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I expect to be unable to post over the next week, so I'll try to front a couple of interesting articles between now and next Saturday. From The Wall Street Journal, Jan 2009: Realtors' Former Top Economist Says Don't Blame the Messenger By NANCY KEATES FAIRFAX STATION, VA. -- On a recent weekday, David Lereah sat in the sunroom of his five-bedroom colonial house. The only sound was the yapping of his dog Maisy. Once one of the world's most-visible housing experts, Mr. Lereah is disconnected from his old life. The former chief economist for the National Association of Realtors says the group's top executives won't return his phone calls. He says he wasn't invited to the association's 100th birthday bash last May. Mr. Lereah, 55 years old, is one of many prognosticators who won professional accolades during the housing boom, only to see their reputations wither in the bust. Throughout 2005, when home prices in the U.S. hit their fifth consecutive annual re...

This is kind of an odd topic and I will keyboard my thoughts as I go, but there seemed to me a theme today as I drove back from Carlo's in Syracuse in the snow. I was listening to the international weekly round-up on Diane Rehm's show ( http://thedianerehmshow.org ) and of course hearing about the Middle East. Pressure there, all right. Who would believe that the people could rise up after all these years and throw out ruthless dictators. It continues to amaze me. Then the story from Rolling Stone ( www.rollingstone.com ) about the general who ordered his men to use psychological weapons (!) on Senators (!) to get them to approve funding. Now supposedly this was a balanced man who had come up through the ranks, and as they said on the show, was seen as a great candidate for future promotion. But here's where the pressure comes in. He was expected to perform, and he could not allow Senators to cut funding after seeing his troops. So he went around the law - until he w...

Crazy surveys come and go, in fact most are as meaningful as this blog, so much so, that if their arrival was in paper form and you'd run out of Sorbent, well at least your underwear wouldn't look like airport tarmac. The frustrations of the digital age - you can't wipe your date with a pdf. Some of these surveys do serve a purpose, occasionally they provide a window into the minds of the lunatics who you walk past on the street, who overtake you in your car, who sit next to you at work or manage the career of your favourite football player. Yep, this is the crazy country where mentoring a troubled seventeen year old girl means boning her and racking lines with her, and where taking out a home loan means you've got no clue what interest rate you're paying. Welcome to Australia. If you pay any attention to the scant numbers involved in a recent Mortgage Choice survey, barely 800, you'd disregard it as nonsense. Yet when the survey is done in a country where prop...

Thanks to LBCee for sending in today's property. Address: 242 PROSPECT Ave, Long Beach, CA 90803 Wishing Price: $1,350,000 BEDS: 2 BATHS: 0.75 SQ. FT.: 1,476 $/SQ. FT.: $915 LOT SIZE: 6,347 Sq. Ft. YEAR BUILT: 1923 COMMUNITY: Belmont Heights/ Alamitos Heights MLS #: P769097 ON REDFIN : 10 days DESCRIPTION: This lovely bungalow will captivate you from the moment you step inside with its warm character and special attention to detail. Enter the garden dolloped with colorful flowers and bushes. Don't miss the exterior walls which were painted with what looks like whipped cream. Walk up the Spanish tiled steps to the veranda and enter your dream home through the gorgeous custom wrought iron double doors. Step inside to see a large main living space with lots of sunlight. Don't miss the custom hand-cut 12' wood plank flooring. A separate dining area leads you to a beautifully remodeled chef's kitchen with granite countertops and backsplash and top of the lin...

Whist on a summer sojourn of sniffing out dishonesty and downright weaseldom, I've continued to stray away from Tasmania. Apologies to my four Tasmanian fans, but when weasels have to be smoked out, you pour some diesel down the hole and light it up - then hope the weasel doesn't come for you balls. None of this may modify anyone's behaviour, but at least if anyone stumbles in here looking for a penis enlargement in Devonport (yes, someone found me that way) they'll receive a quick lesson in ethical bypasses, before moving on and acquiring those extra inches. Over in Adelaide it's the same game as everywhere else. Reporters who shelled out for a degree to get their foot in the door, find the only skills they're using are the ones from the first three weeks of their first semester - in their first year - and that's from one subject. Had they realised this earlier, they could have dropped out before their first census date and saved themselves three years and ...

It was exciting today to realize that it was indeed Blog Update Day! I certainly feel less knowledgeable about the houses coming on and off the market even though I check my "hotsheet" every day. Writing it all out is very helpful - I am certain that's how I learn, by assimilating the information and then re-forming it. Currently there are 108 active listings in the Skaneateles area of the multiple listing service. Of these, 30 are in the village. Eight properties came on the market since my last report on January 30th, but only three were new listings. The others ranged from two in the mid-$100,000 to two waterfronts in the 1 million plus category and a large estate valued just under three million dollars. The three new ones were a ranch listed around $200,000, a small home for just over $100,000 and a lovely village colonial in the mid-$600,000. Four properties are marked contingent with one new one joining the other three. This is a lake rights home in need of s...

Last week I took a course in the process from contract to closing on homes. It was taught by an attorney, Rob Carter ( www.RobertCarterLaw.com ) who gave it a different perspective. I wanted to share one of his handouts.... This is entitled "Most Common FHA Repairs." I will paraphrase in some places, but for the most part it will be the sheet we received. It comes from Forsythe Appraisals' website:( http://www.forsytheappraisals.com ). An FHA appraisal seeks to determine if the house is able to be mortgaged by the Federal Housing Authority. As agents, we sometimes dread theses appraisals in older homes because they are super-critical it seems, at times. Reading this list, any mortgage appraiser would be looking at the same things, I think. The suggestion from Forsythe is that by using this list you will be forewarned, and therefore can make the repairs prior to even marketing the house, much less getting as far as an appraisal. If the home was built prior to 1978, ...