<span class=”field_caption”>Full Description</span>: Car hire & Transfers with mini vans or estates vehicles.<br />
Private trips with driver & English speaking guide, from 50 per day. All destinations.<br />
Rent a mini van or limousine from 15 per day.<br />
The rest is here:
CAR HIRE & TRANSFERS
<span class=”field_caption”>Full Description</span>: Car hire & Transfers with mini vans or estates vehicles.<br />
Private trips with driver & English speaking guide, from 50 per day. All destinations.<br />
Rent a mini van or limousine from 15 per day.<br />
Go here to read the rest:
CAR HIRE & TRANSFERS
<span class=”field_caption”>Full Description</span>: Car hire & Transfers with mini vans or estates vehicles.<br />
Private trips with driver & English speaking guide, from 50 per day. All destinations.<br />
Rent a mini van or limousine from 15 per day.<br />
Excerpted from:
CAR HIRE & TRANSFERS
With the federal election behind us, housing industry groups are now pushing the government to address issues that didn’t get any attention during the campaign. The Canadian Home Builders’ Association (CHBA) says it is pleased with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s election promise to provide a tax credit of up to $5,000 for first-time home buyers, but it wants the government to look at the long-overdue issue of indexing the GST rebate thresholds.
More here:
Associations Push to Put Housing Back on Canadian Government’s Radar
The “powers that be” seem intent on statistical manipulations to prove we are not in a recession. Smart consumers will ignore these financial semantics and tackle the “R”-word head on.
Source:
Start Acting “Recession” to Escape the Worst
A new study by Statistics Canada says 18 per cent of people who live in urban neighbourhoods in Canada are afraid to walk the streets after dark. The study, of people who live in communities of more than 50,000 people, represents about three million Canadians.
Go here to read the rest:
Crime in Canada: Are You Afraid to Walk in Your Neighbourhood After Dark?
More than two-thirds of Canadian households own their home, the highest rate of homeownership since the government started keeping track of that information.
Source:
Canadian Census Highlights Homeownership Trends
No matter where you turn on the Internet, figures abound when it comes to real estate. You can get an estimate of your house value or make an offer to a homeowner who might be tempted to move. Real estate buyers can gain access to most of the houses that are listed on the market and sometimes even the price of those that have sold.
Are these intoxicating Internet statistics impairing Orange County real estate buyers‘ market prowess? Many real estate advisors seem to think so.
I spoke with James Nocerino, a Connect2Agent member and real estate agent in Orange and Riverside Counties, about the changed relationship between real estate clients and real estate agents, the Internet’s involvement and real estate market challenges.
Rebecca Levinson: How long have you been working in the real estate industry and what is your observation of today’s real estate buyers and sellers in Orange County?
James Nocerino: I have been working in the industry for the past five years. My background is in sales and service–20 years worth. I have never seen another industry where you can put in so much time and not get compensated.
Also, I am seeing more real estate buyers now that take information from the Internet and are misled by it. Real estate on the Internet is misleading.
RL: Do you have any examples?
JN: Some of the search engines aren’t up to date on the Internet. They list “active real estate listings” in 
Orange and Riverside Counties, but these end up being out of date. Some of the listings are actually pending (have an offer to purchase and are waiting to close escrow).
RL: What is the value of the Internet to the consumer?
JN: (Laughing) I am still trying to figure that out. Most of my success as a real estate agent isn’t over the computer, but when I am in front of a real estate buyer. This is getting harder to do. I haven’t lost one real estate listing in my whole career when I have been able to meet face-to-face with a prospective real estate seller.
It’s important to understand that real estate is a service-oriented job. Knowledge is power. The more you know, the more professional you are. When it comes to real estate buyers and sellers, it’s all about them. A real estate agent should be asking a buyer or seller, “What do you need? How can I help you resolve your problem?”
RL: As there are higher rates of inventory and more houses on the real estate market for a longer period of time, are there any unique problems for real estate agents who take a real estate listing that has expired (had the house listed previously with another real estate agent and it didn’t sell during the listing period)? Are there different ways to market expired listings?
JN: You shouldn’t take the real estate listing if you don’t want to adjust the price. The price is the problem 99.9 percent of the time. House values in Orange and Riverside Counties were much higher a year ago. You need to see where the client’s real estate listing sits in the current market.
If your client won’t lower their price, you can still take the listing with a promise that you will review the price in 21 days if there hasn’t been activity. Real estate sellers need to know they can never be under market value on their real estate listing. If they were under market value, everyone would be bidding on their house.
As far as marketing expired listings, it is important to make sure the property is set up accurately for convenient showings. A real estate buyer who wants to see the house now should be able to have access. If not, they may not wait to see the property and will move on to another one. Consider having your seller offer an incentive to the buyer–carpet allowance, closing costs–and make sure that is in the notes in the listing.
RL: How is Orange County real estate?
JN: The REO (real estate owned) and short sale properties are hurting resales. Orange County real estate didn’t get hit as hard. Real estate buyers who look for properties in Orange County think they should wait because they think property values will come down further. Here’s an example: In the past two years, San Juan Capistrano house values went down 60 percent. In that same time period, property values in Anaheim Hills went up 70 percent–the median price range is $830,000.
Real estate buyers don’t see, nor study, all the statistics. They think that all Orange County house values are the same and that across the county, they should wait to buy a listing–that their ideal house, regardless of location, will go from $800,000 to $300,000, but it doesn’t work that way. House prices vary by city right down to neighborhood level.
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Posted by Rebecca D. Levinson
Canadians, bombarded by change on all fronts, may really need their summer “get away” time to prepare for more of the same — plus some — as the year rolls on.
Continued here:
Don’t Just Wait To See What Happens, Anticipate
Real estate -> territorial -> turf -> self-preservation -> wide knobby bike tires
Ok, so the timeline doesn’t work, but hear me out. I used to fix my own flat tires, now I rely on the bike shop so I don’t have to get dirty.
As I have mentioned on more than one occasion, government on a federal level seems unable to ease the credit/housing market pain. Congress can’t seem to move forward with housing relief in any meaningful way. The Federal Reserve missed the signs of growing housing stress and took action too little too late. The GSEs seemed to be part of the problem as enablers of poor lending practices (made painfully apparent with its agreement with NY AG Cuomo).
GSEs Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, plus FHA were designated as the housing saviors for Congress to rely on in the stimulous package. They’ve lost more than $15B in the past 6 months by my calculations and everyone is rooting for them.
On a monday, a comment by a Federal Reserve official and a Lehman analyst sent GSE stocks plummeting, an illustrating just how nervous investors are about the effectiveness of the GSEs role in all of this is.
Aside from letting time pass, I am fresh out of ideas, and I have resorted to incessant whining so watch out.
The problem is more complex than Congress can wrangle an effective compromise out of, and the OTS is still angry about the Cuomo deal with the GSEs.
It seems like a government solution’s time has passed.
On the bright side, the Tour de France, my all time favorite sporting event after March Madness, might have a prayer of being drug free this year or close to it. Of course, like housing, there is a turf war between the Tour de France and the International Cycling Union over their more stringent testing policy. Coincidentally, none of the usual cycling stars are in the race.
Perhaps an unknown, generic solution to housing may appear at some point. The current situation is over the heads (and handlebars (sorry)) of the usual government participants until they can get together.
Here is the original post:
[GSE Flat] Reality Sets In For Those Wide Knobby Tires
Always a pleasure. At least I put away my books.
Continued here:
[In The Media] The Real Deal Interview For 7-7-2008
In the recent issue of Businessweek, which has been spot on in its coverage of the housing market, interviews the inventor of mortgage-backed securities, Lew Ranieri.
The first pool of home loans was sold in 1977 and the technique is probably unfairly the source of the blame of the credit crunch we have now.
To accommodate the demographic demand, banks had to keep raising equity, which wasn’t realistic. Securitization allowed them to fund the loans off the balance sheet.
Basically create a pool of mortgages to investors who took this concept a step further and cut them into a smaller pieces and sold them off, effectively offloading the risk onto someone else, who usually didn’t understand the risk they were taking.
In my short time working with Wall Streeters last year I was told several times about the “nexus between fear and greed.” In real estate speak, a fair comparison would be the pendulum that swings between a buyer’s market and a seller’s market.
If you diminish fear, you get more greed. People got braver issuing this stuff. All the participants felt they could act merely as agents and collect fees. Nobody was prepared to say “I have liability.”
Ranieri sumarizes the situation with the following points:
The problem likely isn’t securitization, its overlaying appropriate regulation to create a rational and fair playing field. Of course, this reduces the rapid profit potential (or loss) and I suspect there will be another product developed in the next several years while securitization reverts to a more mundone financial technique and Wall Street seeks to reinvent the next “great thing.”
Read the rest here:
Father Of Securitization Discusses The Mother Of All Financial Messes
Taking a long weekend. Need to gear up for “incoming” (no battle worn, tattered and shot up Old Glory pun intended) family and friends for the annual Clambake Lobsterfest at Chez Miller.
Best wishes to everyone on this holiday.
Excerpted from:
[Matrix Time Out] 4th Of July, Old Glory, Stars & Stripes
Taking a long weekend. Need to gear up for “incoming” (no battle worn, tattered and shot up Old Glory pun intended) family and friends for the annual Clambake Lobsterfest at Chez Miller.
Best wishes to everyone on this holiday.
Original post:
[Matrix Time Out] 4th Of July, Old Glory, Stars & Stripes
Taking a long weekend. Need to gear up for “incoming” (no battle worn, tattered and shot up Old Glory pun intended) family and friends for the annual Clambake Lobsterfest at Chez Miller.
Best wishes to everyone on this holiday.
Continued here:
[Matrix Time Out] 4th Of July, Old Glory, Stars & Stripes
