And in real estate, builder confidence and residential building growth (PDF) continued to gain momentum, existing home sales and prices went up and architectural billings turned positive.
PINNACLE ENTERTAINMENT INC., Glendale, Calif., an operator of racetracks, hotels and casinos, said it would sell 60 acres of land in Inglewood, Calif., near the Hollywood Park Race Track, to the closely held Rothbart Development Corp., a retail real estate builder in Southern California, for $36 million.
Some of the most prominent members of the American social elite made the trip: real estate builder, businessman, and multimillionaire Colonel John Jacob Astor IV and his 18-year-old pregnant wife Madeleine, who were returning to the United States for their child's birth.
Construction spending data in May also fell by more than expected, dashing hopes for real estate builders and developers.
Vacation homebuyers and retirees have been able to tap their home equity and investment portfolios in recent years, reinvesting it in real estate, builders say.
These are commercial loans that hard-working men and women in real estate -- builders, brick masons, plumbers, house painters, grading companies, brokers and others -- can't pay back because the economy tanked.
Bundled money has always been collected by real estate executives, builders, lawyers, lobbyists, leaders of ethnic or religious groups and other business leaders.
But now, during a nationwide real estate downturn, builders are not starting projects or scrambling to finish ones already under way, so there is little need for night-work illumination.
Real estate developers, builders and speculators are no longer just influential in the village, Mr. Hattrick and his supporters contend: drawn by big profits, the real estate interests, they say, have all but taken over local government, directly and through surrogates, and have cleared away all obstacles to the transformational big-house trend.
Ignoring nearly every piece of advice from real estate agents, builders and architects, the couple bought the property a year ago with ambitious plans to restore not only the filling station but also the modest 1820 colonial in front of it, and a surrounding menagerie of six dilapidated outbuildings, including a chicken coop.
The patrons included local real estate agents, builders, members of the town's Planning and Zoning Commission, retired schoolteachers, well-dressed commuters with briefcases, a local author, mothers with toddlers and women snacking after an exercise class at the local Y.M.C.A. — and those were just the people I recognized.
