KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Friday April 30 Housing and Economic stories

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Sheriff's friends benefit from foreclosures - (www.ohio.com) The foreclosure crisis that has impacted Summit County homeowners has been a financial boon for a select few friends of Sheriff Drew Alexander. Fifteen men, mostly retired police officers with little or no appraising experience, combined to earn more than $1.2 million working part time setting property values for the sheriff's office last year. The group includes former Akron police Capt. John T. Cunningham, Alexander's campaign treasurer, whose appraisal work paid him $131,361 last year. Since 2004, Cunningham has earned more than $570,000. Eight appraisers working part-time hours earned more than $109,000 in 2009, topping Alexander's annual salary. In kind, the appraisers were equally generous, contributing more than 16 percent of Alexander's campaign funds since 2008, the sheriff's finance reports show. The lucrative work, established by law seven decades ago in Ohio, is drawing closer scrutiny by newspapers across the state as governments scrounge for revenue and office holders like Alexander are laying off workers. Last year, the sheriff laid off 30 deputies to save $1.7 million as the appraisers were pulling in more than a million dollars to perform an obligatory task that does little more than set the opening bid at a sheriff's sale. In an interview last week, Alexander, a former Akron officer, said he has only hired trusted friends and political supporters to fill the spots. In fact, two of his predecessors, former sheriffs Robert Campbell, who died in 2008, and David Troutman, who died in 2009, worked as appraisers under Alexander. Alexander said the fees are high, but an aberration, bloated only because of the widespread foreclosures that have plagued the county and state for five years.

Mayo property prices worst hit in Ireland since bubble burst - (www.westernpeople.com) THE housing market in Mayo has been the worst hit in the country since the collapse of the property bubble. Asking prices for second-hand houses in the county have plummeted by more than a third since its peak. The latest property barometer issued by property website MyHome.ie makes for depressing reading with homes in Co Mayo dropping by a staggering 34.6 per cent in three years. Sligo has also been hit hard with a 27.5 per cent drop in second-hand prices since the recession. The average asking price of a three bed semi-detached home in Sligo now stands at €204,964. Galway has been the least affected county in the West and one of only a few counties in the country with a drop in property prices of less than 20 per cent. Asking prices have only fallen by 19.44 per cent and a three bed semi in the Tribes county will cost in the region of €246,759.

Destitute and desperate, Icelanders opt for exile - (www.news.yahoo.com) Anna Margret Bjoernsdottir never thought she would be forced to leave her once wealthy homeland, but after 18 months of economic upheaval she has decided to join the biggest emigration wave from Iceland in more than a century. "I just don't see any future here. There isn't going to be any future in this country for the next 20 years, everything is going backwards," lamented the 46-year-old single mother, who plans to move to Norway in June. The former real estate agent who lost her job when Iceland's housing market disintegrated two years ago said she feared she could soon be forced out of her large house in Mosfellsbaer, some 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Reykjavik. In 2009, more than 10,600 people left the country of fewer than 320,000 inhabitants, according to official statistics, with 4,835 more people moving away than immigrating. In a March 6 referendum, more than 93 percent of Icelandic voters rejected a deal to repay Britain and the Netherlands at a high interest rate. Reykjavik has since said it will try to secure a more favourable agreement. Bjoernsdottir was among those who voted down the deal -- and says the debacle strengthened her determination to leave Iceland. "I don't want my daughter to have to pay for this," she said. "I just have such a bad feeling about what's happening here."

Property Tax Rebellion Brewing After Real Estate Collapse - (abcnews.go.com) Americans grumble that local tax assessors haven't caught up with the real estate downturn, leaving homeowners with unfairly high property taxes. Many disgruntled homeowners are challenging authorities, either by appealing their tax bills or mobilizing groups to push for tax-law overhaul. The National Taxpayers Union, a Washington-based advocacy group, estimates that 30-60 percent of homeowners are over-assessed each year. The problem stems largely from a simple technicality: Home values in most states are reassessed every few years, according to data from Therese McGuire, real estate professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. In Nevada, for example, one of the states hit hardest by the housing crunch, the average time between assessments is five years, while in Connecticut the average cycle is 10 years. U.S. homeowners paid a median $1,897 in property taxes in 2008, according to the Tax Foundation, a Washington-based advocacy group, with New Jersey residents paying the highest bill at $6,320 annually, 1.74 percent of home values. New Jersey doesn't have the highest property rates, however. Texas wins that distinction, with localities on average charging homeowners property taxes worth 1.76 percent of their home value. The assessor in Illinois' Cook County, the nation's second-largest county, lowered assessments last year for all the homes under his jurisdiction, estimating home values by measuring foreclosure rates and sales data. Cook County includes Chicago and its sprawling suburbs. In other localities, however, governments can't afford to lose tax revenue. In many areas where reassessments have already taken place, governments have simply raised property tax rates to make up for the loss.

Judge Holds Off Boston Scientific Unit Plea in Probe - (www.bloomberg.com) A federal judge reserved ruling on a guilty plea by Boston Scientific Corp.’s Guidant unit to charges it hid problems with its implantable heart defibrillators, citing objections raised by plaintiffs suing the company. U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank in St. Paul, Minnesota, said yesterday he will rule on the plea and a related settlement within three weeks when he decides whether to put the company on probation and order restitution. Boston Scientific agreed to pay $296 million in November to settle a U.S. Justice Department probe of the unit’s handling of the devices. “I have a locker full of angry letters from plaintiffs,” Frank said. The medical device-maker agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanors for excluding defibrillator-malfunction reports from product updates sent to doctors and failing to alert the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to the defects.

Subprime warnings ignored, ex-Citi executive says - (www.marketwatch.com) Citigroup management ignored an internal warning that most of the mortgages it was selling were defective, a former executive testified Wednesday. Former executives at Citigroup Inc. and New Century Financial Corp. told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission on Wednesday how their firms helped create and sell the subprime mortgages and mortgage-backed securities that fueled the housing bubble. The executives testified to the commission right after former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan left the hearing room after a morning of testimony. Read complete story on Greenspan's defense of his actions. Greenspan fefends his tenure at Fed: Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan denied that the U.S. central bank helped inflate housing prices and isn't to blame for the subprime fiasco. Courtesy of Reuters. Richard Bowen, who was business chief underwriter during his time at Citigroup, said he warned executive committee chairman Robert Rubin about the destructive practices occurring in the company's mortgage arm. Bowen said he discovered in 2006 that "60 percent of the mortgages bought and resold by the company were defective," meaning they were not up to Citi's guidelines.

Health insurance to be required for UNCW students ~ Fall 2010 - (www.uncw.edu) Beginning in Fall 2010, health insurance will be required for all UNCW students. This may be insurance the students bring with them (family, employer, etc), insurance they purchase through the school, or a combination of both plans. Students who have their own insurance and do not want to purchase the insurance through the school will need to complete an on-line waiver each fall, providing details about their current insurance plan. Any student who does not waive out of the insurance plan will be charged the premium and automatically enrolled in the program. Pearce & Pearce will be the insurance vendor and the annual premium will be $673. Plan highlights include $1,000,000 lifetime maximum coverage; a $300 deductible; coverage for immunizations, prescriptions and wellness services; and no deductibles or co-pays at the Student Health Center.