Peek At Desert Home That Obama's Rumored To Be Buying

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 anned by the Los Angeles Times' very plugged-in Hot Property columnist and real estate reporter Lauren Beale, rumours have flared that President Obama and his family have bought a home in the California desert.

 

Front view of the home. Source: Yahoo

Beale's sources say Obama is in escrow on a 3-acre property in Rancho Mirage's Thunderbird Heights, an exclusive gated community once home to Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.

It has a 20-foot waterfall with a lagoon, a putting green with a sandtrap, and more recreational opportunities. Click here for a slideshow of the home.

Shortage Of Quantity Surveyors Hits Crisis Levels

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kills shortages have hit their highest level since 2008 with 54% of firms reporting insufficient numbers of quantity surveyors available to meet current workloads.

Figures in the latest RICS UK Construction Market Survey Q2 2014 show private housing, commercial and industrial sectors driving strong growth across the whole of the UK.

But a shortage of white and blue collar workers is a real threat to recovery.

The survey showed that 59% of respondents reported shortages of bricklayers and 51% reported a shortage of managerial workers.

Millennials Will Soon Be A Force To Be Reckoned With In Housing Markets

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18.4 million 20- and 30-somethings are living with their parents

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he U.S. home ownership rate dropped for the ninth year in a row in 2013, thanks in no small part to the fact that millions of 20- and 30-somethings were still living with their parents, according to the latest “State of the Nation’s Housing” report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

The decline in home ownership rates from 2004 to 2013 was most dramatic among 25- to 34-year-olds (down nearly 8 percentage points) and 35- to 44-year-olds (down 9 percentage points). Some 15.3 million adults in their 20s and 3.1 million in their 30s were still living with their parents last year, helping bring the home ownership rate down to 65.1 percent.

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Walls Can Now Be Built With Shredded Paper

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esearchers at Nottingham Trent University have developed a new material made from shredded paper which is as strong as MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard).

The academics have established a new, rigid composite material which is paper-based but also fire and water resistant and strong enough to build walls.

It is made from a mixture of long strands of shredded office paper and a sodium silicate gluing agent, which protects against flame and moisture.

To make it, the two materials are mixed at a ratio of 80% paper and 20% sodium silicate and then compressed at high pressures at 90°c.

Malaysian Tycoon, Anthony Fernandes, Builds Hotel In Kenya

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alaysian multimillionaire, Anthony Fernandes, is moving into the hospitality business in Kenya.

 

According to a news report by Kenya’s Business Daily, Tune Hotels, a low-budget hotel chain owned by Fernandes’ Tune Group, will launch its first African outlet in Nairobi next year.

Construction on Tune Hotel in Nairobi began in October last year and the building is already four floors high. Tune Hotels Nairobi will be a 12-storey, 280-room facility that will operate on the ‘no frills’ model, whereby customers pay only for the amenities they use and are given a discount for booking early. The hotel will be situated in Westlands, an affluent suburb in Nairobi, and will charge customers an average of $100 a night.  The hotel chain which Fernandes started in 2007 already has about 45 outlets in Britain, Australia and India, among other countries.