The Round-Up: Friday

With credit tighter and the dollar stronger, fewer international investors are taking an interest in U.S. real estate. [NY Times]

Even in Florida—the epicenter of international homebuyers—foreigners struggle to find a mortgage they can afford. [NY Times]

A NYC architect mimics the form of a nearby waterfall for the design of his country home on the slopes of Overlook Mountain in Saugerties, N.Y. [NY Times]

Living it up long into the night at Put-in-Bay—Ohio’s raucous island community just off Lake Erie's shore. [NY Times]

Heating your second home the old-fashioned way—with a wood-burning stuff. [NY Times]

Bloomberg proposes charging consumers 6 cents for every plastic bag used. [NY Times]

State officials conclude that retired LIRR employees receiving disability payments shouldn’t be able to use a pass to play free golf at state parks. [NY Times]

NYC and the state agree on a deal to improve the city’s 14 sewage treatment plants and bring them into compliance with environmental regulations. [NY Times]

Transit cop provides testimony confirming statements by a Brooklyn tattoo artist who claimed he was sodomized by police in an incident last month. [NYDN]

One of city’s worst housing complexes in East Flatbush gets a makeover replete with a suit-and-tie security force, and new tenants are taking notice. [NYDN]

Over the course of 26 years, a nationally-renowned sculptor watches Soho reinvent itelf from the perch of her 5,000-square-foot loft. [NYDN]

The number of mortgages issued plummets by up to 60 percent in parts of eastern Brooklyn, while more tony communities to the west—such as Fort Greene and Brooklyn Heights—see their mortgage numbers rise. [NYDN]

Racist graffiti reappears at an East New York elementary school. [NYDN]

The construction of a 37-story 911 call center in the Bronx is put on hold as costs jump to nearly $1 billion. [NYDN]

New middle school coming to the Bronx’s Highbridge community. [NYDN]

Yankees to fork over $11 million after an audit revealed the team underpaid the city on rent between 2003 and 2006. [NY Post]

The U.S. economy losses 240,000 jobs in October, as the unemployment rate climbs to 6.5 percent—the highest in 14 years. [WSJ]