By: Realtors.org
The National Association of Realtors® today joined officials from the Federal Housing Administration, Mortgage Bankers Association and NeighborWorks® America to address the foreclosure crisis and its impact on American cities.
The organizations shared their insights with mayors from across the country as part of the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ annual meeting in Miami. Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for U.S. president, and former U.S. President Bill Clinton will also address the nation’s mayors during the meeting, which runs through June 24.
"The recent slowdown in the real estate market has created significant challenges for America’s cities, for mayors, and for Realtors®," said NAR President-elect Charles McMillan, who spoke on NAR’s behalf. "Realtors® build communities, and we share a common mission with our country’s mayors – to support and strengthen the communities we serve."In a recent NAR survey of its members, more than half of all Realtor® respondents believe that borrowers who are in trouble are not receiving adequate assistance to avoid foreclosure. McMillan urged attendees to share challenges and best practices and explore creative ways to revise existing programs to meet the needs of today’s homeowners and buyers.
On the national level, housing stimulus packages have been proposed by both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, and NAR has been working diligently with Congress to pass legislation that will help stem the rising tide of foreclosures and stimulate the housing market before Congress adjourns for the July 4 recess.
NAR supports modernizing FHA to help more buyers obtain safe, affordable financing and provide upfront counseling and support. In addition, NAR advocates making permanent increases to FHA and conforming loan limits, which would allow thousands of families to refinance existing mortgages and keep their homes as well as help buyers in high-cost areas become homeowners. Ideal legislation would also include a tax credit for first-time home buyers.
"Realtors® care as much about keeping families in their homes as they do about helping them find the home of their dreams," said McMillan. "Realtors® and mayors have already proven what we can accomplish when we work together. Now, let’s build on that great work and launch a new era for America’s cities and the American Dream together."
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Buyer's Market, Also 'Buyers Beware' Market
by Broderick Perkins
More home buyers have a better chance now than at any other time in nearly a half decade to negotiate a home-buying deal that costs less and comes with some concessions thrown in.
In many locations, buyers will find a glut of new homes, more motivated sellers, foreclosures, auctions, short sales and other market conditions that can make it a really good time to buy.
That doesn't mean throw caution to the wind.
The same conditions that lure buyers to market also lure misfits looking to cash in on your unfettered haste and the waste left from a boom market gone bust.
No matter what the market conditions, it's also always a buyers beware market, now perhaps more than ever.
Here's how to begin to navigate today's housing market, step-by-step, and make a good deal without getting taken.
Paint The Perfect Sale
by Phoebe Chongchua
Every seller is looking for the perfect sale and every buyer is looking for the perfect opportunity to seize a new home or investment property. Getting your home ready to close the deal for the most money, starts with knowing where to begin and, often, that means, quite literally, you need to paint the perfect sale.
"Often times people are selling a home that they've lived in for 30 or 40 years and they're madly in love with the wallpaper but it is extremely dated," says John Peek, President and Owner of Peek Brothers Painting Contractors.
Things like wallpaper and color on the interior and exterior walls of your home can significantly influence buyers. So it is worth carefully looking over your home before you put it on the market to see what areas need touching up or an entire re-do. If you find the wallpaper has to go, then knowing how to make the change is equally important so that you don't end up with an even bigger mess.
by Broderick Perkins
June is Garage Door Safety Month, but that doesn't mean you should relegate one month to the topic.
The idea is to give a month of concentrated attention to fact that the garage door is likely the largest moving object in the home, it's typically used every day and can be potentially lethal, especially to small kids. It always needs attention.
Since January 1993, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has required that all garage door openers have an external entrapment protection system. This typically is some electronic eye or sensor that will trigger the door to brake and reverse itself before it hits anything detected in its path.
It prevents accidental entrapment, injury or death.
Many older garage doors are quaint fixtures providing good architectural form, but their function may allow them to reverse only after a collision -- and that can be quite a hard crash -- or they don't reverse at all. If your garage door is more than 10 years old, consider upgrading, says the CPSC, and replace pre-1982 garage door openers that do not reverse.
The mandate for the improved safety feature in current standards has significantly reduced personal injury and property damage so much so that in 2001 the standard was extended to include automated security gates that are increasingly common at the entrances of multifamily housing communities.
An optional safety feature includes a constant contact control button which requires a person to hold in or onto the control button continuously for the garage door to close completely. If the button is released before the door closes, the door reverses and opens to the highest position. The remote control transmitter will not close the door with this option.
However, the hands-on option allows -- or forces the operator to see -- that the door is closed with no one in danger of collision or entrapment and that no one unwanted has ventured inside.
The mandate also calls for manufacturers to include a sticker warning consumers of the potential entrapment hazard. The sticker is to be placed near the wall-mounted control button.
As an added precaution, you should mount the keypad wall control out of children's reach -- at least five feet from the floor -- and in a location where users can clearly see the moving door.
