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Latest head-line
news on mortgage, housing market, remodeling, investment in residential
& commercial real estate, and more
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May
jobless rates higher in 48 states
Columbus Dispatch
06/20/2009 The Labor Department reported
yesterday that 48 states and the District of Columbia found employment
conditions deteriorating last month. The fallout from the longest recession
since World War II was the worst in Michigan as automakers cut tens of
thousands of jobs. Its unemployment rate rose to 14.1 percent. The West
reported the highest regional jobless rate at 10.1 percent.
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Hard
Times for New Englands 3-Deckers New
York Times
06/19/2009 As foreclosures batter the dense
neighborhoods of urban New England, a regional emblem is under siege.
Three-decker homes, which proliferated in cities like Boston; Providence,
R.I.; and Worcester, Mass., a century ago and remain fixtures of the
landscape, are being foreclosed on at disproportionate rates, left to decay
and even razed.
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Good
news for Bay Area home prices San
Francisco Chronicle
06/19/2009 Bay Area home prices rose from April
to May, the second straight monthly gain and a surefire sign that the
cold-cocked real estate market is finally coming around. Unless, of course,
it's not. The data could just as easily reflect growing distress in the
high-end market that is forcing more well-to-do owners to unload their
homes, distorting the statistics with discounted but still relatively
expensive properties and foreshadowing greater pain to come.
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The
1031 Exchange in Today's Market realestate.yahoo.com
06/18/2009 The point of owning real estate is to
have it appreciate in value and if you want to change that or sell that
property, you may have a substantial tax liability as a result through
capital gains taxes, both state and federal. Section 1031 allows you to
exchange one investment property for another and doing so appropriately
defers the capital gains tax that might be due in such a transaction if it
were a sale.
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Refinancings slip
amid spike in rates Denver Post
06/18/2009 A spike in mortgage rates has dried up
refinancing opportunities for many borrowers, despite a heavy government
push to lower rates. Rates on 30-year mortgages averaged 5.6 percent last
week, a sharp increase from rates below 5 percent in late May, according to
a weekly rate survey from mortgage buyer Freddie Mac. Although rates have
dropped this week on fears surrounding the strength of a recovery, they
remain high enough to block many borrowers from a refinance.
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Q&A
with Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf Charlotte Observer
06/17/2009 In a conversation on the 41st floor
of Wachovia's former headquarters building, Stumpf talked about the merger,
repaying government bailout funds, a subprime lawsuit the bank faces in
Baltimore and the outlook for Wachovia shareholders.
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Home
Construction Rebounds Solidly From April's Steep Decline New York Times
06/16/2009 Construction of new homes leapt back
in May after dropping sharply a month earlier, the government reported on
Tuesday, signaling that the housing and construction markets might be
hitting a bottom. In another report, the government said that prices
received by producers for finished goods rose a smaller-than-expected 0.2
percent in May, hinting that Wall Streets fears of inflation may be
exaggerated.
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Expect
much taller grass in Columbus this summer Columbus Dispatch
06/15/2009 Because of budget cuts, Columbus will
mow grass in its parks every 21 days this summer instead of every 14. And
though crews will continue to cut overgrown lawns at vacant houses, they
might not get to them as often as in the past, because the city has four
fewer inspectors to cite property owners.
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Inflation
fears on the rise, If the stimulus causes prices to jump, there are a few
things you can do Columbus Dispatch
06/14/2009 Amid rising joblessness, Willard Agee
worries about something else going up -- prices. Early whiffs of inflation,
from clamoring gold markets to climbing mortgage rates, have left the
70-year-old retiree searching for ways to protect the purchasing power of
his life savings.
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These
days, if you give it away, they will come Columbus Dispatch
06/14/2009 Some businesses are finding that the
best price they can charge is nothing at all. From minor-league baseball
teams letting kids eat for free to banks making a $100 deposit into new
checking accounts, merchants are realizing that giving recession-battered
consumers something for nothing can be a good way to get them to buy
something else.
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Housing report: More pain
ahead, Three new waves of defaults seen breaking Las
Vegas Review-Journal
06/13/2009
The first two waves of mortgage losses are mostly behind us but
three more waves are coming, two of them in the housing market and one in
commercial real estate, an executive for a New York investment firm said
Friday. While the majority of mortgage defaults so far have been subprime
borrowers, more middle- and upper-income homeowners are starting to walk
away from their mortgages.
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Drop
in Housing Prices Still Occurring but Market Activity Increasing realestate.yahoo.com
06/12/2009 Experts aren't saying the end of
falling house prices is over; however, market activity is increasing in
some areas and affordability continues to be the key critical factor for
those wanting to buy a home.
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Credit
crunch blamed for Vegas Fontainebleau bankruptcy Miami Herald
06/11/2009 With a bankrupt casino hotel in Las
Vegas, Fontainebleau owner Jeffrey Soffer is working to restart the project
before its problems spill into South Florida. Turnberry Residential Limited
Partner, a company in which Jeffrey Soffer is the majority owner, has a
$100 million completion guarantee on the Las Vegas hotel.
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Neighbors
are forcing neighbors into foreclosure Washington Post
06/11/2009 Thousands of Americans who have
generally kept up with their mortgages are still in danger of losing their
homes because they made a fateful trade-off in this shaky economy - they
let their homeowner association dues slide. Many homeowners are learning to
their surprise that condo and neighborhood associations that oversee
security patrols, mow lawns, plant flowers and clean the community swimming
pool may have the right to foreclose when dues aren't paid. That right is
often written into the purchase agreement signed by the homeowner.
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Oklahomas
bad loan rate falls 25 percent, while the national figure drops 6 percent Tulsa
World
06/10/2009 Fewer Oklahomans faced losing their
home in May, as the foreclosure rate dropped significantly. Last month 877
foreclosures were filed, down 25.5 percent from April and down 29 percent
from May 2008, according to a report from real estate data service
RealtyTrac. Oklahomas foreclosure rate of one for every 1,851 home loans
was good enough for the state to drop from the 34th highest rate in April
to the 39th in May.
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Crescent
Resources files bankruptcy petitions Charlotte Observer
06/10/2009 Charlotte-based Crescent Resources,
one of the leading real estate developers in the Southeast, said today it
has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy petitions. The company said it will
continue to operate as it tries to reduce debt and improve its capital
structure. Crescent has raised $110 million in financing from its existing
lenders to continue operations as it reorganizes.
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Use of short
sales on rise in Sacramento housing market Sacramento Bee
06/10/2009
For years real estate agents have steered buyers away from
"short sales," labeling them a mind-numbing, difficult experience
that could exhaust the patience of the biblical Job. Now buyers can hardly
avoid them.
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U.S.
bankruptcies highest since 2005 Washington Post
06/09/2009 U.S. bankruptcy filings rose in the
first quarter to the highest since 2005, government data show, as rising
unemployment, falling housing prices and tight credit made it harder for people
to hold off their creditors. There were 330,477 filings in the
January-to-March period, up 10 percent from the previous quarter and up 35
percent from a year earlier, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts
said this week. Consumer bankruptcy filings rose 33 percent from a year
earlier, while business filings rose 64 percent.
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AP
analysis: recession' grip eases in April Washington Post
06/08/2009 The economy's tailspin gave way to a
more controlled descent in the spring, according to The Associated Press'
monthly analysis of economic stress in more than 3,100 U.S. counties.
Still, troubles persist in California related to the housing bust and in
the Midwest, pounded by manufacturing layoffs.
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Insight
From Inside the Mortgage Crisis Washington Post
06/07/2009 It hadn't even hit the bookstores
before this month's Color of Money Book Club selection, "Busted,"
set off a flurry of Internet conversations. "Busted: Life Inside the
Great Mortgage Meltdown" (W.W. Norton, $25.95) by Edmund L. Andrews is
the story of how a well-educated, highly paid economics reporter for the
New York Times, whose beat includes covering the Federal Reserve, ended up
with almost a half-million-dollar mortgage that he and his wife, Patty,
couldn't afford.
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Clarifications
made to tax credits program for homebuyers Charlotte
Observer
06/06/2009 In its final guidelines to lenders
and homebuyers issued May 29, the Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) clarified that purchasers obtaining FHA loans through
private lenders will have to invest at least some of their own funds
whether from personal savings or gifts from relatives in the form of a
minimum 3.5 percent down payment.
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Big-ticket real
estate auctions could thin Grand Strand market Myrtle Beach Sun News
06/05/2009
Ever wanted to own piece of an island? Well, here's your chance if
you have enough cash. Iron Horse Auction Co. is scheduled to sell five lots
that make up about a third of Monk's Island, N.C. - and the only
developable part of it - at an auction this month.
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Officials:
Nuisance status could help Ohio mansion Columbus Dispatch
06/04/2009 Officials in Cincinnati say they want
to declare a historic mansion a nuisance in order to save it. The city says
nuisance status for the 125-year-old home would allow them to make repairs
and send the bill to the current owner, who wants to turn the 24-room
mansion into a bed and breakfast.
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Administration
to Reveal Plans for Katrina Housing Transition Washington Post
06/03/2009 The Obama administration will
announce plans today to virtually give away roughly 1,800 mobile homes to
3,400 families displaced by Hurricane Katrina who are living in
government-provided housing along the Gulf Coast, officials said. The
administration also will make available $50 million in rental vouchers to
income-eligible trailer occupants who move to targeted housing projects.
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U.S.
pending home sales surge, fueling recovery hope Washington Post
06/02/2009 Pending sales of previously owned
U.S. homes shot up by 6.7 percent in April, the biggest monthly gain in
7-1/2 years, according to a report on Tuesday that buttressed views the
U.S. recession was easing. The National Association of Realtors said its
Pending Home Sales Index, based on new sales contracts, rose to 90.3 in
April from 84.6 in March.
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JPMorgan
Chase to add 1,150 jobs in central Ohio Columbus Dispatch
06/02/2009 JPMorgan Chase is adding at least
1,150 jobs in central Ohio over the next three years, after months of
lobbying from state and local officials and tax-incentives packages that
were too good to pass up. About 1,000 of the new jobs will be split between
Chase's McCoy Center in Polaris and its lending facility near Easton Town
Center. The remaining 150 will be at the company's Cleveland Avenue offices
in Westerville, the company said.
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Building
Basement Appeal Washington
Post
06/01/2009 Homeowners like Jones and Brown turn
to excavators to dig, shovel and remove dirt through alleys, doors, windows
or a big hole in the wall to create a subterranean living level. Many, like
Jones, say they do not want to leave homes they have lovingly renovated but
can't expand outward or face other building or zoning restrictions. Digging
down is the next logical step to get the desired playroom, office, storage
or, more rarely, rental unit.
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Commercial
transactions are down sharply as credit remains tight Denver Post
05/31/2009 During the 12 months ending March 31,
transaction volume across all property types in metro Denver dropped 75
percent to $1.5 billion, compared with $6.2 billion during the same period
last year, according to a report complied by LoopNet, a commercial real
estate information services provider. Those deals that are getting done are
commonly smaller properties financed with private equity. Nationally, the
volume of commercial deals dropped 70 percent to $110.4 billion in the
12-month period ending in the first quarter, from $371.4 billion a year
ago.
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Wraparound
mortgages legal, but carry high risk San
Francisco Chronicle
05/31/2009 The transaction is legal, but there
are too many risks. Unless your buyer puts up a lot of money - say 20 or 25
percent of the purchase price - I cannot recommend that you pursue this
further.
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How
exotic mortgages became time bombs Atlanta
Journal-Constit.
05/31/2009 Four years ago, when subprime mortgage
loans were hot commodities, investors enthusiastically bought pieces of a
pool of 5,500 mortgages that covered $984 million in homeowner debt. The
deals turned out to be a financial suicide pact.
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Online
credit scores can be misleading Columbus
Dispatch
05/31/2009 Customers come in having checked
their scores online, only to find out the scores available to consumers on
Web sites are far different from the ones the bank uses. A 50- to 60-point
difference is not uncommon, he said, and almost every time, the score he
gets is the lower one.
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Foreclosed
Homes a Problem During Hurricane Season New York Times
05/31/2009 Mike Manikchand points toward his
neighbors -- a half-dozen empty, foreclosed-upon homes, sitting on
weed-strewn yards -- and he wonders: What will happen if a hurricane slams
into southwest Florida this year? His simple answer: "A lot of these
places will get destroyed."
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Developers
take more than a passing interest in tollway real estate Dallas Morning News
05/30/2009
The just-completed $60 million Westin redo is one of a string of new
projects along the Dallas North Tollway a real estate market that has
matured over the last decade.
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Waiting game on
low mortgage rates backfires Sacramento
Bee
05/30/2009
Sacramento-area homeowners and prospective first-time homebuyers
might be wondering: Did we miss the boat on mortgage rates? The short
answer from experts is: Probably, but rates are still very attractive. For
10 weeks, mortgage rates were riding well below 5 percent on 30-year loans,
but housing and industry analysts speculated that many first-time
homebuyers and homeowners looking to refinance existing mortgages were
waiting for rates to drop even lower. Then on Wednesday, rates went the
other way. Mortgage rates at some lenders spiked anywhere from 0.5 percent
to 1 percent, and industry analysts pointed to economic indicators
favorable to even higher rates in the coming weeks.
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Local
real-estate agency will pay mortgages of clients who lose jobs Columbus Dispatch
05/29/2009 The Columbus-based real estate firm
Real Living HER announced today that it will cover the mortgage of clients
who lose their jobs. The program, called Peace of Mind, is available to
those who purchase a home through a Real Living agent and finance the home
with Real Living Mortgage. The home must be purchased between June 1 and
Aug. 31 (and close before Sept.30).
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Bond
Yields Push Mortgage Rates Higher This Week realestate.yahoo.com
05/29/2009 Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE) today released
the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) in which the
30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.91 percent with an average 0.7
point for the week ending May 28, 2009, up from last week when it averaged
4.82 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 6.08
percent.
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Number
of Home Sales Rises, but Prices Keep Plummeting Washington Post
05/28/2009 Bargain hunters drove home sales up
slightly in April, but prices plunged and do not appear close to
stabilizing, according to industry data released yesterday. Existing-home
sales rose 2.9 percent from March, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of
4.68 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors. That
was slightly better than analysts expected. The April numbers represented a
3.5 percent drop in sales compared with April 2008.
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Central
Ohio home sales, prices slump in April Columbus Dispatch
05/27/2009 In central Ohio, sales dropped 16
percent in April compared to last April. The average sales price slipped to
$149,285 in the month, down 6 percent from the previous April. The story
was the same throughout the state and nation. In Ohio, 20 percent fewer
homes sold this April compared to last. The average home in Ohio sold for
$120,223, down 9.4 percent from a year ago.
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U.S.
home prices fall 18.7 percent on year in March Washington Post
05/26/2009 Prices of U.S. homes in March fell a
sharp 18.7 percent from a year earlier, though some relief appeared to be
in sight as, for the second month, prices did not slide at a record rate as
they had been doing since late 2007. Still, single-family home prices
according to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices
released on Tuesday were stuck in a slump as they also showed prices in the
first quarter of 2009 dropped at a record annual pace of 19.1 percent.
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Consumer
confidence soars in May Columbus
Dispatch
05/26/2009 Consumer confidence extended its
rebound in May, soaring to the highest level since last September as more
shoppers are feeling the worst of the recession is behind them. The Conference
Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index, which had
dramatically increased in April, zoomed past economists' expectations to
54.9 from a revised 40.8 in April. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters
were expecting 42.3. In February, confidence levels had hit a new historic
low of 25.3.
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Rising
inventory of troubled homes could spur fresh wave of foreclosures Sacramento Bee
05/25/2009 More than 20,000 troubled homes are
growing into a massive "phantom" inventory that could potentially
be unloaded onto an already fragile housing market. According to distressed
property tracker ForeclosureRadar.com, most of the 4,449 homes foreclosed
the past four months in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and
Yuba counties are not yet listed for sale. And now the Contra Costa County
firm says an additional 17,792 homes in the six-county area all in some
stage of the foreclosure process represent a potential new supply of bank
repos for roughly the next six months.
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Real estate
bust turns South Dade suburbs into modern ghost towns Miami Herald
05/24/2009 While the darkened downtown Miami
condominium tower has become a symbol of the real estate bust, at least
most builders stayed around to see their projects through to completion.
Things are worse in the South Florida's most far-flung subdivisions. Prices
have plunged more than 53 percent over the past 12 months in Miami-Dade
County's far south suburbs, including Homestead, Florida City and
neighboring incorporated areas. In Miami's downtown and Brickell districts,
considered ground zero for the bust, the drop has been more modest, about
30 percent.
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Job
Losses Push Safer Mortgages to Foreclosure New York Times
05/24/2009 In the latest phase of the nations
real estate disaster, the locus of trouble has shifted from subprime loans
those extended to home buyers with troubled credit to the far more
numerous prime loans issued to those with decent financial histories. With
many economists anticipating that the unemployment rate will rise into the
double digits from its current 8.9 percent, foreclosures are expected to accelerate.
That could exacerbate bank losses, adding pressure to the financial system
and the broader economy.
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Amid
Housing Bust, Phoenix Begins a New Frenzy New York Times
05/23/2009 Every weekday morning, Lou Jarvis
drives the sun-baked suburban streets looking for investment gold: a family
that will lose its house in a foreclosure auction within a few hours. If
the property looks promising, Mr. Jarvis puts in a bid on behalf of any of
his dozens of clients eager to become landlords. When he wins, he offers to
let the family stay in the house and rent for much less than their mortgage
payment.
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Ohio's
jobless rate jumps to 10.2% Columbus
Dispatch
05/23/2009 Ohio got fresh evidence yesterday
that the economy is replaying the worst days of that decade, as the state
unemployment rate hit double digits for the first time in 25 years. The
seasonally adjusted rate was 10.2 percent in April, up from 9.7 percent in
March and up from 6.2 percent a year earlier, according to figures from the
Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
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Bridge loan,
cash advance are new uses for tax credit Charlotte Observer
05/23/2009 The $8,000 federal tax credit for
first-time home purchasers is about to morph into a ready-cash down payment
source, thanks to a new federal policy change. Buyers eligible for the
credit who apply for mortgages insured by the Federal Housing
Administration (FHA) may soon also be eligible for bridge loans or cash
advances up to $8,000 that they can use for the down payment, closing
costs or other loan expenses pending receipt of their tax credit check from
the IRS.
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Regulators
shut 2 failed banks in Illinois San
Francisco Chronicle
05/22/2009 Regulators on Friday shut down two
more banks, boosting the number of federally insured bank failures this
year to 36. The latest banks seized were Strategic Capital Bank and
Citizens National bank, both in Illinois. The Federal Deposit Insurance
Corp. will continue to insure regular deposit accounts of up to $250,000 at
both banks.
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Landmark
skyscrapers going cheap in distressed market Richmond
Times-Dispatch
05/21/2009 NEW YORK The 40-story skyscraper sits
on a prime corner in the country's wealthiest commercial market, steps from
the Museum of Modern Art and a few blocks from Rockefeller Center and
Central Park. It recently sold for $100,000. The 1330 Avenue of the
Americas building -- which sold for close to $500 million three years ago
-- was auctioned last month for the minimum to a Canadian pension fund unit
after owner Harry Macklowe defaulted on a $130 million loan. A month before
that, the John Hancock Tower -- Boston's tallest skyscraper -- sold at
auction for a little more than $20 million. The 33-story Equitable Building
in downtown Atlanta is set to go up for auction next month; its owners owe
more than $50 million to the bank and have only half of the building
leased.
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SEC chief opposes
plan for financial watchdog Denver
Post
05/21/2009 The head of the Securities and
Exchange Commission is objecting to a plan being weighed by the Obama
administration to create a new financial watchdog for consumers that would
assume oversight of mutual funds. The SEC chief's split with the
administration shows how hard it may be for a broad overhaul of financial
rules to overcome turf wars among various regulators and for a consensus to
be reached on Capitol Hill.
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Senate
OKs restrictions on credit card industry Chicago Tribune
05/20/2009 The Senate on Tuesday passed a
landmark bill that gives consumers new protections in their agreements with
credit card companies, but one result may be a return to annual fees and
other costs for the most creditworthy customers. The bill, which was
approved in a 90-5 vote, imposes an unprecedented set of restrictions on
the credit card industry and would, among other things, curtail retroactive
interest rate increases, require advance notice of rate increases, prevent
excessive "over limit" fees and prohibit lenders from raising
rates when a cardholder is late on a separate debt.
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Southland
median home price falls to $247,000 in April LA Times
05/19/2009 The price drop drives homes sales
up. April sales are at record or near-record levels in foreclosure-heavy
inland areas; higher-priced coastal areas are seeing record or near-record
lows in sales. Southern California's median home price in April was
$247,000, down slightly from the previous month, a real estate research
firm reported today. The price drop -- a decline of 51% from the 2007 peak
-- came after three months in which the median price had held steady at
$250,000, according to the data from San Diego-based MDA DataQuick.
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Mobile-home
owners stuck when their rented lots go into foreclosure Columbus Dispatch
05/18/2009 But for a letter telling him that his
monthly water bill was increasing, Richard Carle might never have known
that the mobile-home park he and his wife have called home for 17 years is
in foreclosure. Angry about the April 1 rate increase, Carle started making
calls. One thing led to another and, eventually, he contacted a lawyer who
gave him some surprising news. This month, the Ohio House passed a bill
that gives renters certain rights in foreclosures.
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Tax
Breaks That Shouldn't Be Overlooked When Refinancing a Mortgage Washington Post
05/17/2009 In addition to the regular
write-offs that all homeowners have -- such as deductible mortgage interest
and property taxes -- people who refinance their mortgage often overlook some
tax breaks: Deducting points paid. You can deduct the points paid to get a
mortgage in the year you buy a home -- even if the seller paid the points
for you.
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Angie's
List gets under skin of some contractors Columbus Dispatch
05/17/2009 Angie Hicks founded Angie's List 14
years ago in Columbus after she became frustrated with finding a
contractor. Now, some contractors are frustrated with Angie's List, which
has become a force that can't be ignored in their world. The site -
www.angieslist.com - allows consumers to rate and comment on contractors.
It now boasts 750,000 members, 30,000 of them in central Ohio.
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Lessons
the Teacher Forgot New York Times
05/16/2009 Yes, it has come to this: The largest
bank in the United States, putative citadel of free enterprise, must
desperately unload shares in a bank controlled by the Communist Party of
China. That, or risk the wrath of American regulators, newly concerned
about how much money financial institutions have on hand.
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Empty
houses fill Rust Belt neighborhoods Richmond Times-Dispatch
05/16/2009 CINCINNATI -- Meet the forgotten
housing crisis. While most attention has focused on the wave of
foreclosures sweeping mostly middle-class, suburban Sun Belt neighborhoods
from California to Florida, the nation's emptiest neighborhoods have
remained concentrated in the same place for nearly a generation: the mostly
minority, poor, urban areas of the American Rust Belt.
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Scope
out overseas real estate on the Web San
Francisco Chronicle
05/15/2009 Casa, maison, hause. Even for
veteran homeowners, buying a home overseas can be a daunting prospect. Fortunately,
everything from property listings to details about potential red tape are
increasingly available online, if not all in one place. Experts are quick
to warn that anyone considering buying a home outside the U.S. should
enlist an attorney, a broker and possibly even an accountant with expertise
in the country where they want to buy a home. This is sound advice. But for
budding international real estate barons there's no reason not to start
cyber sight-seeing, and get acquainted with the potential opportunities and
hurdles that await them.
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Metal
thieves aren't getting away with it Columbus
Dispatch
05/15/2009 Less than two years after enacting
Ohio's first city ordinance to regulate scrap-metal sales at local yards,
city officials say the rules are working. Daily electronic reports from
dealers to police have helped crack cases involving millions in stolen
copper, brass, aluminum and other metals.
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More
Homeowners Getting Aid, but Demand Keeps Rising Washington Post
05/14/2009 In the two months since it launched,
the Obama administration's foreclosure prevention plan has outperformed the
government's previous attempts, offering more than 50,000 homeowners
lower-cost mortgages.
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Ohio
House panel passes foreclosure moratorium Columbus Dispatch
05/13/2009 Ohioans would be protected from
foreclosures for six months under a moratorium approved by a House
committee yesterday along party lines. Before the vote, legislators
stripped a provision that would have allowed judges to modify terms of the
mortgage. Still, supporters were pleased that House Bill 3 would impose a
new $750 foreclosure filing fee to help fund, among other things,
foreclosure-prevention counseling.
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Immigrant
Homeownership Proves Resilient in the Face of Slowdown Washington Post
05/13/2009 The rate of homeownership in the
United States is holding up better among immigrants than it is for
native-born Americans, according to a study released yesterday.
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Akron
home prices plunge 48%, Realtors' report shows Columbus Dispatch
05/12/2009 Home prices fell in nearly nine out
of every 10 U.S. cities in the first quarter of this year as first-time
buyers looking for bargains dominated the market. The National Association
of Realtors said Tuesday that median sales prices of existing homes
declined in 134 out of 152 metropolitan areas compared with the same period
a year ago. Prices rose in the other 18 cities.
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Locals
dispute Zillow stats for "underwater" homes Denver Post
05/12/2009 Declining home values mean 32 percent
of Denver-area homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their homes are
worth, according to a recent report by Zillow.com, a statistic local
experts dispute. Home values dropped 7.7 percent in the first quarter of
2009 compared with the same quarter a year ago, the report says. But many
local industry experts are skeptical of Zillow's numbers, which are based
on sales data gathered from public records that can be out of date.
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Hurricane
strips owners of rental rights realestate.yahoo.com
05/11/2009 My response is applicable to any
situation where the insurance company tries to dictate policies and
procedures to the association board of directors. If your legal documents
permit renting, the board can impose some restrictions. For example, the
board can require that a tenant give a copy of the lease to management, and
can require that the tenant be required to adhere to the legal requirements
of the association. However, if the bylaws allow renting for not less than
one year, the board cannot impose a requirement that leasing must be for
not more than four months.
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Md.
Town's Bid for Economic Stimulus Starts a Fight Washington Post
05/11/2009 TRAPPE, Md. -- The 2,300 homes that
a developer plans to build on cornfields on the outskirts of this Eastern
Shore hamlet (pop. 1,146) were becoming increasingly remote as the economy
soured. Then $120 million in stimulus money for Maryland water projects
seemed to drop from the sky, and a local feud began to rage over sprawl and
its cost. Trappe -- whose motto is "19th-century charm, 21st-century
progress" -- rushed to request federal money to fund an $18 million wastewater
plant to treat sewage for the development's 5,800 planned residents.
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Downtown rents
don't decrease even with influx of condo rentals Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
05/10/2009 With the demand for downtown condos
in the dumps, some developers are putting their unsold units up for rent
while waiting for the market to rebound. So far, the additional rental units
have not affected rents for downtown or east side upscale apartments,
according to housing developer Robert Monnat.
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Signs
of Recovery In County Economy: Home Sales Up; Retailers See Profits Washington Post
05/10/2009 Just as several national economic
indicators are pointing toward better days ahead, observers of the local
economy say Prince William County's fortunes are starting to look up. Fewer
houses sit unsold on the market, home sales are strong and many retailers
are beginning to see profits. A mood of optimism has been creeping into
county businesses and government chambers, government and business leaders
said.
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Bexley
Gateway tax deal urged Columbus
Dispatch
05/09/2009 With only five of 33 condos sold, the
developer of the Bexley Gateway is asking the city for a little help, in
the form of a 100 percent real-estate tax exemption lasting 15 years for
the residential portion of the project. The developer has sales prospects who
might be won over by the tax exemption, which would save them thousands of
dollars a year. The complex was originally granted a 50 percent tax
exemption for 15 years.
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Public-housing
complex, rec center to be gone by fall Columbus Dispatch
05/08/2009 The Columbus Metropolitan Housing
Authority expects demolition of the 129-unit building and the adjacent
McDowell Recreation Center to be completed by the end of September. Last
May, CMHA officials also announced a larger demolition plan to tear down
six of the authority's largest and oldest public-housing communities. About
1,700 units, or half of the CMHA-owned total, would disappear.
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Job-loss
protection now part of real estate market Richmond Times-Dispatch
05/07/2009 Everything is in place for a housing
recovery -- except, that is, for mounting job losses and consumer
confidence, which hit an all-time low this year but may be on the mend. The
real estate industry is tackling even that hurdle to encourage fence
sitters to make the leap and buy. For instance, Long & Foster Real
Estate is offering a job loss protection program. Sellers purchase the plan
for a flat fee of $500 and offer the protection to buyers.
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Some
retirees betting on real estate for income Austin American-Statesman
05/07/2009 Although it may seem crazy to bet on
real estate for a steady retirement income these days, that is what Edward
and Olivia Green of Manassas, Va., are doing. With their golden years fast
approaching he is 64 and she 60 the husband and wife have snapped up
five investment homes in the past three years. They hope to buy more as the
struggling real estate market continues to produce cheap properties. Their
portfolio includes a condominium apartment in Manassas; two houses in
Prince William County, Va.; and two houses in Memphis, Tenn. Their goal is
to buy cheap foreclosure properties, fix them up and rent them out.
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Experts
believe end of recession is near Miami
Herald
05/07/2009 The jobless rate is expected to tick
up later this week and continue climbing for months, a crisis in commercial
real estate looms and the latest survey of bank lending suggests that it's
still pretty hard to get a new mortgage. So it may sound surprising that
some forecasters see an imminent end to the recession.
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Hoping
for a renters' insurance miracle realestate.yahoo.com
05/07/2009 One thing for sure you'll learn from
this sad experience: Never hire someone without making sure they have their
own insurance. When you hire a firm that has its own employees, you know
that the firm must carry workers' comp insurance, but you should always ask
to see the policy, just to make sure. People who work for themselves and
have no employees, like your solo handyman, don't carry workers' comp, but
they should have insurance that will cover work-related injuries.
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Richmond
Area home values fall 6.4% to
$209,126 Richmond Times-Dispatch
05/07/2009 Richmond-area home values have fallen
to $209,126 -- about where they were in late 2005, according to a report
released yesterday by Zillow. That represents a 6.4 percent decline in the
first quarter from the same period a year ago. The value is a median,
meaning half the houses are worth more and half less. Some neighborhoods
are holding their values better than others, the online real estate company
reported.
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