Elliott & Company Appraisers



June 2007	A Publication of ELLIOTT® & Company Appraisers

CRYSTAL BROWN NAMED ASSISTANT CLIENT SERVICES DIRECTOR

ELLIOTTŽ & Company Appraisers is pleased to announce the appointment of Crystal Brown as assistant client services director. "We are very pleased to be able to promote Crystal to this position," said Charlie Elliott, president of ELLIOTTŽ & Company Appraisers. "She has been a loyal and dedicated member of our Client Services Department and has a thorough understanding of the type of service that we expect to deliver to our clients." Crystal, who joined ELLIOTTŽ & Company Appraisers in September 2004, will work under the direction of Client Services Director Carlyle Holt. ELLIOTTŽ & Company Appraisers serves clients nationwide and offers appraisal services in all 50 states of the United States.

SKYSCRAPERS MORE POPULAR THEN EVER

In the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, ultra-tall buildings were suddenly considered to be very unfashionable.

This is no longer the case. According to Emporis, a German company that studies international construction, 14 of the world's 50 largest buildings have been completed since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

"Tall buildings are a matter of ego," said George Efstathiou, managing partner of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the architecture company involved with the Freedom Tower, at the World Trade Center site, and Burj Dubai, which will be the world's tallest building. "Tall buildings are a sign of success."

AVERAGE SIZE OF U.S. HOUSES GROWING

A report released by the U.S. Census Bureau has confirmed that the average size of a home in the United States has grown considerably, despite the fact that households are getting smaller.

According to the report, the average size of a home in this country grew from about 2,000 square feet in 1990, to 2,434 square feet in 2005. In 1990, 17% of U.S. homes had four or more bedrooms. By 2005, that figure had increased to 20%. In addition to more bedrooms, modern homes tend to have more bathrooms. The concept of media rooms is also growing rapidly.

Homes in the United States average nearly twice the size of those in Great Britain, France, Germany and most other European countries.

INTEREST IN SECOND HOMES WANING AMONG WEALTHY

According to a report from the American Affluence Research Center, the wealthiest 10% of Americans indicated in a survey that they were less likely to purchase a second home than they were two years ago.

Last March, 4.6% of the respondents said they were seriously considering the purchase of an existing second home within the next year and 1.9% said they were interested in building a second home. In the spring of 2005, 6.3% of those surveyed had answered positively to the same question about existing homes and 4.2% said they were considering building a second home.

Ron Kurtz, the center co-founder, credited the dropping interest in second homes among the wealthy to interest in the stock market and anticipation of better housing bargains.

QUOTES OF WIT & WISDOM

"The truth that makes men free is, for the most part, the truth which men prefer not to hear." -- Herbert Agar

"There is a wide difference between speaking to deceive and being silent to be impenetrable." --Voltaire

"No opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible." -- W.H. Auden

"What worries you masters you." -- Haddon Robinson

"In science, the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not the man to whom the idea first occurs." -- Sir Francis Darwin

"If you can find something everyone agrees on, it's wrong." -- Morris Udall

"There is no greater mistake than the hasty conclusion that opinions are worthless because they are badly argued." -- Thomas Huxley

"Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes." -- Henry Kaiser

"The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before." -- Thorstein Veblin

"Nothing can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own." -- Sidney Harris


For previous newsletters or columns written by Charlie Elliott, MAI, SRA, president of ELLIOTT® & Company Appraisers, for mortgage publications visit our Web site at www.appraisalsanywhere.com.



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