Unique Homes Blog

This week’s Top of the Tweets
By Camilla McLaughlin

Most expensive? The big news in real estate was the sale of a London penthouse at One Hyde Park for $220 million (pictured), according to the Daily Telegraph. In comparison, U.S. prices seem paltry with the high for this year currently at just under $50 million. Of course the other perspective is that it makes U.S. real estate seem like a very good buy.  Approximately 65 percent of the flats and penthouses in One Hyde Park have been sold. Is there any doubt that super rich buyers are back in the London market? http://bit.ly/cyHheT

D words dominate real estate conversations. The market after the tax credit is still adjusting and gloomy indicators led to more discussions of deflation and the potential of a double dip recession. Even @SABEW, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, chimed in with a link to an Arizona Republic article. Phoenix, like other hard-hit metros, now has to recover from the lack of stimulus, which means that prices that had been showing small but steady increases for more than a year fell more than 2 percent. http://bit.ly/d3Jvnh

Listmania continues. This week CNN Money came out with a list of 22 cities at risk of a double dip recession. A majority are in the south and include Gulfport-Biloxi, Miss., and Mobile, Ala. Surprisingly, only a couple, such as Akron, Ohio, are in the beleaguered Rust Belt. http://bit.ly/b2iy8e

Other indicators suggest housing may be stabilizing. TransUnion’s quarterly analysis shows the number of loans delinquent by 60 days or more fell for the second quarter in a row. Barclays Capital predicts show inventory to peak in summer 2010 and then decline gradually. Thanks to @HousingWire for these tweets. http://bit.ly/8X7lxY In areas such as Florida, inventories of unsold homes continue to decline, although expectations are that more foreclosures resulting from job loss might reverse this trend.

Trivial pursuits of summer. Maybe it was just a much-needed antidote to all the real estate angst or the giddy last weeks of summer, but more than the normal share of interesting trivia surfaced on Twitter this week.

Too private even for upscale, high profile owners? Can there ever be too much privacy for some high-profile affluent homeowners. Check out the World’s Amazing Secluded Houses http://bit.ly/aKtGvZ. Thanks to @coldwellbnkr

An almost $1 million speeding ticket? That could be the fine a Swedish motorist receives for doing 290 kph on a Swiss roadway driving a $240,000 Mercedes AMG SLS (pictured), according to @luxuo. That’s 170 kph over the 120 kph (70 mph) speed limit. In Switzerland, anything over 145 kph is considered a criminal offense and fines are based on a driver’s income.  http://bit.ly/aHXGLZ

The New York international Fringe Festival is on until August 29. @Corcoran_Group called our attention to this multi-venue event, which is the largest multi-arts festival in North America.

Fashionistas should watch out, the new IT bag could just be a folding Fan! @forbeslife has the story.  http://tinyurl.com/2eallsq

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