This morning I saw a great article in the Des Moines Register about how developers are trying to get more creative due to the downturn in the housing market due to the current subprime credit mess and our current poor economy.

In the last two years over 1,000 new condo units have been built with only about 700 of them being occupied. So how do the get the other 300+ occupied? Sales have been slow recently.

The new tactic is offering lease-to-own programs, at least that’s what the developer is going to offer at 111 City Lofts according to the article. It seems that rental market downtown is pretty hot. Apartments at the Hubbell Tower at 904 Walnut St. and the East Village Square at East Fourth and Grand were rented quickly.

This has even affected the building I purchased in. The Liberty Condo project had planned to convert eight to 10 stories of the 12-story Liberty Building into 46 residential condominium units. Now, it is keeping two-thirds of the building as office space for lease. Currently there are only 7 units sold out of the 17 that have been finished, only floors 9, 10 and 11.

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Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: 111 City Lofts | Liberty Condos | Lofts

One of the biggest incentives for people to move downtown are the tax abatements that the City of Des Moines is offering to lure people down here. I know it was a huge factor in my decision! I would be saving about $465 a month and that’s almost the size of car payment. The building I picked to live in, the Liberty Building, touted 10 year tax abatement on their brochures as well as a number of other condo projects that I looked at. No property taxes for 10 years, what an awesome deal, for me over the course of 10 years that’s a savings of almost $56,000. I was so tickled that I didn’t dig into what a 10 year tax abatement truly mean for me. So I hope this post may help future downtown buyers avoid the shock that I received the day I went to file for my tax abatement.

I went downtown to the City of Des Moines Permit & Development Center to file for the tax abatement, and started talking with the clerk. (Here’s where the surprise came.) I closed on my condo on March 3rd, 2008 but the deadline for tax year is February 1st, so even though I was filing now nothing would even be processed until sometime next February 2009 and I would see no tax abatement until September 1st 2009, a whole 18 months of taxes later. So to get the 10 years worth of abatement for myself, I would have to live there for 11 years and 8 months. I will have to pay almost $10,000 until then.

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Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: Liberty Condos | Taxes

Having recently just traveled to the New England area of the country, and seeing different places, I noticed a lot of real estate “For Sale” and “For Lease” / “For Let” signs on places that advertised their spaces as condos, lofts or flats. So I began to wonder, what’s really the difference or is it just verbiage.

The building I live, is considered the Liberty Condos, but I always refer to place as a “loft”. So I thought I better do a little research on this matter. Here’s what I found:

Lofts:

• Are generally one large area as opposed to rooms
• Lofts usually have a 2nd level partially exposed to the 1st level
• Traditionally, lofts are above a commercial or an industrial space
• Loft living originated in Paris, and was usually owned by artists as a combination residence and studio. Over the past 100 years, however, loft living has evolved and is defined as any apartment-like units with open floor plans, huge windows, and exposed fixtures, in an urban setting
• Typically a loft is a conversion from what was once a industrial of office space
• Lofts are usually found in the downtown cores 
• Most lofts are two floors, have high ceilings, and offer amazing views of the city
• Loft has an edgier sound to it 

Condos:

• A condominium buyer owns the space within his or her individual unit; the common parts of the property, such as the land, building structure, etc., are owned jointly by the unit owners. Each of the condo owners within a property belongs to an owners’ association which manages the complex and collects monthly association fees in order to maintain the common areas. Because unit owners do not own the land beneath their unit, condominium units are often stacked on top of each other.

So during this research i also came across another term, “Loft-Style”. The difference is that lofts do not have any rooms, except bathrooms, while the loft style condos have rooms but still offer open floor plan, high ceiling and big windows.

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Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: Condos | Liberty Condos | Lofts

Tonight I got to go downstairs, out my front door and around the corner to watch the 2008 Iowa State Fair. They were tons of people here and I never had to deal with travel, I just took the elevator down 9 floors and before I knew I was in the middle of a parade. The parade kicked off around 6:30 p.m. from where we were sitting, in front of the Liberty Building at the corner of 6th and Grand. The Parade is the state’s largest and the annual kick-off to the Fair, which runs August 7-17. 

Iowa native and NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson served as Parade Marshal. According to press releases there were nearly 200 floats, animals, vehicles, novelty and performing units. I only watched till 8:15 pm and it was still going. I’ve attached a slide show of some pictures I took tonight.

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Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: Liberty Condos | Parade

Since writing about choosing my place and moving in, a few people have asked to see what the condo looks like now that I am living in it. So I’m attaching a few photos and a link to my Picasa album for you view. I am very happy with the way the unit turned out.

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Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: Condos | Liberty Condos | Lofts

It all began with Sophie and her summer lemonade/brownie stand. Sophie wanted to help children with cancer so she set up her stand on the corner of 6th and Grand outside 418 Liberty where she lives in the heart of downtown Des Moines. Her first day she raised $144.00, the next one she set up in the skywalk outside the RE/MAX office and raised $151.96. Sophie’s mother, Tina, a realtor for RE/MAX wanted to help her daughter Sophie make her goal of raising $1,000 by the end of this summer, so she enlisted the help of her fellow Realtors in the RE/MAX Real Estate Concepts skywalk office. RE/MAX has always been more than selling homes. We believe in giving back to the community. Our RE/MAX office consist of full-time realtors, who live, work and give back to the community in which they serve everyday. RE/MAX became Children’s Miracle Network’s exclusive real estate sponsor in 1992 with their associates having raised more than 65 million for the charity. So here we are, RE/MAX Real Estate Concepts Skywalk office teaming up with lil Sophie Opal Johnson to raise as much money as we can by the end of this summer for our Children’s Miracle Network hospital in Iowa City.

Eight year old Sophie Opal is no stranger to children in hospitals as she has spent a significant amount of time at a specialty hospital in MN this past spring after being diagnosed with epilepsy and experiencing up to 20 seizures per day, preventing her from attending school on a regular basis and participating in the normal activities she loved, ie; swimming, biking, skating, participating on the playground, p.e., etc…. Naturally, Sophie identifies with children who have severe health issues and are forced to remain in the hospital for extended periods of time. This is her way of helping those children. Please help us assist Sophie in exceeding her goal to help millions of children through The Children’s Miracle Network. Children’s Miracle Network; an international non-profit organization, which consists of 170 children’s hospitals ,providing state of the art, life-saving care 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The hospitals treat 17 million children each year for every disease and condition imaginable including cancer; pediatric AIDS, muscular dystrophy, sickle cell anemia, birth defects, asthma and accidents. Supporting Children’s Miracle Network hospitals is the most effective way to save the lives of children throughout North America.

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Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: Liberty Condos | Neighbors

One of the best experiences that I have had since moving downtown is getting to know wonderful neighbors. In fact the three that live next door to me (Jessica, Tom and Wilson) are just awesome welcoming people. Last Monday night when they had me over for a wonderful dinner, I told them about this new blog that I started and got their permission to share their story that had been printed in the “Downtown Des Moines Newsletter”.

URBAN PIONEERS TOM TARBOX & JESSICA ROWE

“Why would anyone want to live downtown?” Jessica Rowe recently overheard that inquiry in a nearby conversation and couldn’t help but politely interrupt. To the contrary, Rowe asks, “Why would you not want to live downtown?” Jessica, a self-employed consultant, resides at 418 Liberty with her husband, attorney Tom Tarbox, and their two cats, Eloise and Oliver.

Their teenage son, Wilson, also lives in the downtown condo during breaks from the school he attends in Virginia. With Wilson gone to school most of the year, Tom and Jessica decided to make the move to downtown in order to streamline their lives and focus more on their careers and less on their backyard garden. While Tom says he enjoyed the hours spent working in his garden, he had become somewhat of a ‘yard slave’ and was ready to give it up and embrace the urban lifestyle downtown Des Moines offers.

Tom and Jessica studied the downtown market for more than a year before deciding on 418 Liberty. Since they purchased their condo early in the development process, they were able to work with the developers to make modifications befitting their lifestyle. “Nelson Construction was great and they worked with us on the modifications we wanted,” says Tom. It’s a wonderful perk of investing in downtown in the early development stage of any condo or loft building. The family moved into their condo in August 2006 and immediately fell in love with their ninth-floor view which features spectacular sunrises and many Des Moines landmarks such as the nearby Traveler’s Insurance umbrella. They were pleasantly surprised at how close they were to the incredible fireworks display on the 4th of July.

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Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: Liberty Condos | Neighbors | Skywalk

Also see previous blog “My Decision to Move Downtown”

Now that I have a chosen a condo, I needed to get myself a realtor. I could have used any of three realtors that I’ve had good luck with before, Georgia Caldwell with Coldwell Bankers; Anne Bickell with Iowa Realty or Kelly Schall with Burnett Realty, but instead I chose Tina Johnson with ReMax Realty due to a couple of reasons. First reason I choose Tina is that she lived in the building I was purchasing and new the ins and outs of the property and what I could do to get a quick acceptance. Secondly, Tina has been selling in the downtown market for the last 10 years and really knows the market which will help in the negotiating process.

So I met with Tina, asked her to represent me and we set down and wrote up an offer. Within 24 hours I had a slight counter offer, I accepted and a closing date for March 3^rd was set. Now the real work started. The unit was just a shell with some walls and plumbing stubbed in. I would have to choose everything from hardwood flooring, to bedroom carpeting, to kitchen and bathroom cabinets, granite countertops, lighting fixtures, paint colors, and lots of small details. I would be working with Charise Flynn and Jake Christensen on the details. This is where I may start sounding as a promotion for Nelson Development, but I can honestly say that I’ve never worked with a builder that was so easy to work with and really cared about every small detail. Working with Charise on a daily basis and with Jake on a few occasions, I knew that even with my tight 6 week timeline that my place would be exactly as I had designed it and the workmanship would be the highest quality. Even four and half months later of living in my unit, I can say without doubt if I was ever in the market to buy again, a Nelson Property would be a no-brainer.

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Posted under Moving Downtown
Tags: Condos | Liberty Condos | Lofts

In January, my current relationship at the time ended and I was in the need to find a new place to live as soon as possible. I had the choice of buying a new place in the suburbs or buying a place downtown. Having lived in the burbs since I moved to Iowain 2003, first in a townhome in Glen Oaks and then later to a large home in Clive, I knew I wanted to try something different. Over the past few years, I, like many others, would go on open house tours around the area and my favorites were always the downtown lofts.

So the next question decision was which lofts to choose from and budget was a main consideration since downtown living tended to be a lot more expensive than buying a townhome out west. Since I had toured most of the locations downtown previously and only had a couple of weeks to make a decision and get the closing process started, I narrowed my choices down to the following:

• Whiteline Lofts
• Liberty Condos
• 111 City Lofts
• Brown Camp Lofts

 Big factors for me where:

• Cost
• Square Footage
• Parking
• HOA dues & Utilities
• Tax Abatement
• Location / View

I drug my friend Todd along with me as we set out on my search for where I would call home for the foreseeable future. Our first visit was to the Whiteline Lofts. This was a cool looking new trendy building near the Science Center. Within my price range, I could get a unit on the 6^th floor with a southern view. The space was a little small for me on the square footage size, but in my head I figured I could do it, just sell a lot of my existing furniture and buy new small sized stuff. I didn’t really care for the southern view that much and it over looked the parking lot. Oh, the parking lot, I would have to park outside and I wasn’t really keen on that with dealing with the snow and stuff. This was a huge drawback for me, so we ventured on but not before falling in love with their rooftop patio. How great it would be to bring my friends up there!

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Posted under Moving Downtown
Tags: 111 City Lofts | Browncamp Lofts | Condos | Liberty Condos | Lofts | Skywalk | Whitelines Lofts