Business in brief: Grant, Lincoln buildings sold
Barbieri Real Estate Co. is purchasing the Grant and Lincoln buildings in downtown Spokane for an undisclosed price.
The properties, which take up half a city block on the northeast side of Riverside Avenue and Lincoln Street, were sold by Red Lion Hotels Corp., a publicly-traded company that had historical ties to the Barbieri family’s Cavanaugh’s Hotel chain.
Tom Barbieri, who owns Barbieri Real Estate Co., said the multimillion-dollar renovation of the Lincoln Building is complete and crews will start updating the Grant Building this fall.
Last year, Red Lion Hotels Corp. sold off its real estate division, which became Goodale & Barbieri Co. Tom Barbieri is a partner in the company, which will move its nearly 30 employees into the Lincoln Building after the transaction closes.
New York
IRAs, 401(k)s hit $16.4 trillion
Americans have accumulated a record $16.4 trillion in retirement accounts, with about half of it in company-sponsored plans like 401(k)s and in Individual Retirement Accounts, according to a study by the Investment Company Institute.
The ICI, a Washington-based trade association, said the total as of year-end 2006 was up 11 percent from the $14.7 trillion in retirement assets at the end of 2005 and nearly 55 percent higher than the market-depressed low of $10.6 trillion at the end of 2002.
Retirement assets had declined in 2001 and 2002 as the stock market dropped following the bursting of the technology stock bubble and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but have recovered since, the study showed.
Sacramento
Defaults reach 10-year high
Mortgage defaults in California soared in the second quarter to the highest level in 10 years, the result of weak home sales and sagging home prices in the nation’s largest state, a real estate research firm said Tuesday.
A total of 53,943 default notices were sent to homeowners between April and June, two and a half times the 20,909 seen in the second quarter of 2006, according to DataQuick Information Systems.
The latest default figures represent a 15.4 percent increase since the first quarter.