Citi: Workouts Outnumbered Foreclosures by 10 to 1 in First Quarter

See http://www.thetruthaboutmortgage.com/ Blog for more info.

http://www.thetruthaboutmortgage.com/citi-workouts-outnumbered-foreclosures-by-10-to-1-in-first-quarter/

Snag a great deal on a short sale

Short sales - where a lender agrees to take less than it's owed on a mortgage - are rising sharply. Here's how you can profit.

Homes: Most affordable in 2 decades

Affordable By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer

10 Most Affordable

Big metro areas where residents are most able to afford to buy a home.

Rank Metro area Affordability Index Median home price 1 Indianapolis, IN 94.8 $98,000 2 Youngstown, OH 94.4 $67,000 3 Akron, OH 93 $78,000 4 Grand Rapids, MI 91.8 $97,000 5 Syracuse, NY 91.3 $85,000 6 Warren, MI 91.2 $119,000 7 Cleveland, OH 91 $86,000 8 Buffalo, NY 90.4 $90,000 9 Toledo, OH 90.2 $78,000 10 Dayton, OH 90 $85,000

10 Least Affordable

Big metro areas where residents are least able to afford to buy a home.

Rank Metro area Affordability index Median home price 1 New York, NY 21.5 $418,000 2 San Francisco, CA 32.1 $525,000 3 Los Angeles, CA 42.1 $288,000 4 Nassau-Suffolk, NY 43 $375,000 5 Honolulu, HI 44.1 $360,000 6 Santa Ana, CA 48.2 $360,000 7 Newark, NJ 49.3 $315,000 8 Miami, FL 49.6 $185,000 9 McAllen, TX 50.3 $106,000 10 El Paso, TX 52.9 $127,000

Staging a vacant home.....WSJ

Whoever occupies 211 Windward Way, they seem to live the good life. Too good to be true, in fact. The house is owned by a builder, who hasn't been able to sell it for more than a year. And while someone really does live here, it's as part of an elaborate bit of stagecraft.........

WSJ , Cracking a Valuable Homebuyer Credit & Energy Tax Credits

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123732757823462281.html?mod=article-outset-box

• up $500 this year to $8000
• max out at $70k purch price
• need not be "house"
• need not be "your first home"
• need not be paid back like last years credit
• limited window for purchases
• CALL US TO HELP YOU SORT IT OUT www.RealtyNetWorth.com

=========================================

How Your Home May Qualify for Bailout Cash aka:Energy-Efficient Upgrades Yield Valuable Tax Credits

• The credits fall into two primary camps. One is energy efficiency, which covers certain improvements to an existing home's structural elements, such as windows and insulation, as well as for the purchase of qualifying high-efficiency heating, cooling and water-heating equipment.
  
• The second is for renewable energy, which includes solar, wind, geothermal (heat generated from the earth) and fuel-cell technologies (which convert the chemical energy of a fuel, such as hydrogen, into electricity). In a nutshell, the energy-efficiency tax credit increases to 30% of qualifying costs from 10%, and the cap also rises to $1,500 from $500.

Outside buyers drawn to Detroit's foreclosed homes

Jeff Karoub and Corey Williams / Associated Press

DETROIT -- Welcome to Landlord Nation, where foreclosure notices are plentiful and for-sale signs offer at least 1,800 homes for under $10,000 that once were worth at least 10 times more.

In extreme cases, homes are on sale for $1 or less, which has enticed investors to Detroit from as far away as the United Kingdom and Australia.

"In the past few months, I've picked up 10 new clients from out of state that are buying in bulk," said Mike Shannon, a suburban Detroit real estate agent. His office specializes in foreclosures in a city that's among the national leaders.

"They're coming to us, saying 'Look, I want to buy 50, 100, 1,000.' They want to own every decent and cheap house they can find."

............... read on................

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090308/BIZ03/903080323

Principal Residence for Property Taxes: pick old or new !

Principal Residence Information:
The new Public Act 96 of 2008 is designed to allow people to maintain the principal residence status on their first home when they are unable to sell that home before they move into a new residence. The property owner must file a form with the local assessor by May 1. Click here to view the form.

Produce The Note “How-To” DELAY FORECLOSURE

• Using the “produce the note” strategy is something all homeowners facing foreclosure can do.
• If you believe you’ve been treated unfairly, fight back.
• Templates for a legal request, a letter to your lender and a motion to compel to help you through the process.
• Read the step by step “how to” under the videos.
• Article: http://www.consumerwarningnetwork.com/2008/06/19/produce-the-note-how-to/
  

Feb 2009 Stimulus Package & First-Time Homebuyers

IRS ARTICLE:
Tax Credit to Aid First-Time Homebuyers; Must Be Repaid Over 15 Years
http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=186831,00.html

Congress Strikes $789 Billion Stimulus Deal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123436825805373367.html

===================

First-time buyers get $8,000 tax credit in stimulus bill

First-time home buyer tax credit details reported today in a Wall St. Journal article:

Home buyers who hoped for a $15,000 tax credit to buy a new home, as promised by the Senate, will be disappointed. A proposed $35 billion credit to support home sales was jettisoned in favor of a more modest $2 billion to $3 billion provision.

The proposal would eliminate the repayment requirement in an existing tax credit for first-time home buyers, and raise the credit to $8,000 from $7,500. Congressional aides cautioned Wednesday that the credit's size was still subject to negotiation.

====

Response post:

LETS GET THIS STRAIGHT PEOPLE:

The devil is in the details..

First off, this housing "credit" isn't stimulus at all. Don't be upset. You thought you were going to get 15K right off the bat? Think again.

Assuming you qualify (buyers in 08 will get the shaft),

1) The sum of WHATEVER the housing credit is (they seem to change it everyday) will BE SPLIT into two tax returns. Hence, two years.

2) The biggest catch of em all is, YOU MAY NOT BE ELIGIBLE for that full credit!! IT depends on your TAX LIABILITY. So the higher your income, the closer you will be to getting the full credit.

3) You can claim this credit in the 2008 tax return (even though you've purchased in 09)

4) You do not have to repay this credit.

5) You do not have to be a first time home buyer for this credit.

Posted by: DiggySRQ

Feb 09 Stimulus provisions

http://www.mahalo.com/2009_Stimulus_Package

Look for another/larger real estate incentive for "first time" home buyers....no payback required this time ?

Michael Gray, CPA's Real Estate Tax Letter

Timely content useful for realty investment from a financial perspective.
http://www.realestatetaxletter.com/

SE MI commercial_real_estate Blog

SE MI commercial_real_estate Blog

America's Free-Falling Housing Markets

Matt Woolsey

Feb 14th, 2008

Residents of Sacramento, Calif., where home sale prices for November 2007 fell a startling 18.6% over the year before, are likely breathing a sigh of relief.

That's because homeowners there stand to benefit from the Bush administration's initiative, announced this week, aimed at helping homeowners facing foreclosure. Called "Project Lifeline," and assembled by six of the nation's largest financial institutions, which service almost half of the country's mortgages, the program allows qualified homeowners to suspend proceedings for 30 days while providing them with rewriting and refinancing assistance.

The lenders involved--JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Countrywide Financial, Citigroup, Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo--say they will contact homeowners who are 90 days or more overdue on mortgage payments and work with them on ways to make their mortgages more affordable.

While resetting rates on many of these mortgages are causing homeowners to default, falling prices, which lead to negative equity, are also playing a part.

Behind The Numbers

To assess which cities are hardest hit, we used data from Radar Logic, a New York-based real estate research firm. Radar Logic differs from the more familiar Case-Shiller index in that it tracks more markets (25), includes data on foreclosures, condos and new construction, and is a spot price, not a running average.

ZipRealty, a San Francisco-based real estate tracking firm that aggregates multiple listing service data, provided us with the number of homes on the market that have been relisted below their initial asking prices.

In Sacramento, 43.6% of homes on the market have been lowered in price. There are currently 36,097 homes on the market there, with very few potential buyers.

Just lagging Sacramento is Las Vegas, where between November 2006 and November 2007, prices plunged 17.2%. What's more, from December 2006 to December 2007, the number of homes on the market surged by 30%, further stalling sales, and likely leading to more price depreciation down the road.

A city you might have expected to see higher on the list-- Detroit--finished ninth. Simply put, there just isn't much further for the city's housing prices to fall; in percentage terms, it doesn't look as depressed as other (once over-inflated) markets. In some areas of Motor City, banks are literally giving homes away if the buyer agrees to bring it up to code.

Florida nabbed three spots on the list of 10 fastest-falling markets, with Tampa down 11.7%, Miami depressed by 10.6% and Jacksonville in an 8.7% decline from last year.

The one sign of good news in these markets is that construction has all but stopped, and sellers are starting to get realistic about cutting prices.

For full-year 2007, almost every market experienced an inventory spike, but in the last month of the year, according to ZipRealty's numbers, inventories started to decline nationwide. Even in Sacramento and Las Vegas, inventory numbers have started to fall, if only marginally.

Guide to Reducing Your Business Property Taxes Strategies to help you stop overpaying and start saving By Gary Stern

Extremely Useful 8.0 out of 10 Choose your rating 8 - Extremely Useful Add Your Comments

Many complex issues can affect your business property taxes. If you're like most small business owners, you probably don't have the manpower or the expertise to keep track of all those issues. As a result, you could be overpaying on your business property taxes — to the tune of thousands of dollars per year. However, there are several simple steps you can take to reduce your property tax payments. One of the first steps in minimizing your tax obligation is scheduling an assessment of your property. When you do, keep the following in mind:

1. Even if commercial property values in the local market are rising, taxes at every business property are based on an individual assessment and history and may not increase as much as other adjacent businesses.
2. After you receive the new property assessment, check with an assessor to determine if the market value compares accurately with the assessment.
3. Another option is to ask your personal banker to see if he or she can appraise your property and compare that to the local tax collector's assessment.
4. Local tax collectors have been known to hike commercial property taxes beyond what the market dictates, so there is precedent for challenging assessments.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Assess your assessment

Determine whether the assessed value of your business property fits the current market conditions.

I recommend: AVTI, a nationwide property tax consulting firm, offers valuation analysis and assessment tracking among its many services. The American Society ofAppraisers has a searchable database that will allow you to locate an appraiser in your area.

Compare your assessment to neighbors

Find out what other businesses in your area are paying to see if your taxes are in line with theirs. You may have grounds for an appeal if you're paying more than your business neighbors.

I recommend: For a small fee, Intelius gives you the ability to look up the property tax information for any address in the U.S.

File appeals

Call your local tax office to ascertain exactly how to file an appeal. Some cities have 311 numbers that can direct you to the right office.

I recommend: The National Tax Resource Group offers professional appeal services for all types of commercial real estate nationwide. These services are handled through qualified consultants in your local area.

File appeals for business personal property

Sometimes, you can reduce business property taxes through a business personal property tax appeal. This involves the valuation of equipment, furniture, computers and inventory.

I recommend: BurrWolf.com offers a number of property tax reduction services, including business personal property appeals.

Analyze additional factors

Several things can affect your property taxes, such as income and expense statements, market capitalization rates, replacement costs, costs of environmental cleanup and more.

I recommend: CBiz.com, a national property tax solutions firm, analyzes a wide variety of elements that may result in a reduction in taxes.

Consider a cost-segregation analysis

Cost segregation studies identify various components of your building that may be eligible for accelerated tax depreciation. By reclassifying certain assets in this way, you may see significant savings in your property tax obligations.

I recommend: The Griffin Valuation Group are experts in cost-segregation analysis and property tax consulting and aim to lower business property tax burdens.

Use software

Using a property tax software program can help you root out possible reductions and facilitate the appeal process.

I recommend: With ePropertyTax Office, you can track appeals, process assessments and analyze valuations.

Ensure proper zoning

Tax rates are linked to the various zoning classifications so it's a good idea to contact your local state tax office to ascertain if your zoning classification is accurate.

I recommend: Click on your state at TaxSites.com to make sure your business is classified correctly.

Tips & Tactics
Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• When you receive your annual commercial tax assessment, if you question it or are going to file an appeal, don't delay. In some states, you have only 60 to 90 days to file or lose the right to appeal.
• Remember that several factors can influence a change in commercial property taxes including a change of ownership or new construction.
• Ascertain whether your business is located in a designated empowerment or technology zone, which can reduce commercial taxes.

The official source of Reducing Your Business Property Taxes is Business.com

Flip This House

Flip This House show site

http://www.aetv.com/flipthishouse/

Watch exclusive video
Get Flip Tips

APPEALING PROPERTY TAXES

"As real estate values rise, so do property taxes. The good news is that property taxes are the one area where fighting city hall usually pays off. Among those that are appealed, a whopping 75 percent result in a reduction of taxes." Money Magazine-Jan. 05

"The biggest thing that any individual property owner can do is make sure they aren't overassessed. The errors that take place in assessing properties are rampant," there are often tremendous disparities, for no apparent reason." MSN Money-July 05

"The biggest thing that any individual property owner can do is make sure they aren't overassessed. The errors that take place in assessing properties are rampant," there are often tremendous disparities, for no apparent reason." MSN Money-July 05

To Pay Less Property Taxes: Hire a Soldier of Fortune

By SYDNEY P. FREEDBERG and CONNIE HUMBURG, St Petersburg Times Staff Writers

Michael Hagen won at least $36.7-million in reduced property assessments in Lee County last year, trimming 16 tax bills by $588,000. Gary Appel haggled $35.8-million off the value of the upscale Loews Hotel on Miami Beach, saving $715,000 in taxes. Gregory Orcutt got $38.4-million lopped off the property assessment of GL Homes in Tampa. Savings for the big developer: $844,000.

Call them tax consultants, agents, brokers or representatives (tax reps for short). By whatever name, they share a goal: shave their clients’ property assessments - and city and county property taxes - as much as possible.

Tax reps can be mom-and-pop accounting firms with a post office box. They can be blue-chip lawyers with political clout. Or they can be promoters who hawk their tax-reduction services on the Internet.

At public hearings and - more often - behind the scenes, these hired guns dicker with county property appraisers in an appeals process marked by back scratching and slack oversight.

Florida relies heavily on property taxes for schools, police and fire protection, roads and other vital services.

Yet no state agency oversees tax reps, who number in the hundreds, or tracks how much they manage to cut each year from property tax rolls.

“It’s a game and it can be extremely lucrative,” said Tim Wilmath, director of valuation in the Hillsborough County Property Appraiser’s Office. He was once a tax rep himself.

Some reps make up to 50 percent of any tax savings they achieve. Others charge up to $450 an hour. Some make a lot of money. Others don’t.

Because the big money is in high-end commercial property, many tax reps are reluctant to take on single-family homes unless they’re worth at least $1-million. Many less affluent homeowners don’t need a tax rep anyway; they have “Save Our Homes,” which caps the amount their assessment can rise from year to year.

To help gauge the size and influence of the tax rep industry, the Times reviewed records of some property assessments that were lowered on both real estate and business equipment in 19 of Florida’s 67 counties last year. Comprehensive data was available for only six of those counties. Many others don’t track tax reps or provided information in outdated forms that made it hard to analyze. The Times also found glitches in the computer data provided by some counties.

While limited, the Times review found:

-Many of Florida’s largest companies used tax reps. In just two counties, Home Depot lowered its bills last year by $134,000, real estate conglomerate CNL by $303,000 and Walgreens, by $398,000. Sprint Nextel got $183,000 in reductions in three counties and Publix, $414,000 in four.

-The top five tax rep firms in the Times review got at least $1.8-billion in value chopped off property rolls in seven counties last year. That translated to about $36.1-million in tax cuts. The top five are Property Tax Consultants Ltd., a partnership based in Hallandale; Berman Rennert Vogel & Mandler, a Miami firm specializing in real estate law; the firm run by Gary Appel, a lawyer and real estate broker in Miami; Marvin F. Poer & Co., a national property tax specialist based in Dallas; and the property tax division of Deloitte & Touche, the giant accounting firm.

-If reps were baseball players, their batting averages would get many of them sent down to the minors. Some larger tax rep firms obtained tax breaks in fewer than one in five formal assessment appeals.

-Miami-Dade, Florida’s most populous county, had the most assessment reductions, by far. That’s where Macy’s, McDonald’s and building products titan Rinker Materials each reduced their tax bills by more than $600,000. That’s also where the family business of former Sen. Bob Graham used five reps to save $294,000 and the enterprises of singer Gloria Estefan and her music producer husband, Emilio, used one to save $8,000.

-Among celebrities who pared their taxes with the help of reps: former Miami Heat center Rony Seikaly ($22,000 on a $7.7-million house in Miami Beach); talk show host Jerry Springer ($37,000 savings on his $3.6-million home in Sarasota); billionaire businessman H. Wayne Huizenga ($59,000 on his $12.5-million home in Fort Lauderdale); and Kay O’Rourke, daughter of a founder of Winn-Dixie Stores ($174,000 on a ranch in northwest Hillsborough County).

For the little guy

In interviews, tax reps play down their big business ties, saying their goal is to keep all taxpayers from overpaying. Some say the appeals process is tilted against them. Others portray themselves as tax rebels fighting for the little guy against an oppressive government.

“What’s more fundamental than ‘no taxation without representation’?” said Appel, 45.

Tax reps say they understand the state’s arcane property tax procedures. By noodling through technical details, they say they often find faulty appraisals - from erroneous comparable sales to incorrect building measurements. Or they take advantage of loopholes, such as farmland deductions that can dramatically cut property owners’ taxes.

For the Loews Hotel, part of the corporate empire built by the billionaire Tisch family, Appel supplied information about the economics of the building: its income, occupancy rates and value of comparable hotels.

His arguments persuaded a hearing examiner to slash the Loews assessment, but it still paid about $4.7-million in real estate taxes, $2-million more than in 2005.

Appel won’t say how much he was paid on that deal or any other. He saved hundreds of property owners more than $4.5-million in four counties last year.

In June, some of Appel’s clients on Miami Beach’s ultra-expensive Fisher Island drew criticism from a union trying to organize the island’s low-wage workers. The union issued a scathing report showing how some workers’ property assessments increased more quickly between 2002 and 2005 than some Fisher Island owners.”The rich who can afford the reps get the breaks. The working poor pay more of the taxes,” said Rick Smith, a union representative.

Cows and horses

The industry got its start in the 1920s, when oil and gas companies complained that they were paying more than their fair share of taxes. Some property tax managers at oil companies left to start their own consulting businesses. Texas soon became the epicenter of the tax rep world.

As Florida’s property taxes rose, the industry gained a foothold here in the late 1970s. Some of the new firms were staffed with former property appraisers’ employees who knew just what it took to keep tax bills low.

Among the first to switch sides was Al Blake, Miami-Dade’s property appraiser in 1970-1979.

“I was at the point I was working for 50 cents on the dollar,” said Blake, 81. He denies any inside edge. In fact, he says, some of his former colleagues “resented it greatly” that he changed sides and made it even tougher on him.

Then there’s Michael Hagen, 48, a Fort Myers lawyer and real estate broker. For nine years, he was counsel for the Lee County Property Appraiser’s Office. He fought against property owners who abused agricultural tax breaks by planting a few palm trees or renting a few horses or cows in an effort to get or preserve an agricultural designation for their land, which means much lower taxes.

In 2003, Hagen left the appraiser’s office. He kept fighting, this time for the landowners and for the tax breaks.

One afternoon in August, Hagen appealed for agricultural exemptions for six property owners, including Premier Island Group, a real estate investment firm. He told special magistrate Lori L. Rutland that Premier qualified for an exemption (worth about $90,000) because it operated a horse breeding business on 15 acres.

The land, which is zoned for commercial development, had been leased for $10 to a cattleman, Steven Game. Game testified that he kept five horses on the property.

But the appraiser’s office portrayed it as a rent-a-horse facade. And the hearing examiner rejected the exemption, noting the property had no stalls or barns for horse breeding.

That setback aside, Hagen and his firm, TaxCuts1, are doing very well. At formal hearings in Lee County last year, he saved at least $588,000 for property owners like Alico Industrial Park in South Fort Myers and DiamondHead Beach Resort in Fort Myers Beach.

While county appraisers say they give no special treatment to former-employees-turned-tax reps, that doesn’t stop the reps from trying to gain an advantage. Some contribute to political campaigns. Some join trade groups. Some lobby for lower taxes or rules making it easier to win reduced assessments.

Yet only a few tax reps break into the highest income bracket.

“You can make a good living, but I’m not going to retire next year,” said Gary Strong, 45, who runs the one-man Tampa office of Fellers, Schewe, Scott & Roberts.

Last year, Strong won at least $355,000 in tax savings for clients like Palm Harbor’s Lansbrook Village, Tampa Palms Shopping Plaza and Prudential Insurance Co. in Miami. He got reduced assessments for almost every appeal petition that he filed in six counties.

That’s in stark contrast to many reps, who lose far more appeals than they win.

In fact, according to the Times review, some reps appear to do no better in formal hearings than property owners who appeal on their own.

The spaghetti strategy

Tim Wilmath, Hillsborough County’s valuation director, was earning between $80,000 and $90,000 a year from the county when he crossed over to what he jokingly calls the “dark side” in 2000. He was wooed to Deloitte by the prospect of making $300,000 eventually. But Wilmath was back at his old job within a year.

“The problem I had with the work is that you basically had to exaggerate to achieve reductions,” said Wilmath, who now earns $137,000. “Money isn’t everything.”

Because many tax reps need just a few big wins a year to earn a decent living, they go for volume. Some recruit clients by sending out mass mailings.

“We remain committed to smart, aggressive property tax advocacy to help ensure that you do not pay one penny more than your fair share of taxes,” says a letter sent in August by lawyer Jeffrey Mandler.

In seven counties last year, Mandler’s law firm, Berman Rennert Vogel & Mandler, sliced more than $11-million off tax bills of clients like Apartment Investment and Management Co., the nation’s largest owner and operator of apartment communities.

After signing up clients in droves, some reps swamp appraisers’ offices with appeals petitions that can be frivolous. In what some property appraisers call the “spaghetti strategy,” some reps throw a potful against the wall and hope that some of it sticks. Other times, they withdraw petitions at the last minute or fail to show up for hearings. The Times found several instances where more than one rep filed appeals last year for the same property.

“Have you heard of the term ambulance chaser?” Roger Alejo of the Lee County Property Appraiser’s Office asked. “We’re being swamped with sillier and sillier arguments.”

A little horse trading

Like some lawyers who appeal assessments, Gregory Orcutt doesn’t consider himself a tax rep. Founder of a now-defunct law firm that handled work for the Hillsborough Property Appraiser’s Office, Orcutt obtained one of that county’s largest tax savings last year: about $844,000 for builder GL Homes.

At the appeals hearing, Orcutt said the developer was growing Bahia grass on more than 1,000 acres, entitling it to keep an agricultural designation. The Property Appraiser’s Office argued that only a fraction of the site, which is zoned for development, was a sod farm. Special magistrate Catherine Teti sided with Orcutt.

“It isn’t anything that was shocking or out of the ordinary,” said Orcutt, 58, declining to comment on how much he was paid. GL Homes “went through the proper procedures. … That’s the way the system is supposed to work.”

Orcutt’s case was unusual because it was decided in the open before a special hearing examiner. Most cases are settled at “informal conferences” or “off the record” sessions between tax reps and county property appraisers.

Reps write, call or sail in and out of appraisers’ offices, and in some counties, they lobby the same tiny group of employees who tend to value the same properties year after year.

They negotiate and sometimes do a little horse trading. “They try to get reductions on two or three of their petitions in exchange for withdrawing the rest,” said Wilmath, adding that his office rejects such deals. If the staff makes a mistake, they fix it, regardless of who brings it to their attention, he says.

In 1990, a statewide grand jury criticized county appraisers for changing assessments, without documenting the reasons, when property owners complain at informal conferences.

Today, the paper trail for such “counter changes” is still thin. In Pinellas, for example, the Property Appraiser’s Office does not keep records of meetings between staff members and tax reps. A reporter was told to dig through stacks of pink papers in a storage box to determine why a particular decision was made.

Lax oversight goes beyond the informal conferences. Florida doesn’t require tax reps to register or report lobbying activities or expenses. The state has no “revolving door” or “cooling off” rules that bar former employees in property appraisers’ offices from contact with ex-colleagues for one or two years after leaving public service.

Ken Muller, a real estate broker in Parkland, claims on his Web site that he slashed more than $100-million from property assessments - enough to retire at 42.

Times researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report.

Tags: Florida Property Tax Reform, Florida property taxes, Florida real estate taxes

Foreclosures hit like a hurricane

By Times Wires

Published December 1, 2007

---

WASHINGTON

The home foreclosure crisis slamming into the nation's neighborhoods is having the effect of about "one Hurricane Katrina per month," James K. Galbraith, an economist with the University of Texas at Austin, said Friday at a forum examining the credit crisis. In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the fall of 2005, nearly 275,000 Gulf Coast residents were forced to move into group shelters, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. This October, lenders reported 224,451 foreclosure filings to drive people from their homes, according to RealtyTrac Inc., a housing data firm based in Irvine, Calif.

INVESTOR TOOL SITES

Property Taxes
Get Sales History, Current Value
Lot Size, Property Details & More.
www.Intelius.com

GOVERNMENT FINANCING & TOOLS FOR HUD FORECLOSURES & OTHER PROPERTY
http://www.fha-home-loans.com/

FORECLOSURE TOOLS
Topics include selling your own home, buying foreclosure properties, financing real estate, how to guides, and more.
http://www.bargain.com/homes/articles/


Real Estate Investing Articles
Real estate investors can browse hundreds of free real estate investing articles to increase your investment education. Topics include creative real estate, wholesaling, 1031 exchanges, asset protection, commercial real estate, hard money lenders, IRA investing, landlording, lease options, mobile homes, no money down, owner financing, rehabbing, tax liens, and more.
http://www.reiclub.com/

Zillow - Entertaining but near Zilch value

New Tool Highlight:
http://www.zillow.com

Usefulness:
This site has quick mapping features, shows a very delayed on-market & solds info & some details from the assessors card: year built, etc.

Caution:
I found the assessor info significantly inaccurate: wrong # of baths, wrong s/f, etc.
Sales include mortgage company buy backs & loan balance, not a real sale.
"Values" show the bouncing ball the from the assessor office - no where close to realistic.

Bottom line:
After browsing the site, contact us with your info if you need

• a property tax protest
• a market analysis
• a buyer agent with current MLS data to represent you in purchase negotiations