Support squeeze

Tips for coping when care for parents, children means delaying retirement

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The good news is baby boomers aren't as selfish as the "Me Generation" label attributed to them might suggest. The bad news is their generosity might force them to work well into their retirement years, according to a new survey of working Americans.

About one in five workers 45 and older provide financial support to a parent, according to the survey of about 5,400 adults conducted by Brightwork Partners for Putnam Investments.

And a fair portion of boomers are supporting their adult children: Almost one-third of working Americans 45 and older with a grown child over age 25 pay rent or provide housing for that child, the survey found. Meanwhile, 45% of middle-age workers with grown children provide financial support of about $2,500 a year on average.

Tougher loan guidelines wise for borrowers

Perspective: Better underwriting offers benefits to consumers

The federal government has stepped into a battle between banks and borrowers and for once, the government is on the right track: New stricter loan guidelines should be applied not just to interest-only and payment-option adjustable-rate mortgages, but also to an entire category of esoteric and extremely complicated loan products.

read more: http://www.inman.com/hstory.aspx?ID=61762

New Boca development may open doors to affordable housing

A new development of homes on Broken Sound Boulevard in Boca Raton will offer the city something no other plat has done before.

The developer of the 172-unit residential complex, Stiles Development Corp. of Fort Lauderdale, will be the first to put some cash – specifically, $3 million -- into the city’s Affordable Housing Land Trust fund.City officials have been working long and hard for at least three years to come up with a method of providing affordable housing to middle income residents. To date, an ordinance is in the works, but it has never seen the light of a public hearing.Since 2004, the Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce has been pushing for an affordable housing ordinance – and has even drafted a model for the city to adopt. The planning staff is currently reviewing it.A land trust, combined with an ordinance explaining how it can be used, could solve Boca’s problem of finding an equitable solution to the affordable housing issue

Twelve Tempting Locations For Vacation-Home Buys

The recent softening in the U.S. real-estate market after years of double-digit percentage growth in home prices may make it scarier than ever to buy a vacation home.

Some regions are scary because, even with the recent dip, they seem prohibitively expensive. Elsewhere, buyers may have understandable fears that places that seem affordable will only become more so as prices continue to fall.

The editors at RealEstateJournal.com set out to identify potential vacation-home deals that would assuage the most nervous Nellies. We looked for appealing locales across the U.S. where prices rose at a rate well below the national average of 84.3% between the second quarter of 1996 and the second quarter of 2006, and have above-average employment outlooks according to data from Economy.com.

read more: http://www.realestatejournal.com/buysell/regionalnews/20061109-kim.html

Facing foreclosure? Beware of 'rescue firms' offering to help you

To a financially strapped homeowner terrified by the prospect of foreclosure, it sounds like an escape plan:

Temporarily transfer title of the property to a foreclosure rescue firm, which pays the mortgage and allows you to rent the house. The company promises that after six months or a year you can regain ownership.

But it's not always that simple. Terms of these deals are difficult for struggling homeowners to meet. And real estate experts say savvy firms often prey on elderly or low-income owners who are not sophisticated in financial matters.


read more: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/realestate/sfl-sbforeclose25jan25,0,7678449.story?coll=sfla-busrealestate-headlines

If you moved in 2006, you might get tax savings

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Were you one of the 25 million tax-paying Americans who changed homes in 2006? If so, you might be due big tax savings. According to real estate attorney and columnist Bob Bruss, your household moving expenses can be deducted as an adjustment to gross income.

Deductible expenses include any direct household moving costs, such as hiring a moving van, shipping expenses, moving insurance, and airline, train or bus fare to your new city. If you drive yourself, you can deduct gasoline and oil bills. The cost of lodging en route (but not meals) is also deductible.

read more: http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7BFBA6FCE9%2D71D8%2D455F%2DB45B%2D5B9B496B9A79%7D&siteid=mktw&dist=nwhreal

Officials Seek to Rein In Insurers As Home-Insurance Premiums Rise

A backlash against insurers is building in several coastal states where homeowner premiums have increased sharply despite several years of rising industry profits and an uneventful hurricane season in the East.

In Florida, where back-to-back hurricanes have helped some rates more than double since 2004, the state legislature yesterday approved a measure aimed at reducing homeowner premiums offered by private insurance companies by 5% to 25% or more. The legislature has been meeting since last week in a special session specifically aimed at addressing the state's insurance crisis. The measure now goes to Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, who has made insurance-rate cuts a top priority since taking office this month.

read more:http://www.realestatejournal.com/buysell/taxesandinsurance/20070124-mcqueen.html?rejpartner=mktw

Blueprint for home sale: Price it right

(My broker has been saying this for the last quater of 2006.)

The current market value of your home may be more than, less than or the same as it was last year depending on where you live and what you have to sell. Nationally, the median sale price of homes sold in October 2006 dipped 3.5 percent from October 2005, which was an exceptionally strong month. But there are still pockets of the market, such as Portland, Ore., where prices are still going up.

Consumers see their insurance rates, risks rising

Insurers post record profits as companies hike rates and shift more risk to customers, a consumer group says.

Although the insurance industry has posted record profits in the past three years, home insurers have been overpricing policies and shifting risks to consumers, a new study released Monday by the Consumer Federation of America found.

Insurers have been systematically overcharging for insurance and shifting costs to consumers, the report found. Profits in the past three years have risen to record levels despite the increased hurricane activity of 2004 and 2005.

Florida exodus? Statistics show residents starting to leave for less costly locales

For the first time in 30 years, United Van Lines Inc. says it moved more people out of Florida than in, and analysts see that as a sign that consumers are looking elsewhere for a cheaper slice of life.

Upscale garages 'in,' buyer incentives 'out' for '07

When home sales softened late in 2005, many sellers decided to take their homes off the market and wait until the spring flowers surfaced -- along with the traditional housing season -- to lure potential home buyers. While sellers enjoyed modest appreciation in many areas of the country early in 2006, the second half was a totally different matter.

NAR worried about rising foreclosure rate

Group urges caution about 'exotic' mortgages

Wednesday, December 20, 2006Inman News
Pat Vredevoogd Combs, NAR

The National Association of Realtors has issued a statement to express concern "over the rising rate of defaults and foreclosures occurring in many areas around the country, and many Realtors believe that some families don't understand the risks of taking out 'exotic' mortgages."
Pat Vredevoogd Combs, NAR president, participated in a call this week with representatives for the Center for Responsible Lending and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and "urged consumers to make sure they understand the risks and rewards of all types of mortgages before they make a decision on a loan," according to the announcement.
The Mortgage Bankers Association reported this month that overall delinquencies on mortgage loans rose 28 basis points in the third quarter, to 4.67 percent, and the third-quarter delinquency rate for subprime adjustable-rate mortgages increased by 98 basis points compared to the second quarter and 267 basis points compared to third-quarter 2005.
The Realtor group has partnered with the Center for Responsible Lending to prepare a series of brochures for consumers to educate them about nontraditional and traditional mortgage products.
The latest brochure, released last month, offers tips to consumers on how to avoid predatory lending practices. That five-page brochure is titled "Shopping for a Mortgage? Do Your Homework First."
Combs said in a statement, "Foreclosures can lead to high vacancy rates, which in turn, can cause all homes in the neighborhood to lose value."
The Realtor group said in the announcement that foreclosures "are not only a disaster for families but also for communities. Problematic loans are often made in concentrated areas, and high foreclosure rates of single-family homes can seriously threaten a neighborhood's stability and a community's well-being."

MORTGAGE = HAPPINESS

Seeking happiness? An Australian researcher finds that making payments on a mortgage is a good way to feel better. Professor Bob Cummins of Deakin University told the Sydney Morning Herald that his studies of well-being have found that homeowners are more content than renters at all levels of income. Renters tend to be more footloose, Cummins said. Couples also find that holding a mortgage together increases their feeling of commitment. Oddly, events like the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States or the Bali nightclub bombing that killed scores of Australian tourists can also increase a feeling of well-being. "All of this created an amazing sense of external threat that Australia had not really had since World War II," Cummins said. "This kind of threat caused people to bond much better." But there's nothing like a mortgage, especially for couples. "They have a clear investment in their combined future. People who rent have not made that kind of mutual commitment," Cummins said.

Copyright © 2006 by United Press International

First-Timers Begin Looking At Houses Again

High home prices have helped drive many first-time buyers out of the housing market. Now, with prices falling in many areas, there are some signs that buyers are beginning to drift back.

The share of first-time home buyers dropped earlier this year to its lowest level since 1987, according to the National Association of Realtors. First-time home buyers now account for 36% of home purchases, according to a study released last month by the Realtors group, down from 40% in the three previous years.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116597804852548551-SsiEDRDB_1HXjkPe7uI6peCvHe4_20061219.html?mod=mktw

Thursday was a big day for online listings

As the market slows, numerous Web sites are offering Realtors new places to market their listings to prospective buyers. But Zillow isn't the only one who stepped up with an offering of this kind this week. HomeGain, which operates an online service to match consumers with real estate agents, on Thursday announced it would allow agents to post listings at its Web site, which gets millions of visitors each month. And HouseValues, an online lead generation source for real estate agents, also on Thursday announced it would enable its agent clients to push their listings out to the Google and Oodle search engines.Not long ago, these offerings were unheard of -- a lot of time and energy went toward keeping listings info in the hands of industry professionals only. There was Realtor.com and IDX for broker Web sites, and not much else.But times are changing, along with broker attitudes toward marketing listings to the world. The slow market could be the best thing that ever happened to consumer access to for-sale data. 2007 will be the year that listings make primetime: Google Base, Zillow, Oodle, Trulia, HomeGain, edgeio … lots of free marketing avenues for agents to woo in buyer clients.
--Jessica Swesey, Inman News

BRITISH REALTOR CALLS A DUMP A DUMP

A British real estate agent, in a new twist, is describing homes for sale in newspaper ads as "grubby, cramped and dirty," or "suitable for a midget." Julian Bending of Somerset told The Independent he was fed up with accolades heaped upon properties that were undeserved at best and downright misleading at worst. He decided to take a blunt approach to selling houses. In one ad, the details read, "Dear God, it's difficult to imagine a more disgusting house than this." Bending told the Telegraph that he has found a following among people who are impressed with his stark honesty. "If you get called up by an estate agent and they tell you somewhere is lovely and perfect for you and it's not, they have no trust in you," he said. "People thank us and say it's exactly how you said, thanks for not wasting our time, while sellers are also grateful they don't have to bother with people who aren't interested."

Copyright © 2006 by United Press International

NEW REAL ESTATE SITE LISTS HEADY PRICES

You might have heard this piece of wisdom: A man with one clock always knows what time it is. A man with two clocks is never sure. The old saw applies to the rapidly expanding number of sites that estimate your home's value. First came Zillow (www.zillow.com) and its "Zestimates," which launched with a splash earlier this year. Realtors and consumer advocates gripe that Zillow's estimates are inaccurate and confusing. Now comes CyberHomes (www.cyberhomes.com), the Zillow-like site just launched by title insurance giant Fidelity National Information Services. Both sites make it nearly effortless to look up home values. So, The Palm Beach Post ran some homes currently listed for sale and compared the prices to the valuations offered by Zillow, CyberHomes and county property appraisers' sites. The results? The numbers are all over the place, with CyberHomes offering especially optimistic values. CyberHomes was above the asking price for four homes looked at. The lesson? Don't take these tools too seriously.
Copyright © 2006 The Palm Beach Post, Fla. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

Survey: Homebuyers generally ignore media reports on housing

WASHINGTON – Nov. 22, 2006 – Prospective homebuyers may derive some of their information on the housing market from the news media, but at the end of the day, the price of a home, mortgage interest rates and their housing needs mean more than news stories, according to a nationwide survey conducted for the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).

“While the majority of the households we polled indicated that they found the media a reliable source of information on the housing market, what they read in the newspaper, saw on television or heard on the radio was no substitute for actually going out and shopping the market,” says Thomas Riehle, a partner in RT Strategies, which conducted the research for NAHB. “When people are actually thinking about buying a home, they are driven by the details of how it will impact their family budget and lifestyle and contribute to their long-term wealth, and that gives them a much closer perspective on the market than what can be conveyed in news coverage.”

When asked to rate the importance of several factors that might affect their decision to buy or not to buy a home, survey respondents put the home’s price at the top of the list, with 80 percent citing its significance.

That was followed by: the potential for the new home to appreciate in value, 71 percent; the prospect of selling their current home at a fair price, 70 percent; the level of mortgage interest rates, 69 percent; and personal life changes, such as a new job or an addition to the family, 60 percent. On a list of eight items, news stories on real estate market conditions ranked second from the bottom, with 28 percent saying that it was an important factor behind their decision to buy.

When asked about the influence of the news media on their decision, only 19 percent of the respondents said it played an important role; 23 percent indicated that it had some importance on their decision; and 7 percent said it played a minor role. A full 48 percent said it had no influence whatsoever.

Sixty-one percent of the survey participants said that the media is “sometimes trustworthy” as a source of information on the housing market and 5 percent said that it is “always trustworthy.” Twenty percent and 8 percent, respectively, said it is “seldom trustworthy” and “never trustworthy.”

The NAHB survey of 2,000 households, including more than 1,750 registered voters, was conducted Oct. 26 to 29.

Something cool that Xerox is doing and it's FREE

Something cool that Xerox is doing and it's FREE

If you go to this web site, www.LetsSayThanks.com
,you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will
print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is
currently serving in Iraq. You can't pick out who gets
it, but it will go to some member of the armed
services.

HOUSING MARKET

The housing market is tanking. No, everything is great. Tanking. Great.
Confused? So are the experts. Interest rates have dipped, which draws buyers into the market; but a fear that home prices have not yet bottomed out simultaneously scares them away. Economists, unsure which force is stronger, can't agree on what will happen next.


Housing: The riddle of rates and prices

NEW YORK – Nov. 21, 2006 – Conflicting data this week showed that the housing market, like a bull in the ring, is wounded yet still powerful. It takes an experienced toreador to discern whether the beast will succumb to the knife or come charging back. The course it takes may hinge on which matters more to buyers: falling interest rates [a big positive] or fear of falling prices [a big negative].

For now, at least, housing construction is clearly in a localized recession. The freshest evidence came on Nov. 17 from the Census Bureau, which announced that starts on construction of single-family homes plunged 14.6 percent in October, to the lowest level since July 2000. On top of that, permits fell 6.3 percent, to the lowest level since December 1997, indicating that construction could dip even further in the months ahead.

But that’s not the end of the story. Buyers could still save the housing market, depending on how they react to current economic conditions. Mortgage rates, after rising at the beginning of this year, have dipped in recent months, from a peak of 6.80 percent on average for a 30-year fixed loan in July to 6.24 percent last month, according to Freddie Mac. There’s also speculation that the Federal Reserve could cut rates in the months ahead, if inflation is under control and the economy flags.

Divided Economists

If buyers take heart from the decline in mortgage rates and step up to buy, the backlog of unsold homes could shrink quickly – especially with the production of new homes having abruptly fallen. That would put the market back on sound footing within a few months. On the other hand, if potential customers decide that an investment in housing is “dead money” because home prices are going to flatten or decline for an extended period, then no jiggering of interest rates is going to encourage them to part with their down payments.

Economists are sharply divided over the prospects for housing because they disagree over how potential buyers will react. Ian Shepherdson, chief North American economist of High-Frequency Economics in Valhalla, N.Y., is a bear on housing because he thinks the prospect of further price declines, or at least a lull, will scare away buyers. During the boom, he says, people were effectively being paid to buy homes because the annual appreciation they got was greater than the interest on their loans. That is no longer true.

But economists who are more bullish say buyers don’t seem to be frightened despite the flood of bad publicity about housing. They point to the recent resilience of demand. For example, the Mortgage Bankers Assn. announced on Nov. 15 that its seasonally adjusted index of mortgages to purchase homes rose 2.7 percent in the week ended Nov. 10, to its highest level since July. The biggest factor: lower mortgage rates. Rates for 30-year fixed mortgages fell to 6.15 percent, their lowest since this past January.

Waiting for the Recovery

And people are putting those mortgage loans to work: Sales of both new and existing homes are up from their summer lows. “We’re probably seeing the turn. We’re starting fewer homes even though we’re continuing to sell them,” says Michael Englund of Action Economics.

The housing slump is far from over, but the conditions for an eventual recovery are in place: Builders are sharply cutting back, and buyers are cautiously continuing to buy. That means the backlog of unsold homes should begin to diminish. The welcome decline in mortgage rates may seem small compared to the reversal in price trends, from soaring to sinking. But it appears enough to put at least some people back in a buying mood.

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Cos., Peter Coy. All rights reserved