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Happy New Year from Columbus43215.com! 2007-12-31 04:39:29 It’s been quite year!  I look forward to devoting even more time to posting in 2008 (somewhere in my top 5 resolutions) and hearing from all my faithful readers when the time comes for you to buy, sell, or lease in the 43215 or surrounding neighborhoods. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! ...

Loan Center of California’s Suit Against ML-Implode Settled 2007-12-30 14:08:51 The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter announced today the settlement of the lawsuit filed against them by the Loan Center of California.  This is great news for all bloggers who have sought to tell the truth while covering the mortgage industry implosion.  When the lawsuit was first announced many bloggers (including myself) wondered aloud about the stability of blogging about real issues in a litigious environment.  And while I always thought the suit was frivolous; this settlement is welcome news to all of us who have covered the mortgage morass. Aaron over at the site makes a good point that it is still frightening that the suit was not thrown out under Anti-SLAPP legislation; but nonetheless the settlement brings to an end the tenuous stand-off between LCC and the leading site covering the mortgage implosion. As is made clear by the costs we faced in the suit, providing a forum for whistleblowing and debate on critical contemporary issues remains a risky and expensive proposition. ...

Toronto Real Estate Board in 2007 2007-12-30 02:08:53 Phantom bidding ignites firestorm It was the summer of the “wars” in Toronto “? the real estate bidding wars, that is. The battlefield? A practice called phantom bidding, in which a seller’s realtor concocts bogus offers to help boost a property’s selling price or spook buyers into rushing their offers. The issue hit the headlines after Michael Manley, owner of Prudential Properties in the Beach, ran for head of the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) promising to stamp out the practice. Maureen O’Neill, who refused to acknowledge the practice even existed, eventually won the election. But within months she had to reverse her stand when the Toronto Star reported proof unethical bidding practices have indeed been occurring. Several realtors also told us about phantom bids, saying that they’re not only unfair to buyers, but they’re a threat to the whole industry’s reputation. O’Neill has since established a blue-ribbon task force ...

Intuition Kitchen 2007-12-29 09:35:55 A lot of people have inquired about our holiday card this year, wondering how we did it. No Photoshop, these are claymation characters created by artist Mike Leavitt. He owns Intuition Kitchen, a small art studio in South Seattle. My husband took photos of each of us for reference and sent to Mike. To see how close to reality he got with his characters, you can view the reference Flickr photos. If you have a favorite client who deserves their very own action figure, he can make fully-articulated characters or also smaller “wedding cake topper” size. My friend Bradford Bohonus did a cool virtual reality 360 tour of Mike’s studio. For a view of some of our past holiday cards, you can view JoDavid’s Flickr set online. ...

U.S. home sales plunge 2007-12-29 02:39:50 Worsening house market slump is heightening fear that the American economy may be thrust into recession The United States housing market plunged deeper into despair last month, with sales of new homes plummeting to the lowest level in more than 12 years. The slump worsened more than most analysts expected, heightening fears that the country may be thrust into a recession. New-home sales tumbled 9 per cent in November from October to an annual sales pace of 647,000, the commerce department said yesterday. That was the slowest sales pace since April 1995. “It was ugly,” said Richard Yamarone, an economist at Argus Research. “It is the one sector of the economy that doesn’t show any signs of life. It doesn’t look like there is any resuscitation in store for housing over the next year.” Over the year and countrywide, new-home sales tumbled 34.4 per cent, the biggest annual slide since early 1991 and stark evidence of the painful collapse in the once-hi ...

New Year’s Resolutions 2007-12-29 02:15:47 Yeah, I’ve got the typical New Year’s Resolutions - like eat less chocolate, exercise more etc., but I thought I’d share what I’m calling my “Mortgage Resolutions.”   I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and a great time with family.   I think I could describe my Christmas as too noisy, too busy, and too fast, but very good.  It’s times like Christmas which help reinforce the things that are really important in life. I thought I’d take a little bit of a different approach this week and rather than talk about what’s been happening this week, I thought I’d share some “New Year’s Resolutions” about 2008 and the real estate and mortgage markets: 1. Since the real estate and finance worlds are in a state of turmoil, I resolve to take the time to remain educated on what’s going on so as to be a valuable resource for customers, Realtors, builders, blownmortgage.com readers and other referral sources who a ...

“Prices must and will fall. Everywhere. Probably 25% to 30% from their peak.”� 2007-12-28 13:39:53 “The cold, hard truth is that foreclosures are serving only to hasten the painful process of shifting housing prices back to a level the market can sustain. Prices must and will fall. Everywhere. Probably 25% to 30% from their peak.” In today’s (December 28, 2007) Los Angeles Times, Christopher Thornberg made the above statement. Mr. Thornberg used to be a Senior Economist with the UCLA Anderson Forecast.  He’s now with the Beacon Economics Group, a research and consulting firm specializing in analyses of real estate markets. Mr. Thornberg is not a paid mouthpiece for any special interest group.  In other words, he’s a pretty sharp guy.  I’ve followed his research for years and it’s never popular because it’s unbiased and honest. And he is predicting a 25-30% decline in real estate prices due to one simple fact “? prices have outpaced income. This isn’t rocket science folks.  How many of you could qualify (on paper) using ...

GST Rate Reductions re: New Housing 2007-12-28 12:44:59 On October 30, 2007, the Government of Canada announced in its Economic Statement that it proposes to reduce the GST rate by one percentage point from 6% to 5%, effective January 1, 2008. To facilitate the transition to the lower rate, the Economic Statement also proposes transitional rules for determining the GST/HST rates applicable to transactions that straddle the January 1, 2008 implementation date. This info sheet reflects the proposed amendments to the Excise Tax Act. Any commentary in this publication should not be taken as a statement by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) that these amendments will be enacted in their current form. See Info Sheet [PDF*] ...

Over, Under, At - SF Home Sales: December 7-December 14, 2007 2007-12-21 20:58:29 Welcome back to the “Over, Under, At”� weekly feature. It’s a simple breakdown taken from MLS data that shows the number of closed sales that sold Over Asking Price, Under Asking Price or At Asking Price. *Just a reminder that new construction sales are rarely included in this list since they don’t get posted on the MLS. Allrighty… so we’re almost all caught up with the “Over, Under, At” feature. Today’s post is for the previous week, and this weekend, I’ll be posting this past week’s sales data. As for this week’s sales data, Condos are pretty much unchanged from last week, but Single Family Home sales took a bit a jump upward, as did TIC sales. Single Family homes are doing well despite all of the predicted doom and gloom, but condos have taken a bit of a hit. For those of you that are Condo buyers - don’t wait too long for a bargain - there might be one out there waiting for you to call it “ ...

Happy Holidays 2007-12-21 12:22:45 Hi Everyone - I just wanted to take a few minutes to say Happy Holidays to all of our Blown Mortgage readers.  While I celebrate Christmas, I hope you have an enjoyable season no matter what your faith.  I am extremely blessed to have the good fortune of your loyalty and readership; it is an amazing compliment and something that is very humbling.  Thank you for reading and participating and giving a damn. 2007 was a wild year in our industry; and 2008 will be interesting as well.  We’ll be here blogging about it; trying to provide our small perspective on a massive problem. I’ll be taking a breather over the next few days as wave after wave of family will be washing in to our new home.  I hope that you are able to spend the holidays reflecting on all of the good things we have in our lives, and all of the positive things that happened over the year.  Regardless of the mortgage market I am a blessed person because I have family and friends that love and care for me.  ...

Your First Mortgage is Too High. There’s a Second: What do you do? 2007-12-21 04:57:14 Are you in the following boat? Do you know someone who is? First mortgage is about to go up by 4% because it’s on an arm. 2nd mortgage is for a balance more than the home is worth.  Let’s say you have a 250,000 house, you bought at the top of the market, the heady days of 2005. You ave a $200,000 interest only first with a rate of 4.9%; the second is a fixed, 30/15 program with a rate of 11%. This is typical 10% financing at the time, and a situation. The people bought planning to refinance, with the presumption that if even half the appreciation rate continued, everything would be fine in 2-3 years. But now, that time is up. And now, the mortgage rate is going to increase by 4% because even though the prime rate was better, the margin virtually guarantees that it will go up. And that $250,000 home? Now it’s worth 220%. You’re at 113% loan to value. These Second Mortgages are no more secure than Credit Cards These seconds are mostly “credit ca ...

Condos outselling houses 2007-12-21 04:07:20 High prices propel sale of condos above 50% of total A single-family detached house has long been the ideal dream for Canadian homebuyers. But, in case you couldn’t already tell by all the construction cranes dotting Toronto’s ever more crowded skyline, 2007 has become the year of the condo. New condominium sales in the Toronto area officially passed the 50 per cent mark for the first time, outselling new low-rise homes, according to November figures to be released today by the Building Industry and Land Development Association. “This is really unheard of. Low-rise homes were always the preferred choice, but it shows you how much the market has changed,” Stephen Dupuis, chief executive of the association, said in an interview. The average new condo price is now $347,207, up 8.6 per cent from last November. Low-rise homes saw a price increase of 6.8% to $429,673, according to a copy of the report obtained by the Toronto Star » ...

Rate the Houses you Tour: Add Your Reviews to Properties on Fizber.com 2007-12-21 01:03:31 December 20, 2007 ? House hunters are now able to rate the houses they tour online. The property-listing website Fizber.com has launched a new “Review” feature to their website which allows users to rate properties for subjective “quality”. After touring each home, home buyers can rate the properties they liked and didn’t like. Property rating […] ...

Home Seller Survey Shows Rising Number of FSBOs 2007-12-21 01:00:26 Real estate website Fizber.com conducts a housing poll. ...

How to Keep it Green Underfoot 2007-12-20 23:04:36 Occasionally, I like to invite a guest blogger to share some insights about their field of expertise. Sometimes it’s about San Francisco real estate, and sometimes, it’s just about stuff that San Franciscans care about. Today’s guest blogger is Chris Connors of San Francisco’s Design Solutions, a team of Certified Green Building Professionals. He’s been kind enough to post here before in “How to Save Money by Remodeling Green” But this time, well be discussing some options for green flooring. Read on for Chris’s commentary. Considering a “Green” Floor? You have lots of choices! When selecting green flooring, look for Low to No VOC emissions and sustainability. Depending your budget and tastes, there are many choices but here are a few of my favorites right now. Cork - Far from a being a new green flooring option, people have been installing cork floors for over 100 years! Cork is harvested from the cork oak tree and ab ...