When newlyweds Jean and William Heacock moved into their new 800-square-foot home in 1950, it had four small rooms, a carport and a built-in television—just like every other house on its street in Levittown, N.Y., America’s first planned suburb. Today, that Levitt ranch home has morphed into a 2,700-square-foot Mediterranean-style villa with a wrought-iron balcony and a stone and stucco façade, thanks to a 2006 gut renovation by its current owner, Jeff Moran. Terracotta tilework and 7-foot sandstone columns decorate the living room, and there are three new bedrooms upstairs, including a master suite with a cathedral ceiling. The total cost of the remodel was about $200,000—or 25 times the home’s original $7,990 list price. “We took the house down to the studs. I wanted to be more comfortable, I wanted to upgrade,” said Mr. Moran, 65, who works for the state government. He said that he and his wife, Becky, a 61-year-old teaching assistant, became the home’s third owners when they bought it for $154,000 in 1994. When Ms. Heacock and her husband took a nostalgic drive through their old neighborhood eight years ago, she didn’t recognize her old home until she spotted the fire hydrant out front, a familiar landmark. “It’s amazing,” said Ms. Heacock, who is now 90. “You can hardly see the original house there—it’s completely encased in the new house.” Seventy years ago, the first families moved into Levittown, N.Y.—a community of mass-produced homes built on a 6.9-square-mile chunk of Long Island once planted with onions and potatoes. Between 1947 and 1951, Levitt & Sons built 17,477 homes there. Since that time, most of Levitt’s modest cookie-cutter houses have been remodeled and expanded beyond recognition. “In the past seven or eight years, the prices have really skyrocketed,” said Dara Crawford, a real-estate agent for Century 21 who has lived in Levittown since 1988. “A lot of the houses are still on the original footprint, just gutted and completely redone,” she said. “The family up the street knocked down the house and rebuilt it at 2,800 square feet—it’s orange stucco, with a heated saltwater pool.” Average home listing prices in Levittown have risen 5.4% in the past year, despite a 14.4% increase in supply, according to realtor.com. The average list price of the 117 homes currently on the market is $455,000, with about 5% of the listings priced over $600,000. A dilapidated Cape Cod-style house on Corncrib Lane was recently demolished to make way for a new four-bedroom spec house, with construction to begin this fall. It is now under contract for $720,000, according to Chris Montalbano, an associate broker and partner in Realty Connect U.S.A., who represents the developer. “The market is so vibrant now, we sold it based on the plans,” Mr. Montalbano said. “There’s no inventory for new construction in Levittown—the buyers in this particular situation wanted to stay and keep their kids in the schools.” Levittown was the first of four planned suburban communities created by developer William Levitt. With affordable housing in short supply, Levittown touted a vision of quiet streets and well-kept lawns, along with new schools, swimming pools and shopping districts. Levittowns would later spring up in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Puerto Rico. The developer’s marketing targeted service members returning from World War II. Veterans could buy the homes with no money down—but only if they were white. Levitt’s restrictive covenants prevented sales or rentals to African- Americans. Those restrictions were later struck down. The Nassau County community’s proximity to New York City, as well as its affordability and schools, are drawing a diverse mix of home buyers now, according to Shehriar Islam, a real-estate agent with Coldwell Banker who moved to Levittown from Queens in 2015. “I’m a microcosm of what’s going on with other buyers,” Mr. Islam said. “When you go to open houses, 95% of the buyers are from the New York boroughs—it’s much more diverse than it was seven years ago.” Other families have lived in Levittown for generations. Kevin Magnus, a 51-year-old former clerk at the New York Stock Exchange, bought his childhood home from his father in 2000. “The house had plenty of potential—I came back here and blew this thing up,” said Mr. Magnus, who spent a decade and over $150,000 remodeling the house with his wife, Kathleen, 49. They expanded the home from two bedrooms to five, put in a new kitchen, added a porch, and built a backyard gazebo with its own bar and television. When the Magnus’s youngest daughter graduated from high school, they decided to sell. After seven days on the market and multiple bids, the home went into contract for $670,000. “They gobbled it up,” said Ms. Crawford, who had the listing. “It’s a good community—we have a lot of friends in Levittown,” said Mr. Moran, who occasionally finds an onion growing in his backyard. The post Levittown’s Luxury Makeover appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®. via https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/levittowns-luxury-makeover/
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James Franco is known as an actor, screenwriter, director, published author, and poet. Now he’s dabbling in the real estate industry. A two-unit building in L.A.’s Silver Lake district owned by the star is for sale for $949,000, Variety first reported. The Mediterranean-style building includes two apartments, each one bedroom and one bathroom. The “two warm and inviting units,” delivered vacant, ooze rustic charm and include many nooks and outdoor terraces on the hillside lot. Together, the total living space is 1,496 square feet on a 7,492-square-foot lot. A smaller-size lower unit sits over a single-car garage, and includes an eat-in kitchen, a living room with a palladium floor-to-ceiling window, and wood floors. The slightly larger upper unit features a layout with a kitchen and breakfast bar that opens to the living room, which has a wooden beam, plus a formal dining room with French doors. A charming bonus is a separate top-floor “crow’s nest” that provides views of the surrounding landscape, Silver Lake reservoir, the Griffith Observatory, and the Hollywood sign. An inspiration, no doubt, for a screenwriter’s home office. In fact, the building may not have been used by the Academy Award nominee as a residence at all. After he purchased the property in 2012 for $775,000, according to property records, there appears to have been something else afoot. A neighbor complained to Curbed Los Angeles in 2013 that “the individuals on the property appear to be running a MAJOR production company out of the house and have also used it for shoots.” Whatever its past purpose, the duplex stands empty and awaits its next inhabitants and their creative pursuits, hopefully while not bothering the neighbors. After Franco sheds this place, he’s on to an array of other projects. The “Freaks and Geeks” star can currently be seen on the HBO series “The Deuce.” The 39-year-old, known for blockbusters like “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is also connected with arty short films and indies alike, such as the anticipated film “The Disaster Artist,” which he directed and stars in, on the making of “The Room,” a cult classic considered perhaps one of the worst movies of all time. The post This Is the End for James Franco in Silver Lake: Duplex on the Market for $949K appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®. via https://www.realtor.com/news/celebrity-real-estate/james-franco-selling-silver-lake-duplex/ We’ve officially closed the books on summer, and the flurry of back-to-school sales and the Facebook posts featuring freshly scrubbed kids awkwardly posing for their big return to classes have finally subsided. So as September draws to a close, we’re taking a look back at this transitional month through the lens of our own realtor.com® data—all the better to take a snapshot of what the housing market across the country is like today. Turns out, the picture isn’t a pretty one for many home buyers. As the supply of homes for sale continues to decline year over year, homes are selling ever faster, and for ever-higher prices. For-sale housing inventory fell 1% between August and September, and is down 9% from September 2016 (when there was already a considerable decline in inventory from the year before). The median time on market for properties on realtor.com in September is 69 days—meaning they’re selling 8 days faster than this time last year. And that’s with a median list price of $274,000, which is 10% higher than one year ago! In such a tight market, buyers are running out of options, said realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale. “Days on market and the number of new listings coming to market are lower than we typically see in the fall season, while listing views per property continue to move higher,” she said in a statement. Meanwhile, the effects of hurricanes Harvey and Irma reversed earlier gains in Miami and Houston’s markets, Hale said: “Views per listing in those markets now show declines from a year ago, while just last month, they showed double-digit increases. Recovery will come to those housing markets, but it will take some time.” There are quite a few markets, though, where “recovery” is far from being a problem. We took a look at the metro markets where buying and selling activity is still buzzing—where homes are selling fast and buyers are clicking up a storm on online listings. And for the first time since February, our monthly roundup of the hottest markets for real estate has a new champion! Is change in the air? Well, not so much—it’s more like a minor reshuffle. Vallejo, CA, slid from first to third place, ending its seven-month reign. The new No. 1, San Jose (No. 2 in August), is about 67 miles to the southeast. San Francisco (No. 3 in August), which lies between the two, cemented the Northern California trifecta at No. 3. (Metro markets can also include nearby towns or cities, so the market of San Jose also comprises Sunnyvale and Santa Clara; and the San Francisco market includes Oakland and Hayward.) In total, California claimed 11 of the top 20 markets, but cities in eight other states also made a showing: Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, Colorado, Tennessee, Idaho, and Massachusetts. San Diego, CA, moved up four spots to crack the top five. Other top movers in September include Santa Rosa, CA; Boise, ID; Boston, and Los Angeles, moving up seven, six, seven, and eight spots, respectively, since August. The hot list
The post America’s 20 Hottest Markets for Real Estate in September 2017 appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®. via https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/americas-20-hottest-markets-real-estate-september-2017/ Most houses only sit on one plot of land in their lifetimes. This home is different. After making its way from colonial Connecticut to Granville, OH, the Christopher Manwaring house is now on the market.The well-traveled residence can be yours for $878,000. The Georgian and Federal style home includes four bedrooms (and the possibility of a fifth in the basement) along with 4.5 baths and 4,500 total square feet of space. Built in 1796 by Christopher Manwaring, a tanner and politician, the home saw extensive use in its original New London, CT, location. During the War of 1812, American officers would watch the British ships in Long Island Sound from atop its widow’s walk. The home of the Manwaring family until 1905, it entertained such illustrious guests as Andrew Jackson and James Madison. That year, it was donated to a local hospital and used as a student dormitory, and also for other purposes, until the late 1960s. A local developer then purchased the home in the interest of preservation and began to disassemble it in hopes of rebuilding it elsewhere. The parts were stored across his friends’ properties—including in a chicken coop. “This is a house that came kind of like a Lincoln Logs set,” says listing agent Lisa McKivergin. “Every piece of wood and hardware is original, but had to be examined. It’s a monument, and the fact that they could move it here and have it be resurrected is amazing.” After a series of snags in the rebuild project, the owners at the time donated the home to the University of Connecticut Foundation, which technically still owns it today. The foundation had originally intended to resurrect the home as a museum, but lacked the funds. It languished in pieces until it was bought in the early 1990s and its many parts were moved to Granville. The Ohio city makes an appropriate new home for the building, with its strong community support and its status on the National Register of Historic Places. There, the historic home was rebuilt piece by piece, over the course of 17 months. “People think old houses are creaky and are compromises, but this one was so well redone that it functions like a new house but is still respectful of what was authentic in those days,” says McKivergin. “From this one-million-piece puzzle … they assembled this house. It’s remarkable.” The paint colors, wallpaper, and detailing are all as close to the originals as the owners could find. They purchased salvage rights to old New England houses searching for replacements for any missing parts, down to the fireplace cheeks and Victorian windows. While it was being rebuilt, the home’s electrical and plumbing systems were installed new at the time of construction, for the perfect new/old balance. A boxwood garden with a vine-covered pergola completes the colonial charm. “I wanted to list it for over a million because I value it as an antique—it’s totally irreplaceable,” says McKivergin. “It’s unbelievable that it exists, and it’s unbelievable that it can be bought.” The post Built in Connecticut in 1796, This Historic Home Was Reassembled in Ohio appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®. via https://www.realtor.com/news/unique-homes/historic-home-connecticut-ohio/ President Donald Trump has long promised to cut taxes in a bid to help the middle-class and spur business growth, but will his newly unveiled tax plan achieve those lofty goals? In fact, some real estate experts express doubt that the changes proposed by the plan will be good for the housing market. “Middle-class families will not see much tax relief in this plan,” says Joseph Kirchner, senior economist at realtor.com®, adding, “In order to pay the large tax cuts to the wealthy, programs that help home buyers purchase homes and help builders bring homes to market will likely be drastically cut.” At issue are income-tax deductions, which reduce an individual’s taxable income, and therefore one’s overall tax bill. Currently, taxpayers can choose whether to itemize their tax deductions—writing off specific expenses—or take one big standard deduction instead. The new tax plan nearly doubles the standard deduction. Sounds good, right? But by boosting the standard deduction, the plan renders the mortgage interest deduction nearly useless. Buyers can typically use the deduction to shave $8,000 to $10,000 off what they owe the government in their first year of homeownership, says Kirchner. Still, the bulk of taxpayers are more likely to opt for the standard deduction, which would total $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for married couples who file jointly. The plan also eliminates most types of itemized deductions, including payments for state and local taxes—which include property taxes. (It does retain the deduction for charitable gifts—but again, considering the size of the new standard deduction, this will mostly benefit wealthy people who write big checks for charity.) The plan must still be approved by Congress. “This proposal recommends a backdoor elimination of the mortgage interest deduction for all but the top 5% who would still itemize their deductions,” National Association of Realtors® President William Brown said in a statement. “When combined with the elimination of the state and local tax deduction, these efforts represent a tax increase on millions of middle-class homeowners.” This could make it more expensive to own a home and could drive up prices in pricier, coastal cities, says Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal-leaning think tank based in Washington, D.C. However, the mortgage interest deduction isn’t really what pushes people buy a house, says Roberton Williams, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C. Instead, it encourages those who have decided to buy to spend more money on a larger house, because they are likely to get some of that money back on their tax return. Details of the proposed new tax code were scant. The number of tax brackets would shrink from seven to three: 12%, 25% and 35%. It is unclear, however, which income levels would be included in each. That’s a boon to the ultrawealthy who are currently in a 39.6% bracket, but a fourth, higher bracket could be created. The plan would also raise the child tax credit for lower-income and middle-class families. “With significant and meaningful tax reform and relief, we will create a fairer system that levels the playing field and extends economic opportunities to American workers, small businesses, and middle-income families,” reads the plan crafted by the president and Republican leaders. But the new tax code would ax personal exemptions, which provide breadwinners deductions of a little more than $4,000 per family member, including themselves. That could hurt parents with several children. “Many households, particularly larger ones, will have higher taxable income even though the standard deduction is [nearly] doubled, because they’re losing the personal deduction,” says the Tax Policy Center’s Williams. The post How Trump’s Newly Unveiled Tax Plan Will Impact Home Buyers and Owners appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®. via https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/president-trumps-tax-plan-will-impact-housing-market/ Musician Jon Bon Jovi is no longer “Livin’ on a Prayer.” The rock legend is firmly ensconced in a luxe condo in New York City. The best-selling singer and songwriter recently purchased a four-bedroom, four-bath Greenwich Lane condo in the West Village for a cool $18,940,564, reported the Real Deal. The high-floor corner residence hits a high note. The apartment is one of 199 units built in 2013, and includes views of downtown Manhattan and the Hudson River. There are also views of New Jersey, in case the musician is feeling homesick for his home state. The pad includes direct elevator access, a private south-facing balcony, and luxury finishes and details, according to the listing description. The interior space includes floor-to-ceiling windows, rich oak hardwood floors, “exceptional” custom millwork, and 6-inch baseboards throughout. The private elevator opens into a spacious gallery that leads into a 40-foot living room and Juliet balconies. The separate chef’s kitchen features high-end appliances and walnut-paneled cabinetry, and includes a family room and dining area that leads to the private 44-square-foot balcony. The corner master suite features floor-to-ceiling windows, and a spacious, windowed master bath. If Manhattan isn’t enough of a playground, the building offers all kinds of diversions: With the condo comes 24-hour concierge and maintenance services, access to the private valet parking garage, plus a state-of-the-art fitness center with a pool, whirlpool, steam rooms, golf simulator, and treatment rooms. Bon Jovi can also access a central garden and reflecting pool, residents’ lounge, dining room with chef’s kitchen, a 21-seat screening room, playroom, and bicycle and cold storage. Not only does the 55-year-old appear to have a keen eye for real estate, he also seems to have mastered the art of the deal. The high-end apartment was last listed in June for $19.5 million, so the rocker managed to score a price reduction as well. The post Playin’ for Keeps, Jon Bon Jovi Spends $18.9M on NYC Condo appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®. via https://www.realtor.com/news/celebrity-real-estate/jon-bon-jovi-buys-nyc-condo/ It’s still kind of hard to take in: The wildly popular HGTV series “Fixer Upper” will be ending soon. Yes, just as it seems that our collective obsession with its hosts, Chip and Joanna Gaines, knows no bounds—we’ll be cut off. Many fans, no doubt, are awaiting the show’s fifth and final season with heavy hearts, while others may wistfully reminisce about the homes Chip and Jo have already slathered in shiplap and farmhouse chic in seasons past. And that got us wondering: What’s up with that good old Barndominium these days, anyway? Or the Shotgun House? Or any of the other homes that gained fame on the show? Curious, we did some digging down memory lane … and were surprised to find that the plot twists just kept coming for many of these places. Here are five homes whose fates continued to unfold long after their episodes aired, proving that “Fixer Upper” cachet comes with a whole lot of surprises. The Three Little Pigs HouseWhat’s up with it now? It’s undergoing repairs after a car crashed into it. During Season 3, Ken and Kelly Downs bought a 100-year-old Craftsman that Chip nicknamed the “Three Little Pigs House” because it looked so fragile that a strong wind (or wolf) might have been able to blow it down. After Chip and Jo fixed it up, the place looked great—and far less delicate. Nonetheless, no building other than Fort Knox could have withstood what happened next. One night in July of this year, a drunk driver crashed into the home, smashing through an exterior wall. Luckily, no one was hurt, but the incident soured how the Downses felt about their new digs. “This is a ‘Fixer Upper’ gone bad,” Kelly told the Tribune-Herald. “It’s like the Wild West here. There’s been a lot of commotion coming from the bars and the store across the street. … It’s been a problem from the beginning.” Yet many defended the Gaineses, and argued that the Downses should have done their due diligence on the neighborhood before making this purchase. Let’s just say they learned a hard lesson: No matter how much you love a house, take a look at what’s around it, too. The BarndominiumWhat’s up with it now? It’s the centerpiece of a heated court case. During Season 3, Chip and Joanna renovated the Barndominium for the Meek family, who eventually sold it to Kristi Bass. Sensing an opportunity, Bass began renting out the Lacy Lakeview, TX, five-bedroom on Airbnb, making anywhere from $600 to $1,500 per night, depending on how many people crashed there (the listing claims it can sleep 16-plus). Since then, it’s been booked almost continuously, but all that tourist traffic ruffled the neighbors, who complained that Bass was running a business without a permit. The city tried to shut the short-term rentals down, but the case got tied up in court. It’s anybody’s guess what will happen, but for now, at least, the place is still rentable, and odds are that Bass can more than cover all of the attorney fees. The Shotgun HouseWhat’s up with it now? It’s for sale at a shockingly high price. In Season 3, Cameron and Jessica Bell paid $28,000 for the 1,050-square-foot, one-bedroom Shotgun House. It was in a sorry state, but Chip and Jo worked their magic on the place, turning it into a small, yet modern masterpiece. You’d expect that all that work would give some boost to the home’s value, but many a jaw dropped when the couple put the tiny place on the market in June 2017 for a whopping $950,000. That’s precisely $905 per square foot, when the average price in the area is only $99 per square foot! Granted, location may have played a role; the home is incredibly close to Chip and Joanna’s Magnolia Market shopping and entertainment complex, which has driven up property prices nearby. Still, will anyone really cough up this much cash? Only time will tell. The Plain Gray RanchWhat’s up with it now? It’s languishing on the market after several price cuts. But not all homes featured on “Fixer Upper” end up listed for a million bucks. One case in point is Season 4’s “Plain Gray House” in Woodway, TX. Back in May 2015, Melissa and Matthew Yielding bought this 60-year-old, three-bedroom ranch for $134,000. Once the Gaineses had their way with it, “plain” is the last thing you’d think of its brand-new open floor plan, and the kitchen island with built-in seating designed by Joanna. They even added a fireplace! So when the Yieldings put this house on the market in May of this year, for the relatively modest price of $325,000, you’d think someone would have snapped it up. Yet after a few weeks, the couple cut the price to $310,000. This did attract an offer, but that deal fell through, so, as of August, it’s back on the market, this time for $290,000. Granted, the couple is selling the place for more than twice what they paid … but in the “Fixer Upper” universe, that’s peanuts. What happened? Perhaps it’s because the home’s location isn’t all that close to Magnolia Market, making those “Fixer Upper” fan vacations more of a hassle. In any case, it suggests that not all of Chip and Jo’s homes turn to solid gold. The Hilltop HouseWhat’s up with it now? Although rejected on “Fixer Upper,” it’s Airbnb-able anyway! If the “Hilltop House” doesn’t sound familiar to you, you’re not alone. The current owner, Michelle Butler, didn’t even realize her house had been featured on “Fixer Upper” until her friend called her, saying, “Your house is on TV! Turn it on!” Sure enough, there was Chip standing inside her house. How did this happen? Well, you may recall that most of the home buyers on the show shop a few properties before picking, and the Hilltop House was one of the rejects. Soon after that, Butler came by and bought it for $207,000, not knowing of the home’s brief flirtation with fame. Only once Butler saw her place on TV, she decided she might as well see if she could make a buck, too. She listed one of her bedrooms on Airbnb, claiming that it had been “featured on ‘Fixer Upper'” (which is technically correct). And guess what? The room basically booked right up, every night it’s available (weekends only). Which may seem like a head-scratcher, given that Chip and Jo didn’t do anything to the home. To be fair, the room costs only $48 per night, is close to Magnolia Market, and is dog-friendly to boot. Plus, it goes to show just how small a dose of “Fixer Upper” fame a home needs to stand out. The post What’s Up With Those Famous ‘Fixer Upper’ Homes Now? appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®. via https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/five-famous-fixer-upper-homes-whats-now/ Americans signed fewer contracts to buy homes in August, the fifth month of declines in the last six, prompting the Realtor industry group to slash its forecast for sales in 2017. The National Association of Realtors’ pending home sales index fell 2.6% to 106.3, the group said Wednesday. That was the lowest reading since January 2016 and put the index 2.6% lower than its level a year ago. Economists surveyed by Econoday had forecast a 0.2% dip in the index in August, which forecasts future sales by tracking real estate transactions in which a contract has been signed but the deal has not yet closed. The extreme supply-demand imbalance in the housing market has ground sales to a standstill, the Realtors believe. “This summer’s terribly low supply levels have officially drained all of the housing market’s momentum over the past year,” the group said in a statement. In August, pending sales in the Northeast slumped 4.4%, while in the Midwest they were down 1.5%. Pending sales declined 3.5% in the South, and 1.0% in the West. NAR has cut its full-year forecast for sales in the wake of a tepid spring selling season and the impact of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey. The group now expects 5.44 million homes will be sold in 2017, a 0.2% decline from the 5.45 million sold in 2016 and well below the 5.52 million sales it predicted at the start of the year. The post Home-Contract Signings Tumble to Near 2-Year Low, Hit By Hurricanes and Tight Supply appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®. via https://www.realtor.com/news/real-estate-news/home-contract-signings-tumble-near-2-year-low-hit-hurricanes-tight-supply/ Late-night television host Seth Meyers listed his two-bedroom condo in Manhattan’s West Village a couple of weeks ago, and already has offers on the $4.5 million property. “The apartment is breathtaking,” says listing agent Max J. Kozower of Maxwell Jacobs, a boutique operation in New York. “We’ve had a lot of traffic and some offers.” Aside from the celebrity cachet, we can see the draw of this charming and sunny prewar apartment. Let’s take “a closer look,” as Meyers might say. The 12th-floor apartment on West 12th St. sits high up in a 1910-built, full-service building. The 1,213-square-foot space was recently renovated and sports views of Village rooftops, midtown skyscrapers, and the Hudson River. The living room is huge and sunken, with a wood-burning fireplace. The kitchen is white and open, the flooring is hardwood, and the ceilings are high. The apartment also boasts “immense” closets, along with two bathrooms. The well-situated, coveted address is right across from the picturesque Abingdon Square Park, and is just a short distance from the Hudson River Park, the High Line, and the Meatpacking District. Meyers and his wife, Alexi Ashe, a human rights lawyer, bought the condo in 2013 for $3.525 million, did some upgrading, and lived there for a few years. Once the sale is closed, we’re betting the couple and their year-old son will decamp to the 3,200-square-foot, Washington Square Park co-op they bought last year for $7.5 million. An alumnus of the comedy sketch show “Saturday Night Live,” Meyers made his mark there as co-head writer with funny woman Tina Fey, and also anchored the “Weekend Update” desk. In 2013, Meyers moved over to take on the role of host for NBC’s “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” which has received acclaim for its nightly skewerings of President Donald Trump. NBC recently renewed the comedian’s contract until 2021. The post ‘Late Night’s’ Seth Meyers Close to Selling $4.5M West Village Condo appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®. via https://www.realtor.com/news/celebrity-real-estate/seth-meyers-selling-west-village-condo/ Janice Bryant had just gotten out of bed when she heard a thundering boom, like dynamite going off under her feet. Then the ground beneath the modest, one-story home in rural Oklahoma that she’s shared with her husband for about 45 years began convulsing. The 71-year-old was thrown to the floor as the walls of her home were shaken out of alignment. Her husband, Johnny Bryant, 73, was buried in the bathroom under tumbling bottles of shampoo and cleaning products. Their crystal goblets, long-ago wedding gifts, flew off the shelves and shattered on the hardwood floors of their kitchen, along with mugs, plates, wine bottles, and just about everything else they owned. Trapped on the floor by the fury of this earthquake, Janice called out in a panic for her 10-year-old granddaughter. Kerstin, who has Down syndrome, was watching television alone in the living room just as the fireplace mantel crashed onto the floor. Welcome to Pawnee, OK, which may be the earthquake capital of the United States. The Bryants, like just about everyone living in this north-central swath of the state, have been terrorized by near-daily tremors over the last few years. The mild rumblings usually last just a few seconds, sometimes leaving behind cracked walls or foundations. But the quake that hit the outskirts of sparsely populated Pawnee (2,200 residents) in the early morning of Sept. 3, 2016, was different. It was the worst the state had ever seen, hitting 5.8 on the Richter scale. And like countless others in the area, this quake wasn’t an example of Mother Nature’s unpredictable power. It was man-made, say scientists. The near-daily convulsions have been blamed on the oil and gas industry—the very business that has powered the state for a century, lined the pockets of its residents, and kept entire communities alive. Oklahoma, whose most distinctive disasters used to be the tornadoes that routinely rip through its plains, is now the most earthquake-prone state in the continental United States. And Pawnee is ground zero. Since local oil operators began employing fracking and horizontal drilling methods, injecting wastewater deep into the earth, the number of earthquakes of a magnitude of 3.0 or above have gone from just 3 in 2009 to more than 900 in 2015. That fell to 623 in 2016, and continued to decline when the state began to limit the wastewater injections, fearing that they were the cause of the quakes. Yet fast-forward a year, and the earthquakes are by no means over. A 4.2 quake hit central Oklahoma, near the town of Edmond, about 80 miles from Pawnee, on Aug. 2. It was the sixth tremor in just 24 hours. (There were no casualties.) Now not even scientists know if limiting the wastewater injections will be enough to prevent another big quake—or if permanent damage has already been done. No one in the Bryant household was hurt badly in September last year, although Janice developed deep purple bruises from her fall. Their home, however, sustained about $200,000 of damage and will need to be torn down. They, like many Oklahomans, have filed a lawsuit to help them pay for some of the work. Even when it is rebuilt, the property values aren’t expected to rebound anytime soon. “Every time there’s a little tremor now, you go gasp, bracing yourself for the next one,” says Janice Bryant, standing outside her four-bedroom house nearly two months after the disaster. Many of the tan-colored rocks lining the facade had tumbled off, exposing the white layer of sheeting beneath. Her chimney was crumbling, as were the stone columns holding up their carport. “It could happen anytime,” she says. What is it like to endure such terrifying seismic events on a regular basis, as most people might experience sunset or the morning dew? Realtor.com® traveled to Pawnee to find out what daily life is like in the earthquake-prone region. Welcome to Pawnee: A town that oil builtThe town and county of Pawnee were named after the Native American tribe that was moved from Nebraska to a reservation there in the 1870s. The county’s heyday, such as it was, came in the first half of 20th century, after oil was discovered. Black gold is still the lifeline of this struggling town. But many of those who have benefited the most from the industry live in the region’s bigger towns and cities, or closer to the larger oil facilities. Walking through Pawnee is like stepping onto a long-abandoned set for an old Western movie. It’s nearly impossible to catch a Wi-Fi signal in much of it. About half of the shops in the two-stoplight town are boarded up or vacant. The hospital was shuttered in 2007. A sign says the movie theater is under renovation, but locals say it’s been that way for years. The hotel with the peeling paint and shattered windows has sat empty for decades, say locals. There’s a small casino a few miles away, a Dollar General store in town, and the Pawnee True Value and Lumber shop, where the September 2016 quake opened up a fissure straight across the concrete floor of the lawn and garden showroom. There’s also a furniture store, a police station, and Subway and Sonic fast-food joints. Pawnee’s only claim to fame is its native son Chester Gould, who created the Dick Tracy comic strips—and he decamped to Chicago in the 1920s. Today, many of the kids who have grown up in the town move to larger cities like Tulsa, OK, just an hour’s drive away, or to Oklahoma City, about 90 minutes away. Click’s Steakhouse serves as the area’s unofficial gathering place. Established in 1962, the restaurant is decorated with cowboy memorabilia: old photographs, chaps, and coiled ropes on the walls. It’s the kind of place where patrons still write checks for meals of fried pickles, heaping plates of sirloin, and pecan pie with whipped cream. “Everybody’s nervous,” says Mike Hazlip in a slight Southern drawl, after several fellow diners at Click’s ask how he’s been doing. “But nobody’s going to leave because of it.” In the September earthquake last year, Hazlip’s barn caught fire and burned down. Hazlip, 61, is a ruggedly handsome retired oil and gas executive. The four-bedroom home he built to enjoy his golden years also sustained substantial damage in the quake. But like many fellow Oklahomans, including the Bryants, Hazlip owns interests in various oil wells. And he understands just how devastating the loss of the industry would be to the region. The oil business is the largest direct employer and filled the state’s coffers with more than $2 billion in taxes in 2015, according to the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association. It keeps struggling small towns like Pawnee alive—even if just barely. Single drills dot the countryside, boring into the earth on farms passed down from generation to generation. And with few other local industries besides raising crops and cattle, families depend on those sources of income. Hazlip got into the petroleum business as a roustabout when he was just 19, and worked his way up to become the president of a small oil and gas company in Oklahoma City. When he decided to retire about half a dozen years ago, he wanted to get out of the city with his wife, Linda. So they moved just outside of Pawnee proper and built their own personal retreat: a four-bedroom house set on 160 acres (not an uncommon spread in the area) that Mike festooned with ponds and hiking trails. Man-made earthquakes were unheard of for most of his career. They only became a problem recently, when newer methods were used to extract more oil from the earth. The new methods bring up more brine—toxic, supersalty water—along with the oil. It’s the process of injecting that brine back into the earth that has been blamed for triggering the quakes. “It’s not that we want to shut down the oil and gas industry,” says Hazlip. “It’s resolvable. The oil and gas industry can do what it has to do, and we can live without fear of earthquakes.” Why oil production can lead to earthquakesThe problem is the overabundance of brine underground in north-central Oklahoma. Up to 50 barrels of the wastewater can be be produced for each barrel of oil in this part of the state. It’s usually only a fraction of that in other parts of the world. (The petroleum and brine come from a roughly 360-million-year-old former coral reef, called the Mississippian Lime, that sits thousands of feet underground). That brine—anywhere from five to eight times more concentrated in salt than seawater—has to be disposed of. So it’s injected 1 to 3 miles underground. And when there are many operators pumping lots of brine into a small area, it exacerbates an already dicey seismic situation. “You’re pushing a volume of water into faults that already exist, and that has the effect of unclamping the faults,” says William Yeck, a research geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center. “If they’re already predisposed to slip, you can actually cause an earthquake.” And that’s what happens, sometimes several times a day. It is likely that many of these earthquakes would have occurred anyway—they would just have been spread out over centuries, or even thousands of years. Now, the state is taking some action to prevent more quakes, but the long-term success of these initiatives is not yet assured. Since 2013, the state has limited how much wastewater individual wells can inject back into the Arbuckle, the layer of limestone underneath the Mississippi Lime. About 800,000 fewer barrels of brine are now allowed to be deposited into that layer than in 2014, according to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the state agency that oversees the local oil and gas industry. More than 700 disposal wells have cut their volume of brine injections by at least 40% or more. And in the most earthquake-prone areas, about 60 wells are on “indefinite shutdown” orders, and about two dozen others have stopped operating or injecting into the Arbuckle, says agency spokesman Matt Skinner. The state widened the scope of its restrictions in 2016 to cover a 15,000-square-mile area of the state, which includes Pawnee. In addition, Newfield Exploration Company, a petroleum and natural gas exploration and production firm, broke ground in March on a wastewater recycling facility that can treat tens of thousands of gallons of the brine a day, to be reused. “It’s all likely to help some, but I don’t know how much,” says Rall Walsh, one of the authors of a report on the impact of wastewater disposal in Oklahoma published in the academic journal Science Advances. “We’ve never seen a problem on this scale.” The cutback in wastewater injections has led to a tapering-off in the number of earthquakes. But the tremors are by no means over, and as the 4.2 quake last month proved, they can still be strong. No one knows how bad the next one will be. “Even after the well stops injecting water, the water is still in the ground, spreading out,” Walsh says. “That means you can get earthquakes even [years] after you shut the well down.” Despite the devastation, there are reasons to stayWith few jobs or economic opportunities and now near-daily quakes, why would anyone choose to stay here? Simply put, it’s not easy to leave. The same factors compelling homeowners to leave also mean there’s little attraction for home buyers—and that means that owners can’t even count on their equity to help them get a fresh start somewhere else. Property values have fallen hard. The median sale price in Pawnee County was $112,500 back in 2014, the earliest year that data was available through realtor.com. While prices shot up in most of the rest of the nation, they fell in Pawnee to $101,600 in 2015 and to $92,900 in 2016. That’s a 17.4% decline in only two years. The median list price of a home in Pawnee is $160,000—but the median closing price is just a fraction of that, at $40,000, according to realtor.com. Many Pawnee residents wouldn’t want to leave anyway. This is the small town where they grew up, raised their families, and where nearly everyone they know lives. “That’s my neighborhood,” says Johnny Bryant, who met his wife in high school, and recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. “I’m going to die there.” Before the big earthquake, the Bryants would have their daughters, sons-in-law, and eight grandchildren over each Sunday after church for supper. Janice would put a roast beef into the oven before church, and they’d prepare roasted potatoes, salad, and a lemon meringue pie when they got back. But now that their home is no longer safe, they don’t do that anymore. “The grandkids don’t really want to go there,” says the Bryants’ third daughter, Trinity Brown, 38, who still lives in Pawnee with her husband and three children. “My little town is gone if the next big one hits. I’m probably going to lose a family member over it,” says Brown, a community educator for Oklahoma State University. “And that’s what scares me.” Brown, whose home sustained cracks in the walls in the Sept. 3 quake, has been jumpy and stressed nearly every day since. Yet she refuses to leave the town where she and her family grew up. “You’ve watched your grandparents work their whole lives farming and ranching … then you watch your dad and uncles do the same thing,” she says. “Home is still home.” Who’s paying for wrecked houses and ruined lives?Unfortunately, many homeowners weren’t eligible for earthquake insurance when the earth first started shaking. After all, this has traditionally been tornado, not earthquake, country. Of those who could get the insurance, many didn’t, because of the high premiums. Trinity’s husband, Jerod Brown, a builder, saw an increase in business immediately after last year’s big quake. But it has slowed again. Many would-be clients simply don’t have the money to pay for the repairs, Brown says. They’re plastering over the cracks they hope don’t get worse and paying for the damages themselves. Jerod Brown recommended that the Bryants tear down their home and rebuild it from scratch. “I’m madder than hell,” Johnny Bryant says, as he surveys the fresh fractures snaking toward the ceiling above his doorways. He rolls a marble down the hallway to demonstrate how uneven his floors are now. “Every wall has a crack in it and there’s nails sticking out of my Sheetrock in my bedroom in my wall.” The Bryants aren’t wealthy. Janice is retired, Johnny still works as the executive director of the United Community Action Program, a nonprofit group that administers government programs for low-income residents. They have about 240 head of cattle on their ranch and grow wheat and soybeans on their land nearby. “It’s not a matter of whether I can afford it or not. I don’t think I have a choice,” says Johnny Bryant. “I’m worried that the next big one would bring my house down on top of me.” They filed a lawsuit in February against the oil industry to pay some of their damages. And others in the area are also seeking legal help. In November, Oklahomans filed a class-action lawsuit against the wastewater disposal companies operating near where the earthquakes occurred. The case is ongoing. “People’s homes are devastated, and no one’s helping them,” says Little Rock, AR-based attorney Scott Poynter, who teamed up with the law firm Weitz & Luxenberg, based in New York, to represent the Oklahomans who have suffered as a result of the tremors. Environmental activist Erin Brockovich, whose story was turned into a film starring Julia Roberts, is a consultant on the suit. “The industry is just sticking their heads in the sand and saying, ‘It’s not me,'” she says. “If there’s a greater earthquake in that area, it could be devastating.” But with lower oil prices hitting the industry hard, at the same time as the new regulations limiting the injections, coming up with financial solutions “has been a struggle,” says Arnella Karges, executive vice president of the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association. The trade group represents about 60 companies. “The issue is not solved, and the industry realizes this,” says Karges. “The companies are continuing to work with researchers, regulators, and our state leaders to continue finding ways to reduce seismic activity in Oklahoma.” The burned-down barn that almost explodedOn the morning of the big earthquake, Linda Hazlip, 58, was jolted out of a dead sleep by the intense rumblings enveloping her home about 5 miles north of Pawnee. Her three dogs began barking frantically as the picture frames, table lamps, and the stuffed buffalo head hanging over the fireplace crashed onto the home’s hardwood floors. “It was like a huge giant was out there shaking” the home, says Linda, a thin slip of a woman sporting short brown hair, glasses, and several thin bangles on her wrists that clink together softly as she gestures. Afterward, while surveying the damage, she smelled smoke coming from the direction of the barn—where her then-husband, Mike, the retired oil executive, stored tanks of highly flammable kerosene, propane, and hydraulic fluid for his tractor. She was on the phone with Mike, who was a few miles away in his car, when she yelled, “‘I gotta go! I gotta go call the fire chief! The barn’s on fire.‘” Firefighters had to come out twice to battle the blaze, which rekindled itself after the first bout. Although none of the tanks exploded, the barn still burned down to the ground, destroying about $200,000 worth of equipment, including a tractor, a flatbed truck, and a brand-new splitter for firewood. Two of the Hazlips’ four barn cats disappeared in the char as well. The firefighters at the scene said the cause appeared to have been an electrical problem caused by the quake. The insurance company will cover the fire damages. But there is no earthquake insurance to cover the tens of thousands of dollars in damage to the porch, the foundation of the garage, and the cracks in the walls in the home. Since the spike in seismic activity, he estimates that the dream home he built isn’t worth nearly as much as it once was. He’s considering legal action. “It’s a scary feeling knowing that your house is damaged, and it could happen again,” he says. “The oil and gas industry has been good for Oklahoma. … [But] this area feels like it’s been condemned by earthquakes.” The post Life in the Earthquake Capital of the U.S.: A Tale of Man-Made Disasters and Survival appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®. via https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/man-made-earthquakes-in-oklahoma/ |
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