation during most of the 1980s set off another real-estate stampede. That run-up in house prices went south late in the decade as lenders, chiefly savings and loans institutions, went bust in another financial scandal.
Then as now, scams and the collusion of government had created a market of glass, leaving taxpayers to pick up the shards. Then as now, a busted housing sector hurt the larger economy.
Only it's worse now.
The temptation for government to extend yet more support for housing is great but must be resisted. Granted, Washington can't abruptly stop the federal loan-guarantee programs that currently back nine out of 10 mortgages. They are nearly all that's left holding up the sickly market.
However, the Feds are eyeing the beginning of the end for subsidies that help feed real-estate frenzies and, besides, make no macro-economic sense. One fix already on the way is a cut in the size of home loans that the federal government will guarantee - now as high as $729,750 in the most expensive communities - to $625,500.
Another worthy proposal is to reduce the size of mortgage debt on which interest may be deducted from taxes. The current maximum is $1 million. Eventually, no mortgage interest should be deductible. (Ignore the screams, and arguments, from the real-estate interests.) There is no mortgage-interest deduction in Canada, and rates of homeownership there are comparable to ours, and the economy a lot healthier.
In the meantime, let the pounding bad news on housing change American attitudes toward home buying - and start moving the government out of the business of egging on the worst behavior.
$20,000 in, $262,450 out in four years
Playing the California housing Ponzi scheme does have its rewards. The owners of today's featured property started with a conservative $20,000 down payment on their $145,000 condo. However, three and one half years later, they refinanced with a $337,450 first mortgage and a $50,000 second. That's about $80,000 per year with no taxes. Most wage earners did not enjoy that kind of spending power, and that income was just from the house.
This is the behavior we are encouraging with housing policies designed to inflate house prices to stimulate the economy through mortgage equity withdrawal. When the lenders were the ones covering their own losses, this kind of stupidity was a curiosity, but now that the US taxpayer is paying the bill, Ponzis become a drain on everyone.
Housing has ceased to be a means to accumulating equity through amortizing loan payments and increasing values -- a state of equity sure to elicit peace of mind. Instead it has become associated with consumerism and equity destruction leading to foreclosure and unhappiness.
-$136 .......... Tax Savings (% of Interest and Property Tax) -$376 .......... Equity Hidden in Payment (Amortization) $18 .......... Lost Income to Down Payment (net of taxes) $57 .......... Maintenance and Replacement Reserves ============================================ $2,074 .......... Monthly Cost of Ownership
Cash Acquisition Demands ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ $2,990 .......... Furnishing and Move In @1% $2,990 .......... Closing Costs @1% $2,885 ............ Interest Points @1% of Loan $10,465 .......... Down Payment ============================================ $19,330 .......... Total Cash Costs $31,700 ............ Emergency Cash Reserves ============================================ $51,030 .......... Total Savings Needed
Property Details for 110 BRIARWOOD Irvine, CA 92604 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Beds: 2 Baths: 2 Sq. Ft.: 1125 $266/SF Property Type: Residential, Condominium Style: Two Level, Traditional Year Built: 1978 Community: 0 County: Orange MLS#: S657992 Source: SoCalMLS Status: Active ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Inside popular two story model with greenbelt view. Oversized eat in kitchen, open living room and oversized upstairs bedrooms. Cute backyard patio for entertaining with direct carport access. Great starter home.
House on the Flight of Birds by Bernardo Rodrigues: The house is located in the north side of S. Michael Island in the Azores. The micro-climate of this farmland offers frequent wind and showers so the first design strategy was to block with a wall those winds, offer diverse patios and covered courtyards on the [...]
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Designed by Glenn Howells Architects, Newman University College is located in Birmingham, United Kingdom. Newman was ranked as best University College in the 2009 Guardian University League Tables. A rapid programme has been agreed to deliver a new building which is designed to be an inspirational public face for the University, this will comprise an [...]
The East Sixth Street House designed by Touloukian Touloukian Inc is located in Boston, United Kingdom. A speculative residential unit is designed at the rear of an urban lot where the building code prevents windows on two of the four facades and restricted views limit visibility to the street and to desirable adjacent properties. In [...]
Sumaré House residence for a graphic designer that located in São Paulo, Brazil, was designed by Isay Weinfeild Architects. The plot is not a small one (700 m2), but due to construction (height) restriction laws, the building should not exceed 2 floors, and an underground floor was necessary. There, the architects placed the caretaker’s quarters [...]
Located in Avalon Beach, Australia, Bluff Farm House, strength of the Australian rural landscape demands a strong ge was designed by Richard Cole Architecture. The essential concept of the house reflects the way in which the owner has always used this place: setting up a table on the grass under the shade of the tree. [...]
Centre for Economics and Business Research is located in London, United Kingdom. The once derided Soviet era apartment blocks encircling many former Eastern Bloc cities had started to gain an increasing band of nostalgic followers. Concerns had been growing that the buildings from this era, representing a snapshot of post-war communist architecture would disappear altogether. They [...]
The Zen House designed by Bob Augustine, Architect is located in Weston, Massachusetts, United States On a wooded hillside in Weston, Massachusetts, 3 New England “salt boxes” come together around a common living space. Light, air, & nature flow through the space between these red cedar clad “boxes.” Rock ledges rise behind the house. A path [...]
Designed by Bentel & Bentel Architects/Planners, Cielo, Boca Raton Resort & Club is located in Florida, United States. The design emphasizes the views outward. To capitalize on the reflected light coming up from the surface of the sea below, and as a way of dramatizing the prominent horizon line, all of the ceilings are highly [...]
The Art Gallery of Saskatchewan designed by Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects is located in Canada. Designs have just been unveiled for a new art gallery in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, showing a series of interlocking boxes in a variety of transparencies. Presented by His Worship Mayor Donald Atchison and Chair of the Mendel [...]
Alphabet Building brings new options to small- to mid-size creative businesses that located in Amsterdam, Netherlands, was designed by MVRDV. In an effort to address a lack of available office space for small- to mid-size commercial businesses in Amsterdam, Netherlands-based MVRDV has composed an unusual alternative. The design of the Alphabet Building in Rotterdam is [...]
Located in Tokyo, Japan, The Ice Cubes, complete retail building with frit glass cubes was designed by Jun Mitsui & Associates Inc. Architects. By developing the formal strategy as a series of interlocking cubes the architects were able to massage the complicated building envelop shape into a dynamic composition. This strategy not only solved the [...]
