Apartment Choice

I arrived in Madrid in December 2012, in time to celebrate the bleakest Christmas the city had seen in a generation. Capital and country were reeling from a series of shocks that had brought Spain to the brink of ruin. Six months earlier, a slow- burning banking crisis had blazed out of control, forcing the government to request billions in rescue aid from its European partners. Spain was in recession and suffering an unemployment crisis that would see the jobless rate peak at 27 per cent a few months after my arrival. Reminders of the nation’s desperation were everywhere. On days when I took my son to kindergarten we would pass a long line of people — not all of them poorly dressed — waiting outside a church- run soup kitchen . Walking to my office in the morning, I would find more and more shops boarded up. Inexplicably, the tiny store that sold and repaired mechanical typewriters held out, defying both the economic downturn and technical obsolescence. Then, one day, I found that ...

PHOENIX, AZ - Colliers International in Greater Phoenix negotiated the sale of The Park at Deer Valley apartments at 17425 N. 19th Ave., in Phoenix, for $33 million or $75,688 per unit. Executive Vice Presidents Bill Hahn , Jeff Sherman and Trevor Koskovich with Colliers’ Phoenix office represented both the buyer and seller. The seller was Bruckal Properties, Inc., of Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. The buyer was a private investor, Billah Khan of Phoenix. Financing was arranged through Walker & Dunlop in Phoenix.Khan added The Park at Deer Valley to his portfolio of Phoenix-area assets, which includes Acacia Pointe in Glendale and Marble Creek in Phoenix. Plans call for continuing interior and exterior upgrades started by the seller, who completed more than $3 million in renovations. “This transaction is a prime example of how the combination of off-shore equity and low interest rates create strong financial returns for the buyer,” said Hahn. “Returns will continue to gro...

When American doctor Stephen Yoon thinks of North Korea, he does not think of ballistic missile tests or the threat of nuclear war. He remembers instead a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, who suffered from spastic quadriplegia that made her unable to stand or sit. Five years ago, she went to Yoon's developmental-disability program at Pyongyang Medical University Hospital , where she received treatments from Yoon and his team of local doctors. After almost a year of exercise therapy and some surgeries, she walked out of the hospital on her own. The event was heralded in North Korean state media as a national victory, but it received no notice in the U.S., where few people even know about the roughly 200 Americans like Yoon who work and live under the rule of Kim Jong Un. Carefully monitored by the regime, they have come and gone for years, doing educational, medical or infrastructural work, and sometimes raising families in a nation that has been officially at war with the ...

MONDAY Racine Area Home Schoolers 7-9 p.m., Grace Church, 3626 Highway 31. Call 262-637-4999 for more information. Racine Housing Coalition 1 p.m., City Hall Annex Room 130 , 800 Center St. For more information, call 262-632-5186. Riverport Chorus of Sweet Adelines International Rehearsal, 7-10 p.m., Bristol Grade School , 20121 83rd St. ( Highway 45 1 mile south of Highway 50), Bristol. For more information, call Kathy Froeber , 262-859-2343. Southern Wisconsin Landlords Association 6-8 p.m., Harbor Lite Yacht Club , 559 State St. Members are kept up-to-date on changing federal, state and local laws that impact landlords. The organization is part of the Wisconsin Apartment Association (WAA) which represents landlords throughout Wisconsin to have their voices heard and make an impact on state laws. For more information, call 262-884-8765 or email presidentofswla@gmail.com. TUESDAY Chocolate City Card Club Senior card club, 12:30 p.m., Burlington Senior Center , 201 N. Main St., Burli...

Insights into neighbourhood Milakpur Goojar is an upcoming locality in Rajasthan which has been witnessing huge Real Estate developments in the recent past. The Khanpur Khola-Milakpur Road and Sector 5 road lend great connectivity advantages to the place. The Khalilpur and Pataudi Road Railway Stations are located close by and act as major halts for all national or local bound trains . The Indira Gandhi International Airport is located at a short driving distance from here. The famous and reputed Presidency International School is located here. V Square Mall, Genesis Mall, Capital Mall and BB Mall are some of the major shopping hubs located here that allow the inhabitants to spend their weekends in pleasure. Proper colligation with Jaipur, Gurgaon and Faridabad via National Highways is a major advantage for the locality. Commercial facilities, educational institutions and medical centers also exist in this area. Explore Neighbourhood - Map View

SINGAPORE (Aug 22): Getting your rental yield right goes a long way. Today’s average rental yield for condominiums and apartments is the lowest in a decade, at about 3.2%. Low interest rates , subdued job market and large supply of housing are possible reasons. In our analysis, we have identified eight private residential properties with the highest rental yields in the high- end condo segment comprising districts 9 , 10, 11, Downtown Core and Sentosa. Only properties with at least five sales and five rental transactions over the last 12 months were considered in our analysis. 1) Lumiere Property type: Apartment Rental yield: 5.0% Average rent PSF: S$6.0 Tenure: 99 years from 2006 District/ Planning Area: D2 - Downtown Core Located at Mistri Road, the 45-storey Lumiere is a three-minute walk to Tanjong Pagar MRT station . It was completed in 2010 and has 168 units. It is a stone’s throw away from International Plaza and Icon Village, and less than 10 minutes’ walk to Tanjong Pagar...

BIG POOL — Clyde W. Crabtree Sr. was a quiet, soft-spoken man whose humble nature belied an interesting career. His work took him far from his modest beginnings in Western Maryland , even though he never lived more than 150 miles from where he began. Clyde was born and raised in an era where technical training was on the job — carpentry in his case. It was through that training that Clyde got a job with the Department of the Army and worked at Arlington (Va.) National Cemetery . A self-described jack-of-all-trades, Clyde did carpentry and maintenance work, and closed off roads for funeral processions. No matter when it snowed, Clyde was expected to help keep the cemetery roads plowed , and clear a path at the Tomb of the Unknowns and the eternal flame at President John F. Kennedy's grave. He helped build the space shuttle Challenger memorial gazebo , and was involved with the burial of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis . Clyde and his co-workers removed the granite stones around Preside...