KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Monday May 16 Housing and Economic stories

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What house inspectors don't notice... - (finance.yahoo.com) Mice, mold, and leaking bathtubs are among the last discoveries home buyers want to make after moving into a new home. But that's exactly what a client of Oakland, Calif.-based financial planner Cathy Curtis found shortly after closing. "The first week she moved in, she emailed me in a panic that there are mice, she needs a new furnace, and the ducts, bathtubs, and kitchen cabinets need to be replaced," says Curtis. Total cost to fix everything: tens of thousands of dollars. "I'm surprised that more of this didn't come up in the inspection," she adds. Home inspections, it turns out, are much more limited than many first-time buyers realize. "The purpose of a home inspection is to look for material defects of a property--things that are unsafe, not working, or that create a hazard," explains Kurt Salomon, president of the American Society of Home Inspectors and an inspector based in Salt Lake City. Home buyers, however, "think we can see through walls and predict the future," he says. What home inspectors don't do, in addition to harnessing psychic powers, is test for environmental safety, such as lead in the paint or radon in the air, although they might recommend that the potential buyer do so. Inspectors can also overlook mold or vermin, if evidence of their existence is hidden behind floorboards or otherwise obscured. Nor do they examine more pedestrian child-safety issues, such as how easy it is to get into cabinets or fall down staircases. And most inspectors lack specific expertise in pool safety, one of the biggest risks for young children.

McDonalds Hires 62,000, Turns Away Over 938,000 - (www.zerohedge.com) This is what the US economy has been reduced to: McDonalds reports that as part of its employment event to hire 50,000 minimum wage, part-time (mostly) workers, subsequently raised to 62,000 it received a whopping 1 million applications, or a Tim Geithner jealousy inducing 6.2% hit rate (h/t X. Kurt. OSis). Alas, the US economy is now so pathetic that the bulk of the population will settle for anything. Literally anything. And the saddest part: over 938,000 applicants were turned away. Here's hoping to Burger King needs a few million janitors in the immediate future too. And yes, aside from reality, things in America are really recovering quite nicely. From Bloomberg: McDonald’s and its franchisees hired 62,000 people in the U.S. after receiving more than one million applications, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company said today in an e-mailed statement. Previously, it said it planned to hire 50,000.

US will face a 10 to 15 year real estate bear market - (www.mybudget360.com) Can Americans cope with a 10 to 15 year bear market in real estate? On this front I have good news, and bad news. The bad news is that we are likely to face at least a 10 year bear market in real estate thanks to a lost decade in household income and the continued erosion of the middle class. Home prices can only reflect the underlying income of households paying the mortgage. Clearly with record foreclosures many cannot accomplish this financial Herculean task. The good news is we are already 5 years into this correction (so either we are half way or one third closer to a bottom). For the United States this is a new experience because we have never seen an annual drop in home prices on a nationwide basis outside of the current crisis.

Where to buy a house for less than $800 / month. - (money.usnews.com) To see how far your real estate dollar will stretch in different places across the country, U.S. News examined housing costs on a monthly payment basis. We started with the National Association of Realtors' median home price data for 159 distinct metropolitan statistical areas as of the second quarter of 2010. After subtracting a 20 percent down payment from a market's median price, we plugged the remaining figure into amortgage calculator using a 4.32 percent interest rate on a 30-year fixed loan. The exercise produces a monthly payment figure for mortgage principal and interest, which represents the bulk of most property owners' monthly housing costs. (Note that this figure does not include monthly costs for utilities, insurance, or taxes, which can vary a great deal from one place to another. Nor does it reflect the one-time costs associated with a home purchase, such as the down payment and closing costs.) Using this calculation, here is a look at 10 places where you can buy a home for less than $800 a month. [In Pictures: 10 Great Places to Buy Homes for Less Than $800 a Month.]

OC bankruptcies highest in 65 months - (jan.ocregister.com) In March, 1,881 individuals and businesses filed for bankruptcy protection in Orange County, the highest one-month total since the federal bankruptcy law changed in October, 2005. The number of filings is also 10.1% higher than a year earlier and the highest number of bankruptcies in March in at least 11 years, according to data from the U.S. federal bankruptcy court. After declining 7.5% in February, filings in Orange County bankruptcy court jumped 33.1% in March. However, that isn’t so unusual, said Irvine bankruptcy attorney Jim Bastian of Shulman, Hodges & Bastian LLP. March bankruptcy filings tend to be among the highest for the year. “People and businesses make it through the end of the year and think things will improve in the new year,” he said. “Then at the end of the first quarter, nothing changes so they make a move and file.”