The Weekly Blend is your ‘weekly’ source covering real estate news that you just may have missed. Our hard at work Weekly Blend crew scours the web, newsgroups and forums looking for obscure, bizarre, interesting and informative real estate (or real estate related) stories. If you have one you’d like to share please feel free to share it in our comments section or tweet about it using the hashtag #WeeklyBlend. So brew yourself a fresh cup of coffee and enjoy these stories…maybe even share them with friends or colleagues. Happy reading!
Here are my weekly picks:
- It’s just over 40 years old, but a Calgary home could soon be designated a heritage property … if the owner gets her way.
- This eco-friendly home in the UK costs just $21 USD per year to run.
- In their current commercial, vacation rental website HomeAway shows the drawbacks of sharing space with people you don’t know (we’re looking at you Airbnb).
- Wonder no more! Earthquake-safe beds are coming to a showroom near you … soon.
- The Urban Land Institute and PWC have published a 106-page PDF entitled “Emerging Trends in Real Estate®” for the United States and Canada in 2016.
- Not a distinction any city would want, Vancouver has been ranked the third-most unaffordable housing market – even ahead of New York and London.
- Fast on the heels of the Target fiasco, Sears is adding to the problems of Canada’s malls.
- Architect Jonathan Tate and developer Charles Rutledge are undertaking a bold experiment in building homes the middle class can afford.
- The 16-person tent: perfect for those times you want to go camping with 15 other people without getting frustrated with campsite setup.
- A luxurious Miami mansion built by the “The King of Cocaine” is no more.
- If “yurt living” is something you’re considering, take a test drive at one of these three Quebec yurt camping destinations.
- You can “glamp” or you can “camp”… or maybe, just maybe, you could do both this winter.
- This “ninja house” has holes for walls and ladders for stairs.
- 14 of the most awe-inspiring places you can rent on Airbnb.
- Speaking of awe-inspiring, since 1992 the 2000-year-old Salina Turda salt mine near Transylvania has been used as a theme park and museum.
- It might be a problem only the super-wealthy can appreciate but what do you do when an encroaching high-rise ruins the sunlight that illuminates one of several of your Picasso originals?
- Have you seen Ikea’s latest hack? It’s customizable furniture that comes in the form of a colouring book.
- Just in time for Super Bowl L (that’s 50 in Roman numerals) here are 10 of the most extravagant Airbnb rentals in the Bay Area you still have time to book.
- The Handel House Trust has restored Jimi Hendrix’s room on Brook Street in Mayfair to exactly how it was and you have until February 10th to visit it.
- This is just the news we’ve been waiting for! An Oxford University study shows that living near a pub makes you happier and even helps you cut down on drinking.
- It’s hip, it’s current, it’s inviting: it’s the newly redesigned KFC … coming soon to a neighbourhood near you.
- A new study has found that housing in Hong Kong has become severely unaffordablefor most locals and that trend is having a major impact on lifestyle choices, particularly for the younger generation.
- Costas, Sting, Washington, hedge-fund managers, Russian billionaires, NASCAR drivers and the founder of Spanx are just a few of the people who live in (or have lived at) 15 Central Park West: the world’s most powerful address.
- Stockholm is growing fast. Is the solution to create new streets in the sky?
- In a city with limited space like Seattle, a village of tiny houses is helping the homeless find a place to live.
- In the past, Google Street View has taken us inside Abbey Road Studios, left us dreaming of having high-tea with Her Majesty in Buckingham Palace and now we can climb the famed spiral staircase inside New York City’s Guggenheim Museum.
- If The Simpsons has taught us anything, it’s that a Krusty Burger on an oil rig isn’t a good idea BUT these nine quirky bars on the high seas are some of the best you’ve ever seen.
- America’s Most Unwanted: The Neverland Ranch and other unsold $100-million mega-mansions.
- Are you still without plans for Valentine’s Day? How about hitting The Waffle House? Not sure which ones are participating? Try this handy list to find out.
- Daniel Libeskind, an American architect and urban planner, speaks about his visions for urban planning and social housing projects in Berlin. (VIDEO)
- Dig it! This time capsule apartment, straight out of the 70s hits the market in Chicago. More pictures here.
