KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Monday November 30 Housing and Economic stories

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$100K houses dominate FL market - (www.floridatoday.com) At the beginning of this decade, Brevard County’s real estate market was dominated by homes selling for less than $100,000. The end of the decade is shaping up the same way. In 2000, half of all residential properties in Brevard were sold for less than $100,000 and in 2001, the figure was 42 percent, according to a FLORIDA TODAY analysis of county property sales records. By 2006, soaring real estate prices meant only That shrank to only 3 percent of sales that year were less than $100,000.in 2006 as the real estate prices soared, . This year, as the economy slumped and housing prices dropped, homes in that category are on pace to account for almost 4 out of every 10 sales. “For buyers, they are no longer priced out of the market,” said John Krause, a sales associate with National Realty of Brevard. Much of the trend has been driven by foreclosures and short sales and sales of other “distressed” properties, which now account for about a third of homes sold here. So far this year, 1,550 houses, condos and townhouses were bought from banks or other financial institutions. Another 845 were sold under duress. The median price of those homes was $89,400. Those properties range from a south Melbourne single-family home bought from a bank for $5,000 to a short sale of a Lansing Island home for $1.4 million. Krause said nearly all the buyers he is working with are looking at homes in Palm Bay built in 2005 or 2006 and that are now selling at prices up to 50 percent off their original sales. President Barack Obama on Friday signed a bill that extends up to April 2010 an $8,000 tax credit to first-time homebuyers while adding a provision for buyers who have owned their current homes for at least five years. They could get tax credits of up to $6,500.

46% of South Florida houseowners are underwater - (www.miamiherald.com) Nearly half of all owners of single-family homes in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metropolitan area were underwater at the end of the third quarter, meaning their homes were valued at less than the mortgages owed against them. Forty-six percent of South Florida homeowners, representing 387,157 homes, were underwater at the end of Sept. 30, compared to 47 percent in the second quarter, according to a new report from Web-based real estate services firm Zillow.com. Nationally, 21 percent of homeowners were underwater as of Sept. 30, down from 23 percent in the second quarter, as home values stabilized in the short term and more underwater borrowers lost their homes to foreclosure, Zillow said. Zillow's home price index showed that the median price of a single-family home in the area was $168,400, down 17.1 percent from the same period a year before. Values were down 2.1 percent from the second quarter. The Zillow index measures values of all homes, not those sold in a particular period. While values continue falling, the firm said September marked the eighth consecutive month of decreasing year-over-year price declines. Additionally, 50 percent of all homes sold in September sold at a loss, the firm said. A small percentage, 5.5 percent, saw their values rise over the past 12 months.

Kill All the Bankers? There's an App for That - (www.dvorak.org) Among the 100,000-plus applications for the iPhone is one that allows users to “kill” bankers. The TARP-inspired Bailout Wars app lets iPhone users “take revenge on bankers” by “throwing them into the air, blowing them up, shooting them down and shaking them so hard their clothes fall off, writes American Banker. The point of the game, made by Gameloft and selling for $.99 on iTunes, is to destroy bankers in order to save both the White House (and US taxpayers’ money) from greedy day traders, high risk investors, and finance CEOs. The game’s description on iTunes reads: Defend the White House and save the US taxpayers’ money before it gets stolen! It’s time for you to give them what they deserve! [...] It’s your only chance to really take revenge on bankers for the recession they caused [...] Explore many different ways to beat bankers: tap, grab, or shake them in the air. Bailout Wars current has a three-and-a-half star rating on iTunes, with 219 users out of 492 giving the app a five-star rating. I just hope it works on the iPod Touch.

Lobbyists get paid to rape America - (www.omaha.com) he recession has taken a toll on corporate bottom lines and public budgets, but lobbying the federal government continues to be a booming enterprise. Midlands companies, universities, nonprofit organizations and local governments spend millions every year to lobby the federal government. While some have pared back recently, many have maintained their lobbying budgets or even increased them significantly. The number of registered federal lobbyists was 14,808 in 2008, a year when overall lobbying expenditures reached a new height of $3.3 billion, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group. Lobbying for 2009 is on pace to match that level or exceed it, fueled, not surprisingly, by substantial lobbying on matters related to health care. For example, Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, Iowa's largest health insurer, has spent $400,000 on lobbying so far in 2009. Overall, Blue Cross has spent $16,727,065 on lobbying this year, making it the fifth-highest spender on lobbying so far this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in U.S. politics. The center reports that overall health sector lobbying for the year so far is $396 million. Center spokesman David Levinthal said the fact that lobbyist spending has remained so robust in a recession surprises many people. “But a lot of companies, despite the economy being what it was, sort of take the approach of ‘We need to invest money now in the hopes of potentially getting a windfall later from federal government assistance via friendly legislation,' ” Levinthal said. “If you're a company and you're trying to get something from the federal government, it oftentimes costs a good deal of money.” Lobbyists in general have taken a beating in the public's perception, thanks to various scandals, but Iowans and Nebraskans involved in lobbying say it's important that lawmakers hear from those affected by federal policies. They said that's particularly true when sweeping legislation is considered in areas such as health care, energy and the environment, and financial regulation. Des Moines-based MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. has been a vocal opponent of legislation that would set a cap on greenhouse gas emissions and establish a trading system for pollution credits. MidAmerican typically spends a few hundred thousand dollars a year on its lobbying. So far this year, the company has spent $1.9 million. The company says the caps are acceptable but that the proposed trading system would place undue burdens on coal-dependent Midwestern utilities such as MidAmerican and that those costs ultimately would be passed on to customers.

The Bailout Has Transformed Into Bad-mortgage Buying Program - (www.businessinsider.com) When the financial crisis hit its high tide last year the Federal Reserve used a couple of blunt instruments to rescue financial institutions. The largest of the credit easing policy tools were the Fed's programs direct lending to financial institutions, including opening the discount window to investment banks and extending an unprecedented credit line to AIG. It also provided credit to "key credit markets" in the form of loans and guarantees to money market funds and asset backed securities markets. But over the course of 2009, those program have shrunk or been phased out. Meanwhile, one program, the Fed's purchase of mortgage back securities, has grown by more than enough to make up for the decline of those program. What this means is that despite the rollback of some Fed bailout programs, the market is still highly leveraged to the balance sheet of the Fed.

Widening gap between gov't data and reality - (www.nytimes.com) A widening gap between data and reality is distorting the government’s picture of the country’s economic health, overstating growth and productivity in ways that could affect the political debate on issues like trade, wages and job creation. The shortcomings of the data-gathering system came through loud and clear here Friday and Saturday at a first-of-its-kind gathering of economists from academia and government determined to come up with a more accurate statistical picture. The fundamental shortcoming is in the way imports are accounted for. A carburetor bought for $50 in China as a component of an American-made car, for example, more often than not shows up in the statistics as if it were the American-made version valued at, say, $100. The failure to distinguish adequately between what is made in America and what is made abroad falsely inflates the gross domestic product, which sums up all value added within the country. American workers lose their jobs when carburetors they once made are imported instead. The federal data notices the decline in employment but fails to revalue the carburetors or even pinpoint that they are foreign-made. Because it seems as if $100 carburetors are being produced but fewer workers are needed to do so, productivity falsely rises — in the national statistics. “We don’t have the data collection structure to capture what is happening in a real time way, or what is being traded and how it is affecting workers,” said Susan Houseman, a senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, Mich., who has done pioneering research in the field. “We have no idea how to measure the occupations being offshored or what is being inshored.” The statistical distortions can be significant. At worst, the gross domestic product would have risen at only a 3.3 percent annual rate in the third quarter instead of the 3.5 percent actually reported, according to some experts at the conference. The same gap applies to productivity. And the spread is growing as imports do.

Apple bans Nancy Pelosi bobble head - (money.cnn.com) Someone at Apple (AAPL) needs to take a refresher course in American history — and maybe a lesson in libel law. Last summer Tom Richmond, one of Mad Magazine's top illustrators and two-time winner of the National Caricaturist Network's "Caricaturist of the Year" award, began drawing a likeness of every Senator and Representative in the 111th Congress — 540 caricatures in all, including non-voting members from Puerto Rico, Guam, etc. The idea, he explains, was to create an illustrated database for the iPhone and iPod touch that would allow users to find the name, party affiliation, phone number and website of their senators and congresspeople via zipcode or GPS. Each head was placed on one of 12 cartoon bodies and would bobble when shaken or flicked with a finger. The project was the idea of Ray Griggs, director of the movie Super Capers (rated PG for mild language, rude humor and brief smoking), for which Richmond did the art. Griggs had shown the finished to app around and stirred up some interest. He was booked to appear as a guest on Fox News next week with Glenn Beck and Mike Huckabee. You can probably guess what's coming next.

Dear Mr. Griggs, Thank you for submitting Bobble Rep – 111th Congress Edition to the App Store. We’ve reviewed Bobble Rep – 111th Congress Edition and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains content that ridicules public figures and is in violation of Section 3.3.14 from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement which states: “Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.” A screenshot of this issue has been attached for your reference. If you believe that you can make the necessary changes so that Bobble Rep – 111th Congress Edition does not violate the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, we encourage you to do so and resubmit it for review.

Regards, iPhone Developer Program

OTHER STORIES:

Stocks poised for a dip - (money.cnn.com)

Free WiFi in 47 airports! Thanks, Google - (money.cnn.com)

Great gadgets for less than $299 - (money.cnn.com)

Dividends for the long run - (money.cnn.com)

No profits, no loans: How to survive - (money.cnn.com)

Treasurys rise ahead of 10-year auction - (money.cnn.com)

The silence of the bears - (money.cnn.com)

Sprint to slash up to 2,500 jobs - (money.cnn.com)

Then and now: 'The worst slum in America' - (money.cnn.com)

Banker's bonuses: 40% bigger this year - (money.cnn.com)