From Zillow today regarding Philly real estate:

According to the latest Zillow Real Estate Market Reports, home values in Philadelphia increased 1.7% in the second quarter of 2009, compared to the second quarter of 2008. Nationally, home values decreased 12.1% during this same period.

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I rent out a few apartments in Philadelphia. Each year around the holidays I try and do something to show appreciation to the tenants. They could have selected other properties, but they chose mine. They have treated the apartments with respect and have made them good homes. I am grateful.

This year I went to …

One of my tenants is an 84 year-old Buddhist woman from Germany. She has lived in her apartment here for more than half of my life. Looking back at my buying of the building, she was one of many reasons I wanted the property. She, on fixed income, would not be able to afford increased …

Today we went for some property tours close to Center City in the Callowhill area (between Spring Garden and the Vine Street Expressway and between Broad and Columbus).

If you think rents and purchase prices are tumbling everywhere, you might be mistaken. Philadelphia is still a good buy and has great rent vs. buy ratios …

If you haven’t been to National Mechanics, you need to go. In fact, you should go this Thursday at 7:00pm so you can join the Philadelphia Geek Dinner first meetup (RSVP on Upcoming). I got to spend some time hanging with Jason, an owner of the place, and I’m stoked this is …

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on real estate – Lately been hearing a lot of people talking on the subject of short-sales, and I’m trying to digest some of the numbers. The NAR (National Association of Realtors) is describing 18% of homes on the market as being upside down (the owner owes more …

After a long time off I’m finally back to running. My wife gave me a Nike+ at Christmas and it’s been gathering dust for the most part.

Why? We’ve been remodeling and we’re finally wrapping things up (photo stream on Flickr). I can feel the all-our-spare-time-sucked-out-of-us-and-put-in-to-construction-duties coming back like the warmth of Spring. Now …

This weekend my wife and I got an early start Friday to finish off our bathroom’s tile. I’ve been photo-blogging it to Flickr and periodically putting up notes on Twitter. The last couple weekends have been similar, doing plumbing, floor tile, prep work, etc.

Though there is so much to do (more blog posts, …

A video on the sub-prime meltdown……

My wife and I spent the weekend getting rid of the old tub and installing the new one. The goal was to get through the couple days and have a working shower before Monday AM. So much for that… But at least we’re close enough to be done tomorrow (with the tub anyway).

It’s photoblogged …