Real Estate

J OHN NJOKU, 31, of Southwest Center City, is co-founder and chief executive of Kwelia. The start-up has developed software for property managers to price their apartments using real-time market data. Njoku, who has practiced law in New York and worked in real estate in New York and Connecticut, works with co-founder Chris Connell and "data guy" Greg Phillips from an office on Walnut Street near 17th. Q: What does Kwelia do? A: Kwelia is a data-analytics platform for residential real estate.

Hundreds of thousands of property owners in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties are getting something they probably don't want in the new year - higher real estate taxes. Countywide increases, approved in December, affect the owners of all 382,304 real estate parcels in Chester and Delaware Counties. Some people are taking a double hit, as at least 27 towns in those counties also have increased taxes. Bucks and Montgomery Counties kept their rates the same, but at least 28 municipalities raised real estate levies.

One in a continuing series spotlighting the real estate market in this region's communities. All the signs heading into town, and the ones on the school district buildings and on the Fire Department's headquarters on Main Street, clearly say Evesham Township . However, when you announce that you're going to the Apple Store, or REI, or scores of other locations within Evesham Township's boundaries, the destination is Marlton ...

Joseph J. D'Amico, 94, of Drexel Hill, who rose from humble beginnings to become a Realtor and insurance broker, died Monday, Jan. 21, of prostate cancer at his home. Mr. D'Amico, the eldest of seven children, was the son of a seamstress and a Sicilian shoemaker in Philadelphia. He worked alongside his father as a young man. He graduated from Overbrook High School in 1936. His first job out of school was laying steel track for the Pennsylvania Railroad; it was the hardest work he ever did, he later told family.

J OE D'AMICO knew what hard work was. Life was tough in the years of the Great Depression, and Joe was lucky to get any job. But working on the Pennsylvania Railroad, laying track, was a true test of muscle and grit. "He claimed it was the hardest job he ever had," his family said. While in high school, Joe worked with his father, an immigrant from Sicily, as a shoemaker. And while working his way through college, Joe had another challenging job: climbing over scaffolding at City Hall to keep tabs on laborers as a timekeeper.

Lured by rumors of $20,000 to $60,000 potential windfalls, hundreds of homeowners near the Merion Golf Club are listing their homes for rent during the U.S. Open. The presumption is that PGA golfers, corporate sponsors, and well-heeled fans will be looking for upscale accommodations when the Open comes to Merion from June 10 to 16. Two real estate agents and an independent website, eventhomes.com, have more than 350 listings, ranging from $250 to $10,000 per night on those dates.

The National Association of Realtors says 2012 was a record year for favorable housing-affordability conditions and a "great year for buyers who could get a mortgage. " What appears between the quotation marks tells us much more about the condition of the residential real estate market last year than any hype about "affordability. " Since the housing bubble burst in 2006-07, the road to affordability the market has traveled has been the roughest since the Great Depression. Record affordability has come, of course, at the cost of millions of foreclosures and billions of dollars in lost equity.

Joseph Straus Jr., 91, of Lafayette Hill, retired chairman of the former Strouse, Greenberg & Co., died Saturday, Jan. 12, of natural causes at his home. Mr. Straus was a nationally known real estate figure in Philadelphia from the 1950s through the mid-1990s. He joined Strouse as a partner in the mid-1960s and became its chairman. "He was one of the early pioneers in the development of large, enclosed regional shopping centers on the East Coast," said his son, Jim. One was Deptford Mall.

Though it has been laid low in recent years by litigation and bankruptcy, the Prince Music Theater, led by founder Marjorie Samoff, once held a handsome national reputation as a creator of art. With an advisory council that included Stephen Sondheim and Milton Babbitt, Philip Glass and Leonard Bernstein, the Prince made an artistic splash starting in the mid-1980s with a string of sometimes-genre-bending works, from Broadway revivals to avant-garde opera....

One in a continuing series spotlighting the real estate market in this region's communities. Arriving after an 80-minute train ride from Center City, a visitor to Doylestown is struck by this fact: Photographs don't begin to do it justice. The Bucks County seat is much prettier, by far, than any picture. Today's Doylestown is the result of 50 years of hard work that began with a grassroots effort called "Operation '64," when some residents went to store owners urging them to fix up their businesses.