Salish Lodge & Spa Partners With TPC Snoqualmie

(Snoqualmie, WA) -- Salish Lodge & Spa, one of the top resorts in the Pacific Northwest, now has golf to offer its guests courtesy a new partnership recently struck with nearby Tournament Players Course at Snoqualmie Ridge.

Through its exclusive partnership with TPC at Snoqualmie Ridge, a private residential community just a short drive from Salish Lodge, Salish Lodge guests can now enjoy a variety of "stay and play" packages, according to Salish Lodge. TPC at Snoqualmie is the only Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course in the Pacific Northwest,  designed to accommodate major PGA Tour events while offering superb playability for golfers of all levels.

"We're incredibly fortunate to not only call TPC Snoqualmie Ridge our next door neighbor, but to provide our guests with exclusive access at this members-only course," said Rod Lapasin, general manager at Salish Lodge & Spa. "With spring just around the corner, we developed some new experiences that pair the Lodge's world class amenities with those at this breathtaking course."

Consistently ranked among the best small resorts in the world, Salish Lodge & Spa is nestled in Washington's picturesque Cascade Mountains, overlooking the 268-foot Snoqualmie Falls. Each of its 84 recently renovated guest rooms has a wood-burning fireplace, two-person whirlpool tub, goose-down comforter, feather bed and balcony or window seat.

Salish Lodge & Spa is managed and operated by Seattle-based Columbia Hospitality, Inc. Columbia Hospitality,  founded in 1995 by John Oppenheimer, is a management and consulting firm specializing in luxury hotel and resort management. The company's continued success has led to an international expansion of the consulting division and more than 100 hospitality development projects worldwide.

The resort is located 30 minutes east of downtown Seattle and within 40 minutes from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

The one number to watch for a housing recovery

If you're waiting for home prices to go up, then you're missing signs the troubled housing market has finally turned around.

FORTUNE – Over the past few months, many economists have concluded that that the U.S. housing market has reached a turning point and is healing. This may sound hard to believe, since home prices have continued their downward trend. In 2011, prices fell by 4% following nearly a 30% decline since the property bubble paeked in June 2006. They ended the year at a 10-year low.
Indeed, prices aren't likely going to rise for a while. But this might not necessarily mean the housing market isn't on the mend. Perhaps we're looking at the recovery all wrong, says Paul Dales at Capital Economics. In a report to clients recently, the economist said higher prices won't be the sign that tells us there's a real recovery under way. Rather, the recent pick-up in sales is what we should pay attention to.
After all, prices tend to be a lagging indicator. It could take six months for any improvements to show in the market, if not longer.
"Even if the asking price is at the right level when the home is first listed, it may still take a few months to find a buyer and another month or so before the contract is closed," Dales wrote to clients last week. "The selling price that is registered at the end of this process therefore relates to the market conditions somewhat earlier."
Sales have risen recently, reaching a few milestones.
In 2011, existing home sales climbed to 4.26 million – higher than the 4.19 million sales in 2010. Needless to say, this is far below the market's peak of 7.1 million sales amid the housing boom in 2005. But it's worth noting that for the past two years, sales have crept up from the market's low of 4.1 million sales when the market collapsed in 2008. In particular, in the past six months, total homes sales have risen by 13% as borrowing costs for home mortgages continue to fall to record lows and investors making up the bulk of sales find opportunities in heavily discounted properties after foreclosures and short sales.
And a series of home sales data released later this week is expected to show that home purchases probably climbed in February to their highest level in nearly two years, according to forecasts in a Bloomberg survey. Sales of new and previously-owned properties combined are expected to rise to an annual rate of 4.93 million – the strongest since May 2010, and up from 4.89 million in January.
The evidence reminds us that perhaps we should change our expectations of what a housing recovery might look like, particularly following a crisis marked by record foreclosures and a financial crisis that sent the economy into one of the deepest recessions. The recovery we have been anticipating is defined more on the rate at which the glut of vacant properties comes off the market as opposed to any steady rise in prices, which some think won't happen for another few years.
The inventory of unsold homes has dwindled, falling in January to 6.1 month's worth of supply – its lowest level since March 2005. A supply of six months is generally considered ideal for a healthy housing market, but there continue to be several headwinds at play that could weigh down prices.

Uncle Sam wants you to rent out its foreclosed homes

Foreclosure home sales from Fannie Mae may help reduce neighborhood blight.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Want to become a landlord in one of the nation's hardest-hit foreclosure neighborhoods? Well, Uncle Sam has a deal for you.
Fannie Mae (FNMA, Fortune 500) will offer up nearly 2,500 distressed properties in eight locations to investors who are willing to buy them in bulk and rent them out for a set number of years.

The properties, which are located in Atlanta, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles/Riverside, and three Florida regions, include all types of housing units, from single-family homes to co-op apartment buildings.
"This is another important milestone in our initiative designed to reduce taxpayer losses, stabilize neighborhoods and home values, shift to more private management of properties, and reduce the supply of REO properties in the marketplace," said Edward J. DeMarco, the acting director of the Federal HousingFinance Agency (FHFA), which oversees Fannie Mae.

Steal this home! 7 foreclosure deals

The sales, which will cover a small fraction of the more than 180,000 properties Fannie and Freddie Mac (FMCC, Fortune 500) hold, will be open to qualified buyers under strict guidelines.
Most of the properties already house tenants and buyers will be required to continue to rent out the properties to them for as long as their leases last. Investors will also be required to rent the properties out for a specified number of years. The exact number of years has yet to be disclosed.
Investors must post security deposits in order to bid and also must prove that they are financially stable, have property management experience and have strong ties to the local community, such as a history of working with local development organizations.
FHFA said that bidders must purchase all of the homes that are for sale in a given metro area. In Atlanta, that's as many as 572, while in Chicago it's 99.

0:00 / 03:12 How Fannie Mae spruces up foreclosures

Despite the fact that the strict requirements could limit the number of applicants seeking to invest in the properties, the government agencies have said there is strong interest in the program. FHFA said it has received more than 4,000 responses to a request for public input on how best to dispose of the vast number of homes Fannie and Freddie Mac (FMCC, Fortune 500) have acquired from borrowers who defaulted on their loans.
Real estate consultant John Burns said there should be no problem at all finding buyers.
"I've got three or four clients myself, maybe more, who will bid on every one of those portfolios," he said.
Burns believes the sales should help bolster the housing market. By taking these distressed properties off the market, it will prevent them from further weighing on home prices in surrounding neighborhoods, said Burns. It will also add to the rental property inventory, which should help offset recent rent hikes.
And, by filling up what otherwise could be vacant homes, it should also reduce blight. Vacant homes attract vandals and criminals, which reduces property values and make it more likely that other nearby homeowners will walk away from their mortgages.

Multi-million dollar foreclosures

"We believe that this initiative holds promise for providing support to local neighborhoods that were especially hard hit by the housing crisis and will help meet the rising demand for rental housing in many communities," said Michael Stegman, a housing finance advisor at the Treasury Department.
FHFA will not say when the first sale is expected to go to contract. Given that it is a complicated process that includes analyzing and comparing bids, it will probably take a couple of months before any final buyers are selected

Underwater borrowers are on the rise

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The number of homeowners who have fallen underwater on their mortgages -- owing more than their homes are worth -- climbed to 11.1 million in the last three months of 2011, a 3.7% increase.
Those in this upside-down position, also called negative equity, represent 22.8% of homeowners with mortgages. The count rose from 10.7 million borrowers (22.1%) only three months earlier, according to a report from CoreLogic.

The increase comes mainly from falling home prices and it's a troubling sign for housing markets, said CoreLogic senior economist Sam Khater.
It's one of the "double triggers" of default, he said. The other trigger is the inability to make payments.
"When they're upside down, borrowers may be current on their payments but they're more vulnerable to economic storms -- like job losses -- that could tip them over into default," he said.

Steal this home: 7 foreclosure deals

About 8% of so of the underwater borrowers have already fallen behind on their mortgage payments. Such properties are likely to hit the market soon either as repossessed homes or a short sale.
When they do, they typically sell at steep discounts. Conventional sellers have to cut their prices to compete, keeping a tight lid on the broader housing market.

Michael Jordan selling home for $29 million

NBA star Michael Jordan put his Highland Park home up for sale on Wednesday. The listing price: $29 million.
The 56,000 square-foot contemporary home, which is located in a suburb of Chicago, has three levels, including 9 bedrooms and 5 fireplaces on more than 7 acres of property.

Your Jetsons home is almost here

Connected home technology, similar to The Jetsons, is finally ready.
BARCELONA, Spain (CNNMoney) -- In the classic 1960s animated sitcom The Jetsons, everything in the space-age family's home could be controlled by the press of a button on a remote control.
Fifty years later, that futuristic vision is finally becoming reality.

At Mobile World Congress this week, the wireless industry's largest annual convention, companies like AT&T (T, Fortune 500), Qualcomm (QCOM, Fortune 500), Intel (INTC, Fortune 500), and Sony (SNE) are showing off how everything in your home -- from your door locks to your thermostat to your TV -- can be controlled by a smartphone or tablet.
That kind of technology has been demonstrated and discussed for years, but it never graduated past a niche product for the uber rich and extremely geeky. Today, however, the hardware, software, and cloud-based infrastructure necessary to make it a reality is finally inexpensive enough for companies to bring full-home connectivity to the mainstream market.
But hold off on the excitement for a moment -- there's a sticking point. Connected-home technology won't become widespread until there's a uniform vision for how it will all work together.
There isn't one. Not yet.

AT&T on Monday unveiled its new home security platform, which allows security companies to sell automated home protection services. Using AT&T's network and software, a home security customer could control their heat, locks, lights, oven and security cameras using an iPad.Intel featured a similar home-control technology, except instead of connecting devices through a wireless network, its system lets all the gadgets in the house talk to one another using what's known as machine-to-machine connections. Your window shades, dishwasher, refrigerator and other appliances would all link with a central router running the Linux operating system, which is connected to and controlled over the Internet.Chipmaker Qualcomm showed off its new "Hy-Fi" platform, which lets consumers easily play media from any device on any other device in the home. Want to watch a movie on your TV that's stored on your iPad? A Hy-Fi router and receiver wired to your TV will take care of that. It also lets you listen to a song on your stereo that's stored on your hard drive.

0:00 / 3:59 Inside the tech kitchen of the future

Sony showed how you can dock a Sony smartphone, connect it to a Sony TV, and navigate your phone's media using your TV's remote. Or you can play a game on your PlayStation, and pick up where you left off on your portable PS Vita.
Each system has its own unique platform that is incompatible with everyone else's.
Without one clear standard for all in-home devices to talk to one another, consumers' choices are limited. You can either buy everything from the same brand (Sony's model), everything running the same platform (Intel and AT&T's models), or invest in additional hardware to connect all your existing stuff together (Qualcomm's model).
There are also other competing platforms that weren't at this year's Mobile World Congress.
Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) has a home connectivity platform of its own, which allows Apple TV, Mac, iPhone and iPad users to stream and play content from any Apple device on the same network. Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) is in the process of unveiling its own standard called Android@Home, which would allow connected devices in your home to be powered by an Android smartphone or tablet.
There are advantages and disadvantages to each model.
Google and Intel have an open standard that any device maker can adopt for free. AT&T makes companies license its platform for a fee, but with that comes a representative that customers can yell at when things don't work. And Sony and Apple users don't have to purchase any extra technology -- just so long as they don't mind buying only Sony or Apple products.
Until one standard becomes universally accepted, The Jetsons vision will remain a fantasy. But with every major gadget maker pursuing it, it's now finally a fantasy backed up by impressive real-world demos

Home prices are lowest since 2002

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- National home prices fell 4% in the fourth quarter of 2011, putting them back at levels last seen in mid-2002.
That's the fifth consecutive annual loss and the biggest decline since 2008, when markets were in free fall and prices plummeted more than
Prices have been falling since they topped out in 2006, and are down 33.8% from their peak, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller national home price index.
"The housing market ended 2011 on a very disappointing note," said David Blitzer, spokesman for S&P. "While we thought we saw some signs of stabilization in the middle of 2011, it appears that neither the economy nor consumer confidence was strong enough to move the market in a positive direction as the year ended."
After prices fell sharply in 2007 and 2008, declines over the past three years have been more modest. Many analysts thought markets were bottoming out and would soon stabilize, and even pick up. The last quarter of 2011, when national index prices fell a steep 3.8% from the third quarter, may have dashed those hopes.

0:00 / 1:20 Lowe's shows housing improvement

"While we thought we saw some signs of stabilization in the middle of 2011, it appears that neither the economy nor consumer confidence was strong enough to move the market in a positive direction as the year ended," said Blitzer.
Robert Shiller, the Yale economist and co-creator of the Case-Shiller indexes, is more optimistic. Last year, he thought home prices were in danger of falling by up to another 25% before they bottomed out.
On Tuesday, he cited several economic reports as signs that housing could start stabilizing. He also focused on surveys that indicated that Americans are very confident of the long-term prospects for housing as an investment.
During the boom, about 90% of the people he surveyed thought it was a good time to buy. Recently, 92% of people agreed with that statement. Still, Shiller is far from bullish on the housing market.
"We may be on the verge of recovery but we may not," he said.
The S&P/Case-Shiller 20- and 10-city indexes recorded similar sharp declines during the quarter. Among individual cities, Atlanta recorded a 12.8% year-over-year fall, the worst of any city.
Other big losers were Las Vegas, down 8.8%, Chicago which fell 6.5% and Seattle, which declined 5.6%. Detroit, where prices crept up 0.5% for the year, was the only city in the 20-city index to register a gain.

Multi-million dollar foreclosures

In the past five months prices have declined at an annualized rate of more than 6%, according to Dean Baker, director with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a trend he said is especially troubling. He cites some reasons for hope, however.
"Case-Shiller is a lagging indicator and most of the contracts reflected in this report were signed in August and September," he said. "The latest economic data shows a much brighter picture."
Industrial production has been up and unemployment has dropped.
"The economy is stronger now than in the first half of 2011 and that will filter down to home prices," said Baker.

New home sales exceed expectations

New home sales showed improvement in the latest government report.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- New home sales exceeded forecasts in the latest government readings Friday, another sign of a long-awaited recovery in the battered housing market.
The Census Bureau reported that the pace of new home sales hit a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 321,000 in January, up from the previous reading for December and better than economists' forecasts. Census also revised the December figure higher to a rate of 324,000, meaning that the pace of sales was about 6% stronger that month than the original estimate.

The supply of new homes for sale once again fell, the 11th straight month the inventory of new homes on the market has been at a record low level. The continued decline in supply comes even as other government readings have shown an increase in housing starts by home builders in recent months.
The tight supply, which was at 151,000 new homes in January, helped to lift prices, as the median price of a new home sold in the month rose slightly to $217,100, up $600 from December.
There are other signs that the long-suffering housing market is finally improving. The pace of sales of existing homes in January was at the highest point since the end of an $8,000 home buyers' tax credit in 2010. Mortgage rates have been at record lows until a slight increase this week.

Those low financing costs, coupled with years of price declines and some improvement in the job market have made home ownership more affordable than it has been in decades.
But home prices are still depressed, hurt by the large inventory of foreclosed homes still on the market. The price of existing homes sold in January fell to a 10-year low.. And even with the slight increase in new home prices in January, prices are still lower than the annual average for 2010 or 2011

0:00 / 1:57 Where it hurts to be a homeowner

'How we're losing our multi-million dollar home'

See inside this million-dollar foreclosure.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Like millions of Americans, Joanne and John Buchanan are facing foreclosure. But at a value of more than $2 million, the home they stand to lose isn't your average delinquency.
For the Buchanans, it's the dream house they built from the ground up in a resort community near Breckenridge, Colo., in 2003. It took them almost two years and about $2.2 million to build -- and soon they will have to move out
For years, homeowners at the high end of the housing market were able to postpone the foreclosure process, but now multi-million dollar homes are becoming more commonplace in America's foreclosure pipeline. In fact, America's wealthiest families are now losing their homes to foreclosure at a faster rate than the rest of the country, according to RealtyTrac.
Out of all foreclosure activity, the share of foreclosures on multi-million dollar properties -- or homes valued at more than $2 million -- has jumped by 273% since 2007.
For the Buchanans, losing the six-bedroom estate they helped design was unimaginable at one time, but now it seems unavoidable.
The couple moved to Colorado from California where John had worked as the director of business development at a high-tech Silicon Valley firm. They came seeking a less stressful life. John took a buyout package and the couple opened two wine and tapas restaurants, using their new dream home as collateral.

See inside the Buchanan's $2 million dream home

Things went well, for a while. "In 2008, we were hit up here with the slowdown as much as anybody," John said. But "we were on the wrong end of the market," he said. High-end restaurants like theirs were quickly without customers.
John was forced to shutter the restaurants in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing.
Meanwhile other expenses were also piling up, including the couple's mortgage payment, which was more than $7,000 a month. They had gone to their lender, CitiMortgage, to ask them to modify the mortgage on their home, which was then valued at $3 million. But the bank refused.
Eventually, the Buchanans just stopped paying their mortgage. John said he hoped it would get the bank's attention. It has been almost 30 months since they last made a payment, meaning the couple is more than $210,000 behind on their mortgage.
Sean Kevelighan, a spokesman for Citi, said the bank could not comment on specific cases. "Our first priority is to keep families in their homes," he said.
Since 2007, Citi has helped more than 1 million homeowners avoid potential foreclosure, he noted. "Unfortunately, that is not always possible, and some cases proceed to foreclosure," said Kevelighan.
As part of the bankruptcy filing, the Buchanans have agreed to sell their home and hand over the remaining assets to the restaurant lender after Citi recoups the $1.7 million that it is still owed on the mortgage, according to John.
"We had a lot of our savings tied up in the house and we'll end up losing all of that," he said.

0:00 / 2:18 Live in this luxury 'safe' house

If the house doesn't sell soon, CitiMortgage will proceed with a foreclosure, which will further destroy the Buchanan's already damaged credit. But selling is looking less and less like an option: The market for high-end properties in the resort community has largely dried up. The Buchanan's house was first listed for $3.3 million in 2008. Now it's listed for $2.3 million, and there have been very few interested buyers, according to Joan Moats, the listing agent on the property.
"Transactions dropped, sales volume is lower and prices are down 25% to 30% since 2008," Moats said. Houses over the $1 million mark, like the Buchanans' property, are particularly hard to move, she said. "We've reduced it by over a $1 million now -- we're trying to get it sold but I'm racing against the bankruptcy and the foreclosure."
"There's no traffic, there's no market at this level. If we find a buyer they will have difficulty getting a loan," John added. "The foreclosure will happen soon."

Million-dollar foreclosures rise as rich walk away

Click image to see inside 8 multi-million dollar foreclosures.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Five years after the housing bubble burst, America's wealthiest families are now losing their homes to foreclosure at a faster rate than the rest of the country -- and many of them are doing so voluntarily.
Over 36,000 homes valued at $1 million or more were foreclosed on -- or at least served with a notice of default -- in 2011, according to data compiled by RealtyTrac, which tracks foreclosures. While that's less than 2% of all foreclosures nationwide, it represents a much bigger share of foreclosure activity than in previous years.

its foreclosed homes

"These properties are accounting for a bigger piece of the foreclosure pie," said Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac.
Out of all foreclosure activity, the share of foreclosures on properties valued at $1 million or more has risen by 115% since 2007 while the share of multi-million dollar foreclosures -- or homes valued at more than $2 million -- jumped by 273%. Meanwhile, the share of foreclosures on mid-range properties valued between $500,000 and $1 million fell by 21%.
Until recently, many homeowners at the high end of the housing market were able to postpone the foreclosure process, Blomquist explained. With other assets and alternatives, "they had more financial means to hold out against default."
In addition, lenders are typically more amenable to working with homeowners that have other resources, said Ron Shuffield, president of Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell, a real-estate firm in Miami where homes priced over $1 million represented 9% of all foreclosures last year.

See inside 8 multi-million dollar foreclosures

But with a recovery in the housing market still years away, foreclosure has turned out to be a worthwhile option after all. Saddled with bloated mortgages after a long run up in property values, many high-end homeowners have chosen to pursue a "strategic default." Even though they can afford the monthly mortgage payments, they still decide to walk away from their home because they owe more on the property than it is worth.
"In the lower-priced houses you'll see more people defaulting because they can't afford the payments and it's a choice between feeding their family and paying the mortgage on a home that's under water," said Stuart Vener, a national rere will be an opportunity for buyers to snatch up these impressive houses at bargain basement prices, he said, which could provide a much-needed boost to sales overall. "In a good way, this is going to drive turnover," he said.