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Builder Lures Home Buyers With Free Hondas
Tweet Share on Facebook July 31, 2008 CommentWith home sales increasingly hard to come by, builders and real estate professionals have grown more and more creative in their efforts to attract new business.
Now, one builder is offering free fuel-efficient cars—2008 Honda Civics—to anyone who buys a home in his rural development.
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President Bush Signs Housing Legislation
Tweet Share on Facebook July 30, 2008 Comment (4)As home prices continue to tumble across the country, President Bush quietly signed the gigantic housing bill that recently passed congress.
From The Associated Press:
President Bush on Wednesday signed a massive housing bill intended to provide mortgage relief for 400,000 struggling homeowners and stabilize financial markets.
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Another Foreclosure Pot Bust
Tweet Share on Facebook July 30, 2008 Comment (5)Is there anyone left who isn't growing pot in their foreclosed home? This latest one comes to you from lovely Minnesota:
From KAAL Television:
An inspector, changing the locks on a foreclosed home, discovered a major drug operation in Bloomington Thursday.
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'Extreme Makeover' Home in Foreclosure
Tweet Share on Facebook July 29, 2008 Comment (227)You know that show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, where needy families get luxurious new homes from ABC's enthusiastic team of do-gooders?
Turns out things don't always end up happily ever after...
From accessAtlanta, via the Real Estate Bloggers:
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Is the Rate of Home Price Declines Slowing?
Tweet Share on Facebook July 29, 2008 CommentThe S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices—released today—showed that home prices continued their decline in May, with the 20-city composite index posting a record 15.8 annual drop. (That's a shade better than consensus estimates.)
But Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics, said that when seasonally adjusted, the figures contain a potential sliver of sunshine:
From Ian Shepherdson,
This is interesting. We estimate that the seasonally adjusted [month over month] decline was 1.3%, the smallest drop since October last year. It follows a 1.6% April decline and an average plunge of 2.2% in the three [months] to March. We can't be sure these data are [reliable] over such short runs but they do seem to suggest the rate of decline of existing home prices is slowing. To be sure, [prices] are still falling very rapidly, and there is no prospect of any rebound this year and probably next, but a slower rate of fall is welcome nonetheless.
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Did Your Senators Support the Housing Bill?
Tweet Share on Facebook July 29, 2008 CommentWondering which lawmakers supported or opposed the massive housing legislation that recently cleared the Senate?
Here's the score card:
From the Associated Press:
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7 Things Every Home Buyer Needs to Know
Tweet Share on Facebook July 25, 2008 Comment (6)Interesting post today over at Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed. In it, mortgage lender Tom Vanderwell lays out his "7 things (in random order) that I think everyone who is looking to buy or sell in today's market needs to know."
Check out the full post here.
1. 6 months ago is ancient history. What your neighbor sold his house for 6 months ago doesn't matter. What the seller was asking for the house 6 months ago doesn't matter. What matters is what the market will support today.
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Healy Wins Housing Rumble
Tweet Share on Facebook July 24, 2008 Comment (3)United Nations election officials (or perhaps it was just me) today certified as "clean" and "without improprieties" a vote to decide a heated online real estate debate and declared Greg Healy the winner.
At 1:13 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Healy, vice president of operations at ForSaleByOwner.com, a Web-based company that markets the homes of independent sellers, was officially handed the title, with 66 percent of the votes. His debate counterpart, Jay Thompson, a blogger and real estate broker in Phoenix, received 34 percent.
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Bush Scraps Housing Rescue Objections
Tweet Share on Facebook July 23, 2008 CommentThe prospects for the gigantic housing rescue that had been fumbling through Congress got a huge boost on Wednesday when President Bush withdrew his objections to the legislation.
From The Associated Press:
President Bush dropped his opposition Wednesday to a broad housing package aimed at bolstering the sagging economy, despite his objections to including $3.9 billion for neighborhoods hit hardest by foreclosures. The House was expected to vote on the bill Wednesday, and it could become law as early as this week.
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Ex-Subprime Lender Confesses to Jon Stewart
Tweet Share on Facebook July 23, 2008 Comment (1)As a rule, mortgage lenders don't usually make the guest list of the popular Daily Show with Jon Stewart. But Richard Bitner, author of Confessions of a Subprime Lender: An Insider's Tale of Greed, Fraud, and Ignorance , had a great appearance just recently.
Check it out here.
Bitner currently works for Housing Wire, an outstanding website that anyone interested in real estate and housing issues should be reading every day.
