The Home Front

Glenn Kelman, the CEO of online brokerage firm Redfin, passed along this helpful list of "tells" that may indicate a home seller is willing to cut the price on a property. Buyers should take notice and negotiate accordingly if they spot any of these:

The likelihood that a seller will lop 5 percent or 10 percent off his asking price isn't just determined by the house's "intrinsic value" or its "fundamentals." It's also a matter of the seller's state of mind, which can drive him to stick to a high price or to drop an already fair price. So as brokers, we don't just look at the cards on the table but also at the people playing them, searching for "tells" that the seller is ready to cut a deal.

The Six Major Tells

1. The seller must move: The seller's agent occasionally posts a message in the MLS that the seller is motivated. Bingo!

2. The home's previous sale price was much lower: The seller may accept a discount if he can still come out ahead. On the other hand, few sellers will accept less than what they owe on the mortgage, unless they're already in default.

3. The home has been on the market 90 days without a price change: Redfin displays days on market for each listing.

4. The neighborhood has many homes languishing on the market: Use the listing statistics below Redfin's map to see if the neighborhood's listings average 90+ days on market.

5. The property is vacant: The seller's probably paying two mortgages.

6. The owners are getting a divorce: Look in the property tax records for recent title transfers.

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As the Democrat-led housing rescue effort winds its way through Congress, it has won praise from an unlikely advocate: former Bush economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey. In an article posted on the website of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, where he is now a visiting scholar, Lindsey called the housing rescue plan championed by Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, "the best thought-out bill in Washington" and defended it from opponents.

From AEI.com, via Inman blog:

But politics being what it is, opponents of the Frank bill have cried "bailout." His plan is estimated to cost $1.7 billion, which in Washington is a rounding error as "bailouts" go. Consider for example the Senate's overwhelming support for a $25 billion bailout for homebuilders or the fact that a majority of House Republicans joined with Democrats to override President Bush's veto of the most pork-laden farm bill in history, as did all but 14 Republican senators. That legislation contained such high national priorities as $170 million for accelerated depreciation of race horses, the pro rata equivalent of stopping 50,000 foreclosures under the Frank plan. Frank's bill is narrowly targeted to avoid the political and moral problems involved in bailing out the undeserving. It is hardly a bailout. But that is also what makes it far from a panacea for the housing problem.

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Wall Street Journal: "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke put the U.S. dollar squarely on the Fed's radar screen, saying its slide against other currencies has led to an 'unwelcome' rise in U.S. inflation and may be a factor in inflation expectations."

USA Today: "To the untrained eye, the size, scope and sophistication of the alleged scheme is noteworthy. But to the FBI in Las Vegas, the problem is the opposite: In recent years, there have been so many mortgage fraud cases, the bureau and local prosecutors have had to establish a special task force to combat the problem."

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The results of J.D. Power & Associates' new study measuring customer satisfaction with home equity lenders are in, and—surprise!—Countrywide gets creamed.

Here are the results (on a 1,000-point scale) from Realtor magazine:

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