#real estate lightbox

[demonzoro]

none of this is proofread but here's my ideal modern au for the goth fam. wall of text incoming, sky is blue, etc.

mihawk: World's Most Reluctant College Professor. history/archaeology. reluctantly employed because his place of residence (half-wrecked castle) is owned by the university and one of the terms for him to live there for free is to teach classes. initially hired as a publicity stunt that petered out. actual respected swordsman in the modern age but the reality is "swordsman" is... not very lucrative. really important to me that he is forcibly employed while having gigantic unemployed energy.

his ass is not showing up to a lecture hall unless under extreme duress (shanks showing up to his place unannounced again🙄). fully aware his papers are only taken as a credit filler (robin lectures the papers that are more practically applicable). almost exclusively "teaches" by emailing out reading lists and assignments. actively trying to get his students to drop his paper so he can do fuck-all for the rest of the year.

zoro: phys ed major. he's so serious about his main courses as well as mihawk's stupidly niche paper. probably the first person the "Dracule Mihawk Teaches Here!" publicity stunt has worked on in years. has trouble with the heavy focus of book-smarts this paper requires but powers through it best he can until mihawk sets some indecipherable tome as part of a reading list and zoro is like. okay. you leave me no choice.

he fully shows up on mihawk's doorstep at 9:44PM on a tuesday night brandishing this tome. mihawk answers the door because he is two bottles into his wine.

zoro, furious that this piece of shit tome has no audiobook alternative: this. YOU. explain. NOW. mihawk: a student. at my doorstep. did shanks blab to you. zoro: your address is publicly listed as a minor tourist attraction. mihawk (<- didn't know that): hm. come in.

zoro is treated to a full drunk history session and the supermarket gift wine mihawk has been avoiding but accidentally opened. he wakes up the next morning and zoro is still there in one of the guest rooms. he's like what are you doing here and zoro is like. i don't have a whole day to waste getting back to my dorm i need to do your assignment.

mihawk, fully aware the dorms should only be a max twenty minute walk away: interesting. get out.

safe to say, zoro thinks visiting mihawk's home is easier than emailing him. which is true in some ways since mihawk takes small joys in putting unread emails straight into trash.

perona: fashion major OBVIOUSLY. really interested finding vintage/archival sewing patterns/designs and modernising them. LOVES using essays as outlets for her rants. blase on everything else in life but takes her course so seriously. HATES zoro ever since he almost made her fail an assignment because he had checked out a book she needed and held it for fucking aaages.

similarly zoro hates perona bc she almost made him fail an assignment by hogging the only lightbox on this side of the campus that makes it possible to read some of the archival material mihawk puts on his impossible reading lists.

zoro gets lost in mihawk's castle and meets perona in-person for the first time outside of a name on a booking sheet and they have a huge stupid argument. zoro storms off and accidentally finds mihawk again this way and he's doubly mad because he can't believe mihawk has been chasing him away all this time while letting another student just live in the east wing.

mihawk (<- didn't know that): there's a what.

turns out perona just said "umm dorm fees? rent? in this economy? there's a wrecked castle 20mins away from campus it's free real estate". and she's right. she also finds out mihawk has staff access to archival materials not readily open to students and she immediately whips out a wishlist.

anyways i imagine perona graduates and becomes a fashion designer. zoro decides booksmarts is not for him and drops out to focus fully on a professional athlete career or make his way as a stuntman. models for perona on occasion. mihawk fully quits his job after those two leave bc they were the only ones in years that made it interesting. retires but robin recommends him as a consultant to the museum society and he does some work there. ALWAYS calls zoro or perona if he's restoring smthng cool he thinks they would love.

jfc are you still here. i kiss you on the lips

[themesfores]

Porto Theme v7.1.14 – Multi-Purpose & WooCommerce Theme

https://themesfores.com/product/porto-theme-woocommerce-theme/ Porto Theme v7.1.14 – Multi-Purpose & WooCommerce Theme Porto v7.1.14 WordPress theme introduces a lot of new features and demos, we also enhanced our speed Optimization wizard and reached top performance scores in ThemeForest. Porto releases 5 wonderful features – Soft Mode, Merged JS and CSS, Critical CSS, Type Builder, Single, and Archive Builders. Porto improved performance by optimizing dynamic styles by about 30ms, using CSS variables, optimizing server response time by about 30ms, etc. Please check the changelog below for more details. Porto Multi-Purpose & Woocommerce Theme Main Features: Multipurpose design WordPress Multisite (WPMU) Tested and Approved Child Theme Ready Bunch of Useful Demos – Construction, Hotel, Restaurant, Law Firm, Digital Agency, Medical, Real-Estate, APP Landing, Resume etc Plenty of Widgets Multiple Page Styles Powerful Speed Optimization Tool Visual Composer is highly optimized One Page Template Social Sharing Features 33+ custom elements for Visual Composer (banners, carousels, tabs, toggles, accordions, buttons, quotes, table, alert boxes, tables, lists, forms, icons, glyphicons, progress bar, pricing tables, dropcaps, team members, call to action boxes, columns, etc) SEO Optimized (Rich snippets for breadcrumbs and reviews are built-in) Responsive Design Unlimited Colors & Layouts WooCommerce Compatible Wishlist, Ajax Search, Filtering & Sorting WPML Support RTL Ready FAST Support & Updates Cross-browser compatibility (IE9+, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Edge) Valid HTML5 code 30 + unique homepage layouts: More amazing concepts are coming soon! 6 extra layouts of the slider area: Text and Form, Static image, Single Video; Mega menu and 3-level drop-down menu; 20+ different headers 5 different breadcrumbs 4 different portfolio types (total 19 pages) 4different blog types (total 6 pages) Grid / List view Shop pages Ajax filtering in shop and product archive pages Revolution Slider ($19 value) plugin Visual Composer ($34 value) Woocommerce Catalog Mode Powerful Page options Elegant animations 3 different contact page layouts Install Demo content with One-Click Wide / Full / Boxed Layout Typography page Switch on/off sticky header option Additional pages: About, Services, Team, Process, Careers, FAQ, 404 page, Sitemap, Contact us, etc. Lightbox Share icons on project and product pages Contact and newsletter forms Twitter Feed Widget Google web fonts Custom Font Control Documentation ? step by step Compatible with WordPress SEO plugin Compatible with WordPress Social Login plugin Compatible with WP Cache plugins such as WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache plugins Compatible with Mailpoet newsletter plugin Compatible with Revolution Slider plugin Compatible with BBPress, BuddyPress plugins Compatible with Better WordPress Minify plugin Compatible with Nav Menu Roles plugin Compatible with Woocommerce Product Filter plugin Compatible with Post Views Counter plugin Compatible with GeoDirectory plugin Compatible with WooCommerce Multilingual plugin Compatible with Major multi-vendor plugins like Dokan, WC Vendors and Yith WooCommerce Multi-Vendor plugins Compatible with YITH WooCommerce Wishlist plugin Compatible with YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search plugin Compatible with YITH WooCommerce Badge Management plugin Compatible with WPML plugin Compatible with Polylang plugin Compatible with qTranslate X plugin Compatible with WooCommerce Currency Switcher plugin And much much more? Please note: that any digital products on this website do not contain malicious code, viruses, or advertising. https://themesfores.com/product/porto-theme-woocommerce-theme/ #WooCommerceTheme #WordpressTheme

[signonllc]

Stay Ahead in 2024: Trending Insights on Custom Real Estate Signs

In the ever-evolving world of real estate, staying ahead of the game requires not only keeping up with market trends but also effectively marketing your properties. One powerful tool in your marketing arsenal is the use of custom real estate signs. In this article, we'll delve into the latest insights and trends surrounding real estate signs, wall printing, and trade show signs that can elevate your business to new heights.

Custom Real Estate Signs: A Visual Edge in Property Marketing

Real estate signs serve as the first impression for potential buyers and tenants. In 2024, the trend leans heavily towards custom real estate signs that not only provide essential information but also reflect the unique personality of your brand. At Sign on LLC, based in Cape Coral and Fort Myers, Florida, we specialize in crafting custom real estate signs that capture attention and leave a lasting impact.

Customization is Key

Investing in custom real estate signs allows you to stand out in a crowded market. Incorporate your brand colors, logo, and unique selling propositions to create a visually appealing and memorable sign. The key is to make your properties easily recognizable and leave a lasting impression.

Sign Frames for Maximum Visibility

When it comes to real estate signs, the right frame can make all the difference. Our selection includes top-notch sign frames designed to enhance visibility and durability. These frames not only complement the overall aesthetics but also ensure that your message is conveyed clearly to passersby.

Wall Printing: Transforming Spaces with Innovative Designs

In addition to traditional real estate signs, wall printing has emerged as a powerful trend in 2024. Sign on LLC excels in wall printing design, providing clients in Cape Coral and Fort Myers, Florida, with unparalleled creative solutions.

Unleashing Creativity with Wall Murals

Wall murals have become a popular choice for businesses looking to make a bold statement. Whether it's an office space, retail store, or a property for sale, wall murals can transform ordinary walls into captivating works of art. Our wall printing services ensure high-quality, eye-catching designs that resonate with your brand and message.

Trade Show Signs: Navigating the Sign Industry Trade Show Scene

For real estate professionals, attending trade shows is a crucial aspect of networking and staying updated on industry trends. Having eye-catching trade show signs is essential for making a lasting impression at these events.

Proximity Matters

If you're in Cape Coral or Fort Myers, Florida, you're in luck. Sign on LLC is your go-to source for top-notch trade show signs. Our Trade Show Sign near me service ensures that you have visually striking and informative signs that help you stand out in the competitive trade show environment.

Business Lightbox Signs: Illuminating Your Brand

When it comes to outdoor advertising, business lightbox signs are gaining popularity due to their visibility, especially during the evening. Sign on LLC offers outdoor lightbox signs that illuminate your brand and message effectively.

Shine Bright with Outdoor Lightbox Signs

Our outdoor lightbox signs are designed to grab attention, making your brand visible even in low-light conditions. Illuminate your properties and make a lasting impression on potential clients, day or night.

Conclusion: Elevate Your Real Estate Marketing in 2024

As we navigate the dynamic landscape of real estate marketing in 2024, embracing trends such as custom real estate signs, wall printing, and trade show signs can set you apart. Sign on LLC is your trusted partner in Cape Coral and Fort Myers, Florida, providing top-notch services to help you stay ahead in the competitive real estate market. For inquiries, reach out to us at 239-800-9454 or email info@capeled.com. Elevate your brand with Sign on LLC, where innovation meets visibility. Source Blog page

[5mybestarticles]

Trumped: the multi-million-dollar lawsuit over Toronto’s most controversial new condo-hotel

The Trump tower, downtown’s tallest new condo-hotel, is a monument to excess. And, like its tycoon namesake, it’s surrounded by controversy: 38 investors are suing the hotel for millions. Lessons from a post-crash real estate market

In the city’s new five-star hotel landscape, the Ritz represents elegant European classicism, the Shangri-La cool, Asian chic, and the Trump unfettered American pomp. Like its loud-mouthed namesake, the Trump is brash, proud and full of bluster. Stock, the hotel’s restaurant and bar, is outfitted with shiny tufted black leather seating and silver accents. Its lobby, a shimmering expanse of marble and mirrors, seems sprung, fully formed, from the imagination of Joan Collins.

The hotel’s developer, Talon International, is run by Val Levitan and Alex Shnaider, two Russian-Canadian entrepreneurs. Levitan made his fortune manufacturing slot machines and creating bank note validation technology, and Shnaider earned his in the post-glasnost steel trade. The Trump is their first Toronto real estate venture. In 2002, during a meeting in Shnaider’s office at Dufferin and Finch, they agreed on a plan to build the city’s biggest, fanciest, five-starriest hotel. They both travel frequently for work and agreed that Toronto’s hotels lacked the quality of the ones they stayed at in London, New York and Moscow. Back then, Toronto’s swankiest option was the old Four Seasons, a dour brutalist tower in Yorkville. But the city was emerging as a major North American financial centre, a place where serious players were coming to do big international deals. These titans were in need of boardrooms in which to meet, bloody steaks to consume, and high-thread-count sheets to sleep between.

In 2004, Talon bought a site at the corner of Bay and Adelaide for $27.4 million. The location was perfect—smack in the centre of the business district. This was before the cultural revitalization of the city’s downtown core, but Levitan and Shnaider could see the signs: the revamping of the Bay’s flagship department store, the plans for the new Bell Lightbox, not to mention a phalanx of condos and restaurants springing up in the city centre. By the time the hotel was completed, it would be the anchor point of a tourist-friendly downtown.

The luxury hotel required a famous brand, which is how the pair ended up approaching Donald Trump. At the time, Trump’s reality show The Apprentice was riding high in the ratings, and the Trump brand was associated with luxury, success and business prowess, not with headline-making Twitter spats and an aborted Republican leadership bid. They worked out a deal to license the Trump name.

They planned a 65-storey mixed-use building consisting of a restaurant and bar, a day spa, 118 condos—some as large as 4,400 square feet and selling for up to $9.1 million—and 261 “condo-hotel suites,” traditional hotel rooms that Talon intended to sell as residential real estate investments. The condo-hotel set-up was unusual in Toronto. It’s an attractive model for developers because it allows them to raise capital up front from investors.

Donald Trump is a shareholder in other Trump developments in Chicago, New York and Las Vegas, but not in Toronto. The hotel would bear his name and his style, and an affiliate of his management company would run the day-to-day hotel service. According to the early marketing brochures, it would be a model for “Manhattan-style luxury living in Toronto.”

By the time the Trump opened in 2012, ten years after the plan was hatched and more than two years later than originally scheduled, the financial climate had, of course, drastically changed. The hotel now felt like a throwback to a cockier, pre-recession era, back when hedge fund managers ruled the world and Bernie Madoff was a respected financial guru. A group of buyers now regret their investment in the building, and millions of dollars in deals between them and Talon are on the verge of collapsing. The group claims their condo-hotel units often sit empty, and they’ve launched a series of lawsuits alleging the Trump sales team misrepresented how much profit they’d make. The defendants say the lawsuits have no merit, that no misrepresentations were made. The claims have yet to be heard in court.

The Trump investors believed they’d bought into a get-rich-quick scheme. How did something so promising go so wrong?

Before there was the Trump Tower, there was the Trump tower sales office, a glass-fronted box that stood on the same prime corner from which the hotel would eventually rise. A polished young sales team sold a steady stream of units, over the phone, online and in person, to a diverse cross-section of buyers—including elderly Korean pensioners, wealthy Nigerians and a now-defunct U.K. company called WorldWide Properties, which bought four floors of hotel units with the intention of flipping them.

When the Trump broke ground, half of the residential condos had sold, as had 191 of the condo-hotel units, which ranged in price from $736,000 to $3.8 million. The suites could be rented out as part of the hotel, providing extra income to buyers. In the Trump system, occupancies are organized in a strict, computerized rotation, which ensures that the least rented room jumps to the front of the queue. The hotel charges service fees for maintenance (linens, towels, cleaning, etc.) and management, but the rest of the rental profit goes to the owner of the room. The promotional material declared that “investing in hotel suites is a trend that’s sweeping the United States… The reason? Great cash flows, no concern for maintenance and reasonable cash requirements as a down payment. Leverage is key, especially in these times of low interest rates.”

[chrisfrominvis]

Trumped: the multi-million-dollar lawsuit over Toronto’s most controversial new condo-hotel

The Trump tower, downtown’s tallest new condo-hotel, is a monument to excess. And, like its tycoon namesake, it’s surrounded by controversy: 38 investors are suing the hotel for millions. Lessons from a post-crash real estate market

In the city’s new five-star hotel landscape, the Ritz represents elegant European classicism, the Shangri-La cool, Asian chic, and the Trump unfettered American pomp. Like its loud-mouthed namesake, the Trump is brash, proud and full of bluster. Stock, the hotel’s restaurant and bar, is outfitted with shiny tufted black leather seating and silver accents. Its lobby, a shimmering expanse of marble and mirrors, seems sprung, fully formed, from the imagination of Joan Collins.

The hotel’s developer, Talon International, is run by Val Levitan and Alex Shnaider, two Russian-Canadian entrepreneurs. Levitan made his fortune manufacturing slot machines and creating bank note validation technology, and Shnaider earned his in the post-glasnost steel trade. The Trump is their first Toronto real estate venture. In 2002, during a meeting in Shnaider’s office at Dufferin and Finch, they agreed on a plan to build the city’s biggest, fanciest, five-starriest hotel. They both travel frequently for work and agreed that Toronto’s hotels lacked the quality of the ones they stayed at in London, New York and Moscow. Back then, Toronto’s swankiest option was the old Four Seasons, a dour brutalist tower in Yorkville. But the city was emerging as a major North American financial centre, a place where serious players were coming to do big international deals. These titans were in need of boardrooms in which to meet, bloody steaks to consume, and high-thread-count sheets to sleep between.

In 2004, Talon bought a site at the corner of Bay and Adelaide for $27.4 million. The location was perfect—smack in the centre of the business district. This was before the cultural revitalization of the city’s downtown core, but Levitan and Shnaider could see the signs: the revamping of the Bay’s flagship department store, the plans for the new Bell Lightbox, not to mention a phalanx of condos and restaurants springing up in the city centre. By the time the hotel was completed, it would be the anchor point of a tourist-friendly downtown.

The luxury hotel required a famous brand, which is how the pair ended up approaching Donald Trump. At the time, Trump’s reality show The Apprentice was riding high in the ratings, and the Trump brand was associated with luxury, success and business prowess, not with headline-making Twitter spats and an aborted Republican leadership bid. They worked out a deal to license the Trump name.

They planned a 65-storey mixed-use building consisting of a restaurant and bar, a day spa, 118 condos—some as large as 4,400 square feet and selling for up to $9.1 million—and 261 “condo-hotel suites,” traditional hotel rooms that Talon intended to sell as residential real estate investments. The condo-hotel set-up was unusual in Toronto. It’s an attractive model for developers because it allows them to raise capital up front from investors.

Donald Trump is a shareholder in other Trump developments in Chicago, New York and Las Vegas, but not in Toronto. The hotel would bear his name and his style, and an affiliate of his management company would run the day-to-day hotel service. According to the early marketing brochures, it would be a model for “Manhattan-style luxury living in Toronto.”

By the time the Trump opened in 2012, ten years after the plan was hatched and more than two years later than originally scheduled, the financial climate had, of course, drastically changed. The hotel now felt like a throwback to a cockier, pre-recession era, back when hedge fund managers ruled the world and Bernie Madoff was a respected financial guru. A group of buyers now regret their investment in the building, and millions of dollars in deals between them and Talon are on the verge of collapsing. The group claims their condo-hotel units often sit empty, and they’ve launched a series of lawsuits alleging the Trump sales team misrepresented how much profit they’d make. The defendants say the lawsuits have no merit, that no misrepresentations were made. The claims have yet to be heard in court.

The Trump investors believed they’d bought into a get-rich-quick scheme. How did something so promising go so wrong?

Before there was the Trump Tower, there was the Trump tower sales office, a glass-fronted box that stood on the same prime corner from which the hotel would eventually rise. A polished young sales team sold a steady stream of units, over the phone, online and in person, to a diverse cross-section of buyers—including elderly Korean pensioners, wealthy Nigerians and a now-defunct U.K. company called WorldWide Properties, which bought four floors of hotel units with the intention of flipping them.

When the Trump broke ground, half of the residential condos had sold, as had 191 of the condo-hotel units, which ranged in price from $736,000 to $3.8 million. The suites could be rented out as part of the hotel, providing extra income to buyers. In the Trump system, occupancies are organized in a strict, computerized rotation, which ensures that the least rented room jumps to the front of the queue. The hotel charges service fees for maintenance (linens, towels, cleaning, etc.) and management, but the rest of the rental profit goes to the owner of the room. The promotional material declared that “investing in hotel suites is a trend that’s sweeping the United States… The reason? Great cash flows, no concern for maintenance and reasonable cash requirements as a down payment. Leverage is key, especially in these times of low interest rates.”

Promotions featured an airbrushed picture of Trump, along with a personal endorsement: “We’re going to do something very special in Toronto.” Trump himself, the ad said, “has an undeniably keen eye for a deal.” The ad neglected to mention that Trump wasn’t the project’s developer, just its smiling face.

Sarbjit Singh, a 49-year-old warehouse supervisor from Milton, was one of the early buyers. Singh first heard about the Trump in October 2006 from a real estate agent who told him it was a great investment opportunity. He and his wife, Kimberly, had recently bought a house and just had their second daughter. He didn’t have the money to buy another property. “I was only making between $50,000 and $60,000 a year,” he says. “I’m a regular person, not rich.”

But the prospect of getting his own piece of Trump magic proved too tempting. He claims the agents at the Trump sales centre told him he couldn’t possibly lose money since the “absolute worst case scenario” was that the hotel ended up at 55 per cent occupancy, and even then the projected returns were healthy. “I asked them a long list of questions,” he recalls. Who was going to arrange the mortgages? What would the interest rate be? Would the property be categorized as commercial or residential (commercial properties come with much higher interest rates). He alleges the sales associate assured him he had nothing to worry about. According to Singh, they said Talon was already working on financing with lenders, and it would all go smoothly. The units would qualify for residential mortgages. Singh then asked at what point he could flip the unit, and the agent told him directly after closing. “You’ll make a lot of money,” he remembers the agent telling him. “Even if you don’t sell, you’ll be making lots of money from the reservation program.”

Armed with Talon’s projection sheet, his head dancing with trust funds for his daughters, Singh went to his mother and father, who are retired and living on a pension. He convinced them to take out a $150,000 line of credit on their house, which they owned outright, so he could put down a deposit of $173,400 on an $869,000 suite. He believed, like many other investors I spoke to, that he was buying a piece of real estate directly from Donald Trump and that he couldn’t lose. “I bought it on the strength of his name alone. He’s Donald Trump—hotels and real estate are his business, not mine. I trusted that it would work.”

Construction of the Trump Tower got off to an inauspicious start. It took two years to receive planning permission from the city, and there were more delays after Talon broke ground in late 2007. Because of the site’s small footprint—15,000 square feet—only one crane could be employed at a time. Shnaider admitted it was a bit of a nightmare. “I wouldn’t do such a project again in Toronto,” he said. More significantly for investors, the economic reality changed. As Levitan put it, “It was a very complicated project that became delayed, and in that time the economy fell apart. How can I control that?” In the new market, the projection sheets Talon had distributed with the initial sales package weren’t worth the creamy stationery they were printed on.

In March 2012, Sarbjit Singh took possession of his unit and started paying monthly fees of $8,207, which covered realty taxes, common fees and interest. He expected his rental profits to more than offset the fees, but when the first revenue statements came in, he knew something was wrong: in four months, his unit had been rented 49 times—roughly a 40 per cent occupancy rate and lower than the “absolute worst case scenario” the agent had discussed with him. Singh’s room was running at a loss. When he called hotel management, they told him the bad news: because of the dampened hotel market, they’d been renting his room out at a discounted rate. (Rooms at the Trump that were forecast to cost $550 to $600 per night have been available for $400 on Expedia.) Singh was losing approximately $5,000 a month.

His problems didn’t end there. He visited several major banks and was told the property was commercial, not residential, and thus he’d need a commercial mortgage, for which he’d need to put 50 per cent down—money he didn’t have. Even if he could find the down payment, the commercial interest rates would raise his mortgage payments beyond what he could afford to carry.

Last November, Singh ran out of reserve cash. He stopped paying his fees and is now working in the evenings and on weekends in an effort to pay his parents’ line of credit. He recently missed a mortgage payment. He has no idea how he’ll get out of debt.

Singh retained the Toronto law firm Heydary Hamil­ton last November and filed a suit against the developers. Another 37 buyers have also filed suits. A Heydary lawyer named Mitchell Wine, one of the team of 14 lawyers and articling students working on the Trump cases, told me purchasers and representatives of more than 100 units have contacted his office. The firm has filed statements of claim detailing each of the investors’ stories and accusing Talon and other named parties of misrepresentation, breaches of the Ontario Securities Act, breach of contract, breach of the Condominium Act and conspiracy. Each claimant is asking for well over a million dollars in damages, plus their deposit money back with interest. Pleadings are being finalized, and preliminary motions were scheduled to be heard just after this issue went to press. In response, Talon is seeking to have the action by investors dismissed.

The investors’ suits name Trump Toronto Hotel Management Group and Talon International Inc., as well as Trump, Shnaider and Levitan personally. They allege that the defendants misled investors about the units by providing financial projections that overstated how much they would earn, and by understating expenses (such as occupancy fees). According to the investors’ statements of claim, Talon breached the Ontario Securities Act by selling the units as investment products.

The plaintiffs’ cases centre on a 2004 OSC ruling, which required Talon to market the units as mainly for occupancy, not as investments. Talon was also prohibited from forecasting or guaranteeing profits from the reservation program. And yet, included in the Trump’s original sales package are several charts entitled Estimated Return on Investment, which show detailed breakdowns of the income buyers could expect from their condo-hotel suites. They describe projected common expense fees, housekeeping expenses, estimated taxes and a mortgage projected at six per cent interest. The rental income, in turn, is projected at hotel occupancy rates of 75, 65 and 55 per cent.

Late last year, the OSC investigated the Trump deal to determine whether regulatory action was needed. They met with purchasers and Talon’s lawyers, read over all the documents, and in early December announced they would not be pursuing regulatory action on the matter. When I asked for an explanation, the OSC refused to provide one. The investors’ suits will proceed regardless of the December decision.

The fact is, Talon did warn the Trump buyers about the risks involved in buying condo-hotel units in its disclosure. “A real estate investment is, by its nature, speculative,” the document states. “If a purchaser is purchasing the real estate as an investment, the purchaser should be aware that this investment has not only the usual risks when purchasing real estate, but also those risks that are inherent to the nature of real estate securities.”

A disclaimer in the Trump disclosure lists a series of variables, many of which might seem alarmist if they hadn’t come to pass. These include, but are not limited to, “cyclical downturns arising from real changes in general and local economic conditions; varying levels of demand for rooms and related services caused by changes in travel patterns; the financial condition of the airline industry and the resulting impact on air travel…contagious illness outbreaks, natural disasters, extreme weather conditions, labour shortages, work stoppages or disputes.” There is also a clause, as required by the Condominium Act, stating that each buyer, upon receiving and reading the disclosure document, has 10 days to back out of the deal. According to Levitan, five people did just that.

Investors like Singh claim they didn’t take the warnings about risks seriously because they’d been completely convinced that the investment was a sure bet. It’s a bit like your trusted GP prescribing you a medication and then rattling off the side effects in a super-fast radio ad voice as you leave the office. If what these buyers say is true, the Trump sales team underplayed the risks and overplayed the benefits of buying their condo-hotel units. But sales pitches are hyperbolic by design.

Talon’s statement of defence denies all wrongdoing, including the allegations of misrepresentation and breaching an OSC ruling, and demands the investors forfeit their deposits and pay individual damages of $750,000 each. Levitan says they have a good case for further damages, due to all the bad press the case has received, but they are still “hoping for an amicable solution.”

In Talon’s specific response to Singh’s claim, the company denies that the Trump sales agents promised he could get a residential mortgage or guaranteed a rate of return from the reservation program. It also denies that any promotional material he received breached the OSC ruling. In Levitan’s view, the buyers’ lawsuits are purely opportunistic and won’t stand up in court. Normally, if buyers want to walk away from a deal, a developer will buy back their investment. But the Trump units were sold at the peak of the market. As Levitan points out, “Everything has changed.” Given this reality, Talon is not eager to buy back the units it sold off for millions in the middle of the condo boom. That’s how people—and developers—make money: buying low and selling high. Why should they absorb the cost of others’ bad financial timing?

The group of disgruntled buyers, Levitan says, is primarily composed of people who did not attempt to rescind the deal in the allotted time frame, then realized they couldn’t secure financing and decided to file suit. The fact that they don’t have the money to close only shows that they probably shouldn’t have taken the risk in the first place. “Instead they claim that they thought they were buying from Donald Trump and we promised them a rose garden,” Levitan says with a snort. “It’s a pure form of extortion.”

He says he’s sad for the people who got in over their heads. He’d prefer “the world to be a rosy place in which people are always happy with their investments,” but that didn’t happen with Trump. “So what am I supposed to do?” he says. “Go to the drywall contractor and say, ‘Sorry, but I can’t pay you because 30 investors aren’t paying me?’ ”

Raymond Diep, a Toronto real estate lawyer at the firm Aaron & Aaron, which handled a number of the Trump condo-hotel closings, said his firm’s clients weren’t happy about losing money each month, but they chose to take a long-term view on the investment. “They realized that things might be negative now, but in the end the market would go up again.”

None of Aaron & Aaron’s clients were going to go personally bankrupt on the Trump deal; they absorbed their losses and decided to wait it out. Diep believes the Heydary lawyers are cashing in on private desperation. “They’re making it look like a shady investment, but it’s not really like that. The investors had high expectations. It was the height of the market. Now that it’s slowed down, they’re having regrets about it. It’s that simple.”

Sarbjit Singh, who is in no position to close in cash, says that Talon should have said that only investors of high net worth need apply. Instead, the Trump project was sold as a great investment for people of modest means, like himself. “If you need to be a millionaire to close, they should have targeted millionaires.”

Donald Trump declined to speak with me, but Ivanka, his daughter, agreed. The 32-year-old is vice-president of development and acquisitions for the Trump Organization. When I reached her, she was in the back of a chauffeur-driven car on the way to the airport. “It was very important to me to give you some time,” she said the moment she got on the phone. Ivanka is a glamorous blond jewellery designer and former model with a business degree from Wharton. Over the years, her father has used her as the new face of Trump, trotting her out at public events and even appointing her as a judge on The Apprentice.

Ivanka is an excellent human shield for her father, who is no stranger to lawsuits. He has been sued by investors on several hotel projects and has launched his own litany of suits against a long list of perceived offenders, including an unauthorized biographer, a former Miss U.S.A. contestant, Deutsche Bank and the comedian Bill Maher, who offered, on The Tonight Show, to pay Trump $5 million if he could prove his father was not an orangutan. Trump sent him a copy of his birth certificate, but Maher did not pay up.

Ivanka said she is staggered by the investors’ claims that they believed they were buying their units directly from Trump.

“I don’t know of many people who wouldn’t retain a lawyer to explain to them how this relationship works,” she says. “It’s articulated exactly in the purchase documents… We’re just like the Ritz or the Four Seasons. It’s not different in any way.”

She says the claims against her father and his company are completely without merit. When I point out that people were led to believe they would make money and now they are losing it—and, similarly, that they would be able to secure financing where now they cannot—Ivanka bridles, her voice rising in the controlled manner of one who is used to conflict but not to having her authority questioned. She points out, quite rightly, that with any investment, whatever the asset class, and especially with real estate, those who approach things with a long-term perspective tend to do best. She says the unhappy buyers in the Trump Toronto case are suffering from a severe case of buyer’s remorse—which is nobody’s problem but their own.

She objects to the implication that the investors were misled in any way, and each time I try to suggest that perhaps the sales tactics were overly aggressive, she jumps in and loudly talks over me, extolling what she calls “the beauty of the asset,” by which she means the hotel itself.

“I wish that everyone could be happy, but sometimes these things can be a challenge,” she says airily. “It’s important to remember that the lawsuit doesn’t relate to us in any way. We have no contracts with these people, and we didn’t sell them real estate.” With that, she declares she must go, says a quick goodbye and hangs up.

[marshallstrue]

Trumped: the multi-million-dollar lawsuit over Toronto’s most controversial new condo-hotel

The Trump tower, downtown’s tallest new condo-hotel, is a monument to excess. And, like its tycoon namesake, it’s surrounded by controversy: 38 investors are suing the hotel for millions. Lessons from a post-crash real estate market

In the city’s new five-star hotel landscape, the Ritz represents elegant European classicism, the Shangri-La cool, Asian chic, and the Trump unfettered American pomp. Like its loud-mouthed namesake, the Trump is brash, proud and full of bluster. Stock, the hotel’s restaurant and bar, is outfitted with shiny tufted black leather seating and silver accents. Its lobby, a shimmering expanse of marble and mirrors, seems sprung, fully formed, from the imagination of Joan Collins.

The hotel’s developer, Talon International, is run by Val Levitan and Alex Shnaider, two Russian-Canadian entrepreneurs. Levitan made his fortune manufacturing slot machines and creating bank note validation technology, and Shnaider earned his in the post-glasnost steel trade. The Trump is their first Toronto real estate venture. In 2002, during a meeting in Shnaider’s office at Dufferin and Finch, they agreed on a plan to build the city’s biggest, fanciest, five-starriest hotel. They both travel frequently for work and agreed that Toronto’s hotels lacked the quality of the ones they stayed at in London, New York and Moscow. Back then, Toronto’s swankiest option was the old Four Seasons, a dour brutalist tower in Yorkville. But the city was emerging as a major North American financial centre, a place where serious players were coming to do big international deals. These titans were in need of boardrooms in which to meet, bloody steaks to consume, and high-thread-count sheets to sleep between.

In 2004, Talon bought a site at the corner of Bay and Adelaide for $27.4 million. The location was perfect—smack in the centre of the business district. This was before the cultural revitalization of the city’s downtown core, but Levitan and Shnaider could see the signs: the revamping of the Bay’s flagship department store, the plans for the new Bell Lightbox, not to mention a phalanx of condos and restaurants springing up in the city centre. By the time the hotel was completed, it would be the anchor point of a tourist-friendly downtown.

The luxury hotel required a famous brand, which is how the pair ended up approaching Donald Trump. At the time, Trump’s reality show The Apprentice was riding high in the ratings, and the Trump brand was associated with luxury, success and business prowess, not with headline-making Twitter spats and an aborted Republican leadership bid. They worked out a deal to license the Trump name.

They planned a 65-storey mixed-use building consisting of a restaurant and bar, a day spa, 118 condos—some as large as 4,400 square feet and selling for up to $9.1 million—and 261 “condo-hotel suites,” traditional hotel rooms that Talon intended to sell as residential real estate investments. The condo-hotel set-up was unusual in Toronto. It’s an attractive model for developers because it allows them to raise capital up front from investors.

Donald Trump is a shareholder in other Trump developments in Chicago, New York and Las Vegas, but not in Toronto. The hotel would bear his name and his style, and an affiliate of his management company would run the day-to-day hotel service. According to the early marketing brochures, it would be a model for “Manhattan-style luxury living in Toronto.”

By the time the Trump opened in 2012, ten years after the plan was hatched and more than two years later than originally scheduled, the financial climate had, of course, drastically changed. The hotel now felt like a throwback to a cockier, pre-recession era, back when hedge fund managers ruled the world and Bernie Madoff was a respected financial guru. A group of buyers now regret their investment in the building, and millions of dollars in deals between them and Talon are on the verge of collapsing. The group claims their condo-hotel units often sit empty, and they’ve launched a series of lawsuits alleging the Trump sales team misrepresented how much profit they’d make. The defendants say the lawsuits have no merit, that no misrepresentations were made. The claims have yet to be heard in court.

The Trump investors believed they’d bought into a get-rich-quick scheme. How did something so promising go so wrong?

Before there was the Trump Tower, there was the Trump tower sales office, a glass-fronted box that stood on the same prime corner from which the hotel would eventually rise. A polished young sales team sold a steady stream of units, over the phone, online and in person, to a diverse cross-section of buyers—including elderly Korean pensioners, wealthy Nigerians and a now-defunct U.K. company called WorldWide Properties, which bought four floors of hotel units with the intention of flipping them.

When the Trump broke ground, half of the residential condos had sold, as had 191 of the condo-hotel units, which ranged in price from $736,000 to $3.8 million. The suites could be rented out as part of the hotel, providing extra income to buyers. In the Trump system, occupancies are organized in a strict, computerized rotation, which ensures that the least rented room jumps to the front of the queue. The hotel charges service fees for maintenance (linens, towels, cleaning, etc.) and management, but the rest of the rental profit goes to the owner of the room. The promotional material declared that “investing in hotel suites is a trend that’s sweeping the United States… The reason? Great cash flows, no concern for maintenance and reasonable cash requirements as a down payment. Leverage is key, especially in these times of low interest rates.”

Promotions featured an airbrushed picture of Trump, along with a personal endorsement: “We’re going to do something very special in Toronto.” Trump himself, the ad said, “has an undeniably keen eye for a deal.” The ad neglected to mention that Trump wasn’t the project’s developer, just its smiling face.

Sarbjit Singh, a 49-year-old warehouse supervisor from Milton, was one of the early buyers. Singh first heard about the Trump in October 2006 from a real estate agent who told him it was a great investment opportunity. He and his wife, Kimberly, had recently bought a house and just had their second daughter. He didn’t have the money to buy another property. “I was only making between $50,000 and $60,000 a year,” he says. “I’m a regular person, not rich.”

But the prospect of getting his own piece of Trump magic proved too tempting. He claims the agents at the Trump sales centre told him he couldn’t possibly lose money since the “absolute worst case scenario” was that the hotel ended up at 55 per cent occupancy, and even then the projected returns were healthy. “I asked them a long list of questions,” he recalls. Who was going to arrange the mortgages? What would the interest rate be? Would the property be categorized as commercial or residential (commercial properties come with much higher interest rates). He alleges the sales associate assured him he had nothing to worry about. According to Singh, they said Talon was already working on financing with lenders, and it would all go smoothly. The units would qualify for residential mortgages. Singh then asked at what point he could flip the unit, and the agent told him directly after closing. “You’ll make a lot of money,” he remembers the agent telling him. “Even if you don’t sell, you’ll be making lots of money from the reservation program.”

Armed with Talon’s projection sheet, his head dancing with trust funds for his daughters, Singh went to his mother and father, who are retired and living on a pension. He convinced them to take out a $150,000 line of credit on their house, which they owned outright, so he could put down a deposit of $173,400 on an $869,000 suite. He believed, like many other investors I spoke to, that he was buying a piece of real estate directly from Donald Trump and that he couldn’t lose. “I bought it on the strength of his name alone. He’s Donald Trump—hotels and real estate are his business, not mine. I trusted that it would work.”

Construction of the Trump Tower got off to an inauspicious start. It took two years to receive planning permission from the city, and there were more delays after Talon broke ground in late 2007. Because of the site’s small footprint—15,000 square feet—only one crane could be employed at a time. Shnaider admitted it was a bit of a nightmare. “I wouldn’t do such a project again in Toronto,” he said. More significantly for investors, the economic reality changed. As Levitan put it, “It was a very complicated project that became delayed, and in that time the economy fell apart. How can I control that?” In the new market, the projection sheets Talon had distributed with the initial sales package weren’t worth the creamy stationery they were printed on.

In March 2012, Sarbjit Singh took possession of his unit and started paying monthly fees of $8,207, which covered realty taxes, common fees and interest. He expected his rental profits to more than offset the fees, but when the first revenue statements came in, he knew something was wrong: in four months, his unit had been rented 49 times—roughly a 40 per cent occupancy rate and lower than the “absolute worst case scenario” the agent had discussed with him. Singh’s room was running at a loss. When he called hotel management, they told him the bad news: because of the dampened hotel market, they’d been renting his room out at a discounted rate. (Rooms at the Trump that were forecast to cost $550 to $600 per night have been available for $400 on Expedia.) Singh was losing approximately $5,000 a month.

His problems didn’t end there. He visited several major banks and was told the property was commercial, not residential, and thus he’d need a commercial mortgage, for which he’d need to put 50 per cent down—money he didn’t have. Even if he could find the down payment, the commercial interest rates would raise his mortgage payments beyond what he could afford to carry.

Last November, Singh ran out of reserve cash. He stopped paying his fees and is now working in the evenings and on weekends in an effort to pay his parents’ line of credit. He recently missed a mortgage payment. He has no idea how he’ll get out of debt.

Singh retained the Toronto law firm Heydary Hamil­ton last November and filed a suit against the developers. Another 37 buyers have also filed suits. A Heydary lawyer named Mitchell Wine, one of the team of 14 lawyers and articling students working on the Trump cases, told me purchasers and representatives of more than 100 units have contacted his office. The firm has filed statements of claim detailing each of the investors’ stories and accusing Talon and other named parties of misrepresentation, breaches of the Ontario Securities Act, breach of contract, breach of the Condominium Act and conspiracy. Each claimant is asking for well over a million dollars in damages, plus their deposit money back with interest. Pleadings are being finalized, and preliminary motions were scheduled to be heard just after this issue went to press. In response, Talon is seeking to have the action by investors dismissed.

The investors’ suits name Trump Toronto Hotel Management Group and Talon International Inc., as well as Trump, Shnaider and Levitan personally. They allege that the defendants misled investors about the units by providing financial projections that overstated how much they would earn, and by understating expenses (such as occupancy fees). According to the investors’ statements of claim, Talon breached the Ontario Securities Act by selling the units as investment products.

The plaintiffs’ cases centre on a 2004 OSC ruling, which required Talon to market the units as mainly for occupancy, not as investments. Talon was also prohibited from forecasting or guaranteeing profits from the reservation program. And yet, included in the Trump’s original sales package are several charts entitled Estimated Return on Investment, which show detailed breakdowns of the income buyers could expect from their condo-hotel suites. They describe projected common expense fees, housekeeping expenses, estimated taxes and a mortgage projected at six per cent interest. The rental income, in turn, is projected at hotel occupancy rates of 75, 65 and 55 per cent.

Late last year, the OSC investigated the Trump deal to determine whether regulatory action was needed. They met with purchasers and Talon’s lawyers, read over all the documents, and in early December announced they would not be pursuing regulatory action on the matter. When I asked for an explanation, the OSC refused to provide one. The investors’ suits will proceed regardless of the December decision.

The fact is, Talon did warn the Trump buyers about the risks involved in buying condo-hotel units in its disclosure. “A real estate investment is, by its nature, speculative,” the document states. “If a purchaser is purchasing the real estate as an investment, the purchaser should be aware that this investment has not only the usual risks when purchasing real estate, but also those risks that are inherent to the nature of real estate securities.”

A disclaimer in the Trump disclosure lists a series of variables, many of which might seem alarmist if they hadn’t come to pass. These include, but are not limited to, “cyclical downturns arising from real changes in general and local economic conditions; varying levels of demand for rooms and related services caused by changes in travel patterns; the financial condition of the airline industry and the resulting impact on air travel…contagious illness outbreaks, natural disasters, extreme weather conditions, labour shortages, work stoppages or disputes.” There is also a clause, as required by the Condominium Act, stating that each buyer, upon receiving and reading the disclosure document, has 10 days to back out of the deal. According to Levitan, five people did just that.

Investors like Singh claim they didn’t take the warnings about risks seriously because they’d been completely convinced that the investment was a sure bet. It’s a bit like your trusted GP prescribing you a medication and then rattling off the side effects in a super-fast radio ad voice as you leave the office. If what these buyers say is true, the Trump sales team underplayed the risks and overplayed the benefits of buying their condo-hotel units. But sales pitches are hyperbolic by design.

Talon’s statement of defence denies all wrongdoing, including the allegations of misrepresentation and breaching an OSC ruling, and demands the investors forfeit their deposits and pay individual damages of $750,000 each. Levitan says they have a good case for further damages, due to all the bad press the case has received, but they are still “hoping for an amicable solution.”

In Talon’s specific response to Singh’s claim, the company denies that the Trump sales agents promised he could get a residential mortgage or guaranteed a rate of return from the reservation program. It also denies that any promotional material he received breached the OSC ruling. In Levitan’s view, the buyers’ lawsuits are purely opportunistic and won’t stand up in court. Normally, if buyers want to walk away from a deal, a developer will buy back their investment. But the Trump units were sold at the peak of the market. As Levitan points out, “Everything has changed.” Given this reality, Talon is not eager to buy back the units it sold off for millions in the middle of the condo boom. That’s how people—and developers—make money: buying low and selling high. Why should they absorb the cost of others’ bad financial timing?

The group of disgruntled buyers, Levitan says, is primarily composed of people who did not attempt to rescind the deal in the allotted time frame, then realized they couldn’t secure financing and decided to file suit. The fact that they don’t have the money to close only shows that they probably shouldn’t have taken the risk in the first place. “Instead they claim that they thought they were buying from Donald Trump and we promised them a rose garden,” Levitan says with a snort. “It’s a pure form of extortion.”

He says he’s sad for the people who got in over their heads. He’d prefer “the world to be a rosy place in which people are always happy with their investments,” but that didn’t happen with Trump. “So what am I supposed to do?” he says. “Go to the drywall contractor and say, ‘Sorry, but I can’t pay you because 30 investors aren’t paying me?’ ”

Raymond Diep, a Toronto real estate lawyer at the firm Aaron & Aaron, which handled a number of the Trump condo-hotel closings, said his firm’s clients weren’t happy about losing money each month, but they chose to take a long-term view on the investment. “They realized that things might be negative now, but in the end the market would go up again.”

None of Aaron & Aaron’s clients were going to go personally bankrupt on the Trump deal; they absorbed their losses and decided to wait it out. Diep believes the Heydary lawyers are cashing in on private desperation. “They’re making it look like a shady investment, but it’s not really like that. The investors had high expectations. It was the height of the market. Now that it’s slowed down, they’re having regrets about it. It’s that simple.”

Sarbjit Singh, who is in no position to close in cash, says that Talon should have said that only investors of high net worth need apply. Instead, the Trump project was sold as a great investment for people of modest means, like himself. “If you need to be a millionaire to close, they should have targeted millionaires.”

Donald Trump declined to speak with me, but Ivanka, his daughter, agreed. The 32-year-old is vice-president of development and acquisitions for the Trump Organization. When I reached her, she was in the back of a chauffeur-driven car on the way to the airport. “It was very important to me to give you some time,” she said the moment she got on the phone. Ivanka is a glamorous blond jewellery designer and former model with a business degree from Wharton. Over the years, her father has used her as the new face of Trump, trotting her out at public events and even appointing her as a judge on The Apprentice.

Ivanka is an excellent human shield for her father, who is no stranger to lawsuits. He has been sued by investors on several hotel projects and has launched his own litany of suits against a long list of perceived offenders, including an unauthorized biographer, a former Miss U.S.A. contestant, Deutsche Bank and the comedian Bill Maher, who offered, on The Tonight Show, to pay Trump $5 million if he could prove his father was not an orangutan. Trump sent him a copy of his birth certificate, but Maher did not pay up.

Ivanka said she is staggered by the investors’ claims that they believed they were buying their units directly from Trump.

“I don’t know of many people who wouldn’t retain a lawyer to explain to them how this relationship works,” she says. “It’s articulated exactly in the purchase documents… We’re just like the Ritz or the Four Seasons. It’s not different in any way.”

She says the claims against her father and his company are completely without merit. When I point out that people were led to believe they would make money and now they are losing it—and, similarly, that they would be able to secure financing where now they cannot—Ivanka bridles, her voice rising in the controlled manner of one who is used to conflict but not to having her authority questioned. She points out, quite rightly, that with any investment, whatever the asset class, and especially with real estate, those who approach things with a long-term perspective tend to do best. She says the unhappy buyers in the Trump Toronto case are suffering from a severe case of buyer’s remorse—which is nobody’s problem but their own.

She objects to the implication that the investors were misled in any way, and each time I try to suggest that perhaps the sales tactics were overly aggressive, she jumps in and loudly talks over me, extolling what she calls “the beauty of the asset,” by which she means the hotel itself.

“I wish that everyone could be happy, but sometimes these things can be a challenge,” she says airily. “It’s important to remember that the lawsuit doesn’t relate to us in any way. We have no contracts with these people, and we didn’t sell them real estate.” With that, she declares she must go, says a quick goodbye and hangs up.

[dirtymoneyenough]

Trumped: the multi-million-dollar lawsuit over Toronto’s most controversial new condo-hotel

The Trump tower, downtown’s tallest new condo-hotel, is a monument to excess. And, like its tycoon namesake, it’s surrounded by controversy: 38 investors are suing the hotel for millions. Lessons from a post-crash real estate market

In the city’s new five-star hotel landscape, the Ritz represents elegant European classicism, the Shangri-La cool, Asian chic, and the Trump unfettered American pomp. Like its loud-mouthed namesake, the Trump is brash, proud and full of bluster. Stock, the hotel’s restaurant and bar, is outfitted with shiny tufted black leather seating and silver accents. Its lobby, a shimmering expanse of marble and mirrors, seems sprung, fully formed, from the imagination of Joan Collins.

The hotel’s developer, Talon International, is run by Val Levitan and Alex Shnaider, two Russian-Canadian entrepreneurs. Levitan made his fortune manufacturing slot machines and creating bank note validation technology, and Shnaider earned his in the post-glasnost steel trade. The Trump is their first Toronto real estate venture. In 2002, during a meeting in Shnaider’s office at Dufferin and Finch, they agreed on a plan to build the city’s biggest, fanciest, five-starriest hotel. They both travel frequently for work and agreed that Toronto’s hotels lacked the quality of the ones they stayed at in London, New York and Moscow. Back then, Toronto’s swankiest option was the old Four Seasons, a dour brutalist tower in Yorkville. But the city was emerging as a major North American financial centre, a place where serious players were coming to do big international deals. These titans were in need of boardrooms in which to meet, bloody steaks to consume, and high-thread-count sheets to sleep between.

In 2004, Talon bought a site at the corner of Bay and Adelaide for $27.4 million. The location was perfect—smack in the centre of the business district. This was before the cultural revitalization of the city’s downtown core, but Levitan and Shnaider could see the signs: the revamping of the Bay’s flagship department store, the plans for the new Bell Lightbox, not to mention a phalanx of condos and restaurants springing up in the city centre. By the time the hotel was completed, it would be the anchor point of a tourist-friendly downtown.

The luxury hotel required a famous brand, which is how the pair ended up approaching Donald Trump. At the time, Trump’s reality show The Apprentice was riding high in the ratings, and the Trump brand was associated with luxury, success and business prowess, not with headline-making Twitter spats and an aborted Republican leadership bid. They worked out a deal to license the Trump name.

They planned a 65-storey mixed-use building consisting of a restaurant and bar, a day spa, 118 condos—some as large as 4,400 square feet and selling for up to $9.1 million—and 261 “condo-hotel suites,” traditional hotel rooms that Talon intended to sell as residential real estate investments. The condo-hotel set-up was unusual in Toronto. It’s an attractive model for developers because it allows them to raise capital up front from investors.

Donald Trump is a shareholder in other Trump developments in Chicago, New York and Las Vegas, but not in Toronto. The hotel would bear his name and his style, and an affiliate of his management company would run the day-to-day hotel service. According to the early marketing brochures, it would be a model for “Manhattan-style luxury living in Toronto.”

By the time the Trump opened in 2012, ten years after the plan was hatched and more than two years later than originally scheduled, the financial climate had, of course, drastically changed. The hotel now felt like a throwback to a cockier, pre-recession era, back when hedge fund managers ruled the world and Bernie Madoff was a respected financial guru. A group of buyers now regret their investment in the building, and millions of dollars in deals between them and Talon are on the verge of collapsing. The group claims their condo-hotel units often sit empty, and they’ve launched a series of lawsuits alleging the Trump sales team misrepresented how much profit they’d make. The defendants say the lawsuits have no merit, that no misrepresentations were made. The claims have yet to be heard in court.

The Trump investors believed they’d bought into a get-rich-quick scheme. How did something so promising go so wrong?

Before there was the Trump Tower, there was the Trump tower sales office, a glass-fronted box that stood on the same prime corner from which the hotel would eventually rise. A polished young sales team sold a steady stream of units, over the phone, online and in person, to a diverse cross-section of buyers—including elderly Korean pensioners, wealthy Nigerians and a now-defunct U.K. company called WorldWide Properties, which bought four floors of hotel units with the intention of flipping them.

When the Trump broke ground, half of the residential condos had sold, as had 191 of the condo-hotel units, which ranged in price from $736,000 to $3.8 million. The suites could be rented out as part of the hotel, providing extra income to buyers. In the Trump system, occupancies are organized in a strict, computerized rotation, which ensures that the least rented room jumps to the front of the queue. The hotel charges service fees for maintenance (linens, towels, cleaning, etc.) and management, but the rest of the rental profit goes to the owner of the room. The promotional material declared that “investing in hotel suites is a trend that’s sweeping the United States… The reason? Great cash flows, no concern for maintenance and reasonable cash requirements as a down payment. Leverage is key, especially in these times of low interest rates.”

Promotions featured an airbrushed picture of Trump, along with a personal endorsement: “We’re going to do something very special in Toronto.” Trump himself, the ad said, “has an undeniably keen eye for a deal.” The ad neglected to mention that Trump wasn’t the project’s developer, just its smiling face.

Sarbjit Singh, a 49-year-old warehouse supervisor from Milton, was one of the early buyers. Singh first heard about the Trump in October 2006 from a real estate agent who told him it was a great investment opportunity. He and his wife, Kimberly, had recently bought a house and just had their second daughter. He didn’t have the money to buy another property. “I was only making between $50,000 and $60,000 a year,” he says. “I’m a regular person, not rich.”

But the prospect of getting his own piece of Trump magic proved too tempting. He claims the agents at the Trump sales centre told him he couldn’t possibly lose money since the “absolute worst case scenario” was that the hotel ended up at 55 per cent occupancy, and even then the projected returns were healthy. “I asked them a long list of questions,” he recalls. Who was going to arrange the mortgages? What would the interest rate be? Would the property be categorized as commercial or residential (commercial properties come with much higher interest rates). He alleges the sales associate assured him he had nothing to worry about. According to Singh, they said Talon was already working on financing with lenders, and it would all go smoothly. The units would qualify for residential mortgages. Singh then asked at what point he could flip the unit, and the agent told him directly after closing. “You’ll make a lot of money,” he remembers the agent telling him. “Even if you don’t sell, you’ll be making lots of money from the reservation program.”

Armed with Talon’s projection sheet, his head dancing with trust funds for his daughters, Singh went to his mother and father, who are retired and living on a pension. He convinced them to take out a $150,000 line of credit on their house, which they owned outright, so he could put down a deposit of $173,400 on an $869,000 suite. He believed, like many other investors I spoke to, that he was buying a piece of real estate directly from Donald Trump and that he couldn’t lose. “I bought it on the strength of his name alone. He’s Donald Trump—hotels and real estate are his business, not mine. I trusted that it would work.”

Construction of the Trump Tower got off to an inauspicious start. It took two years to receive planning permission from the city, and there were more delays after Talon broke ground in late 2007. Because of the site’s small footprint—15,000 square feet—only one crane could be employed at a time. Shnaider admitted it was a bit of a nightmare. “I wouldn’t do such a project again in Toronto,” he said. More significantly for investors, the economic reality changed. As Levitan put it, “It was a very complicated project that became delayed, and in that time the economy fell apart. How can I control that?” In the new market, the projection sheets Talon had distributed with the initial sales package weren’t worth the creamy stationery they were printed on.

In March 2012, Sarbjit Singh took possession of his unit and started paying monthly fees of $8,207, which covered realty taxes, common fees and interest. He expected his rental profits to more than offset the fees, but when the first revenue statements came in, he knew something was wrong: in four months, his unit had been rented 49 times—roughly a 40 per cent occupancy rate and lower than the “absolute worst case scenario” the agent had discussed with him. Singh’s room was running at a loss. When he called hotel management, they told him the bad news: because of the dampened hotel market, they’d been renting his room out at a discounted rate. (Rooms at the Trump that were forecast to cost $550 to $600 per night have been available for $400 on Expedia.) Singh was losing approximately $5,000 a month.

His problems didn’t end there. He visited several major banks and was told the property was commercial, not residential, and thus he’d need a commercial mortgage, for which he’d need to put 50 per cent down—money he didn’t have. Even if he could find the down payment, the commercial interest rates would raise his mortgage payments beyond what he could afford to carry.

Last November, Singh ran out of reserve cash. He stopped paying his fees and is now working in the evenings and on weekends in an effort to pay his parents’ line of credit. He recently missed a mortgage payment. He has no idea how he’ll get out of debt.

Singh retained the Toronto law firm Heydary Hamil­ton last November and filed a suit against the developers. Another 37 buyers have also filed suits. A Heydary lawyer named Mitchell Wine, one of the team of 14 lawyers and articling students working on the Trump cases, told me purchasers and representatives of more than 100 units have contacted his office. The firm has filed statements of claim detailing each of the investors’ stories and accusing Talon and other named parties of misrepresentation, breaches of the Ontario Securities Act, breach of contract, breach of the Condominium Act and conspiracy. Each claimant is asking for well over a million dollars in damages, plus their deposit money back with interest. Pleadings are being finalized, and preliminary motions were scheduled to be heard just after this issue went to press. In response, Talon is seeking to have the action by investors dismissed.

to be continued...

[bravoprint]

Light Box Printing Banner | Bravo Print

With a unique blend of style, ease-of-use and impact, this freestanding light box is the perfect solution for high-impact visual presentations. It’s simple to assemble, lightweight and portable – a must-have for trade show booths or retail locations.

The design is printed directly onto the back of the lightbox, so it stands out from other signage and attracts the eye. These signs are easy to spot because they have an edgy look with vivid imagery that isn’t found in other forms of advertising.

They are a great option for any type of business because they provide an immediate and lasting impression on customers. They are also a great way to make your brand name and marketing message known outside of your store, office or event location. This is especially true if you sponsor an event or sell real estate. A custom banner is a simple, effective way to get the word out and bring in new customers.

We produce these backlit signs through digital printing, which provides a level of flexibility and detail that is unmatched by traditional printing methods. This allows us to produce a wide variety of custom sizes and shapes, so you can find the best fit for your space. Plus, we’ll offer a free online proof, so you can be confident your final product will look flawless. The result is a banner that will be worth every penny. If you’re looking for a high-quality LED lightbox sign, contact Banner Online to learn more about our customization options.

[rankandrentstore]

Best Niches for Rank and Rent

Rent and rank niches is the initial step

Finding the most effective niches to rank and rent niches is the first step in driving traffic to your site. It is possible to optimize your niche to get an excellent traffic score and then create an PPC campaign to create leads. This will allow you to drive traffic to your site and assist you in finding buyers.

Find buyers

The selection of the most suitable niche for your rank and renting asite is a difficult choice. It is important to select an area that is popular, has visitors, rankings and a large demand for your goods or services. The ideal place to start is in a city of medium size. Cities with larger populations have a bigger number of tenants to choose from which can reduce your costs.

The most crucial part of making the choice is doing some investigation. If you're not knowledgeable about the industry in which you plan to work It's an excellent idea to talk to an expert before making an important decision. In actual the best way to start the research process is to purchase an ad that is small in Google, Facebook or even hire someone else to create the job for you. It's an excellent idea to check your personal Google My Business page to find any websites that aren't featured. If you discover any, it might be beneficial to visit them to boost your Google My Business listing.

It's also an excellent idea to research which other rank and rental sites are located in your region. One way to do this is to take part in your local SEO instruction classes. They are designed to show you how to implement all SEO best practices your company will require. The greatest benefit of it is you won't have expertise in SEO to achieve success.

You could also leverage your experience in the local market for real estate for your benefit by creating an association with an established landscaper in the area. Landscapers are common in many cities and are an effective source of client traffic. They also offer excellent customer service.

Selecting the most appropriate area for your rank and rent website isn't easy but it's worthy of the time and effort. It's a fantastic method to earn a passive income, and also to be an asset that is valuable for a prospective tenant. It's also a good way to become the starting point to a successful career in real estate.

Create an PPC campaign to create leads

Rent and Rank is an local SEO strategy that involves creating websites and selling leads that are generated by the website to local companies. The lead generation method which is not officially recognized as an SEO technique. It's a business model that is extremely profitable.

Renting websites is a fantastic method to test a new client base. It's cheaper and less risky. But renting websites isn't suitable for all niches. Local businesses that lease your site must require it. It is important to keep in mind that you are unable to alter your address when a new client leases your site.

You may also lease your site to other nearby service companies. For instance, if you have a landscaping company it is possible to rent your website to an electrician or a window cleaner. This lets you try out a new customer base without having to invest too much money into the business. It is important to take into consideration whether or not your company is lead-hungry.

Another way to sell business leads locally is creating an PPC campaign. In this scenario you need to present the owner of the business as an asset that is worth promoting and present leads that are of high quality. You could also employ a lightbox strategy to capture an individual business in your area looking at sites of competitors. However, you should be aware of this technique as it may affect your rankings.

To be able to efficiently sell leads, you need to have a fast sales cycle. To accomplish this, you must pick a niche with a low amount of competition. Additionally, you must focus on the goals of the customer. This will let you adapt content to meet the needs of your users.

A thorough understanding of your field will help you create a website that's more effective. It is also important to devote a significant amount of time studying your field. This will let you convey your passion in your content.

It is crucial to monitor the results that your key words are performing. Utilizing tools like Ahrefs and CallRail can assist you in doing this.

Optimise your niche

Optimizing your niche to rent and rank isn't as straightforward as it appears. You must take the multi-pronged approach to reeling in the cash. This means locating the most suitable place, making sure the website is protected by a solid backend and making sure your content is adaptable and is up to par. The most important thing to succeed is having a well-thought-out plan as well as a budget that is solid.

In addition to the above-mentioned strategy and strategy, you must also pick your battle vehicle carefully. Particularly, you must be careful not to put yourself in the lion's trough. There's a reason competitors are vying with you for business. The following suggestions will assist you in nailing the competition's ring. It is the first thing to recognize the competition and their offerings. This could be the most challenging part of the puzzle however it is worth the effort. The next step is to determine the top performers in your field. The last step is to figure out the most effective method to engage every customer. After completing this procedure you'll have a list of people who are aficionados and a dazzling business plan.

[mainscoaching]

Masonry stack ui

Layouts conform to a baseline grid, typography scales appropriately with different devices and colour schemes allow for a fully brandable design. Stack offers a formidable toolkit for designers to create diverse and beautiful websites that are underpinned by rock-solid design fundamentals. For those who want to delve deeper, check out Stack’s extensive browser based documentation. Thorough explanation of class and data attribute modifiers means you won’t be left guessing - It’s all here in Stack’s Element Index. Instead, you’ll find a modular collection of LESS components to include (or exclude) based on the individual needs of your project - no one file size fits all solutions here.Īdhering to the BEM (Block Element Modifier) methodology, Stack makes element and plugin customization logical and predictable. Our dedication to high performance means that Stack never uses inline styles, junk classes or layout-specific stylesheets. This modular system empowers developers to create their own blocks quickly and easily leaving more time for layout and interface experimentation. Coded for DevelopersĮach of Stack’s 240+ interface blocks are powered by the vast collection of customisable elements. Stack ships with over 140 content layouts, including 30 tailored niche homepages (from startup landing page to restaurant, portfolio and more) showcasing just a glimpse of what is possible with the detailed block and element library - from working social media feeds, contact forms and subscription blocks to fullscreen lightbox galleries and filterable portfolios, Stack is infinitely reusable, the ideal go-to template for your client projects. Stack has everything you need, boasting over 140 demo pages, 270 customizable interface blocks and a plethora of carefully crafted base elements. Stack forms the ideal starting point to static or CMS website projects of any kind. Use our exclusive page builder to save time. Variant takes the pain out of building a website. Stack puts reusable HTML and modular CSS first, blending contemporary styling with beautiful markup throughout each HTML template in the pack. Please note that after Mathere will be no Instagram functionality as Instagram is switching off the API which was used in Stack to display an Instagram feed. Sell more with a responsive property, real estate or restaurant landing page. Stack will Amp up your multi-page corporate or mobile app website. Feeling creative? Begin construction on your blog. Show off your one-page portfolio with smooth parallax. Inspired by Bitcoin? Launch a cryptocurrency ICO. Take your Startup business website to the next level. Stack is a robust, responsive multi-purpose HTML5 template compatible with Bootstrap 4.

[realestatewindowdesigner201-blog]

How to choose real estate led window display- top 5 notes you should be aware of

To buy or not to buy, that’s not question, but where to buy, that is not an easy decision - especially if you are new to building your office window with real estate led window displays.

Due I am a real estate window designer, and I usually buy the real estate led light pocket from on-line shop, in the past 5 years, I have ordered such display from more than 15 one line shops at least, well, I don’t want to write all here, due some of them are really a nightmare experience for me. I try to choose some big of them and with a good purchasing experience to enjoy with you.

Most of them are dealers, not the real producer, but I think it is better to buy from real producer, the price is the lowest of course and they can produce something according to your actual need, and the quality is really good, and it is very flexible. the most of important, those factories now accept the trial mini order below 100pcs.  and service is not bad. take Litplus for example, Litplus is a real producer from China and can supply 3 years warranty, and in fact, their display is really good performance, seldom need the aftersale service. I bought a parcel display 5 years before, they now still work without any problem.

Before buy from Litplus,  as I said, I also buy such real estate window displays from several big on-line shops. part of them like vitrinemedia.com , display2go.com , prodisplay.com , novadisplay.com , deesign.com , showcaseartanframing.com, during of them deesign is USA secondary agent for vitrinemedia. they locate different countries. they really can supply a good sale service for you if you are from their local market. but the price are really expensive. but the product quality are nearly same as product be produced Litplus,   that let me doubt if they all buy such product from Litplus, although the people from Litplus said no, and I think that should be their business secrets. and refuse to release any.

Vitrine media is one of big companies, they have sales company whole Europe. they supply a good sales aftersale service. and their price is really considerable. the display quality is same as display be produced by Litplus,  The real estate window led display produced by Litplus has soared in popularity in recent years, and boasts a ton of celebrity fans including vatrine media, meanwhile, powers a third of the real estate display market today.

They are both great supplier for real estate led window display, although Litplus are more pay attention to develop and produce new model to satisfy the diversity of market and vitrine media show importance on the marketing, their sales companies locate whole Europe. but they are actually very different:

The price of real estate display be produced by Litplus is more competitive, no matter what order quantity it is, even only 1pc display, also enjoy a wholesale price, due Litplus focus on the small and medium business, it is China factory directly without any middle-dealer, that can save lots during the business.

Competitive price not mean low quality product. all the display are made of high quality acrylic sheet and long lifespan led light strip, all the display and its parts with 3 years warranty.

Litplus pay more attention to produce new model to satisfy the diversity of market, from its led strip brightness to led light colors, display appearance(sharp corner or round corner, with or without transparent hem, display sizes) and its flexible hanging, if clients need, Litplus can do it totally. and their customize order can be delivered within 7-15days, the delivery for normal order is 3-7days.

Litplus have a professional after-sales team, if there any question on display and its installation,  can directly feedback and their people will deal with it sooner. they also make clear installation video to make the installation more easy. no need to hire a electrician with additional cost.

Vitrine media company show importance on marketing, their sales companies locate whole Europe, they are really a big company, and more powerful than Litplus, but that mean requires more cost on everything. although they are same quality display as Litplus.

Think you already know which one’s right for you? check out some more specific reading below:

1. Thickness and quality of acrylic led panel - who is the best?

As we all know, the acrylic light panel quality and its thickness decide the window display lifetime and effect. high quality acrylic led panel will not very easy to bent and yellowing when meet heat, and high quality acrylic sheet with high lighting transmittance rate, can reach above 90%, the whole window display will more bright and vivid.

Litplus display with 6mm thickness acrylic light panel, those acrylic panel are top grate quality. so the whole display with very good light effect and can guarantee 3 years warranty.

Some other competitors also produce such display, but their display just look same from appearance, the inner content are great different, they make a plastic shell with 6mm thickness around the display to make the whole window display and inner of it with only 2mm thickness acrylic led light panel, can only use half year at most, but they give you a 1 year warranty, their price is very very low, but can you dare to buy?

2. The technology of frame color are also very important.

All of Litplus faceplate are silk screen printing, very smooth and uniform in color, it can better hide the led light strip. the metal pieces for magnetics are sticked tightly in the right place with 3M sticker. to make sure the metal pieces not fall down when meet the heat that generate from the electrical power, I saw some competitor make display frame color with oil printing, not smooth and uniform, the printing oil leak out from the frame edge, can be seen everywhere.  and smelly.

3. What brightness the led light can reach ?

All Litplus display led lights are customized with cool white color(around 6500K) , the brightness can reach above 4500lux. Litplus also have high light display and the brightness can reach above 7000lux. except for the cool with color, Litplus also produce other color temperature window display, one of clients ordered a parcel display with led light around 3000K, a warm color.

Litplus also make special cooler inside the display to reduce the heat from the electronic power to prolong the lifespan of display.

Some competitors only design a single side led light into display just to decrease the heat from the electronic power, they choose a normal white led light, such led light usually not very stable performance in color temperature, so such window display always appear blue led color,  they have no other cooler technology, thus the whole display look dim.

4. Workmanship and monthly production are also one of important element.

With 2000 Square Meters Plants, More Than 20sets Advanced Machines And Comply With ISO9001:2008 Management Keep Us Produce 50000pcs Qualified Real Estate Displays Each Months. Litplus make sure every displays be produced with good workmanship.

It is great different from those competitors who make the display with hand-making only.

5. Aftersales and supports

As to the after sale service, Litplus insist 2 "R",that is "repair" and "replace", for all display, they supply 2-3years warranty, thier engineer will supply you a detail guiding for you to self-check the product problem within 3days once get your detail problem report, most of them can better get resolved, if unlucky, they will replace it. and they will responsible for the shipping. they will not responsible for the problem that caused by any mistakes human making.

If you are for the first time to import sth from China, not quite clear the import affairs, like the import tax and vat, please don't worry, their stuff will guide you, they will better help you with better service with their rich experience.

Other competitor also promise a 12month after sale service, in fact, their display can not last to 1year. how could they supply aftersales service for you?

Above all, if you are really looking For Professional Manufacturer With Good Trust, Contact with them Now To Benefit their Qualified Products, Competitive Price And Good Service.their website is https://www.ledwindowdisplay.com 

Composted by Jessica 

Real estate window designer 

[themesfores]

Jupiter X Multi Purpose Responsive Theme v4.6.0

https://themesfores.com/product/jupiter-x-multi-purpose-responsive-theme/ Jupiter X Multi Purpose Responsive Theme v4.6.0 Note: After installation, upload and overwrite the Jupiter X Core plugin provided in the zip file. Jupiter X is your all-in-one platform to create pixel-perfect websites, fast & easily. It comes with Elementor page builder, the world’s leading WordPress Theme page builder. You can customize Jupiter X globally using WordPress Customizer. The brand new shop customizer helps you customize every aspect of your online shop including checkout and cart page. Moreover, you can now build your headers and footers easily with visual editors. Jupiter X also makes it possible to customize your blog and portfolio list and single pages. It doesn’t stop there though! You can now easily customize your custom posts archive and single pages which allows the creation of any listing/directory websites such as hotels, car rentals, real estate, library, recipe, job boards and much more. Jupiter X comes not only with over 250 pre-made website templates but also hundreds of page block templates to save your time and help you get inspired. We deliver a new website and block templates every month. Jupiter X Multi-Purpose Responsive Theme Features Jupiter X Theme Built upon the best open source libraries/plugins for more extendibility and customisability. Developer friendly (highly customisable in different aspects). Strictly loyal to standard WP techniques for more plugin compatibility. Extremely lightweight Assets compiler. Dynamic asset loading. Every line of code optimised Countless actions and filters for more customisation SEO Optimised Multi Language RTL Support Google & Adobe Fonts Developer friendly & super extendible Unique Header per Page Auto Update Plugin Manager Unique footer per Page Responsive & Retina Ready Customise 404 page Contact Form builder Sidebar manager Customise Search page Title Bar customiser Auto-Save Revision History Customise Lightbox Custom Color Picker Undo-Redo Save & Reuse sections Responsive editor Customise Widgets Custom burger menu Custom maintenance page Website templates (PSD included) Page section templates Widget customiser GDPR Compliant Custom Lightbox Custom Archive 22 Exclusive elements for Elementor Save & Re-use pages and sections Page section navigator and manager Please note that any digital products presented on this website do not contain malicious code, viruses or advertising. https://themesfores.com/product/jupiter-x-multi-purpose-responsive-theme/ #NewspaperThemes #WordpressTheme

[honer99]

Porto | Multipurpose & WooCommerce Theme

Porto Wordpress is a ultimate company & woocommerce wordpress theme that is appropriate for any business and woocommerce sites. Porto provides plenty elements and powerful characteristics that could configure all you desire. Compared to other multicolored topics' overall ecommerce attributes, Porto provides supreme woocommerce features with exclusive skins & layouts and features. Porto Theme guarantees super fast performance which is vital for your business & woocommerce stores. Please check below to see more features from Porto. Appreciate Porto Business & Woocommerce Theme!

Porto Features

Multipurpose design

WordPress Multisite (WPMU) Tested and Approved

Child Theme Ready

Bunch of Useful Demos – Construction, Hotel, Restaurant, Law Firm, Digital Agency, Medical, Real-Estate, APP Landing, Resume etc

Plenty of Widgets

Multiple Page Styles

Powerful Speed Optimization Tool

Visual Composer is highly optimized

One Page template

Social Sharing Features

33+ custom elements for Visual Composer (banners, carousels, tabs, toggles, accordions, buttons, quotes, table, alert boxes, tables, lists, forms, icons, glyphicons, progress bar, pricing tables, dropcaps, team members, call to action boxes, columns, etc)

SEO Optimized (Rich snippets for breadcrumbs and reviews are built-in)

Responsive Design

Unlimited Colors & Layouts

WooCommerce Compatible

Wishlist, Ajax Search, Filtering & Sorting

WPML Support

RTL Ready

FAST Support & Updates

Cross-browser compatibility (IE9+, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Edge)

Valid HTML5 code

30 + unique homepage layouts: More amazing concepts are coming soon!

6 extra layouts of the slider area: Text and Form, Static image, Single Video;

Mega menu and 3-level drop-down menu;

20+ different headers

5 different breadcrumbs

4 different portfolio types (total 19 pages)

4different blog types (total 6 pages)

Grid / List view

Shop pages

Ajax filtering in shop and product archive pages

Revolution Slider ($19 value) plugin

Visual Composer ($34 value)

Woocommerce Catalog Mode

Powerful Page options

Elegant animations

3 different contact page layouts

Install Demo content with One-Click

Wide / Full / Boxed Layout

Typography page

Switch on/off sticky header option

Additional pages: About, Services, Team, Process, Careers, FAQ, 404 page, Sitemap, Contact us, etc.

Lightbox

Share icons on project and product pages

Contact and newsletter forms

Twitter Feed Widget

Google web fonts

Custom Font Control

Documentation ? step by step

[looprealestateteam]

My Lightbox: Loop Real Estate

The Loop Real Estate Team was founded by a group of digital marketers & realtors who believe the home buying process should be a simple and enjoyable experience. Whether you’re searching Edmonton Homes for Sale or Selling a Home in Edmonton, the Loop Real Estate Team is on your side and will do everything we can to ensure your experience goes smoothly. from Diigo https://ift.tt/32EvSzX via IFTTT

[michaelpetersen-photography-blog]

Commercial Photography Details - All You Wanted To Know About It

Commercial photography іѕ vеrу popular іn thеѕе days. In thіѕ profession, аn impressive portfolio іѕ mоrе important thаn аnу certificate оr academic qualification. A commercial photographer makes uѕе оf hіѕ оr hеr skill іn a professional wау. Thіѕ соuld bе аnуthіng - a simple advertising photo fоr a real estate company tо photoshoots fоr big advertising firms. An fеw оthеr important niches аrе wedding albums, family аnd portrait photography.

Whіlе ѕоmе commercial photographers concentrate оn оnе field, оthеrѕ mау offer a generalized service. Generally, thеѕе professionals engage bу agencies like advertising firms аnd event organizers. On thе оthеr hаnd, freelance commercial photographers cover a diverse range of оf fields. Sоmе оf thе mоѕt common subjects covered bу thеm аrе - tourism, photojournalism shoots, weddings, school photos, pets, family pictures, football matches аnd еvеn graduations. Shots were taken bу commercial photographers muѕt look a lot mоrе polished аnd stylized thаn pictures taken bу amateur photographers. If you're considering stepping іntо thе world оf commercial photography, there's a range оf things thаt уоu muѕt dо fоr enhancing уоur accuracy аnd skills. Wіth commercial photography courses, уоu саn easily master thеѕе skills аnd emerge successfully. Evеn іf іt costs уоu a little, it'll surely reap уоu benefits іn thе lоng run.

Pay heed tо thе lighting Issue

Whеn іt соmеѕ tо photography, уоu need tо hаvе thе right kind оf lighting. Poor lighting arrangements саn create awful reflections аnd shadows thаt change уоur photo session іntо a nightmare. On thе оthеr hаnd, perfect lighting arrangements саn make уоur subject look awesome. Commercial photographers make uѕе оf special lighting tо gеt thе best shot possible - bringing thе subject іn focus аnd giving іt a neat look. Whіlе taking long-range shots, it's better tо uѕе strobe lighting. Thіѕ gives аnу flat commodity a spectacular three-dimensional effect; thеу аlѕо uѕе lightboxes beneath thе commodity fоr closer work.

Fоr mоѕt light effect, уоu mау еvеn change thе shutter іn уоur camera. Fоr deeper light аnd shadow effects, tаkе snaps іn black аnd white.

Set іn уоur mood

Skilled commercial photographers uѕе mоrе thаn a mere white background fоr giving thе commodity аn attractive look. At tіmеѕ, thе minimalist mode оf shooting іѕ nоt еvеrуthіng. Aѕ a thorough professional, уоu muѕt create thе right kind оf setting fоr thе product. Fоr a better mood, consider using colored оr dramatic light effects. It makes nо sense tо shoot a bike іn a living room; ѕо, рut еvеrуthіng іn thе right place. Whеthеr уоur shooting flowers оr ornaments, make sure thаt it's shot іn thе right setting. Elѕе, аll уоur efforts mау gо іn vain.

Contact Us:

Michael Petersen Commercial Photography

Address: Michael Petersen. 21 Walsh St Mareeba

Email: kapturlight@gmail.com

Phone: 0447496183

Website: www.michaelpetersenphotography.com.au

External Links: 

Blogger

Medium

Strikingly

Google Site

Im-creator

[skatsofrink]

أكبر حقيبة ملحقات تصميم علي شبكة الانترنت #1 - ملحقات المصمم المحترف

أكبر حقيبة ملحقات تصميم علي شبكة الانترنت •● ملحقات المصمم المحترف ●• Skatsofrink ______________________________________ 16 كرت أعمال تسويق عقاري (PSD) جاهز للتحميل تصميم مودرن أحترافي لكل كرت علي الأقل لونين مختلفين الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ فلاير شركات تسويق عقاري | Real Estate Flyer PSD الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ فلاير نوادي اللياقة البدنية الحديث | Gym and fitness Flyer PSD الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ فلاير مركز/صالون تجميل | Beauty Center Flyer PSD الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ أحدث الخطوط العربية للفوتوشوب 40 خط | New Arabic Font الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ 30 ستايل ثلاثي الأبعاد 3D للفوتوشوب | 3D Style Photoshop الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ تحميل ستايلات فوتوشوب زجاجية | Glass Photoshop Styles الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ ستايل نيون للفوتوشوب | Neon Style Photoshop الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ فرش تشكيل اللغه العربية للفوتوشوب بكل سهولة الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ فرش قصات شعر عالمية للفوتوشوب | Hair Brushes الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ تحميل كولكشن سمايلات مختلفة أكثر من 150 صورة | Emoji Png الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ أفضل 50 تأثير إحترافي للمصممين ومصورين الفوتوغراف الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ تحميل أفضل 10 خطوط زخارف ونقوش إسلامية للدعايه والاعلان الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ فرش دخان للفوتوشوب | Photoshop Smoke Brush الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 600*373 من هنا _______________________________________ 2500 أيقونة مختلفة جاهزة للتحميل أبيض و أسود PNG حجم الملف 2 ميجا 😍 الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ أفضل ستايل ناري معدن للفوتوشوب + ملف مفتوح PSD مجانا الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ أكشن تصفية وتصحيح البشرة أحترافي فوتوشوب | Skatsofrink الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ أكشن بيكس أرت للفوتوشوب | PicsArt a*ction Photoshop الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ موك أب جركن للدعايه والاعلان | Softener bottle Mockup الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ 3 بنرات أعلانية موك أب أحترافية | Roll Up Banner Free PSD Mockup الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ موك أب فولدر وغلاف سي دي مجانا | Folder & CD Mockup PSD الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ فرش سبلاش فوتوشوب التلاعب بالوجه بأحترافية + شرح الطريقة الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ تحميل أفضل أكشن انفجار ناري فوتوشوب 4 اتجاهات الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ شرح أفضل طريقة لتصميم صورة 360 درجة | Skatsofrink من هنا _______________________________________ البوم صور أحترافي PSD فوتوشوب 2 خلفيات جاهزة للتعديل الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 600*373 من هنا _______________________________________ تحميل أفضل 4 خطوط عربية ملحقات تصميم | Skatsofrink الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 600*373 من هنا _______________________________________ تحميل خلفيات أستديوهات التصوير 75 صورة ستائر وسلالم الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 600*373 من هنا _______________________________________ أفضل فرش زهور مميزة فوتوشوب | Flower Brushes الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 600*373 من هنا _______________________________________ باقة بنرات تخفيض كريسماس اعلانية أحترافية لموقعك او مدونتك الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _______________________________________ 20 بوستر عريس وعروسة كرتون للفرح + أكشن كرتون مجانا😍 الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 600*373 من هنا _______________________________________ فيديو طريقة تصميم بوستر كرتون بالفوتوشوب + الملحقات المستخدمة من هنا _______________________________________ أيقونات التواصل الأجتماعي للفوتوشوب ظل طويل | Skatsofrink الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا ________________________________________ أفضل أكشن لتلوين العيون فوتوشوب | Skatsofrink الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا ________________________________________ أفضل فرش جرافيتي للفوتوشوب | Skatsofrink الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا ________________________________________ 3 شخصيات كرتونية في 122 صورة png مجانا - Characters 😍 الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _________________________________________ اكشن الظل الطويل فوتوشوب | Flat Shadow الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _________________________________________ مجموعة باترن فوتوشوب Photoshop Pattern الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _________________________________________ أفضل 40 ستايل ذهبي فوتوشوب | Top 40 Photoshop Gold Style الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _________________________________________ فرش رذاذ الماء للفوتوشوب | Splash Brush الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 850*529 من هنا _________________________________________ فرش سمايلات فيسبوك للفوتوشوب | Emoji Brush 😍 الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 904*529 من هنا _________________________________________ أفضل 10 كروت شخصية وأعمال جاهزة للتصميم | Skatsofrink الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*467 من هنا _________________________________________ أفضل 10 ستايلات نارية للفوتوشوب | Top 10 fire style Photoshop الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 750*400 من هنا _________________________________________ خط جرافيتي عربي | Graffiti Arabic Fonts الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 600*373 من هنا _________________________________________ أكشن تحويل الصور الي كرتون | Cartoon Photoshop a*ction الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 1128*1008 من هنا -------------------------------- تعرف علي أفضل مقاس تصميم صور مواقع التواصل الأجتماعي الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 600*373 من هنا -------------------------------- أفضل موك ��ب تيشرت شتوي | Best Mock up T-shirt winter الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 600*373 من هنا -------------------------------- أقوي أكشن فوتوشوب A1One لعمل انفجار وتكسير الوان واضاءة الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 1067*664 من هنا -------------------------------- أقوي 1500 اكشن مجانا للفوتوشوب - ملحقات المصمم المحترف الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 600*360 من هنا -------------------------------- أفضل موك اب لعرض لوجو وكروت اعمال PSD الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 600*360 من هنا -------------------------------- أفضل لمبات أضاءة ذهبي للتصميم المحترف والديكور الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 1067*600 من هنا -------------------------------- أفضل تأثير اضاءة لعرض المنتجات - ملحقات المصمم المحترف الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 1067*600 من هنا -------------------------------- أضائة 6 أشكال مختلفة PDS اضائة علي الجدران للفوتوشوب الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 1067*600 من هنا -------------------------------- ملفات أفضل 10 لوحات شرف ولوجو مفتوح المصدر للتعديل عليها الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 640*339 من هنا -------------------------------- أكشن أكثر من 750 أكشن لبرنامج فوتوشوب | More Than 750 a*ction الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 849*768 من هنا -------------------------------- ملفات تحميل ايقونات سوشيال ميديا فوتوشوب| Social Media Icon PSD الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 1128*1080 من هنا -------------------------------- أكثر من 100 لوجو فيكتور جديد | New Vector Logo 100 eps الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 578*529 من هنا -------------------------------- بروشور تحميل فلاير 3 صفح متعدد الاستخدام مفتوح المصدر | Flyer PSD الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 3579*2551 من هنا -------------------------------- فرش فرش حروف وتشكيل برنامج الكليك | Brushes Kelk الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 541*381 من هنا -------------------------------- أكشن تأثير لايت بوكس الأحترافي | Lightbox Text Effect الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 541*381 من هنا -------------------------------- تحميل شهادات تقدير وشكر جاهزة للتصميم الفوتوشوب | Certificates PSD الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 541*381 من هنا -------------------------------- ملفات تحميل برنامج فتح ورئية ملفات بي اس دي - PSD Viewer الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 499*339 من هنا -------------------------------- موك اب أكياس لعمل منتجات الشيبسي | Mock up Bag for Chips الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 823*915 من هنا -------------------------------- موك اب ختم ملف مفتوح للتعديل عليه | Mock up Stamp PSD الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 600*528 من هنا -------------------------------- افضل 60 خط عربي جاهز للتحميل | Arabic Fonts الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 636*405 من هنا -------------------------------- فلاتر فلتر إزالة الشوائب و البيكسل و تفتيح البشرة الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 1000*511 من هنا -------------------------------- فلاتر تحميل فلتر لقص الشعر علي برنامج الفوتوشوب الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 640*400 من هنا -------------------------------- فلاتر فلتر تنظيف البشرة الشهير حزمة فلاتر احترافية الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 632*336 من هنا -------------------------------- Brochure | بروشور ملف اليستريتور جاهز للتحميل الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 1989*1522 من هنا -------------------------------- Brochure بروشور أحترافي مفتوح المصدر جاهز للتحميل الصورة مصغرة أنقر هنا لرؤيتها بحجمها الطبيعي 626*600 من هنا أتمني أن أكون قد أفدتكم بالأدوات