San Jose Mercury News - Organizing your move

Organizing your move

Jacksonville FL real estate listings and homes for sale, home buying, home selling information – List 4 Less – Blog, Blogging

here is a blog by Thomas Love in Jacksonville Fla anyone looking to buy in this market should give him a call if you are looking for great rental homes check out his sister site as he has some great buys on there the key that makes him a great realtor is he is also an invester so he see's side of things others dont thats why i like his blog and his websites are very professional if you are also looking for a great first home starter home he is also the guy to see he works in all areas of Jacksonville and also knows the Springfield area

Jacksonville FL real estate listings and homes for sale, home buying, home selling information – List 4 Less – Blog, Blogging

Now might be the best time for real estate investors to buy!

February 1st, 2008 4:14 PM

In addition to being a real estate agent, I am also an investor. I would have to say that now is probably one of the best times to buy investment houses that we have seen in recent times since prices have steadied and interest rates have dropped to such low levels. If you are an investor looking for properties to buy and to hold onto, there are great opportunities in the Jacksonville, and Northeast Florida market.

The concept is clear and decidedly simple. You buy when everyone is trying to sell, and sell when everyone is trying to buy. According to this basic principle, now would be the time to buy! I spend a lot of time looking at houses in the Jacksonville market and identifying great investment opportunities, and I specialize in bringing some of the best opportunities to the attention of investors who have signed up to be in my network.

As the housing market slows, it is usually accompanied by a surge in the rental market. Why not take advantage of this trend and add more rental properties to your portfolio? You will want a property that will provide ample equity, and that will have a mortgage payment that is as far below the marketable rent as possible. This is simply easier to do in today's market. Take a look at my sister web site at www.homesforjax.com for information on fantastic investment opportunities offered right now in the jacksonville real estate market. As always, feel free to contact me with any questions!

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Posted by Thomas Love on February 1st, 2008 4:14 PM

Bush sees 'troubling signs' for economy - Yahoo! News

Bush sees 'troubling signs' for economy - Yahoo

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - President Bush prodded Congress to pass an economic stimulus package Friday, hinting to "troubling signs" in a new report that ended a 52-month streak of national job growth.

Bush was in the nation's heartland pressuring Congress to boost the sagging economy with a plan of tax rebates for millions of people and tax breaks for companies. The White House-backed economic rescue deal in the House has hit roadblocks in the Senate.

"Inflation's low. Productivity's high, but there are certainly some troubling signs, serious signs that the economy is weakening and that we've got to do something about it," said Bush, who spoke just hours after the Labor Department reported that employers cut 17,000 jobs in January.

It was the first such reduction in more than four years and a fresh sign that the economy might be stalling. And it ended Bush's repeated claim — made most recently in his State of the Union address — that "America has added jobs for a record 52 straight months."

On Friday, at Hallmark Cards Inc., Bush said, "A serious matter is that for the first time in 52 months we didn't create jobs."

"And so the question is, what do we do about it? ... I do think government has a responsibility. I think government can take decisive action to help us deal with this period of uncertainty," he said.

Bush said the economy was going through "a rough patch."

Trying to get an economic growth package through the Senate, he gave perhaps the gentlest push of his administration, in a shift in rhetoric.

"I appreciate the fact that the Senate is trying to work through this as quickly as possible," he said. "I'm just urging them to get it done — because the sooner this package makes it to my desk ... the better off our economy is going to be."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the troubling jobs report "is yet more evidence that President Bush's assessment of the state of our economy is greatly misguided."

The president's speech on the economy capped three days of travel to highlight themes in his State of the Union address and raise an estimated $4.7 million for the Republican Party and its candidates in California, Nevada, Colorado and Missouri. After visiting Hallmark, Bush went to raise money for Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., who is in a tough re-election race.

There have been numerous signs that the economy is tough shape.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that consumer spending was up just 0.2 percent in December, the weakest in six months. Also, the Labor Department reported that the number of laid-off workers filing applications for unemployment benefits increased by 69,000 last week.

And overall, the economy nearly stalled in the fourth quarter of last year with a growth rate of just 0.6 percent, capping its worst year since 2002.

Both the president and Congress are anxious to show some action to a frustrated public.

The House quickly adopted a $161 billion economic stimulus plan this week that would send $600-$1,200 rebates to more than 100 million Americans in hopes they would spend the money quickly and give the flagging economy a shot in the arm.

Senate Democrats are pushing to add elements to the House plan that they say will add a bigger boost, including smaller rebates that would go to more people such as low-income older Americans, wealthier taxpayers and disabled veterans, plus heating aid for the poor. The Senate plan, estimated to cost $204 billion, also would extend unemployment benefits.

Bush spoke after taking a tour of Hallmark, which is based in Kansas City. He stepped in a veritable kids' dream — an interactive playhouse filled with art supplies and colorful props. The president seemed to love it.

As kindergartners buzzed from station to station, Bush patted the kids on their heads and leaned way over so he could talk to them face to face. When he sat down to make his own card with a red marker, Bush looked at reporters and asked, "Who deserves a valentine?"

Later, when Bush took the podium, he appeared to have a little glitter on his face, the product of his visit to the children's center. "I am still trying to recover from the kindergarten experience," Bush said. "You talk about sapping your energy."

! News

Payrolls drop for first time since 2003 - Yahoo! News

bad news as people are losing there jobs and homes -now is the time to save not spend i know with bills and everything it is hard to do but now more then anything time it is time to save i for one also havce a hard time saving but it must be done i watched a guy the other day that said before 9-11 he told people to save for up to 6 months not after 9-11 he sayd to save for close to 1 year to 24 months thats a lot of money !
Payrolls drop for first time since 2003 - Yahoo! News

LOWER RENT

Home Sellers' Pain Is Renters' Gain

by Nick Timiraos
Thursday, January 17, 2008provided by

There's one bright side to the housing crisis: some lower rents.

The regions hardest hit by the housing downturn have seen ailing builders, rising foreclosure rates and a glut of unsold homes, amid other signs of distress. But there are also stories like Laura Evans's.

The 38-year-old elementary-school teacher moved to Stuart, Fla., from Orlando with her husband and baby last fall. Looking for a rental apartment, they were pleasantly surprised: There were plenty of choices at lower-than-expected prices, thanks to the multitude of owners trying to rent units they couldn't sell.

"When we got down here, we shopped and shopped around," says Ms. Evans, who rented a new 2,200-square-foot, three-bedroom townhouse with a pool and a playground for $1,150 per month. The owners allowed the couple to move in with their dog, despite a prohibition against pets.

More from The Wall Street Journal Online: • Lenders Rethink Home-Equity Loans • Some Home Fix-Up Tasks Are Worth Skipping • High Design for Low-Income Housing

To be sure, rents have continued to rise steadily in many markets. And the housing downturn means that more people are looking for rentals as well, increasing demand. Many would-be buyers have become renters because they can't get a mortgage in today's tight credit environment, or because they're sitting tight in hopes that prices drop further.

But in the regions hit hardest by the subprime crisis, finding a rental apartment is easier and, in some cases, cheaper than it was before the crunch. Some homeowners forced out by foreclosure are finding rental deals that are at "discounts of 50% to 70% off what they were paying on their mortgages," says Brenda F. Gerdes, who owns Management Specialists Inc. in Port St. Lucie, Fla.

Vacancies have risen in 29 markets in the fourth quarter of 2007, including Las Vegas, Palm Beach, Memphis, Orange County, Calif., and Orlando, according to Reis Inc., a New York real-estate research firm. Ron Witten, a Dallas-based housing analyst, estimates there are 760,000 vacant condos and homes for sale nationwide beyond what the market could normally carry, in addition to a surplus of 350,000 vacant rental properties.

Behind the trend are tens of thousands of unsold condominium units that are being dumped on markets such as South Florida, Las Vegas and Phoenix. While thousands of single-family homes also are coming on the market, renters prefer condos to houses, which typically have more expensive upkeep. "Tenants have to pick up more of the bills," says Artur Ciesielski, a Phoenix real-estate agent.

Pulled From Market

More than 4,200 units have been pulled out of the for-sale condo market and put into the rental pool in Florida's Palm Beach County alone, according to Mary Grace Breeding, president of McCabe Research & Consulting in Deerfield Beach. Those units include the 216-unit Aventine at Boynton Beach and the 450-unit Mizner Court at Broken Sound in Boca Raton, where rents range from $975 to $2,000.

Nor are so-called condo reversions limited to the Sunbelt. In Brooklyn, N.Y., two luxury condo developments converted to rental apartments last spring, including 99 Gold Street, which had begun accepting sales contracts less than a year earlier. Rentals at the 88-unit building range from $2,000 a month for 700-square-foot studios to $5,500 for two-bedroom penthouses.

Even healthy markets are beginning to feel downward pressure on rents. A disappointing employment report earlier this month and other signs of a possible recession don't bode well for landlords, since people who lose their jobs will resist paying higher rents or will move in with friends or family. Many displaced homeowners forced out by foreclosures also are doubling up, says Mark Obrinsky, chief economist at the National Multi-Housing Council.

That means that landlords are seeing what should be one of their strongest markets in years weakened by the increasing supply of unsold properties entering the rental market. "Shadow inventory is coming out and competing against us for rentals," says Richard Campo, chief executive of Camden Property Trust, a Houston-based real-estate company that owns 70,000 apartments. That is weakening landlords' pricing power, he says, because homeowners are less concerned about getting full market value.

Teresa Opara tried to sell her three-bedroom home in northeast Phoenix last year but got tripped up by the credit crunch. She found a buyer willing to pay her $310,000 asking price. But at the last minute, she says, the buyer's bank changed the lending requirement. "They just said they needed more down payment," says the 57-year-old accountant. Instead, she's renting the house for $1,300 a month, which is what she needs to pay her mortgage.

In five struggling markets in Florida, average rents have actually declined since the third quarter. The Tampa-St. Petersburg area saw the largest drop. Average effective rent, which includes free rent and other landlord concessions, was $784 a month at the end of the fourth quarter, down 0.6 percentage point from the previous quarter, according to Reis. In 38 other markets, including Chicago, Boston and St. Louis, rents rose during the fourth quarter, but by less than the national vacancy growth rate of 0.9%. (The rents cited by Reis are a "blended average rent" from complexes with 20 or more units in California and Arizona and 40 or more units in the rest of the country.)

Savvy renters in struggling markets are playing landlords off each other. Ms. Evans, of Stuart, Fla., says the same day she and her husband leased their apartment for $1,150 a month, the owner of a bigger home they had looked at called to lower his asking price from $1,500 to $1,200. "If he had called earlier, we would have taken it," she says.

Trading Up

Christine Provencio, a 23-year-old legal secretary in Phoenix, considered buying a home with her fiance but instead decided to trade a $580-per-month one-bedroom for a $740-a-month two-bedroom in the same four-unit Phoenix home she has lived in for two years.

The news isn't gloomy for landlords everywhere. Rents are rising strongly and vacancies are falling in many markets, particularly those with healthy economies that haven't been affected severely by the carnage in the housing industry. Vacancy rates fell in 47 of the 79 markets tracked by Reis, and average rents saw their largest fourth-quarter increase since 2000.

In San Francisco, rents grew 2.7% in the fourth quarter to $1,761 a month. New York City, which has the highest average rent in the country -- $2,717 a month -- saw a 2% rise.

Vacant units fell by 0.9 percentage point to 5.3% in Tacoma, Wash., the biggest drop in the country. In addition, higher rates and fewer financing options for jumbo mortgages -- those bigger than $417,000 -- have kept vacancy rates high in major cities like New York and Los Angeles, where home buyers typically need jumbo loans.

Slow Correction

Housing experts predict that many would-be home buyers may be forced to rent for years because the relationship between rents and home prices are out of whack. Rents remained at around 5% of home prices throughout much of the postwar period, but beginning in 1996, home-price growth rapidly outpaced rent growth. By the end of 2006, home prices had more than doubled while average rent was up just 48%, driving down the annual rent/price ratio to 3.48%.

A study by one former and two current Federal Reserve economists suggests that home prices will have to fall by 15% over the next five years while rents increase by 4% a year to return that rent/price ratio to normal.

Write to Nick Timiraos at nick.timiraos@wsj.com

Salt Lake Real Estate Blog: Real Estate Videos

Salt Lake Real Estate Blog: Real Estate Videos

SECTION 8 HOUSING ISSUES

SECTION 8 HOUSING ISSUES



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RentVine Site Down BUT UP AND RUNNING AGAIN !

RentVine Site Down For A Few Hours Today

DID WWW.RENTVINE.COM GO DOWN ?

TODAY I TYPED IN THERE NAME TO READ THEIR BLOG AND IT SAYS INVALD REQUEST BAD HOST IS HE CHANGING HOST - WELL DAVE HOPE YOU GET UP AND RUNNING MISS THE BLOG -I HAVE BEEN HAVING SOME PROBLEMS ON MY WEBSITE TOO WITH BRANDWITDH AND ALL LOOK TO SEE YOU ON LINE SOON !
TIME IS 4:00 PM HERE IN JACKSONVILLE

Storms Ahead for Real Estate Sites | Future of Real Estate Marketing

Storms Ahead for Real Estate Sites Future of Real Estate Marketing