Real Estate

On a table by her desk sits a book called Outhouses of the East, the first hint that Flora Rubin is not a typical executive. She laughs while she talks, gestures freely, and chats casually with her employees as they pass her door on their way to showings. Rubin is one of a new breed of owners of real estate companies - women - and one from a number that is growing nationally as well as on the Main Line. In May she bought out her partner - a man - and now is owner of the Leader Co., a real estate firm she and her partner started in 1981 in Bala Cynwyd.

Terence P. Collins, 53, of Holland, owner of a real-estate brokerage who helped develop a business-leaders program for Catholic schools, died Wednesday of complications from cancer at St. Mary Medical Center in Middletown Township, Bucks County. Since 1988, he had operated T.P. Collins Co., an industrial and commercial real estate firm in Langhorne. Mr. Collins was born in Philadelphia and graduated from St. Joseph's Preparatory High School in 1961 and from La Salle College in 1966.

In a series of real estate sales by Louis Traiman & Co. - both past and future - indicate that buying and selling property at auction is increasing in popularity and sharing the stimulus created by the recently enacted federal income tax revisions. The Traiman sales, of a Main Line estate next Saturday and a 49-unit apartment complex in Upper Darby Township on Oct. 30, are among several area auctions this month that will offer bidders the opportunity to obtain everything from majolica pottery to Marx toys.

The Delaware County Commerce Center has headed for cyberspace, listing on the World Wide Web nearly 400 commercial and industrial properties for lease or sale in the county. The listings range from small offices for lease to large industrial properties for sale, center spokeswoman Maureen McCabe said. McCabe figures that about 500 people are visiting the site each month, a number she hopes to see climb as browsers find the site through links with other Web sites. Along with the detailed property listings and agent contacts, visitors also will find statistical snapshots of Delaware County's major employers, population, housing patterns, and the region's high-tech enterprises.

Your June 6 article, "Sell your own house, save on commissions," was considered an insult to many hard-working full-time professional real-estate agents. This is not an easy job. Many people try this business, but only a few make it. As a Realtor in South Jersey for the past 15 years, and a gold member of the New Jersey Association of Realtors and the Weichert Presidents Club, I take my position very seriously. I've sold almost 1,500 homes. I continue to keep up with the prices in the area, the school information, recent changes in property disclosures, as well as Megan's Law postings, and information on radon, structural problems, termites, asbestos, lead-based paints, and, recently, mold.

The housing market, in a deep freeze for more than a year, may have thawed out in the coldest months of the year. Major real estate brokers in Chester, Montgomery and Delaware Counties are reporting that sales in December and January were up by 50 percent compared with the same months a year earlier. And sellers, accustomed to long delays in the marketplace, are finding their houses are selling at a quicker pace. Real estate agents are working seven days a week to cope with the demand and to process the resulting paperwork.

Universal Health Services Inc., a hospital-management firm based in King of Prussia, has decided to spin off most of its real estate into a new holding company. The transaction will result in the creation of a corporation with assets in excess of $200 million, according to Joseph P. Gaynor 3d, senior vice president and treasurer of Universal Health Services (UHS). The new firm, which is still unnamed, will be based in the Philadelphia area, he said yesterday. UHS operates 23 acute-care hospitals and 11 psychiatric hospitals in 15 states and the United Kingdom.

In 1986, Chester County developer Jack Loew bought two lots in the Whiteland Business Park in Exton. He soon discovered, just below ground level, much more than he had bargained for. When Loew began excavating the property last year, workers unearthed a network of trenches filled with what Loew's lawyer would later describe as "blue goo. " The goo was made up of waste oil, cyanide and other hazardous materials that Loew alleges came from...

Up until Saturday, George Bates of Hatboro thought he had heard every sales pitch in the book. Having been a salesman himself for 30 years, Bates was unmoved by the colorful brochure, posters and slides of alluring palm trees, green grass, turquoise water and little pink houses in a row. He simply patted his wife's hand as the two sipped coffee and endured the hour and a half lecture-sales pitch dubbed a "Florida Seminar," at the Royce Hotel in...

The legacy of Samuel Rappaport will be endlessly debated. The many pending deals and unresolved problems that the real estate mogul left behind at his death on Monday, the very weight of his vast holdings, will have a major impact on the city for years to come. Right now, there are many questions and few answers. What, for instance, will happen to the historic Victory Building, which Rappaport was accused of letting deteriorate then threatening to demolish, and the properties he owned on Market Street east of City Hall, crucial to the city's effort to revitalize that area?