KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Friday December 10 Housing and Economic stories

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TOP STORIES:

Couple finds lower bid accepted instead of theirs; Realtors face ethics case - (www.startribune.com) Erica and Mike Lenzen are mystified why their offer on a Brooklyn Park twinhome wasn't submitted. It has raised enough questions that the Minnesota Association of Realtors will put a leader of its largest chapter before an ethics hearing. From the moment Erica and Mike Lenzen saw a foreclosed twin home for sale in Brooklyn Park, they thought it should be theirs. They even put in a no-strings-attached offer $8,000 above the asking price. But the home was sold to someone else. The Lenzens got suspicious when they learned the house sold for $2,000 less than their offer. When Mike Lenzen tracked down the bank representative in charge of selling the property, she told him she had no record of receiving the couple's offer. Despite all the regulation and disclosure, buying a home can be a secretive process. Buyers are largely at the mercy of what sellers and their agents tell them. It's especially mysterious these days, as foreclosed homes flood the market and the banks that own them make sales decisions that sometimes defy explanation.

Realtors attempt to deny patrick.net first ammendment protection - (www.patrick.net) Wow, I just got an email from a lawer for the realtor cartel telling me that I may not criticise them by name! Doesn’t the first ammendment to the consitution protect my right to speak freely? Here’s the email and my response. I will post everything about this here.

Dear Patrick Killelea: Did you have an opportunity to review the request I had made to you in October regarding your improper use of the term REALTOR®. I am including a short video that we use to educate the staff on correct trademark use. This information can easily be applied to any trademark as it is important that they are not used generically if the trademark owner wants to retain their trademark. As you can see by my correspondence the Association is concerned over the improper use of our Marks by nonmembers and we do write cease and desist letters to anyone we come across misusing this term.

Washington area housing costs eat up burdensome share of resident budgets - (www.washingtonpost.com) One in five renters and one in seven homeowners in the Washington area spend more than half their income on housing, according to census figures, a proportion that housing experts consider a severe burden. A Washington Post analysis of housing and income statistics included in the recentAmerican Community Survey for 2009 underscores how affordable housing is particularly scarce for not only lower-income residents, but for many in the middle class. In Fairfax County, for example, more than half the renters with household incomes of $50,000 to $75,000 spent more than 30 percent of their income last year to keep a roof over their heads - exceeding the historical threshold deemed prudent to pay for shelter including utilities, real estate taxes, condo fees and other associated costs. By that standard, more than six out of 10 homeowners in that income bracket in Prince George's and Prince William counties also spent too much. In the District, more than half did.

Illinois in $1.5bn bond sale to pay bills - (www.ft.com) Illinois on Monday begins a $1.46bn bond sale that will allow the cash-strapped state to use future payments from a legal settlement with tobacco companies to pay its bills. The sale comes at a nervous time for municipal debt markets. In the past two weeks, investors have withdrawn more than $5bn from mutual and exchange-traded funds that buy “munis”, according to Lipper, the fund tracker, as a rise in yields on benchmark Treasury bonds compounded fears of rising defaults by muni issuers. Illinois, along with California, is among the most troubled of the 50 US states, which are struggling with budget deficits and underfunded pension plans. Most of the proceeds from this week’s bond sale will pay $1.2bn to $1.3bn of overdue bills to vendors, who, under state law, would have to file claims in court if they are not paid by December 31, said John Sinsheimer, Illinois’ director of capital markets. A successful deal could pave the way for other states to securitise tobacco settlement money at a time when they are cutting services and raising taxes to balance their budgets. “States are eager to shift the risk of the [tobacco settlement] payments to bondholders and get the money upfront,” said Matt Fabian, managing director at Municipal Market Advisors. The Illinois bonds, which are being sold through a special purpose vehicle called the Railsplitter Tobacco Settlement Authority, would be the first significant sale of tobacco bonds in several years.

People aren't buying houses - period - (www.theglobeandmail.com) Over the last few years, buyers have been lured into the troubled U.S. housing market by two unusual opportunities: cash subsidies in the form of government tax credits, and rock-bottom prices on millions of foreclosed homes. The tax credits are now history. And the supply of foreclosed homes on the market is already falling as regulators, lawmakers and state law enforcement officials press to sharply reduce the number of foreclosures. Now, buyers and sellers are getting an early taste of what the real estate market might look like without those twin pillars of support: Sales of existing homes plunged 26 per cent in October compared with the same period last year, the National Association of Realtors said in a report Tuesday. In some parts of the country, it was the worst October in at least 20 years, according to separate regional sales reports. Sales were down 41 per cent in Minneapolis, 28 per cent in Massachusetts and 34 per cent in Illinois.