Bus travels, Tour and transport: December 2009

New Tourism Deal Between Argentina, Brazil and Isra

Posted by david - Sunday, December 20, 2009

Tourism agreement to be signed between Israel and Argentina (www.jpost.com):"Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov and his Argentinean counterpart Carlos Enrique Meyer will sign a tourism agreement in the near future, after Misezhnikov, who was accompanying President Shimon Peres on his South American tour, said on Tuesday that "Israel considers Argentina to be a country with great tourism potential."

This adds to the services when "In May 2009, El Al began to operate a direct flight route between Tel Aviv and Sao Paolo," Brazil's economic center.

Meyer said he aspires to promote code-sharing agreements on the Brazil-Israel route and encourage the inception of direct flights between Buenos Aires and Tel Aviv." Lots of potential tourism options!

However, Argentina authorizes industrywide air fare hike (Reuters)
which might affect travel plans.

View of Buenos Aires's iconic Obelisk and Avenida 9 de Julio is displayed with the kind permision of Roberto Ingledew.

View of a busy street in São Paulo is displayed with the kind permission of Ron Miller - author of Escape from the Happy Cannibal.

Source: http://gosouthamerica.about.com/b/2009/11/25/new-tourism-deal-between-argentina-brazil-and-israel.htm

High housing price defies traditional real estate picture in Beijing

Posted by david - Sunday, December 13, 2009

BEIJING, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- There are many riddles in Beijing's property market this year, and the most recent one is the much higher sales price for apartments than for office buildings in the same district, China Daily reported Monday.

Industry experts said that in a healthy real estate market, the unit price of commercial property is usually 30 percent higher than that of residential buildings in the same region.

But in Beijing, the situation is just the opposite. In some areas, the price of high-end apartments is even 50 percent higher than that of office buildings.

A major reason for the abnormal purchasing patterns is too much speculative buying of high-end apartments, mainly by individual investors, the newspaper said, citing Li Wenjie, general manager of the property agency Centaline China (North China region).

Since the mortgage policy for office buildings is stricter, the purchase of office space requires bigger cash flow from investors, thus pushing some individual buyers away from the market.

According to the China Index Institute, the average property price in Beijing reached a record high of 17,509 yuan (2,574.9 U.S. dollars) per square meters in November, up 9.74 percent month-on-month.

Meanwhile, the floor space of available apartments dropped 30.3percent on a yearly basis to 13.6 million square meters at the end of November, the lowest since 2008.

Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-12/14/content_12644057.htm

The end of the live real estate auction

Posted by david - Monday, December 07, 2009

Leasing Space to the Government

Posted by david - Friday, December 04, 2009

GSA, the nation's largest public real estate organization, provides workspace for more than 1.2 million federal workers through its Public Buildings Service. Approximately half of the employees are housed in buildings owned by the federal government and half are located in over 7,100 separate leased properties, including buildings, land, antenna sites, etc. across the country. An updated listing of this inventory is posted after the 15th of each month at the Monthly Lease Inventory. Its downloadable excel spreadsheet contains 35 data elements per lease including the information most requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

GSA prepares an annual turnover analysis on its lease inventory as requested by the commercial realty community. This is the latest analysis; however, GSA does not recommend that business decisions, in particular portfolio and financing decisions, be based upon this analysis.

GSA leases space in diverse locations when leasing is the best solution for meeting federal space needs. More than 50 percent of GSA leases are for 10,000 square feet or less, so owners do not have to be corporate giants to compete for lease contracts.

Starting a Real Estate Career

Posted by david - Thursday, December 03, 2009

Applied Research

Posted by david - Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Applied Research strives to:

Generate recommendations to improve PBS operations, strategies, and policies
Lead research to formulate strategic use of new and existing technologies to advance the PBS mission

We have seven active projects in two key research areas:

Adopt sustainability practices and high performance building strategies
Improve workplace effectiveness

Security

Posted by david - Tuesday, December 01, 2009

The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Federal Protective Service (FPS) provides law enforcement and security services to over one million tenants and daily visitors to federally owned and leased facilities nationwide. The FPS has established itself as the center of expertise for physical security operations. From the installation of alarm systems, x-rays, magnetometers and entry control systems, to monitoring those systems 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, providing uniformed police response and investigative follow-up, the FPS is organized to protect and serve. The provision of contract security guard services, crime prevention seminars tailored to individual agency and employee needs, facility security surveys, and integrating intelligence gathering and sharing.

For more information, click on the links below.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement website (ICE). ICE is the investigative arm of the Border and Transportation Security Directorate (BTS), the operational directorate within the DHS tasked with securing the nation’s borders and safeguarding its transportation infrastructure.
FPS Security Services
Code Adam Alert Program

Bus travels, Tour and transport