| |
Real estate practitioners who leave their global positioning systems (GPS) attached to car windows and dashboards while they aren't in their vehicles are enticing thieves, police departments say.
"The offenders want whatever is hot," says Orland Park, Ill., Police Sgt. John Keating. "It used to be CD players, speaker systems, radar detectors, satellite radios. Right now, it is GPS systems. They want anything they can sell for quick cash."
The models most sought after by thieves are the portable devices that typically sell for $200 to $600 but can go for as much as $1,000. GPS systems installed in the dash, which can sell for more than twice that amount, take more time and effort to steal.
Thieves not only take the devices, they also smash windows to get them. Police urge GPS owners to either take the devices with them or store them in the trunk.
Source: Chicago Tribune, Emma Graves Fitzsimmons (05/06/2008)
I'm sure this article applies to all GPS consumers. Please be aware of leaving such a valuable item in your car.
Ed Taylor, Tribune
May 7, 2008 - 9:55PM
A metropolitan region is emerging that stretches from the Mexican border at Nogales, through Tucson and Phoenix, to the Prescott area - a region that will double in population to 10 million in the next 30 years.
A study released this week by the Morrison Institute of Public Policy at Arizona State University calls this "megapolitan" region the Sun Corridor and says it is one of 20 such super complexes that will attract most of the nation's population growth through 2040.
Robert Lang, a professor of urban planning at Virginia Tech and a co-author of the study, told a gathering of real estate professionals sponsored by Bankers Trust Wednesday that the corridor will not become one uninterrupted urban blot on the map but a series of distinct realms that will interact economically.
"It's based on an idea that economies overlap if you have a certain amount of interchange between people commuting," he said. "Like people, for example, who live in Pinal County that go north and south to work. Those kinds of households create a bridge between Tucson and Phoenix."
Each area will offer its own real estate development opportunities, he said.
Lang was especially optimistic about the prospects for the south East Valley from Tempe, through Mesa, Chandler and Gilbert into Pinal County.
He predicted the region will double in population to two million in the next 30 years. It already possesses a belt freeway (Loop 202) and a "serious" airport - Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport - with three runways that can handle almost any type of aircraft. Its core city, Mesa, is bigger than Cleveland, St. Louis and Minneapolis, but its downtown is more worthy of a town of about 10,000 people, Lang said.
That opens opportunities for more redevelopment in the Mesa Town Center, especially if the Phoenix Metro light-rail line is extended from its current planned terminus at Main Street and Longmore to the east, he said.
Also, the East Valley has good prospects for development of new edge cities such as the giant Superstition Vistas proposal south and east of Apache Junction.
Scottsdale offers development opportunities of its own in luxury housing, upscale retail and class A office space while emerging exurbs in Pinal County will attract midmarket housing and retail, he said.
Lang also sees great potential for transit-oriented development around light-rail stations. The light-rail line's stimulus to development is more important than the actual number of riders it attracts, he asserted.
Although Lang's presentation Wednesday focused on real estate, the ASU report also addresses questions raised by so much growth such as governance, infrastructure and quality of life.
The report advocates a more global outlook in education such as more emphasis on foreign languages, most efficient transportation, establishment of more regional authorities such as the Central Arizona Project to deal with common problems and use of improved building materials to reduce the heat-island effect.
Funding for the report was provided by the Stardust Foundation, Arizona Public Service, Salt River Project and Unisource Energy. Copies are available at www.morrisoninstitute.org.
Catherine Reagor
The Arizona Republic
May. 8, 2008 12:00 AM
Zillow's surveys of home prices in metro Phoenix are a bit more upbeat than other indexes and reports.
Zillow reports home prices are down almost 16 percent in metro Phoenix during the past year. The Case-Shiller index reports the price decline in metro Phoenix for that period is closer to 21 percent.
Many Valley homeowners might find the online property-valuation firm's estimates of their house's value a little optimistic, too.
Zillow reports the median home price for metro Phoenix is $220,000. The Realty Studies Center at Arizona State University has reported the same figure for the past two months.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/0508biz-blogspot0508.html
By CYRIL MOULLE-BERTEAUX
May 6, 2008; Page A23
The dire headlines coming fast and furious in the financial and popular press suggest that the housing crisis is intensifying. Yet it is very likely that April 2008 will mark the bottom of the U.S. housing market. Yes, the housing market is bottoming right now.
How can this be? For starters, a bottom does not mean that prices are about to return to the heady days of 2005. That probably won't happen for another 15 years. It just means that the trend is no longer getting worse, which is the critical factor.
Most people forget that the current housing bust is nearly three years old. Home sales peaked in July 2005. New home sales are down a staggering 63% from peak levels of 1.4 million. Housing starts have fallen more than 50% and, adjusted for population growth, are back to the trough levels of 1982.
Furthermore, residential construction is close to 15-year lows at 3.8% of GDP; by the fourth quarter of this year, it will probably hit the lowest level ever. So what's going to stop the housing decline? Very simply, the same thing that caused the bust: affordability.
The boom made housing unaffordable for many American families, especially first-time home buyers. During the 1990s and early 2000s, it took 19% of average monthly income to service a conforming mortgage on the average home purchased. By 2005 and 2006, it was absorbing 25% of monthly income. For first time buyers, it went from 29% of income to 37%. That just proved to be too much.
Prices got so high that people who intended to actually live in the houses they purchased (as opposed to speculators) stopped buying. This caused the bubble to burst.
Since then, house prices have fallen 10%-15%, while incomes have kept growing (albeit more slowly recently) and mortgage rates have come down 70 basis points from their highs. As a result, it now takes 19% of monthly income for the average home buyer, and 31% of monthly income for the first-time home buyer, to purchase a house. In other words, homes on average are back to being as affordable as during the best of times in the 1990s. Numerous households that had been priced out of the market can now afford to get in.
The next question is: Even if home sales pick up, how can home prices stop falling with so many houses vacant and unsold? The flip but true answer: because they always do.
In the past five major housing market corrections (and there were some big ones, such as in the early 1980s when home sales also fell by 50%-60% and prices fell 12%-15% in real terms), every time home sales bottomed, the pace of house-price declines halved within one or two months.
The explanation is that by the time home sales stop declining, inventories of unsold homes have usually already started falling in absolute terms and begin to peak out in "months of supply" terms. That's the case right now: New home inventories peaked at 598,000 homes in July 2006, and stand at 482,000 homes as of the end of March. This inventory is equivalent to 11 months of supply, a 25-year high - but it is similar to 1974, 1982 and 1991 levels, which saw a subsequent slowing in home-price declines within the next six months.
Inventories are declining because construction activity has been falling for such a long time that home completions are now just about undershooting new home sales. In a few months, completions of new homes for sale could be undershooting new home sales by 50,000-100,000 annually.
Inventories will drop even faster to 400,000 - or seven months of supply - by the end of 2008. This shift in inventories will have a significant impact on prices, although house prices won't stop falling entirely until inventories reach five months of supply sometime in 2009. A five-month supply has historically signaled tightness in the housing market.
Many pundits claim that house prices need to fall another 30% to bring them back in line with where they've been historically. This is usually based on an analysis of house prices adjusted for inflation: Real house prices are 30% above their 40-year, inflation-adjusted average, so they must fall 30%. This simplistic analysis is appealing on the surface, but is flawed for a variety of reasons.
Most importantly, it neglects the fact that a great majority of Americans buy their houses with mortgages. And if one buys a house with a mortgage, the most important factor in deciding what to pay for the house is how much of one's income is required to be able to make the mortgage payments on the house. Today the rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage is 5.7%. Back in 1981, the rate hit 18.5%. Comparing today's house prices to the 1970s or 1980s, when mortgage rates were stratospheric, is misguided and misleading.
This is all good news for the broader economy. The housing bust has been subtracting a full percentage point from GDP for almost two years now, which is very large for a sector that represents less than 5% of economic activity.
When the rate of house-price declines halves, there will be a wholesale shift in markets' perceptions. All of a sudden, the expected value of the collateral (i.e. houses) for much of the lending that went on for the past decade will change. Right now, when valuing the collateral, market participants including banks are extrapolating the current pace of house price declines for another two to three years; this has a significant impact on the amount of delinquencies, foreclosures and credit losses that lenders are expected to face.
More home sales and smaller price declines means fewer homeowners will be underwater on their mortgages. They will thus have less incentive to walk away and opt for foreclosure.
A milder house-price decline scenario could lead to increases in the market value of a lot of the securitized mortgages that have been responsible for $300 billion of write-downs in the past year. Even if write-backs do not occur, stabilizing collateral values will have a huge impact on the markets' perception of risk related to housing, the financial system, and the economy.
We are of course experiencing a serious housing bust, with serious economic consequences that are still unfolding. The odds are that the reverberations will lead to subtrend growth for a couple of years. Nonetheless, housing led us into this credit crisis and this recession. It is likely to lead us out. And that process is underway, right now.
Mr. Moulle-Berteaux is managing partner of Traxis Partners LP, a hedge fund firm based in New York.
See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal1.
And add your comments to the Opinion Journal forum2.
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121003604494869449.html
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been very busy lately revising their
policies to reflect current market conditions. I wanted to notify you as to
the major changes that you will see as a result of these modifications.
Most of the effective dates for these changes will be June 1, 2008.
FNMA - Announcement
Acceptable Elapsed Time since Foreclosure
FNMA currently requires four years to elapse after a foreclosure before they
will consider the borrower to have a re-established credit history. With
this Announcement, they are increasing that time period to five years. They
will continue to allow a lesser time period to elapse (three years in lieu
of the current two-year requirement) for borrowers who can demonstrate
documented extenuating circumstances that resulted in the foreclosure
action; financial mismanagement is NOT an extenuating circumstance.
Elapsed time is measured by comparing the application date of the new
mortgage to the completion of the foreclosure action as reported on the
credit report or other foreclosure documents provided by the borrower.
After the requisite five year elapsed time period.
The borrower may obtain a new mortgage to purchase a principal residence
with a minimum 10 percent down payment and a minimum credit score of 680.
The borrower may obtain a limited cash-out refinance mortgage pursuant to
our eligibility requirements in effect at that time.
The borrower may not obtain a cash-out refinance or obtain a mortgage
secured by a second home or investment property for seven years after the
foreclosure action.
Loans with Excessive Prior Mortgage Delinquencies
Loans with excessive prior mortgage delinquencies will not be eligible for
delivery to Fannie Mae. Excessive prior mortgage delinquency is defined as
any mortgage trade line that has one or more 60-, 90-, 120-, or 150-day
delinquency reported within the 12 months prior to the credit report date.
FHLMC - Announcement
Second Home and Investment Property Purchases/Refinances
* For new Second home Mortgages with Freddie Mac on or after this
date, a Borrower may not own more than four 1- to- 4-unit properties that
are financed, including the subject property.
* For new Investment Property Mortgages with Freddie Mac on or
after this date, a Borrower who owns more than one financed Investment
Property may not own more than four 1- to 4-unit properties that are
financed, including the subject property
* For Cash-Out refinance Mortgages with Freddie Mac on or after
this date, the Borrower must own the property for at least six months prior
to the Note Date of the refinance Mortgage
Congressional Updates
My trip to Washington DC a few weeks ago was quite a wild ride in terms of
lobbying for mortgage reform. I was able to attend the House Financial
Services Subcommittee Hearing on Foreclosures and Loan Servicing chaired by
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and upon the return to the hotel was greeted by
protesters bused in from PA and MA.
We were also able to meet with the offices of all 9 Arizona congressional
delegates from Arizona, and the resounding argument was no longer based upon
Republicans versus Democrats but more so House versus Senate.
As the House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA)
continues to propose and pass Bills focused on the mortgage crisis, the
Senate has definitely taken their time to make sure the Bills that they pass
do not include "hanger-on" language that will muddy the Bill's original
intent. The two chambers are still in a dead-lock on coming to an agreement
as to FHA Modernization Bill that was approved through both the House and
Senate through respective bills at the end of 2007 and locked in conference
committee over disagreements of loan limit increases for FHA as well as
down-payment requirements. It is important to remember that is FHA
Modernization is not passed soon, the temporary increases to loan amounts
for FHA will expire on December 31, 2008.
Rep. Frank continues his path of "if it moves regulate it" as he cleared his
"rescue plan" legislation through committee this past week. This bill is
expected to be the vehicle through which an even larger housing/tax package
will be considered by the House, possibly including even another attempt to
push FHA Modernization and GSE Regulatory Reform over the finish line.
With a relatively short time frame for Congress to complete their work in
this election year, this week's action in the House may mark the beginning
of the end game for a 2008 legislative response to the problems in the
mortgage and credit markets.
I have also included a photo from one of our meetings. Rep. Jeff Flake is
the delegate from District 6 which includes parts of Mesa and Chandler and
all of Gilbert, Queen Creek, and Apache Junction. Jeff serves on the
Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Resources.
Amy Swaney, CMB
Vice President
Artisan Mortgage
 Fabulous Home in Master Planned Tradtition East. Spotless & Upgraded. Must use Lister's ID Application. Application is downloadable at http://www.LocateArizonaHomes.com/713966
Call Gina McKinley 480-821-4232 Ext 124 in order to schedule an appointment to view this home. For pictures and a property brochure, please visit our web page at www.locatearizonahomes.com/713966
Long-term mortgage rates saw little change over the past week, according to Freddie Mac. Interest on 30-year fixed loans came in at 6.06 percent, compared with 6.03 percent for the previous week. Other rates registered some movement, but not much, with the 15-year fixed mortgage averaging 5.59 percent, down slightly from 5.62 percent a week earlier. The five-year hybrid adjustable rate floated up to 5.73 percent from 5.68 percent over the same period.The one-year ARM, meanwhile, held steady at 5.29 percent. Source: Wall Street Journal (05/02/08)
Sanborn Elementary recently held their 2nd Annual Golf Tournament and Dinner Auction. This is an event hosted by the Dad's Club and what a great event it was!! The turn out was close to double the number of attendees for last years event. There were many great sponsors and items donated for the auction. The event was held at the San Marcos Resort. I had the privilage of attending the dinner as a Cooper Hole Sponsor and was amazed at the turn out and professionalism of the event. All of the Dad's and other parents that volunteered should be commended! I had a wonderful time attending the dinner and wish to thank John & Marion Latsko and Jennifer Marlin for their assistance and inviting me to attend the dinner this year. My husband, Dan, and I meet some wonderful neighbors as we live in Ashley Park and our children also attended Sanborn(although several years ago - hate to admit my age). Dan and I also walked away with a beautiful silver diamond necklace with matching earings and an autgraphed Phoenix Mercury basketball from the auction. I certainly plan to attend next year and be the winning bid for the braces!
|
|
Gina McKinley
Chandler, AZ
More about me…
RE/MAX Elite
Office Phone: (480) 821-4232
Cell Phone: (480) 600-1129
Email Me
 Links
Tags (Tag Cloud)
Archives
|
;)
Links;)
Tags (Tag Cloud);)
Archives
Fabulous Townhome in Haciendas. Spotless & Upgraded. Must use Lister's ID Application. Application is downloadable at 
Fabulous Home in Master Planned Sun Groves. Spotless & Upgraded. Must use Lister's ID Application. Application is downloadable at 