Real Estate

As real estate fraud cases increase throughout region, Glendale police say thieves are becoming more sophisticated in their approach to defrauding the real estate owners. From falsifying documents to paying off people to use their credit to buy a home, detectives say criminals will do just about anything during the recession to make money - even if it means selling a sibling's home without their knowledge. Gregor Tevan was sentenced on Aug. 9 to two years in prison for doing just that to his brother, according to police.

Members of Orange County's business community can expect UC Irvine to become a bigger part of the real estate scene if the evolution of the school's Center for Real Estate goes as planned. The center's creation was announced in June. The center is part of UC Irvine's Paul Merage School of Business, and according to school officials, more than $1.5 million has already been donated to it. One of the center's founding donors is Robert Campbell, president of the Newport Beach-based CT Realty Corp.

ANI AMIRKHANIAN In the past couple of years, I have been hearing talk about real estate opportunities in Armenia. More Armenians are expressing interest in buying property in Armenia, be it residential or commercial. They are Diaspora Armenians from all parts of the world, including Glendale, who are making these kinds of investments. Some have never been to Armenia. Granted, any kind of investment made there is inexpensive in comparison to Glendale.

Kerry Vandell, an influential professor from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been appointed executive director of the new Center for Real Estate at UC Irvine's Paul Merage School of Business. Vandell, who will also serve as a professor of finance, plans to begin his tenure in July 2006. At Wisconsin, he directed the Graaskamp real estate program, one of the most heralded business education programs in the country. As head of the UCI real estate program, he will preside over the training of graduate students preparing for careers in the real estate industry.

Claudia Peschiutta GLENDALE -- The union of two well-known real estate companies will probably go mostly unnoticed in this area. The recently announced merger of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage and Fred Sands Realtors is expected to improve services at the companies' local offices but change little else. Coldwell Banker and Fred Sands each have one office in Glendale and one in Burbank. Though many Fred Sands locations will be taking on the Coldwell Banker name, the local offices will not be doing so because they are franchises, officials said.

Karen S. Kim GLENDALE -- New numbers show real estate transactions in Glendale dropped by 9.5% in 2001, but Glendale Assn. of Realtors President Gary Naeve said Glendale's market is doing well. "The number of transactions have gone down, but the median home price continues to increase and average dollar per sale continues to increase," Naeve said. "When that happens, it usually indicates that the demand for housing here is greater than the demand for selling.

About 19.2% of the total office space in Glendale and Burbank is empty, the highest level since the recession began pushing businesses out of high rises in 2007, according to a real estate report released this week. The combined total of 2.3 million square feet of empty office real estate between the cities accounts for vacancy rates of 17.7% in Burbank and 20.5% in Glendale during the first quarter of 2010, according to a report from real estate firm Grubb & Ellis. A year ago, the vacancy rate in Burbank was 4% and the rate in Glendale was 16.3%, according to the report.

In recent years, despite the warnings of recession, housing prices have risen. This has created blissful times in the housing market and a boom among real estate professionals. There was a time when having a relative or friend in real estate was not so common. Not anymore. Today the number has grown tremendously and in some cases entire families are in real estate. Who can blame them? Even doctors and lawyers are selling homes. But the blissful times are no more. According to the Washington Post, the Commerce Department reported that sales of new, single-family homes dropped by 6.6% in June.

Talk of a slumping national residential real estate market may be deterring some potential buyers, but home prices in Glendale are stable, local agents say. "On the average, the number of transactions has dropped by probably 8% to 10%, but the prices are holding," said Rick Bonyadi, president of the Glendale Assn. of Realtors and owner of Prudential California Realty. "Prices have gone up 5% to 6% in January from January last year." The relative strength of the local market is concurrent with a regional trend, according to Jack Kyser, senior vice president and chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.

As the residential real estate market slows down, Catherine Yesayan, a former real estate agent, is poised to grow her home-staging business. After 10 years working as an agent, Yesayan ditched her former career just as the market hit its peak in late 2005. But she didn’t leave real estate altogether. The Glendale resident instead found herself looking for ways to inject her creative instinct into a new career that still incorporated her professional experience. Yesayan found that blend in a career doing home staging, or equipping homes that are for sale with furniture, art and accessories to give prospective buyers the feeling that they could plop down in the nearest sofa and live in the house right away.

Barry Ross received congratulations from Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Fred Rotenberg after Ross was recently sworn in as the 2012 president of the Glendale Bar Assn. by Glendale Mayor Laura Friedman. A native of the Glendale and Burbank area, Ross just completed a two-year term as the 2010-2011 president of the Burbank Bar Association. Known best as one of Southern California's most respected real estate attorneys and mediators, Ross earned his Juris Doctor from Southwestern University, School of Law in 1975, and an MBA in accounting and management in 1974 from the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business.

Blain Fairbanks Anderson, 84, returned to his loving heavenly father on January 31, 2012. Blain, a long- time resident of the Crescenta Valley was born October 16, 1927 in Burbank, California. After serving a church mission in Holland & graduating from the University of Southern California, Blain began a career in real estate. As one of the early real estate developers in La Canada & La Crescenta, Anderson played a major role in the growth of local com-munities. On August 30th, 1951 Blain married Patricia Hales in the Latter Day Saint Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Foreclosed homes and short sales are making up an increasingly large chunk of the local housing market, moving toward 50% in Glendale, according the latest real estate figures. Sales of distressed homes made up 47.5% of total sales in Glendale in September, according to figures compiled by Realtor Keith Sorem with Keller Williams in Glendale. In Burbank, the ratio was almost 34%. The figures were far higher than a year ago, when distressed homes made up about 36% of total sales in Glendale and nearly 16% in Burbank.

As a resident concerned about a potential Walmart in Burbank, I would like to say that everyone wants to pay less for things. Everyone. And as a teacher who can't get more hours, I can especially appreciate that. But if there is one thing that I could try and get across to people, it would be these “low prices” that Walmart advertises aren't as low if you look at the larger picture (“Walmart is far from a cure-all,” Aug. 30). A lot of people who want Walmart think that its coming to town would be good because of the state corporate income taxes they will pay. But what a lot of people don't realize is that Walmart avoids paying millions in dollars in taxes a year because of the way their real estate trust is set up. They put their stores under the ownership of a real estate investment trust.

As real estate fraud cases increase throughout region, Glendale police say thieves are becoming more sophisticated in their approach to defrauding the real estate owners. From falsifying documents to paying off people to use their credit to buy a home, detectives say criminals will do just about anything during the recession to make money - even if it means selling a sibling's home without their knowledge. Gregor Tevan was sentenced on Aug. 9 to two years in prison for doing just that to his brother, according to police.

The Glendale Police Department's thinly-staffed Financial Crimes unit received a county grant this week to help investigate real estate fraud, which is on a rise in Glendale, officials said. The Los Angeles County Fraud Prosecution Program awarded an $189,934 grant to the unit. The money will be used to pay for an additional detective who will be dedicated to investigating real estate fraud cases. “We have seen in an increase in Section 8 housing fraud this year,” Glendale Police Lt. Susan Hayn said.

Spencer Robinson was one of the early pioneers of Glendale, arriving here the same year Glendale became a city. He later served as the city's first mayor. Robinson brought with him an illustrious history. Not only was he descended from old American Colonial stock, he was an accomplished singer who had often appeared in concert. A native of Illinois, he was born to Dean and Julia (Spencer) Robinson. His mother was descended from a prominent English line, according to one of Robinson's relatives, Steve Hunt.

Another slump in local residential sale prices in June indicates a soft market during a time of year when real estate activity is usually surging. The average sale price of a Glendale home in June was $515,784, down from $533,671 the same time last year, according to statistics compiled by Keith Sorem, an agent with Glendale Keller Williams. There were 61 pending sales at the end of June, one more than in June 2010. In Burbank, the average sale price was $453,218 in June, compared to $493,478 a year earlier, and the number of pending sales took a tumble, from 47 to 38. The percentage of deals involving bank-owned properties fell in Burbank by about 4.5% and dipped only 0.5% in Glendale.

    William David Plumley, Jr. On June 1, 2011, just a few weeks short of his 87th birthday, Bill Plumley peacefully succumbed to heart disease.  Bill was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa on June 22, 1924.  During the Depression, his family moved to Los Angeles where Bill graduated from Fremont High School in 1942.  From high school, Bill enlisted in the Navy, serving in the Atlantic during World War II aboard the destroyer escorts USS...