Carbon County, in particular Jim Thorpe School District, has been facing "spot reassessments" for some time now.  They are not called that - it is really the School District appealing a property's assessed value based upon a sales price (since the assessment was set to be 50% of the "market value" when the last County-wide reassessment was done about 6 or so years ago).  Prior tho that the property values had not been reassessed in many many years (other than bumped based upon building permits).  With market values declining, will our friends at te School District seek lower assessments based upon the new market values?  I doubt it!

The practice has had a chilling impact on real estate sales - but has not collapsed the market totally - because a new buyer may be paying 2 or 3 times the tax that  his neighbor is paying simply because the current owner just biught and his neighbor has not.  This seems blatantly unfair to me (but note that I am not a lawyer or a tax person) and certainly not a uniform way to distribute the tax burden.

While many a new Buyer has appealed the process's result, the local and State courts seem to uphold the principal.  In a bipartisan attempt to close this alarming loophole in Pa Tax regulations, a State Senator (Rhoades, R- Schuylkill  County) and a State Representative (Seip, D - Schuylkill  County) had introduced Senate Bill 1247 and House Bill 1438, respectively to close the loophole.  These Bills passed both houses of the State Legislature and it seemed that we would get a break from this onerous loophole.

Well - what do you think has happened?  Our Governor (Rendell, D) has VETOED the legislation!  This is the guy who says casinos in the state will generate property tax relief!!  I guess he can afford to do that since he has a new way into our pockets via an unfair real estate tax loophole that is now sure to be exploited by every School District in tax hungry PA.  I gues w ecan hope for the Legislature to dso the right thing and OVERRIDE the VETO but I would not hold my breath waiting for that to happen either.  He even had the gall to say that [art of the reason he vetoed the legislation was the deliberative process did not have enough time to ensure that there would be reasonable protection to ensure that all homeowners carry their fair share of the property tax burden!!  What about the fair share to those who recently purchased their dream or decided to invest in Pa by purchasing a vacation home or an income/tourist generating rental property naar one of the many resort areas in Carbon County??  I guess for them, paying 2x or 3x the property tax compared to the previous owner is FAIR Enough!!  WHEN WILL WE WAKE UP?

If you go to Localism and find the information about Lake Harmony useful or interesting from a local color viewpoint, you may also want to go to www.lakeharmonyneighborhood.com.  This is locally-oriented site which allows local residents and visitors alike to post comments, pictures, news, events information etc relative to the area.  The site is sponsored by The Bradley REALTORS^® Team at Century21 Select Group in Lake Harmony.  The site will have access to weather updates and other inofrmation not posted to Localism and serves as a kind of community billboard for classified ads, recipes, restaurant reviews in addition to comments, news etc. 

Albrightsville Fire Co Blood Drive

The Albrightsville Volunteer Fire Co is having another blood drive.  This one will be from 1 to 7PM on August 4, 2008.  Contact the fire company for more details or contact Carol Meeker from Donor Services at the Miller-Keystone Blood Center 610-926-6060 extension 125 or call toll free at 1-800-486-2566.  You can visit their website at http://www.giveapint.org/ for more information on the company or to see their donation and event calendar.

Internet Crusade (the company which conducts the e-PRO Course for NAR) had an announcement on their Real Town website that the recent final judgment from DOJ about the investigation and suit against NAR was a WIN for NAR and regular brokers and MLS systems.  BUT - There was an article in the 5/28/08 edition of USA Today with a headline that touted "Online real estate agents get equality".  This article said the ruling was a win for the online discount broker (those operating a VOW or Virtual Office) and implied that what NAR was doing was somehow suspect and anti-competitive.  How could these both be correct?  Spin, of course. USA Today and other media have been against NAR in recent coverage of MLS ownership of data and broker's ownership of listings.   DOJ has been in the same mindset and spent 3 years and millions of tax-payers dollars to "prove" it.  The facts seem to indicate that both the media and DOJ were incorrect and there is now a face-saving DOJ final judgment on that.  IC put out a video of their two principal founders on their website going over the final judgment line by line to show why their position was the correct interpretation of the judgment.  Problem is that it lasts several hours.  Now they have a 6 minute summary of the conversation.  It can be found at RealTown - Real Estate Social Network, Real Estate Articles, Real Estate Blogs.  The full set of videos can be seen at their website and a copy of the Final Judgment is also available on their website.  The point is who owns the data and who can control its use.  VOWs often got access to data only to sell it back to REALTORS^®  as a "lead".  Evidently REALTOR.com was doing that for a while as well. 

Seems that if the IC interpretation is correct, NAR did a good job and REALTORS^® in general pretty much had MLS and data sharing right from the outset.  IC feels that VOWs will kind of go away as a business model or at least significantly change as a result of the ruling rather than be strengthened by it.

Maybe some relief from Tax Assessment Issue

Just read an article in the June edition of The Pennsylvania REALTOR^®  about two companion pieces of legislation being taken through the process in the State Legislature.  The House version was introduced by Rep Tim Seip of Schuylkill County (HB 1438 and 1439) and the Senate version was introduced by Sen James Rhoades also of Schulykill County (SB 1247 and 1258).

The purpose of the Bills is to close the loophole in current law which is being  exploited by school districts in the State (including Jim Thorpe School District right here in Carbon County) to appeal assessments based upon sales price thereby creating inequities in the assessment structure and among homeowners.  This practice has hit Carbon County especially hard in the Towamensing Trails, Split Rock and Lake Harmony areas but I am sure elsewhere as well.

The Pa Association of REALTORS^® is supporting the legislation as it has had a chilling effect on real estate transactions for a while in this area and that is in addition to the effect caused by the current worries about the economy, gas prices, and the general reluctance to commit to real estate investment caused by those worries.  A past President of the Lehigh Valley Association of REALTORS^® has provided testimony that there is evidence that prospective "buyers strongly reconsider looking at homes in districts that are appealing assessments after the sale", according to the article.  Part of the issue is that many Counties had delayed their County-wide reassessments for so long that an imbalance built into the system.  However, this is only further exacerbated by the current practice of after sale appeals by the Taxing Authority.

The point here is that there may be some light at the end of this tunnel based upon the legislation proposed.  The trail of this issue through the court system has not yielded very satisfactory results from the homeowner perspective and MAYBE legislation can correct what judicial fiat has done.  If you are interested in this topic, you can follow the Legislative process to keep abreast of it and we will try to keep you up to date from a REALTOR^®  perspective as we get more information.

I am an elected Township Supervisor (1 of 5 total) and we hired a professional Planning/Engineering firm to conduct the surveys, guide the Township through the legally required steps to create a Comp Plan and to write the plan for us.  I went to the first public update meeting last night held in Kidder Township on the new Township Comprehensive Plan being developed.  This meeting was to give the results from the first surveys done about the township as part of the year long process to get a new Comp Plan in place so that a new Subdivision and Land Ordinance as well as Zoning Law could be generated and enacted to follow that plan. 

 The last time Kidder's Comp Plan was revised was in 1986 and a lot of the demographic and infrastructure makeup of the Township has changed since then. This new Plan will give us the vision for the township over the next 10 to 20 years and set the stage for the requirements found in a new Zoning Ordinance and the specifications found in the new SALDO. 

 The survey had an impressive 31% response rate so the findings have statistical significance.  While some of the results to date were not startling to those who follow the Township and attend its public meetings, they are still interesting.  Kidder Township has over 4000 property owners but only a little over 1100 residents in a land area of about 38 square miles with 3.5 miles of Township roads.  The roads here are state roads, Interstate highways or in private developments.  The survey results were tabulated by non resident property owner and residents.  Naturally, residents see things from a day to day living viewpoint and that prioritizes their thinking differently as compared to the non-resident property owner.

 As some examples, 57% of residents see the need for additional traffic lights (we have 2 at the moment), only 32% of the non-resident property owners felt that way.  As for the need for a Township specific park, 39% of residents saw a need/benefit while only 29% of the non-residents did.  The numbers in agreement for the use of tax breaks to attract economic development were similar but those opposed were 45% of residents and only 38% of non-residents with this group being more in the undecided category.  50% of residents but 73% of non-residents said they were here because of the natural environment - only 10% of residents said they were born or raised here but 0% of non-residents said this.

The data collected to date and the preliminary conclusions drawn from that can be seen in detail by going to the township website www.kiddertownship.com.  I will try to update the results of the project as it progresses as it should be of interest to property owners, residents and businesses in Carbon County.

Well it is again one of those two times a year when Lake Harmony and the area surrounding Long Pond, Pa becomes the 3rd Largest city in the state of Pennsylvania.  NASCAR Racing is coming for one of their two events held each year at Pocono International Raceway and it's unusual tri-oval tests the drivers and crews.  Of course the economic shot in the arm is always welcomed by area businesses (even if less enthusiastically by the residents due to the crowded restaurants. roads, etc).  NASCAR is still a fast growing sports/entertainment phenomenom and seems to have the open-wheelers beat, at least in this country, for fans. 

Most of the area establishments have race tie-ins with demo cars, demo activities, food or drink specials all geared for the race fans (and even drivers and crews), especially for those fans who may not have tickets to the event but are still here to enjoy the atmosphere, activity, and excitement generate by top level sporting event.

Tax coffers get a boost, businesses (especially hospitality related ones) get a shot of always needed revenue and race fans get to see their stars up close, not just on TV.  Its often a wild and wacky weekend and a great asset to the area.  Hope this year is as successful as past years, the early part of the week seemed a little slow compared to someothers but the crowds really start Thursday on so we'll soon see if the economy and high gas prices have a negaative impact on the event from a consumer viewpoint.

Just saw an ad on the AR Home Page for articles from Branching Out and My Word Tree.com  Seems like a possible source for real estate articles for use in an email drip campaign or newsletter service.  Of course there are others like Reaty Times and Inman, plus a lot of the national real estate brokerage shave in-house sources as well. 

Has anyone in the AR community used or tried this service from My Woed Tree and Branching Out?  If you have, what do you think about them?  Is it worth the time to use - e.g. did it get you results?  Any input from the people who are involved with networking and Internet marketing of real estate would be especially valuable to readers of the AR blogs.

"I just read a comment about agents with lots of points but few listings or sales. Had not thought about that before.  Of course, to know that you need to know the agent involved or have access to their MLS info etc because you would not learn that from the Rain itself.  The point I have is why should there not also be points for listings, for sales, for referrals and other business related activities as well as the business of networking and sharing?  This may provide a better service to AR members and the public alike."

That was the comment i made while looking at recent blogs while not even "logged on".  The thought to respond was greater than the potential points gotten by stopping and logging in etc before responding.  After thinking about that for a bit, I thought that the usefulness of business related points was too good to let it be lost in an obscure comment (1 of more than 200 to the original posting) within another post so I decided to put it on my blog to see if that flag garners any salutes.

If you are an area business and involved with the PK Coucil or the CCCC and are interested in having a booth or table at the event, please contact Anne at 570-401-0618 and tell her you saw this blog about the event.  She can give you the needed details for costs and booth ideas as well as get you registered as a vendor at the event.  This will be fun, family-oriented day benefitting the Lake Harmony Rescus Squad and Ambulance Corps.  If such an event fits your advertising and marketing plane or your customer base, plan on attending as a vendor - its great publicity.  If they event does not suit your business plans, be there as a consumer, bring your family and friends, and enjoy a wonderful day!  The event is 7/19/08 at Nick's Lake House in Lake Harmony, Pa.  Starts at Noon and runs to 10PM.  Visit www.lakeharmonyneighborhood.com for event details, activities and times.