Archive for the ‘Mixed Bag’ Category

Classic TV houses

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Whether it’s the spartan Brooklyn apartment of Ralph and Alice Kramden or the unrealistically large New York City apartment where Monica of “Friends” resides, where a TV character lives says a lot about that person. In fact, sometimes the house is as well loved as the show.

001 Cemetery Lane, “The Addams Family”
Addams family house

Their house was a museum, where people came to see ‘um. The Addams family mansion at 001 Cemetery Lane was filled with instruments of torture and landscaped with hemlock and poison ivy.

The house was said to be inspired by creator Charles Addams’ real-life boyhood home in Westfield, NJ.
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How to Handle Yourself in Court

Custer County Court House, Miles City
Creative Commons License photo credit: dave_mcmt

Having to take a tenant to court, for any reason, is a nightmare for most people. But it’s a process you can survive and even win at if you know what to expect and come prepared. The following list of tips will help you get through a court experience.

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Where Technology Lives - A Look at High Tech Corporate Headquarters

It’s all about the Foosball and the free meals. That’s what people generally think of when you mention the so-called campuses where today’s high tech companies reside. And indeed many prominent companies take great pains to promote their freewheeling culture and the fabulous amenities available at the workplace.

But it’s not all fun and games. In the tech world, green is the new black as leading technology companies strive to make their HQs more energy efficient and environmentally friendly.

And not every technology company is headquartered in a glass-walled state-of-the-art complex. Sun Microsystems, for example, is housed in a historic landmark that’s been painstakingly renovated to look exactly like it did almost 100 years ago.

Here’s a look at where the employees of some of the nation’s leading technology companies work.
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Most Common Mistakes Home Sellers Make

house12
Creative Commons License photo credit: Eponabri

You have a property that you want to put up for sale. Maybe this is the home that you have lived in all of your life and you’re finally ready to sell it and move on. Or perhaps you’ve just recently gotten involved in the buying and selling of investment property and you’re working on selling one of the first homes that you purchased. In any case, you are starting to learn the tough lesson that it’s not that easy to sell a home, especially in today’s precarious real estate market. If you know what you’re doing, you can still a sell a property today for a fair price. However, there are a lot of mistakes out there that people make when trying to sell a home. If you make those mistakes, you’re going to find that the home doesn’t sell or that you aren’t satisfied with the transaction when it does. (more…)

How to Choose a Home Inspector

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Creative Commons License photo credit: gsf747

It’s time to get the home inspection done for your property. You don’t have a home inspector that you regularly use so you’re in the position of needing to choose a home inspector. How do you go about doing this if it’s not something that you’ve done in the past? What rules should be followed in order to make sure that the home inspector that you choose is a good one? (more…)

Celebrities Who Own Private Islands

For celebrities who have the cash to spare, owning an island provides the perfect getaway. Private islands don’t come cheap; in addition to the cost of buying the land, owners have to supply their own water and electricity, create waste disposal and build a dock or an airstrip for access. Then there’s the cost of security: Somebody has to watch over the place when you’re not there.

john-lennon brando mel cptsparrow
nic-cage timfaith gene-hackman robin
curtis branson davidc leo

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Tips for Negotiating a Lease - Buyer

Sky High Apartments.
Creative Commons License photo credit: matrianklw

Whenever you negotiate a lease for anything, you are engaging in a battle between people who have two opposing desires. Ultimately, you aim to reach a compromise between those desires which satisfies both parties. Of course, you would prefer to get everything that you want from the deal but that’s not what a negotiation is all about. Nevertheless, there are certain things that you can do to weigh the odds more heavily in your favor so that the outcome is closer to your original desires than to those of the person with whom you are negotiating. (more…)

Tips for Negotiating a Lease - Seller

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Creative Commons License photo credit: Sweet One

When negotiating a property lease, the seller typically has the upper hand. This is true for a number of different reasons that hold true despite changes in the market that sometimes favor the buyer. However, only a seller with good negotiating skills is going to be able to make the most of this upper hand in order to come out of the negotiation with a lease agreement that is favorable to the seller. This is particularly true during a buyer’s market but is even true in a seller’s market. The art of negotiation is something that can’t be learned too well or too soon if you’re in the market to be selling anything at all. (more…)

50 Fabulous Skyscrapers

Chicago lays claim to the world’s first skyscraper. The 138-foot-tall Home Insurance Building was built in 1888 and was the first building to use steel beams as support. Soon after, builders in Chicago and New York were competing with each other to build the world’s tallest building.

In the early years, the world’s highest building seemed to change from week to week as architects, engineers and business magnates raced to design, build or own the biggest, best and tallest building in their city’s skyline.

It was a race that started in the United States, where the Empire State Building won the race and held the title for more than 40 years after Depression called a halt to the building boom. The US picked up the ball again in the 1970s with the construction of the World Trade Center and the Sears Tower. But in recent years, Asia has thrown its heart and soul to the race: Taipei 101 in Taiwan is currently the world’s tallest building, but Dubai’s Burj Dubai will take the title later this year. And more buildings are in the works. Here’s a look at some of the more noteworthy skyscrapers of the last 100 years or so.

30 St. Mary Axe
London
The Gherkin - 30 St Mary Axe London
Creative Commons License photo credit: .Martin.

Known in London as “The Gherkin”–also as the Erotic Gherkin, the Towering Innuendo and the Crystal Phallus–this 2004 building is London’s first environmentally sustainable skyscraper. Atria between each floor link together vertically and spiral up the building. These spaces function as the building’s lungs, distributing fresh air drawn in through panels in the facade. This system allows the building to use half the energy needed to cool conventional air-conditioned office towers.

The building sits on the site of the Baltic Exchange, which was damaged by an IRA bomb in 1992. Headquarters for Swiss Re, an insurance company, the building is 591 feet tall and covers 516,100 square feet. The top level contains a private restaurant and lounge while the landscaped plaza on the ground features numerous shops and restaurants and is open to the public.

By the numbers:

  • The elevators attain speeds of more than 19 feet per second and can accommodate 378 people.
  • The building’s maximum circumference is just two meters less than its height.
  • 21 miles of steel and 258,333.850 square feet of glass was used in its construction.
  • Each floor rotates five degrees from the one below.

20 Exchange Place
New York
yes, that's a street down there
Creative Commons License photo credit: C R

The fourth tallest building in the world when it was completed in 1931, architects Cross and Cross originally envisioned a pyramid sitting atop a 71-story structure, which would have made it the tallest building in the world–at least for a short time. But the Depression forced the builders to scale back to 56 floors and to eliminate the pyramid altogether. In June 2004, real estate developers Berman and Bruckner bought the building for $152 million. The firm is in the process of converting the top 41 floors into luxury apartments.

2 International Finance Center
Hong Kong
ifc
Creative Commons License photo credit: laszlo-photo

Tower 2 in this four-building complex is the seventh tallest building in the world at 415 meters, or more than 1,361 feet. The complex consists of two skyscrapers, the IFC mall and the Four Seasons Hotel.

Fun facts:

  • The complex includes three garage levels that can accommodate more than 1,800 vehicles.
  • The tower is 56.960 meters wide at its base, and 39.148 meters wide at the main roof.
  • The building is featured in a scene of the movie “The Dark Knight.”
  • Officially, the building has 88 stories and 22 trading floors, numbers the Chinese believe to be lucky. However, two floors are missing: The 14th and the 24th, both of which are associated with death in Chinese culture.

2 Prudential Plaza
Chicago
2 Prudential Plaza Chicago
Creative Commons License photo credit: mrkathika

Its beveled roof makes “Two Pru” instantly recognizable in the Chicago skyline. The tallest reinforced concrete building in the city was built in 1990 and designed by Stephen T. Wright of Loebl, Schlossman & Hackl. The skyscraper has 64 floors and reaches 995 feet with its spire.

Al Faisaliah
Riyadh
Al Faisaliah Tower and Kingdom Tower - Icons of Riyadh - Saudi Arabia
Creative Commons License photo credit: Snap?

Riyadh’s first skyscraper is part of a complex that includes a five-star hotel, a banquet hall/conference center, luxury apartments and a mall. The skyscraper is organized into three blocks that are nine, 10 and 11 stories high respectively and separated by cross beams that transfer the load of the columns onto the pillars. Offices take up the building’s first 30 floors. Inside the golden glass globe at the top of the building is a three-story restaurant. The globe is 24 meters at its diameter.

Below the plaza is a 50,000-square-foot conference and banquet center, which can be adjusted for size with removable panels. Prince Sultan’s Grand Hall, can accommodate 4,000 conference attendees or 2,800 diners.

American Radiator Building
New York
The American Radiator Building
Creative Commons License photo credit: Doonvas

Architect Raymond Hood had been designing the company’s radiator covers when he was chosen to design the its new showroom and office tower.

The black brickwork facade and gold-painted friezes were designed to make the building look like a glowing radiator coil when illuminated at night, at least that’s one theory. Others say the architect made the bricks black so that the windows would blend in with the facade to create the illusion of a solid mass. The bricks were dipped in manganese to make them black.

The base of the structure is clad in black granite and adorned with bronze carved allegories, symbolizing the transformation of matter into energy. The black motif continued into the lobby, which was decorated with black marble and mirrors.

After remaining vacant for years, the building opened as the Bryant Park Hotel in 2001. The interior was completely changed, with black tiles and red leather replacing the lobby’s marble and mirrors. but the exterior remains the same thanks to the building’s status as a national landmark.
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Find Real Estate on Google Maps

Bus Sub?
Creative Commons License photo credit: Matthew Oliphant

Anyone who is interested in real estate investment knows that the most important thing you can have in this business (besides money) is good timing. Being able to get in a good bid on a house that just went on the market can make a big difference in the quality of the real estate that you’ll buy. In order to be able to have that good timing, the investor needs to be able to use the right tools to find real estate on an ongoing basis. (more…)