Anderson Cooper buys a Hot Property in NY.

CNN newsman Anderson Cooper recently purchased an old Greenwich Village firehouse complete with brass fire poles that he will turn into a new home.  The century-old building on West Third Street was also requested this week for a spot on the National Register of Historic Places, something that he can use for a slew of tax breaks if his renovations maintain the firehouse's historic façade.

Construction crews have started inside the building, taking down partitions and ripping out old plumbing fixtures.  Cooper has hired architect Cary Tamarkin, known for residential conversions. The building, built in the Beaux Arts style, still has its original spiral staircases, brass fire poles, overhead beams used to dry hoses and walls covered with murals marking the fire patrol's history.

The current building is 8,240 square feet of space -- not including a two-story former stable in the rear yard.  This gives him about four times as much space as his current penthouse duplex on West 38th Street. Cooper's new home will fittingly sport a bust of Mercury, the Roman god of speed, atop the firehouse's main door. 


Cooper paid $4.3 million for this property.

Looking to Buy a Foreclosure? Here's GREAT news to help with the closing costs...

Fannie Mae (biggest provider of home fundining in the U.S.) announced on Friday that they will be helping buyers by paying there closing costs on foreclosed homes that are in their inventory.  Buyers can get up to 3.5% to use for closing costs, or for the purchase of new appliances. There are currently almost 50,000 homes in Fannie Mae's foreclosure inventory, and they are trying to reduce that inventory.  Paying 3.5% is a nice offering from them to the buyer, but this will also help our economy.  More people buying homes, means more people getting more jobs.  The list of potential jobs related to a home or home purchase can be quite large, so any boost to the housing market is a helpful boost to the economy. 
"Attracting qualified buyers to the market and reducing inventory of vacant homes is critical to stabilizing neighborhoods and helping the market recover," said Terry Edwards, executive vice president for credit portfolio management. 

On this day in History....January 28

1547 England's King Henry VIII died.

1909 The United States ended direct control over Cuba.

1915 The Coast Guard was created by an act of Congress.
1916 Louis D. Brandeis was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson to the Supreme Court, becoming its first Jewish member.

1959 Vince Lombardi was named head coach of the NFL's Green Bay Packers.

1973 A cease-fire officially went into effect in the Vietnam War.
1999 Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, honoring a personal request for mercy from Pope John Paul II, spared a triple murderer from execution.

2003 President George W. Bush said in his State of the Union address that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had sought uranium from Africa. (The claim was later disputed by former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had been asked by the CIA to investigate.)

2003 President George W. Bush called for a sharp increase in U.S. funds dedicated to the global battle against AIDS, to $15 billion over the next five years.

2009 In a swift victory for President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled House approved a huge $819 billion stimulus bill 244-188, with Republicans unanimous in opposition.

Smallest NY Apt - 175 Sq. Ft for$150,000!!

Have you heard about this?  A small New York City apartment recently sold for $150,000.  The interesting part though, is that the condo is only 175 square feet.  It measures 14.9 ft long x 10 ft wide.  Plus the bathroom is about three feet wide.  Sounds like it is about the size of a small prison cell.  It's actually about the width of a subway car. The home is located on 110th Street in Upper Manhatten.  From the lobby of the building, you take the elevator to the 15th floor, and then you have to walk up a small set of stairs to get to the unit.  It is believed that it might actually have been an old maids quarter at one time.  The co-op board didnt know what to do with the oversized closet room, so they decided to put it up for sale and see what happens. 

Zaarath and Christopher Prokop snapped this one up for $150,000.  They are both accountants and on the run alot.  They dont cook, so there is no stove in the unit.  They had the condo remodeled to meet there needs.  Probably took about a day for the total rennovation, woudlnt you guess? There is a Queen sized bed, and that takes up one third of the home.  The t.v. is a flat screen on the wall, and there is a storage bench and a shelf/wine rack.  Since they dont cook, the kitchen cabinets are used to store clothes.  Their other clothes are stored at various dry cleaners throughout the city.  They both jog to work, and stop at various dry cleaners to pick up their work clothes for the day.    Thats about it.  Oh, except the TWO cats that live there also.  So, Two people, Two cats, and 175sq ft. of living space with a monthly maintenance fee of $700. 

The couple expect their home mortgage to be paid off in about two years, and at that time they plan on doing a major rennovation to install a Murphy bed, and  a couple of larger windows.  City Living!

DC area among top 10 cities where it is smarter to buy now! Prices in the US expected to increase among the most in DC area in next five years!

For people who want to own a home, the premium to buy (the spread between what they’d spend to rent and what they’d pay for a mortgage) is much lower than the 15-year average in many cities. To determine what cities are smart buys, Forbes magazine computed the premium and also identified locales where economists predict home prices will go up the most over the next five years.




Here are the top 10 cities the magazine chose as the best places to buy right now.



1. Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, Mass.

2. Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, N.C.-S.C.

3. Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, Ill.-Ind.-Wis.

4. Cincinnati-Middletown, Ohio-Ky.-Ind.

5. Denver-Aurora-Broomfield, Colo.

6. Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, Minn.-Wis.

7. Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Pa.-N.J.-Del.-Md.

8. Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, Ore.-Wash.

9. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, Calif.

10. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md.-W.V.



Source: Forbes, Francesca Levy (01/21/2010)

This Day in History....January 24

1848  James W. Marshall discovered a gold nugget at Sutter's Mill in northern California, sparking the gold rush of '49.

1943  President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill concluded a wartime conference in Casablanca, Morocco.
1972  The Supreme Court struck down laws that denied welfare benefits to people who had resided in a state for less than a year
1986  The Voyager 2 space probe swept past Uranus, coming within 50,679 miles of the seventh planet from the sun.
1987 Gunmen in Lebanon kidnapped educators Alann Steen, Jesse Turner, Robert Polhill and Mitheleshwar Singh. All were later released
1989  Confessed serial killer Ted Bundy was put to death in Florida's electric chair for the 1978 kidnap-murder of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach.
1993  Retired Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall died at age 84.
1995  The prosecution gave its opening statement in the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
2003  The new federal Department of Homeland Security officially opened as Tom Ridge was sworn in as secretary.
2004  NASA's Opportunity rover landed on Mars three weeks after its identical twin, Spirit
2008  French bank Societe Generale announced it had uncovered a $7.14 billion fraud by a single futures trader.