This morning I was speaking with the head of our data team when he mentioned several listings that he has seen reduced in price by as much as 80 percent over the last year or so. Right now represents a truly great opportunity to find amazing deals. Sometimes it just takes patience. As we researched [...]Source: http://blog.foreclosure.com/2011/08/patience-how-to-find-the-best-place-to-live/
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President Barack Obama waves to the crowd after addressing Abraham Lincoln High School, Denver, Colorado, Sept. 27, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Today, President Obama visited the Abraham Lincoln High School in Denver, Colorado to talk about how the American Jobs Act will help modernize schools like Lincoln High all across the country. The President is proposing a $25 billion investment in school infrastructure to repair and upgrade at least 35,000 public schools because, as he said today, “Every child deserves a great school – and we can give it to them. We can rebuild our schools for the 21st century, with faster internet, smarter labs and cutting-edge technology.”
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) awarded the United States a ‘D’ for the condition of our public school infrastructure and the statistics are grim. The average public school building in the United States is over 40 years old, and many are much older. Schools spend over $6 billion annually on their energy bills, more than they spend on computers and textbooks combined. Forty three states reported that one-third or more of their schools do not meet all of the functional requirements necessary to effectively teach laboratory science, knowledge that is critical if we are to prepare our children for the jobs of the future. The Job Act’s school infrastructure funds can be used for a range of much needed emergency projects, including greening and energy efficiency upgrades, asbestos removal and modernization efforts to build new science and computer labs and upgrade the technology infrastructure in our schools. The President’s goal is to create a better, safer learning environment for all students:
Look for the shabbiest house on the nicest block in town. Spruce it up. Sell for profit. That’s a real estate investing recipe for success more often than not, especially if you can discern between money pits and money makers. When it comes to flipping foreclosures, or even purchasing a discounted distressed property as a [...]Source: http://blog.foreclosure.com/2011/09/fixer-uppers-how-to-find-that-foreclosure-diamond-in-the-rough/
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With the global economy in turmoil and real-estate wounds still festering across the country, there's trouble in paradise, as Shawn Langlois explains on The News Hub.Short Sale Waterfront Homes Real Estate Agent Foreclosure Homes
Home Sales Outlook Housing Starts President Obama Hope for home owners
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A quick update on previous post on oil: Goldman Sachs now estimates high oil prices -- if they stay at current levels -- will shave 1% of GDP next year. But that won't feed through to "core" inflation. Just a 2/10ths of a percentage point hit there.
Of course, a much higher oil spike has much larger impact.
Source: http://www.pbs.org/nbr/blog/2011/03/update_on_oil_economic_impacts.html
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Technology is a beautiful thing.�It can also be stressful and confusing, if you’re a little late to the game and unsure of where to start. Apps, smart phones, iPads and other innovations are all the rage these days. Real estate agents, sellers, buyers and investors are all taking advantage of the latest technology to expedite [...]Source: http://blog.foreclosure.com/2011/08/real-estate-apps-and-technology-for-homebuyers-and-investors/
Short Sale Waterfront Homes Real Estate Agent Foreclosure Homes
Source: http://www.zillow.com/blog/2011-09-28/conforming-mortgage-limit-set-to-drop-oct-1/
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First Lady Michelle Obama today spoke about the importance of supporting and retaining women and girls who choose careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and science, the so-called STEM disciplines.
“If we’re going to out-innovate and out-educate the rest of the world, then we have to open doors to everyone,” said Mrs. Obama during an event at the White House held to announce the NSF Career-Life Balance Initiative. “We need all hands on deck. And that means clearing hurdles for women and girls as they navigate careers in science, technology, engineering and math.”
First Lady Michelle Obama addresses the National Science Foundation's Career-Life Balance initiative event in the East Room of the White House Sept. 26, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)
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As part of the Administration’s Campaign to Cut Waste, OMB’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) released guidance today to reduce wasteful duplication in federal contracting. Too often in the past, agency spending for many commonly-used items was fragmented across multiple departments, programs, and components, which means that agencies often spent time writing hundreds of separate contracts, with pricing that varies widely. The result is a waste of limited staff time and energy, and prices that are not as good as they should be. At a Cabinet meeting earlier this month, Vice President Biden pointed out that by leveraging their purchasing power agencies can save taxpayer dollars. He directed each agency leader to conduct a waste and efficiency review, targeting unnecessary or inefficient spending in areas like contracting.
OFPP’s new guidance will aid agencies in eliminating waste and carrying out the reviews ordered by the Vice President by addressing concerns, raised by GAO and others, that agencies may be unnecessarily duplicating each other’s contracting efforts. This guidance requires agencies to prepare ”business cases” - analyses to ensure they aren’t duplicating an existing contract and that they are getting the best value for taxpayers- before they establish or renew certain interagency and agency-specific contracts for commonly-used goods and services, such as office supplies and wireless services. Doing this kind of due diligence and comparison-shopping is something that many families across the country do, and it is especially important that the Federal government weigh all the options before entering into large contracts and agreements whose scope would overlap contracts that already exist. In the business case, agencies are required to balance the value of creating a new contract against the benefit of using an existing one, and whether the expected return from investment in the proposed contract is worth the taxpayer resources. Insisting on that cost/benefit analysis in the business cases should go a long way to avoiding duplicative contracts.
Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/09/29/tackling-waste-contracting
With the global economy in turmoil and real-estate wounds still festering across the country, there's trouble in paradise, as Shawn Langlois explains on The News Hub.Celebrity Foreclosures Most Expensive Homes Luxury Home Prices Mortgage Rescue Scams
Source: http://realestate.msn.com/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=30712769
Over the last week, Yahoo!, MSN Latino, AOL Latino and HuffPost LatinoVoices have been collecting your questions for President Obama on issues like the economy, job creation, education and fixing our immigration system to meet our 21st century economic and security needs.
Today, President Obama will hear from you in a special Open for Question roundtable addressing questions that you submitted to Yahoo!, MSN Latino, AOL Latino and HuffPost LatinoVoices. The roundtable will be available in both English and Spanish.
Tune in to the discussion live at 11:25 a.m. EDT at WhiteHouse.gov/live and learn more about President Obama’s commitment to increasing opportunity for the Hispanic community and all Americans.
Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/09/28/watch-live-president-obama-s-open-questions-roundtable
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TruliaBlog/~3/XQ1jaZd__RQ/
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$3.50 a gallon gas tends to concentrate the economic mind. With civil war raging in Libya, oil prices are spiking and it's natural to wonder what impact all this will have on our fragile recovery.
The damage depends on several factors. First, how big is the shock? A 20% increase has less impact than a 33% spike. Second, how long does the spike last? If Libya stabilizes quickly, the damage may be slight. Third, how efficient is the economy in using energy? As the President pointed out today, we now get way more economic output for a barrel of crude than we did back in 70s and 80s. Mr. Obama noted we use 7% less oil today than we did in 2005.
With all that in mind, the economic rule of thumb for the U.S. is that a 33% spike in prices might shave around 3/10ths of a percentage point off GDP in the first year and 1/2 a percentage point the second. In a $15 trillion economy, that is roughly $75 billion. Painful, but not insurmountable.
Of course, Libya is only 2% of world oil supply. If we have a bigger disruption, $3.50 gas may start to look cheap.
Source: http://www.pbs.org/nbr/blog/2011/03/oil_prices_and_the_economic_ru.html
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Housing Starts President Obama Hope for home owners Fannie Mae
Source: http://www.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/Fighting-Erupts-in-Yemeni-Capital-130765578.html
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Dr. Biden and David Letterman refer to a map of Africa while discussing the Somalia famine relief efforts. (Photo from the Late Show with David Letterman)
Last Monday, the U.S. Agency for International Development, in partnership with the Ad Council, launched a public awareness campaign called “FWD” – standing for Famine, War, Drought - to draw the attention to the humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa.
The campaign is calling on Americans to FWD the Facts. FWD them to your friends, FWD them to your neighbors, FWD them to everyone you know.
A few of the facts:
Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/09/26/famine-horn-africa-be-part-solution
Sales of new single-family homes continue to drag along the bottom of their all-time range. In the most recent estimate released jointly by the Census Bureau and HUD, sales fell 2.3 percent to an annual rate of 295k (seasonally adjusted). Despite the amount of New Homes on market dropping to an all-time low of 162,000, the downtick in sales was enough to nudge months of supply slightly higher from 6.5 to 6.6 (months of supply have been either 6.5 or 6.6 since April).
Prices also declined, with the median price falling from $228k to $209k, it's lowest since October 2010. Average prices effectively matched their January 2009 lows, falling from $269k to $246k. With the exception of January 2009, you'd have to go back to October 2003 to find a lower average price.
Source: http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/09262011_new_home_sales.asp
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Majority Leader Eric Cantor just wrapped up a speech to students and faculty at Stanford today, lauding the private sector as a source of innovation in our economy. Absolutely true. We have the most dynamic private sector in the world.
You can find Cantor's speech here.
Cantor's point is that the people, not the government will generate jobs and growth:
Individual initiative in the private sector has been and always will be the wellspring of America's prosperity provided we don't stifle it.
Also true.
But Cantor, while hailing the innovation that comes out of Stanford's famous labs, failed to mention that federal and state governments lavished $36 billion on university research in 2009. The federal government is the largest source of university research dollars. And Stanford is one of the top universities in the country receiving federal dollars for research.
Turns out a lot of government money is involved in helping along private sector innovation.
Source: http://www.pbs.org/nbr/blog/2011/03/majority_leader_eric_cantor_sp.html
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Songwriter and former "American Idol" judge Kara DioGuardi has put her Studio City, California home on the market for about $10 million. Candace Jackson has details on Lunch Break.
This oped by Arne Duncan was originally published in the Denver Post
Imagine Steve Jobs trying to design the next generation of tablet computers using mainframe hardware from the Eisenhower administration. Or American automakers trying to out-engineer foreign competitors on an assembly line with equipment from the 1960s.
Unfortunately, just such antiquated facilities and barriers to innovation exist today in precisely the institutions that can least afford it: our nation's public schools. The digital age has now penetrated virtually every nook of American life, with the exception of many public schools.
The average public school building in the United States is more than 40 years old. Nationwide, cash-strapped school districts face an enormous $270 billion backlog of deferred maintenance and repairs.
On Tuesday, President Obama spoke at Abraham Lincoln High School in Denver about the need to urgently modernize public schools, and the importance of keeping teachers in the classroom, instead of in unemployment lines.
In the American Jobs Act, President Obama proposes to invest $30 billion to repair and modernize public schools and community colleges, putting hundreds of thousands of unemployed construction workers, engineers, boiler repairmen, and electrical workers back to work. He proposed an additional $30 billion to keep hundreds of thousands of educators facing potential layoffs and furloughs on the job.
Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/09/28/arne-duncan-presidents-plan-economy-and-education-0
Source: http://www.zillow.com/blog/2011-09-28/is-it-wise-to-rent-from-a-family-member-or-friend/
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Actor Richard Chamberlain has sold his oceanfront home in Maui for $13.8 million. Candace Jackson has details on Lunch Break.
House Speaker John Boehner this week called for "honest conversations" about Medicare.
Fair enough. Let's begin this honest discussion by admitting no one knows for sure how to reduce Medicare costs. And that's a problem, because Medicare expenditures are projected to grow almost 6% a year for the rest of the decade.
To understand why program costs are exploding, you just have to look through the annual Medicare Trustees report on the financial condition of the program. The 2011 report comes out on Friday, but it will surely have the same analysis you can find in all the other reports. If you want to engage in this honest discussion, a good place to start is on page 45 of the 2010 report. There you will find the four trends driving Medicare costs:
Let's take these one at a time. The number of Medicare beneficiaries will soar over the next 25 years, rising from almost 49 million this year to 85 million in 2035. The only way to cut costs here is to kick people out of the program. I don't see that happening.
Wages and prices are the next cost driver. Only two things can be done here. Lower wages for doctors and nurses or make them more productive -- meaning get more work out of doctors and nurses then you get today.
Congress tried to lower wages. It capped payments to physicians using a formula. But when the formula became too tough, forcing deep cuts in wages, Congress relented. Thus the "doc fix" was born. Meaning, Congress voted to pay doctors more. I am not arguing the merits of the formula here, just pointing out that the effort failed.
What about productivity? No surprise, it is harder to measure productivity in a hospital than it is in an auto plant. The hospital's product is good health and an outcome like that is hard to quantify. There is no dispute though that if you could accurately measure health care productivity, it would be low and perhaps even negative!
Some studies found as much as one-third of the spending in our health care system does not improve health, adding up to a staggering waste of more than $700 billion.
What can be done about this? The President has created a panel of experts to study ways to use new payment systems to reward innovation and more efficient treatment of disease.
A worthy goal, but as the Trustees Report points out, efforts to eliminate waste and increase productivity through payment and delivery system reforms:
"These outcomes are far from certain . . . . Many experts doubt the feasibility of such sustained improvements and anticipate that over time the Medicare price constraints would become unworkable and that Congress would likely override them, much as they have done to prevent the reductions in physician payment rates otherwise required by the sustainable growth rate formula in current law."
Republicans want to give consumers more power to choose efficient plans on the theory that this will reward innovation and efficiency. But what happens when the "premium support" payments that Republican propose fail to keep up with the cost of health care? The same thing that happened to physician payments. Congress would likely override them too.
The real problem in Medicare comes when we get to cost drivers three and four. Health care costs are driven by people using more services and more complicated services -- utilization and intensity. In other words, Medicare beneficiaries see health care providers more often and those health care providers are performing more expensive tests and surgeries using new technologies.
Now we are at the heart of the Medicare cost problem. If we're being honest, we must change the way we deliver and consume health care. This is not something that happens overnight or because a bill is written in Washington. It will require constant innovation and reform. We will have to get better at determining which treatments improve health and which do not.
The Brookings Institution's Barry Bosworth put it well in an email: "I think the basic problem is that we cannot say no."
Are we willing to change that? And if not, are we willing to pay for Medicare's rapid growth?
You can having an honest conversation on Medicare means confronting some very difficult questions.
Source: http://www.pbs.org/nbr/blog/2011/05/an_honest_discussion_on_medica.html
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Source: http://www.zillow.com/blog/2011-09-28/house-of-the-week-italian-gardens-in-vermont/
With the global economy in turmoil and real-estate wounds still festering across the country, there's trouble in paradise, as Shawn Langlois explains on The News Hub.Mortgage Rescue Scams Real Estate Vacation Properties Loans and Mortgages
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheRealEstateBookBlog/~3/ocPW5kwYNBo/
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/inmannews/~3/SAFlI2a82Us/walk-score-offers-tools-commuters
In 2008, I wrote about connections between normal accident theory -- which came from studies of nuclear accidents -- and the subprime mortgage crisis. In light of what is happening in Japan, I think it is worth revisiting normal accident theory. Yes, the crisis in Japan was caused by a natural disaster, but nuclear plants are systems and I am sure we will be learning a lot more about these systems in the days ahead. As we learn more, it will be useful to keep normal accident theory in mind.
So here is an excerpt from my original column which you can find here.
"The issue is not risk, but the issue is power, the power of elites to impose risk upon the rest of us." -- Charles Perrow, Yale Professor of SociologyNormal accident theory was developed by Yale Sociologist Charles Perrow after the debacle at Three Mile Island. Perrow's fundamental insight is that "accidents" are, in fact, normal events. Rather than blaming failure on a bolt from the blue, we should expect that in any complex system -- a nuclear reactor, the stock market, housing -- there will sometimes occur a series of unusual outcomes which, taken individually, will not trigger a horrific accident. But put them together and you get a crash.
In developing normal accident theory, Perrow found the "interconnectedness" inherent in big systems often led to "baffling" outcomes. In the case of the subprime meltdown, those interactions involved the Federal Reserve, the housing industry, global financial markets and the huge piles of investments managed by hedge funds and banks. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke recently cited these pools of cash as a factor contributing to the market turmoil.
Between 2000 and 2003, the Fed kept money cheap, lowering interest rates aggressively in order to head off a potentially debilitating spiral of deflation. That decision left these large pools of cash hard-pressed to find good investments. Investment banks saw this pool of capital and decided to create new products made from bundles of mortgages which would meet the demand for higher returns. [It is worth noting another complex interaction: US Treasuries were basically not available to these investors, because the Chinese buy so many of them in order to keep their currency fixed to the dollar.]
It all worked well for a while. But then, as Perrow's theory suggests will often occur, unfamiliar and unexpected things began to happen. Wall Street, seeing a large demand for these new financial products tied to mortgages, began to press home mortgage lenders to increase loan volumes. People with little or no credit began to get bigger and bigger loans. Seeing the success of the bundling of mortgages -- "securitization" is the technical term -- bankers began to use these same techniques in other markets. Loans for buyouts come to mind. Volumes increased and the system began to grow, becoming even more complicated.
Financial markets are also systems that are, as Perrow puts it, "tightly coupled." An action in one system directly impacts and depends upon an action in another part of the system. That is a fair description of the mortgage and securitization process. Loans have to be originated; they must be packaged and quickly sold into the secondary market. There is only one path to success here -- sales into the secondary market. No one wanted to keep these loans on their books, and indeed, seemed to have no contingency for doing so.
Once the pieces began to come apart, there was so little slack in the system no one could engineer a quick fix. Even today, the dispersed nature of bundled securities makes it difficult to rework loans into a structure that makes economic sense.
But it's not enough to understand that our financial and housing markets were flawed and subject to complex interactions. People were also at work here. Someone needed to strike the match and set the lighter fluid burning. In that sense, the housing collapse was not a normal accident. The engineers at Three Mile Island were unaware of the complex interactions between systems that threatened a meltdown. If they had been, Perrow says they would have acted quickly to prevent disaster.
Perrow thinks traders and bankers and mortgage brokers did not try to stop the financial meltdown, because financial markets offer substantial short-term gains, even if it's clear there will be dire long-term consequences. . . .
To get back to the original question: "Who allowed this to happen?" People up and down the system allowed this to happen, because there was no real mechanism to hold them directly responsible for their actions. Many will try to regulate our way back to a safer housing and financial system. I would suggest the best way to start thinking about that process is to focus on accountability. When something goes wrong in a nuclear power plant, the engineer is trying to save his own life along with the lives of those living nearby.
If we want to make sure this doesn't happen again, we need to make sure the people who might cause the next financial crisis are sitting next to the reactor when the yellow caution lights begin to flash.
Source: http://www.pbs.org/nbr/blog/2011/03/normal_accident_theory_revisit.html
The Sherman Minton Bridge on Interstate 64 in Louisville, Kentucky has been closed for more than three weeks because of an emergency repair situation. Louisville's mayor, Greg Fischer, calls that situation "Exhibit A" for why America needs to be investing in our infrastructure now, and why he supports President Obama's American Jobs Act:
There’s a real sense of urgency right now. A lot of people have been out of work for a long period of time. Their savings are gone or practically gone. So they see where they thought they were going to be fitting in the American dream, and saying, “that may not happen to me anymore right now.” And so there’s this feeling of hopelessness that we’ve got to address, we can’t wait until the next election cycle. This is something the American people need today.
See how other American mayors say the American Jobs Act will impact their cities
Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa of Los Angeles, California
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake of Baltimore, Maryland
Mayor Michael Hancock of Denver, Colorado
Mayor Mark Mallory of Cincinnati, Ohio
Every four years -- count on it -- some political reporter will write a story about the odds of a brokered convention. You know, a deadlocked presidential nomination battle that ends when the winner emerges from a smoke-filled room only to find our intrepid reporter has already broken the story!
What could be better for a political reporter than that?
Never happens, but reporters can dream -- and write about it.
The economics reporter must settle for something less cinematic. Our version of the "Odds for a Brokered Convention" story is the "Grand Bargain Struck on Deficit."
There is no smoke-filled room in this narrative, merely a drab conference center at Andrews Air Force Base or some other location where reporters can be kept a respectable distance away. The parties emerge late in the evening to pronounce a deal that turns, not on promises to the Florida delegation, but on adjustments to inflation measurements in the Social Security formula that better reflect the actual rate of change in the cost of living.
(Can you imagine anything better? I thought you could.)
Still, I get excited about talk of Grand Bargains and the odds of this happening -- never good to begin with -- are getting better. The tide is moving to deficit reduction. The last-hour deal to avert a government shutdown can be read as a sign of seriousness and progress.
Next, the President will lay out his long-run budget plan on Wednesday. House Republicans have staked out their position. Our grand bargainers are setting the table.
Or not. The problem with Grand Bargains is that they are rare, in part because they ask too much. Problems are rarely solved in a comprehensive way by a small crowd at the table. More likely, Democrats and Republicans will gather for years at many conference tables, cutting many small and medium-sized bargains along the way. At the end of this -- three years? five? -- we'll look back and declare it adds up to a Grand Bargain. If that happens, it will still be a great story.
Source: http://www.pbs.org/nbr/blog/2011/04/brokered_conventions_grand_bar.html
Every four years -- count on it -- some political reporter will write a story about the odds of a brokered convention. You know, a deadlocked presidential nomination battle that ends when the winner emerges from a smoke-filled room only to find our intrepid reporter has already broken the story!
What could be better for a political reporter than that?
Never happens, but reporters can dream -- and write about it.
The economics reporter must settle for something less cinematic. Our version of the "Odds for a Brokered Convention" story is the "Grand Bargain Struck on Deficit."
There is no smoke-filled room in this narrative, merely a drab conference center at Andrews Air Force Base or some other location where reporters can be kept a respectable distance away. The parties emerge late in the evening to pronounce a deal that turns, not on promises to the Florida delegation, but on adjustments to inflation measurements in the Social Security formula that better reflect the actual rate of change in the cost of living.
(Can you imagine anything better? I thought you could.)
Still, I get excited about talk of Grand Bargains and the odds of this happening -- never good to begin with -- are getting better. The tide is moving to deficit reduction. The last-hour deal to avert a government shutdown can be read as a sign of seriousness and progress.
Next, the President will lay out his long-run budget plan on Wednesday. House Republicans have staked out their position. Our grand bargainers are setting the table.
Or not. The problem with Grand Bargains is that they are rare, in part because they ask too much. Problems are rarely solved in a comprehensive way by a small crowd at the table. More likely, Democrats and Republicans will gather for years at many conference tables, cutting many small and medium-sized bargains along the way. At the end of this -- three years? five? -- we'll look back and declare it adds up to a Grand Bargain. If that happens, it will still be a great story.
Source: http://www.pbs.org/nbr/blog/2011/04/brokered_conventions_grand_bar.html
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Ed note: This has been cross-posted from the Office of Science and Technology's blog
Today is a good day for science and technology, a good day for scientists and engineers, and a good day for the nation.
As highlighted in a Washington Post op-ed this morning, the National Science Foundation (NSF) is announcing a major, 10-year initiative to provide greater work-related flexibility to women and men in research careers.
Among other advances, the NSF—the Nation’s major funder of research in engineering, computer science, mathematics, and other high-tech fields that will be central to U.S. economic growth in the years ahead—will allow researchers to delay or suspend their grants for up to one year in order to care for a newborn or newly adopted child or fulfill other family obligations.
That change and others being launched today at a White House event featuring First Lady Michelle Obama and NSF Director Subra Suresh aim to facilitate scientists’ reentry into their professions with minimal loss of momentum—especially women scientists, who, more often than not, are the ones who end up delaying or dropping their promising science careers because of competing family demands.
Today the White House also announced the winners of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)—the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their research careers.
There’s a great synergy between these two announcements because these up-and-coming researchers are tomorrow’s all-stars in the making, and about 40 percent of them are women. The Nation needs all of these high-achievers, including all those women, to stick with their innovative work—to make the discoveries and design the technologies that will keep America the international science and technology powerhouse it is today.
Finally, special kudos to NSF and others in the Administration, including staff here at OSTP, for using the convening power of the White House and the Obama Administration to encourage businesses and academic and professional organizations to adopt policies similar to those that NSF is putting into place. Several are today announcing ambitious efforts in coordination with NSF’s announcement. A list of them is available here.
Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/09/26/supporting-scientists-lab-bench-and-bedtime-0
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Source: http://www.zillow.com/blog/2011-09-28/house-of-the-week-italian-gardens-in-vermont/
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President Obama explains that states will have greater flexibility to find innovative ways of improving the education system, so that we can raise standards in our classrooms and prepare the next generation to succeed in the global economy.
Transcript | Download mp4 | Download mp3
Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/09/24/weekly-address-strengthening-american-education-system
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Source: http://www.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/Syrian-Troops-Storm-Central-City-130618308.html
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In this day of drop-dead prices on existing homes, why would anyone shell out for a new house? Amy Hoak on Lunch Break says there are a few good reasons why home buyers should not ignore new-home construction in their search.
Source: http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Trial-Underway-for-King-of-Pop-Doctor--130642033.html
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The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported this morning that mortgage applications rose slightly during the week ended September 16. The change was driven by increased applications for refinancing which offset a drop in purchase mortgage applications.
The seasonally adjusted Market Composite Index, a measure of application volume, increased 0.6 percent from the week ended September 9. On an unadjusted basis the Index rose 25.2 percent, over the previous week which was shortened by the Labor Day holiday. The four-week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index was down 3.15 percent.
The Refinance Index increased 2.2 percent but its four-week moving average lost 3.91 percent. The Purchase Index dropped 4.7 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis and 17.1 percent unadjusted compared to the previous four-day holiday week. The seasonally adjusted moving average was down 0.54 percent.
Refinancing constituted 78.3 percent of total mortgage applications during the week, up from 76.8 percent and adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) had a share of 6.7 percent compared to 7.3 percent a week earlier.
MBA reported that during the month of August, the investor share of purchase mortgage applications was at 5.7 percent, a slight increase from 5.5 percent in July. This change was led by an increase in the Pacific region. In addition, the share of purchase mortgages for second homes increased to 6.0 percent in August from 5.9 percent in July.
The average interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages (FRM) was unchanged from the previous week at 4.29 percent while points, including the origination fee, increased from 0.38 point to 0.41 point. The effective rate for these loans increased. The average contract rate for 15-year FRM decreased from 3.52 percent to 3.46 percent with points increasing to 0.45 from 0.38; the effective rate also decreased. Interest rates quoted for both the 15-year and 30-year FRM are for loans with conforming loan balances of $417,500 or less.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages designated as jumbo loans, i.e. with balances over $417,500, decreased to 4.55 percent from 4.57 percent, with points increasing to 0.46 from 0.42. The effective rate increased from the previous week.
The average rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages backed by the FHA decreased to 4.07 percent from 4.08 percent, with points increasing to 0.51 from 0.48. The effective rate increased from last week.
The rate for 5/1 ARMs decreased to 2.96 percent from 2.99 percent, with points increasing to 0.49 from 0.46; the effective rate increased from the previous week. All interest rate information is for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.
MBA also announced that their weekly report will reflect an enhanced survey sample which now covers more than 75 percent of all retail and consumer direct channel mortgage applications compared to 50 percent in earlier surveys. This change in sample size has been analyzed in parallel with data from the old sample since January to ensure comparability. As is apparent from the report this week, the new survey also gathers data on FHA, Jumbo, and 5/1 Hybrid ARM loans.
Purchase Index vs 30 Yr Fixed
Click Here to View the Purchase Applications Chart
Refinance Index vs 30 Yr Fixed
Click Here to View the Refinance Applications Chart
...(read more)
Source: http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/09212011_mortgage_applications.asp
Household Moving House Plans Home Warranties Commercial & Investment
Source: http://www.zillow.com/blog/2011-09-28/zsa-zsas-house-gets-2-1m-price-cut/
Freddie Mac Mortgage Crisis Real Estate Agents Housing Market
Source: http://www.homefinder.com/news/opening-doors/2011/08/08/six-tips-to-help-with-your-upcoming-move/
Short Sale Waterfront Homes Real Estate Agent Foreclosure Homes
HOPE Now, which was the first program initiated to deal with the mounting foreclosure problem in 2007, has reached a level of 4.86 million loan modifications. HOPE is a voluntary private sector alliance of mortgage servicers, investors, private mortgage insurers and non-profit housing and debt counselors.
HOPE reports there were 56,000 permanent modifications of proprietary loans during August, unchanged from the July rate. This brings the total of proprietary modifications since 2007 to 4.06 million. An additional 791,399 modifications were completed up to the end of July through the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), a joint initiative of the Departments of the Treasury and Housing and Urban Development.
To date this year HOPE has completed 690,000 permanent loan modifications. An estimated 478,000 of these were proprietary and 211,749 were completed under HAMP with August HAMP totals not yet tabulated.
Completed foreclosure sales increased in August from 65,000 to 68,000 (+5 percent) and foreclosure starts increased 18 percent from 185,000 in July to 218,000 in August. Sixty plus day delinquencies were up only slight from July figures at 2.81 million.
Reduced principal and interest payments accounted for approximately 83 percent of modifications in August and 38,000 loans were modified with reductions in principal and interest payments of more than 10 percent. Eight-three percent of proprietary modifications in August were fixed-rate with initial periods of five years or more.
Faith Schwartz, Executive Director, reports, "HOPE NOW's servicing partners continue to complete permanent loan modifications at a rate consistent with past months - in spite of tremendous negative impact of the continued housing and unemployment crisis. And, in cases where modifications are not possible, the industry is working hard to educate at-risk homeowners about the options available to them."
Source: http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/09282011_hope_now.asp
Luxury Home Prices Mortgage Rescue Scams Real Estate Vacation Properties
Last Thursday, the 2nd Annual Bullying Summit closed with demonstrable progress on a range of important topics surfaced during President Obama’s Bullying Prevention Summit last March. Our focus last March was on the challenges and opportunities in preventing cyberbullying. In the months that followed our roundtable, we are pleased to report on two commitments in response to the White House’s “Call to Action”:
Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/09/26/delivering-promise-innovation-help-prevent-cyberbullying
Source: http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=30660892
Interest Rates Celebrity Foreclosures Most Expensive Homes Luxury Home Prices
Source: http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/Tennis-Legends-Compete-on-Special-US-Tour-130664468.html
Short Sale Waterfront Homes Real Estate Agent Foreclosure Homes
Source: http://www.homefinder.com/news/opening-doors/2011/07/25/helpful-home-buying-apps/
Luxury Home Prices Mortgage Rescue Scams Real Estate Vacation Properties
House Speaker John Boehner this week called for "honest conversations" about Medicare.
Fair enough. Let's begin this honest discussion by admitting no one knows for sure how to reduce Medicare costs. And that's a problem, because Medicare expenditures are projected to grow almost 6% a year for the rest of the decade.
To understand why program costs are exploding, you just have to look through the annual Medicare Trustees report on the financial condition of the program. The 2011 report comes out on Friday, but it will surely have the same analysis you can find in all the other reports. If you want to engage in this honest discussion, a good place to start is on page 45 of the 2010 report. There you will find the four trends driving Medicare costs:
Let's take these one at a time. The number of Medicare beneficiaries will soar over the next 25 years, rising from almost 49 million this year to 85 million in 2035. The only way to cut costs here is to kick people out of the program. I don't see that happening.
Wages and prices are the next cost driver. Only two things can be done here. Lower wages for doctors and nurses or make them more productive -- meaning get more work out of doctors and nurses then you get today.
Congress tried to lower wages. It capped payments to physicians using a formula. But when the formula became too tough, forcing deep cuts in wages, Congress relented. Thus the "doc fix" was born. Meaning, Congress voted to pay doctors more. I am not arguing the merits of the formula here, just pointing out that the effort failed.
What about productivity? No surprise, it is harder to measure productivity in a hospital than it is in an auto plant. The hospital's product is good health and an outcome like that is hard to quantify. There is no dispute though that if you could accurately measure health care productivity, it would be low and perhaps even negative!
Some studies found as much as one-third of the spending in our health care system does not improve health, adding up to a staggering waste of more than $700 billion.
What can be done about this? The President has created a panel of experts to study ways to use new payment systems to reward innovation and more efficient treatment of disease.
A worthy goal, but as the Trustees Report points out, efforts to eliminate waste and increase productivity through payment and delivery system reforms:
"These outcomes are far from certain . . . . Many experts doubt the feasibility of such sustained improvements and anticipate that over time the Medicare price constraints would become unworkable and that Congress would likely override them, much as they have done to prevent the reductions in physician payment rates otherwise required by the sustainable growth rate formula in current law."
Republicans want to give consumers more power to choose efficient plans on the theory that this will reward innovation and efficiency. But what happens when the "premium support" payments that Republican propose fail to keep up with the cost of health care? The same thing that happened to physician payments. Congress would likely override them too.
The real problem in Medicare comes when we get to cost drivers three and four. Health care costs are driven by people using more services and more complicated services -- utilization and intensity. In other words, Medicare beneficiaries see health care providers more often and those health care providers are performing more expensive tests and surgeries using new technologies.
Now we are at the heart of the Medicare cost problem. If we're being honest, we must change the way we deliver and consume health care. This is not something that happens overnight or because a bill is written in Washington. It will require constant innovation and reform. We will have to get better at determining which treatments improve health and which do not.
The Brookings Institution's Barry Bosworth put it well in an email: "I think the basic problem is that we cannot say no."
Are we willing to change that? And if not, are we willing to pay for Medicare's rapid growth?
You can having an honest conversation on Medicare means confronting some very difficult questions.
Source: http://www.pbs.org/nbr/blog/2011/05/an_honest_discussion_on_medica.html
Household Moving House Plans Home Warranties Commercial & Investment
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/inmannews/~3/fpSkruVMrko/3-ways-buy-high-demand-real-estate-market
Freddie Mac Mortgage Crisis Real Estate Agents Housing Market
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheRealEstateBookBlog/~3/ZKwSKRa0H2E/
Every four years -- count on it -- some political reporter will write a story about the odds of a brokered convention. You know, a deadlocked presidential nomination battle that ends when the winner emerges from a smoke-filled room only to find our intrepid reporter has already broken the story!
What could be better for a political reporter than that?
Never happens, but reporters can dream -- and write about it.
The economics reporter must settle for something less cinematic. Our version of the "Odds for a Brokered Convention" story is the "Grand Bargain Struck on Deficit."
There is no smoke-filled room in this narrative, merely a drab conference center at Andrews Air Force Base or some other location where reporters can be kept a respectable distance away. The parties emerge late in the evening to pronounce a deal that turns, not on promises to the Florida delegation, but on adjustments to inflation measurements in the Social Security formula that better reflect the actual rate of change in the cost of living.
(Can you imagine anything better? I thought you could.)
Still, I get excited about talk of Grand Bargains and the odds of this happening -- never good to begin with -- are getting better. The tide is moving to deficit reduction. The last-hour deal to avert a government shutdown can be read as a sign of seriousness and progress.
Next, the President will lay out his long-run budget plan on Wednesday. House Republicans have staked out their position. Our grand bargainers are setting the table.
Or not. The problem with Grand Bargains is that they are rare, in part because they ask too much. Problems are rarely solved in a comprehensive way by a small crowd at the table. More likely, Democrats and Republicans will gather for years at many conference tables, cutting many small and medium-sized bargains along the way. At the end of this -- three years? five? -- we'll look back and declare it adds up to a Grand Bargain. If that happens, it will still be a great story.
Source: http://www.pbs.org/nbr/blog/2011/04/brokered_conventions_grand_bar.html
