While real estate is often thought of being a transaction between buyer and seller in a resale or developer in a new development, there are other key players that ensure the success of a deal. In order for a new development project to launch, the developer and architect are supported by investors.

Given New York City’s presence as a global city, its real estate market achieves strong financial support from international investors. Chinese investment in the city’s real estate has been overwhelmingly on the rise, with individual investors from the nation pouring over a total of $5 billion into New York since 2013. These investments have been towards some of the city’s most influential buildings, including the Waldorf Astoria, the General Motors building, and the Pacific Park/Atlantic Yards 22-acre mixed-use development in downtown Brooklyn.

Understanding the positive influence foreign investments can have on the growth of the nation, the government implemented the EB-5 program, which grants a green card to those Chinese investors who make great economic investments in the country. While New York developers have used this program for their advantage in the past in order to finance their projects, with over $3.7 billion going to NYC real estate through the program, the federal government placed a hold on providing EB-5 investors with green cards on May 1st and enacted a waiting list instead.

On the other hand, private online real estate marketplaces have been encouraging foreign investments in U.S. real estate, specifically from China. Last month, two of these platforms, China’s Juwai.com and America’s Auction.com signed a partnership bringing U.S. commercial real estate opportunities to Chinese investors through the screen, exposing the properties to a larger market share and eliminating the need to travel to make a deal. By creating a more user-friendly platform and expanding audience reach, not only are international investors encouraged to join the New York City real estate market, but developers and residents of the city are given more architectural and cultural opportunities.

Tapping into the investment market is also a group of New York residents, who have formed the New York Real Estate Investment Co-operative (NYC REIC) in hopes to raise money through crowd-funding to build spaces for community and cultural centers. The purpose of the coop is to create affordable commercial real estate for community groups, cultural organizations, and small businesses in need of space in order to combat rising rents throughout the city. According to New York Yimby, the coop has already obtained 300 members and secured $1.3 million in pledges, proving the potential success of the grassroots organization.

Whether for the fulfillment of a new residential building to be developed or for small neighborhood organizations to obtain an affordable storefront, real estate investment — both local and global — has proven to be a crucial player in the real estate market.

Toni Haber

Huffington Post Real Estate

Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker

Washington, July 18 (IANS): The US department of commerce said that housing starts, an economic indicator that reflects the number of privately-owned new houses on which construction has been started in a given period, has risen sharply.

According to the department, privately-owned housing starts were at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 1,174,000 in June, up 9.8 percent from the revised May figure and also 26.6 percent higher than the year-ago level, Xinhua reported on Friday.

The housing starts and permits data in June confirmed the continuous recovery of the US housing market.

A latest industry survey showed that US builder confidence for single-family homes rose to a 10-year high in July.

The government’s forms aren’t big enough to handle Donald Trump.

In a statement accompanying financial disclosuresrequired of presidential candidates, Trump’s campaign mocked the inadequacy of the federal reporting process for candidates. “This report was not designed for a man of Mr. Trump’s massive wealth,” the campaign said in a statement. The forms, you see, include multiple-choice answers in which the largest amount of wealth a candidate can declare is “$50 million or more.” Since Trump claims a net worth of more than $10 billion, his riches bury the government’s measly forms.

Some financial analysts say Trump is vastly exaggerating his wealth, though it’s impossible to know for sure, since his companies are private and aren’t required to disclose financial details. But even if Trump is worth $10 billion, he’s still an underdog when it comes to the cash required to run for president, because at least two other candidates—and maybe more—seem all but certain to outspend him. Probably by a lot.

Related: Is Trump really the great stock picker he claims to be?

Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton both have deep, elaborate fundraising networks that could help each build a war chest of $1 billion or more in total spending by Election Day 2016. That’s par for the course these days: In 2012, Democrats raised $1.1 billion in support of Barack Obama, while Republicans raised $1.2 billion backing Mitt Romney. Trump certainly excels at getting free publicity, but successful presidential campaigns also require costly staff and research, endless travel, extensive get-out-the-vote efforts and tons of advertising to supplement the free press. Somebody has to pay for all that.

Trump is self-financing his campaing, a la Ross Perot in 1992. He has loaned the campaign $1.8 million so far, and spent about $1.5 million. Trump can certainly keep his campaign going at those levels for a while. But Bush and Clinton have been building donor networks for years, and raising money outright since 2014. Other candidates, such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, have lured rich donors who have at least as much cash as Trump. And heavy hitters still sitting on the sidelines—notably, Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers, Charles and David—are many times richer than Trump and willing to spend lavishly to send a Republican to the White House (most likely somebody other than Trump).

Trump does solicit donations on his website, which has pulled in nearly $100,000 so far. But donations to campaigns are limited to a maximum of $5,400. The real money these days flows to so-called super PACs able to collect unlimited sums from rich donors. Jeb Bush’s campaign, for instance, raised about $11 million during the first half of 2015. But a super PAC affiliated with Bush, called Right to Rise, raised $103 million, or more than 9 times as much as the campaign. Super PACs supporting Democrat Hillary Clinton haven’t disclosed their fundraising yet, but those numbers are likely to hit 8 figures.

A Trump super PAC called Make America Great Again recently got started, but it won’t have to report its fundraising totals until January, since it didn’t raise any money in the first half of 2015. Trump’s campaign could release numbers sooner, but probably won’t unless they’re impressive. In any event, Trump’s controversial statements on Mexicans and other issues have already ruptured some of his business relationships, suggesting other rich businesspeople will be reluctant to donate to him, even if they agree with his positions.

Meanwhile, Trump conveys the impression he’ll spend as much as necessary out of his own pocket–but that may not amount to nearly as much as Trump wants people to think. Even if his net worth is $10 billion, most of that is tied up in real estate, which is not a liquid asset. Trump could borrow against real assets, but taking on new debt could weaken the financial position of his businesses. Plus, Trump could be worth far less than he claims, once debt and other liabilities are accounted for. Forbes pegs his net worth at $4.1 billion.

One can only guess how much of his own money Trump is willing to spend on a quixotic political campaign, but $100 million would be a lot. Perot spent $64 million of his own money running in 1992, which would be about $108 million today. The amount Trump spends will largely be dictated by how long he stays in the race and how competitive he wants to be. Early fundraising is important, but the real spending occurs if the state-by-state primary elections (which will take place next spring and summer) drag on as they did during the Democratic campaign in 2008 between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

If Trump doesn’t win the Republican primary, he’ll save all the extra money it takes to compete in the fall general election—unless he decides to run as a third-party independent, as Perot did. Trump can clearly coast for a while, but if he’s still in the race this time next year, his accountant might be getting pretty nervous.

Editors’ note: This story has been updated to include newly available details on Trump’s fundraising, the amount he has loaned to his own campaign and his plan to self-finance the campaign. 

Now, you’ll hear some critics say, “well, we could have negotiated a better deal.” OK. What does that mean? I think the suggestion among a lot of the critics has been that a — a better deal, an acceptable deal would be one in which Iran has no nuclear capacity at all, peaceful or otherwise. The problem with that position is that there is nobody who thinks that Iran would or could ever accept that, and the international community does not take the view that Iran can’t have a peaceful nuclear program. They agree with us that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

And so we don’t have diplomatic leverage to eliminate every vestige of a peaceful nuclear program in Iran. What we do have the leverage to do is to make sure that they don’t have a weapon. That’s exactly what we’ve done. So to go back to Congress, I challenge those who are objecting to this agreement, number one to read the agreement before they comment on it, number two to explain specifically where it is that they think this agreement does not prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and why they’re right and people like Ernie Moniz, who is an MIT nuclear physicist and an expert in these issues is wrong, why the rest of the world is wrong, and then present an alternative.

WASHINGTON (AP) — To President Barack Obama, the historic nuclear accord with Iran is a validation of an arduous, politically fraught diplomatic gamble, one he foreshadowed before winning the White House and one that will shape his legacy long after he leaves.

The sheer amount of time and political capital Obama invested in the Iran talks has fueled speculation that he had too much at stake to walk away from the negotiating table, no matter the compromises in a final deal. Obama authorized secret talks with Iran in 2012, followed by nearly two years of formal negotiations alongside Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. His rapprochement with Iran sent U.S. relations with Israel plummeting to near-historic lows and deepened tensions with Congress.

Even with the high-stakes implications of an Iranian nuclear program, the talks over time seemed to represent more than just the quest for a deal. They were a referendum on Obama’s belief that even America’s most ardent enemies can be brought in line by wielding diplomacy and economic pressure instead of military might.

“It represents the core of who he is and what his presidency stands for,” said Julianne Smith, a former Obama White House and Pentagon official. “He needs it to validate that approach.”

With the deal now in hand, one of Obama’s top priorities is selling its virtues to skeptical lawmakers and world leaders, as well as the American public. He spent much of Tuesday calling leaders in Europe and the Middle East, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu, a fierce opponent of the deal, said his country is not bound by the terms of the agreement and “will reserve our right to defend ourselves against all of our enemies.”

Obama was also poised to defend the deal in a news conference Wednesday, while dispatching Vice President Joe Biden to Capitol Hill to meet with House Democrats.

“I’m here to answer questions and explain what the deal is and I’m confident they’ll like it when they understand it all,” Biden told reporters as he entered the closed-door session.

Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, said Biden was trying to make a case for the agreement’s longevity and said reactions to the vice president’s remarks were “pretty favorable.”

Green added, “I’m pretty close to my Jewish community in Houston so I still have some questions.”

Senior U.S. officials say Obama is sensitive to the perception he was desperate for a deal. With big gaps remaining as a June 30 deadline neared for a final agreement, officials said the president urged his team to send clear messages to Iran both publicly and privately that the U.S. was ready to end the talks without an agreement.

“He did not want people to have the impression that this is something we needed to have,” one official said, adding that Obama was frequently among the most pessimistic members of his national security team about the prospects for a deal.

Officials also pointed to a video conference Obama convened with Kerry and other negotiators last week as an example of his willingness to forgo a deal. With momentum for an agreement building in Vienna and a deadline to limit congressional oversight looming, officials said Obama essentially rejected the deal at hand because timetables for keeping restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program and a U.N. arms embargo in place were insufficient.

The officials insisted on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the president’s thinking.

Obama first planted the seeds for engagement with Iran as a presidential candidate, saying in a 2007 Democratic primary debate that he would be willing to meet with Iranian leaders without preconditions. His statements were ridiculed by Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, who went on to be his secretary of state and help jumpstart the secret negotiations with Iran.

The president’s opening months in office included public and private overtures to Tehran, all with a more conciliatory tone aimed at signaling a shift from predecessor George W. Bush, who cast Iran as part of an “axis of evil.”

In a veiled reference to Iran in his inaugural address, Obama said he was willing to “extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your first.” He exchanged letters with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He used conciliatory language in a videotaped message to both the people and government of Iran on the Persian new year, calling for engagement “that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.”

Obama has taken a similar approach — clandestine diplomacy, prioritizing negotiations over military action — to other foreign policy challenges, with mixed results. Plans to negotiate an end to Syria’s bloody civil war have gone nowhere. A resumption of diplomatic relations with Cuba after a half-century of hostilities is moving along largely as planned.

Yet the stakes and the scope of the Iran effort stand apart, a reality not lost on Obama. While he talked of American strength and long-sought change Tuesday, he acknowledged in an interview with The Atlantic earlier this year that if Iran does ultimately get a bomb, “it’s my name on this.”

___

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump unveiled new documents Wednesday setting his personal fortune at more than $10 billion and his annual income at more than $362 million.

The celebrity businessman said he filed a personal financial disclosure form with federal regulators Wednesday afternoon, though he has not released the form publicly. The $10 billion figure — up nearly 15 percent since the previous year, by Trump’s calculation — makes him the wealthiest person to ever run for president, far surpassing previous magnates like Ross Perot, business heirs like Steve Forbes or private-equity investors like Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee.

Among the sources of his income has been $214 million in payments from NBC related to his reality television show, “The Apprentice.” NBC recently cut its ties with Trump.

There was little information provided Wednesday about how Trump calculated the figure. In a statement that accompanied the financial information, his campaign wrote the federal forms are “not designed for a man of Mr. Trump’s massive wealth.”

“The numbers will be far in excess of what anybody thought,” Trump said during an appearance Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” ”I built a great company.”

Despite the filing, skepticism about his net worth is likely to remain.

Trump, for example, valued his personal brand and marketing deals at $3.3 billion when he announced his candidacy. Forbes Magazine, however, valued his brand at just $125 million. And that was before Trump’s comments about Mexican immigrants cost him business partnerships with companies such as Macy’s and Univision.

Trump in the past has taken umbrage at suggestions he might not be as fantastically wealthy as he says. In 2009, he sued author Timothy O’Brien for defamation after O’Brien wrote that Trump’s net worth might be as low as $150 million.

Trump lost the suit and a subsequent appeal. In a deposition, the panel of appellate judges noted, Trump conceded that his public disclosures of his wealth depended partly on his mood.

“Even my own feelings affect my value to myself,” Trump said.

President Barack Obama announced Tuesday that negotiators from the United States and five other major world powers had sealed a history-making deal to ease crippling economic sanctions on Iran in return for safeguards to ensure that country does not develop nuclear weapons.

“This deal is not built on trust, it is built on verification” Obama said from the State Floor of the White House, with Vice President Joe Biden at his side. “Every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off and the inspection and transparency regime necessary to verify that objective will be put in place.”

The president immediately turned to the difficult work of beating back domestic critics in Congress and fierce opponents of the agreement overseas – notably staunch U.S. ally Israel and Gulf nations that have traditionally battled Iran for influence in the Middle East.

“As the American people and Congress review the deal, it will be important to consider the alternative,” Obama said. Absent an agreement, he said, Iran would face “no lasting constraints” on its nuclear program, potentially triggering an atomic arms race in the world’s most volatile region, while raising the possibility of American military action.

“Our national security interest now depends upon preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, which means that without a diplomatic resolution, either I or a future U.S. president would face a decision about whether or not to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon or whether to use our military to stop it,” the president declared. “Put simply, no deal means a greater chance of more war in the Middle East.”

If successful, the agreement would arguably rank atop Obama’s list of foreign policy achievements. It would have many more far-reaching effects than the killing of Osama bin Laden and represents a more dramatic reshaping of American handling of world affairs than the looming resumption of diplomatic ties with Cuba after nearly six decades of estrangement. The ongoing military campaign against the so-called Islamic State has poured cold water on his claims to have ended the war in Iraq.

But first, the deal needs to survive through the next two months.

Starting from the time it receives all of the documents agreed to at negotiations in Vienna, Congress will have 60 days to review the agreement, and at the end of that period can vote it down or let it stand.

Under a law passed earlier this year, disapproval would restrict Obama from easing economic sanctions on Iran. But lawmakers would need a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override Obama’s certain veto, and White House aides say privately that enough Democrats will side with the president to prevent that from happening.

“I welcome a robust debate in Congress on this issue,” Obama said. But “now is not the time for politics or posturing.”

Some opponents of the agreement say that they view the next two months as their last best shot to derail an accord that, they charge, does not do enough to handcuff Iran’s nuclear aspirations and rewards Tehran with cash that may bankroll the country’s destabilizing activities across the Middle East. While several contenders for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 have promised to roll back the agreement if they take office, Secretary of State John Kerry dismissed that possibility in March.