Pending home sales index rises again in June
...homebuilder D.R. Horton Inc. said its fiscal third-quarter losses shrank from the year-ago period, as it took smaller charges against the falling values of its land and unsold homes.
D.R. Horton's results followed similar numbers from Pulte Homes Inc. and Centex Corp., which reported quarterly earnings Monday that showed new-home orders picked up during the first half of the year.
Lawrence Yun, the Realtors group's chief economist said he expects existing home sales to gradually rise over the balance of the year, with conditions varying around the country.
"It appears home sales are on a sounder footing and inventory is gradually being absorbed," he said.
Regionally, the pending home sales index jumped 7.1 percent to 100.7 in the South and 2.9 percent to 100.4 in the West. The index inched up 0.4 percent to 81.2 in the Northeast, and up 0.8 percent to 89.9 in the Midwest.
Showing posts with label real estate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label real estate. Show all posts
State halts tax-credit program...
California is cutting off applications for a tax credit that was designed to promote sales of new homes.The Franchise Tax Board said it would stop taking applications for the tax credits at midnight Thursday.The program offered $100 million in credits to about 10,000 consumers who buy homes that have never been occupied. The credit is equal to 5% of the purchase price or $10,000, whichever is less.
Buyers must occupy the homes for at least two years immediately after the purchase.The tax board expects to have received 12,000 applications.
But help is on the way …
AB 765 (Caballero) Income tax credit: purchase: principal residence.
Analysis
The Personal Income Tax Law authorizes a credit against the taxes imposed by that law in an amount equal to the lesser of 5% of the purchase price or $10,000 in the case of the purchase of a qualified principal residence on and after March 1, 2009, and before March 1, 2010, but not to exceed an aggregate limitation of $100,000,000 for all credits allowable.
Existing law requires a certification that the residence has never been occupied be provided to the Franchise Tax Board within one week of the sale of the qualified principal residence. This bill would allow a taxpayer to reserve a credit with the Franchise Tax Board and would require that the certification be provided to the Franchise Tax Board within one week of the close of escrow of the qualified principal residence. This bill contains other related provisions.
California is cutting off applications for a tax credit that was designed to promote sales of new homes.The Franchise Tax Board said it would stop taking applications for the tax credits at midnight Thursday.The program offered $100 million in credits to about 10,000 consumers who buy homes that have never been occupied. The credit is equal to 5% of the purchase price or $10,000, whichever is less.
Buyers must occupy the homes for at least two years immediately after the purchase.The tax board expects to have received 12,000 applications.
But help is on the way …
AB 765 (Caballero) Income tax credit: purchase: principal residence.
Analysis
The Personal Income Tax Law authorizes a credit against the taxes imposed by that law in an amount equal to the lesser of 5% of the purchase price or $10,000 in the case of the purchase of a qualified principal residence on and after March 1, 2009, and before March 1, 2010, but not to exceed an aggregate limitation of $100,000,000 for all credits allowable.
Existing law requires a certification that the residence has never been occupied be provided to the Franchise Tax Board within one week of the sale of the qualified principal residence. This bill would allow a taxpayer to reserve a credit with the Franchise Tax Board and would require that the certification be provided to the Franchise Tax Board within one week of the close of escrow of the qualified principal residence. This bill contains other related provisions.
Project going south? You need a Paladin.
Have Paladin will travel
Champion-for-Hire
A knight without armor in a savage land.
Ten Things You MUST Measure on Your Website
Investing more in your website without measuring how well it's working is simply gambling. You may as well be flipping a coin. How should you measure online success? Here are the ten things you must measure in order to validate your investment.
1. How Fast Is It?
2. How Often Does It Spit Up or Fall Over?
3. How Many People Show Up?
4. Which Are the Most Popular Pages?
5. Which Way Did They Go?
6. What Are They Looking For?
7. How Did They Get Here?
8. Did We Achieve Our Goals?
9. Are They Happy About Their Visit?
10. Are We Using Our Own Metrics?
Set goals. Make changes. Track results, Repeat. Those are the instructions for a bigger, better, faster, stronger website. Full Article
In the News
NAR Foresees Increase in Home, Condo Sales by Summer as a Result of Very Favorable Buying Conditions; Inventory is Almost Back to Normal
Washington, D.C.--Existing-home sales declined in January with some buyers waiting to see how details of the economic stimulus package would affect them, according to the National Association of Realtors. At the same time, inventories fell to a two-year low.
NLIHC Study Highlights Plight of Renters in Market Going Through High Number of Foreclosures
Washington, D.C.--While there has been ample coverage on foreclosures and how they are affecting buyers, the impact of foreclosed homes on renters is often ignored.
What's in the Stimulus for You?
Companies, industries, and individuals in the U.S. are wondering how the stimulus package will affect their bottom line, market, and wallet.
HUD Allocates More Than $10 Billion of Recovery Act Funding One Week After Bill Signing
1. How Fast Is It?
2. How Often Does It Spit Up or Fall Over?
3. How Many People Show Up?
4. Which Are the Most Popular Pages?
5. Which Way Did They Go?
6. What Are They Looking For?
7. How Did They Get Here?
8. Did We Achieve Our Goals?
9. Are They Happy About Their Visit?
10. Are We Using Our Own Metrics?
Set goals. Make changes. Track results, Repeat. Those are the instructions for a bigger, better, faster, stronger website. Full Article
In the News
NAR Foresees Increase in Home, Condo Sales by Summer as a Result of Very Favorable Buying Conditions; Inventory is Almost Back to Normal
Washington, D.C.--Existing-home sales declined in January with some buyers waiting to see how details of the economic stimulus package would affect them, according to the National Association of Realtors. At the same time, inventories fell to a two-year low.
NLIHC Study Highlights Plight of Renters in Market Going Through High Number of Foreclosures
Washington, D.C.--While there has been ample coverage on foreclosures and how they are affecting buyers, the impact of foreclosed homes on renters is often ignored.
What's in the Stimulus for You?
Companies, industries, and individuals in the U.S. are wondering how the stimulus package will affect their bottom line, market, and wallet.
HUD Allocates More Than $10 Billion of Recovery Act Funding One Week After Bill Signing
Marketing Moves to the Blogosphere
Business Model Shifts to Engage Customers Online
By Sarah Halzack
Washington Post Staff Writer
Jason Calacanis, who got into blogging early and big, has quit.
He co-founded a network of blogs called Weblogs in 2003, before the medium cracked the mainstream, and then sold it to AOL in 2005, working there until 2007. Today he is chief executive of Mahalo, a search engine guided by editors rather than algorithms.
After five years of writing on tech industry topics as well as personal ones and building an audience of 10,000 to 20,000 daily visitors, Calacanis said he got tired of all the nasty commenters and opportunistic "link-baiters," people who post just to promote their own blogs.
So he signed off, leaving the blogosphere to others. One group that has been firing up its keyboards is corporate types. Of the approximately 112.5 million blogs on the Web, almost 5,000 are corporate, according to blog indexer Technorati. Calacanis blogged to start conversations and be a part of a virtual community, but corporate bloggers are in it for other reasons: talking directly to customers or giving a personal touch to a big business.
"It's a phenomenal promotion vehicle for a company, or a great crisis tool or a great customer service tool," said Geoff Livingston, a public relations strategist and social media expert.
Bethesda's Honest Tea launched its blog in late 2005 as a way to get close to customers. With a name like Honest Tea, chief executive Seth Goldman said, "we're trying to be as open and disclose as much information as we can." When the company announced that Coca-Cola would acquire a 40 percent interest in the brand, many of Honest Tea's customers who opposed the agreement took their complaints to the blog.
"We gave a very loud voice to the people who said they weren't happy about this decision," Goldman said.
Goldman then took one of the most thoughtful, detailed customer criticisms and responded to each point. Even if readers still didn't agree, "The blog at least helps people see how we think about it," Goldman said.
Kathleen Matthews, who heads global communications at Marriott International, came up with the idea for chief executive Bill Marriott's blog. He saw it as a good way to communicate.
"That's the importance of public relations, of advertising, of everything we do," Marriott said.
"And this is just another channel." Marriott also likes how the blog shows that he's "a human just like everybody else." He sometimes breaks from writing about corporate issues to post about the movies he sees on Saturdays with his wife.
Marriott has thousands of employees around the world, who make up about one-fifth of the blog's readership and comment frequently. "It is the virtual substitute for Bill Marriott visiting every hotel," Matthews said.
He's not your typical blogger -- he doesn't use computers. Instead, he dictates entries into a recorder and a staff member transcribes and posts them. The audio is also on the site, which averages about 6,000 visitors per week and has had more than 600,000 total visitors since its inception in January 2007.
Marriott has made more than $5 million in bookings from people who clicked through to the reservation page from Marriott's blog.
Viget Labs, a Falls Church Web consulting firm, began a blog in 2006. In his field, it's practically obligatory, chief executive Brian Wynne Williams said. "If we didn't blog," he said, "people would start to wonder about us."
The one blog has since expanded to five, each focused on a division of the company.
Wynne Williams said Viget's blogs, which target industry peers, have had a "huge impact on recruiting."
"Anybody that we've hired in the past couple of years, I think any of them would tell you that they read the blog heavily to get a sense of our people," he said.
Designer Samantha Warren said her decision to take a job with Viget was sealed by the blog. "The design was fantastic. It just made me feel like, 'I want to be part of something this good,' " she said.
Smaller businesses are experimenting, too, since a blog can be an economical way of getting attention.
"It's a small business, so we don't have a marketing budget," said Robb Duncan, who began a blog for his Georgetown gelato shop, Dolcezza, about two years ago. "We've never done any ads or promoting because we can't afford it. So I guess it's kind of guerrilla marketing, and it's free."
When his second store opened in Bethesda in July, Duncan used his blog to advertise an opening night ice cream giveaway. He ended up serving over 300 gallons of ice cream to more than 1,000 customers that night.
Though blogs may not always yield immediate results, they can be part of a "halo effect" that ultimately gives a business a bigger online presence, says Debbie Weil, a corporate blogging consultant and author of "The Corporate Blogging Book." "I think that the really important thing about using a blog as a business strategy is that usually you cannot connect the dots directly from blogs to revenue," Weil said.
The strategy part is important because a blog may not work for every business. Before starting one, companies have to "make sure that the blog fits in with the existing culture of the company," said Walter J. Carl, a professor of communications at Northeastern University who has studied corporate blogging. He says a blog is a "really bad idea" for companies that are secretive or tend toward non-disclosure.
As Weil said, "Some brands are just not hip, informal, conversational."
For well-read blogs with active reader feedback boards, there are tough decisions about how to deal with comments that are off-topic, negative or downright offensive. Marriott's comment section is moderated, which means no comments go up until someone approves them.
Matthews says they do not remove a comment simply because it's negative, but they do cut those not germane to Marriott's original post.
Wynne Williams, on the other hand, does not moderate comments on Viget's site, because he said it "stifles the discussion." In fact, Viget's blog for its Web strategy division has a post titled
"You're Moderating Your Site to Death."
Calacanis now focuses on a personal e-mail list, not directly affiliated with Mahalo, with about 4,000 subscribers. With the list, he said, "I have a much tighter relationship with people." He said it's more intimate and generates more substantive feedback than his blog did.
"It's basically become a mudpit and it's very loud," he said of the blogosphere. In his final post, he wrote, "Today the blogosphere is so charged, so polarized, and so filled with haters hating that it's simply not worth it.
But "the limitation of the medium is the strength of the medium," he said. "It's open to everybody."
By Sarah Halzack
Washington Post Staff Writer
Jason Calacanis, who got into blogging early and big, has quit.
He co-founded a network of blogs called Weblogs in 2003, before the medium cracked the mainstream, and then sold it to AOL in 2005, working there until 2007. Today he is chief executive of Mahalo, a search engine guided by editors rather than algorithms.
After five years of writing on tech industry topics as well as personal ones and building an audience of 10,000 to 20,000 daily visitors, Calacanis said he got tired of all the nasty commenters and opportunistic "link-baiters," people who post just to promote their own blogs.
So he signed off, leaving the blogosphere to others. One group that has been firing up its keyboards is corporate types. Of the approximately 112.5 million blogs on the Web, almost 5,000 are corporate, according to blog indexer Technorati. Calacanis blogged to start conversations and be a part of a virtual community, but corporate bloggers are in it for other reasons: talking directly to customers or giving a personal touch to a big business.
"It's a phenomenal promotion vehicle for a company, or a great crisis tool or a great customer service tool," said Geoff Livingston, a public relations strategist and social media expert.
Bethesda's Honest Tea launched its blog in late 2005 as a way to get close to customers. With a name like Honest Tea, chief executive Seth Goldman said, "we're trying to be as open and disclose as much information as we can." When the company announced that Coca-Cola would acquire a 40 percent interest in the brand, many of Honest Tea's customers who opposed the agreement took their complaints to the blog.
"We gave a very loud voice to the people who said they weren't happy about this decision," Goldman said.
Goldman then took one of the most thoughtful, detailed customer criticisms and responded to each point. Even if readers still didn't agree, "The blog at least helps people see how we think about it," Goldman said.
Kathleen Matthews, who heads global communications at Marriott International, came up with the idea for chief executive Bill Marriott's blog. He saw it as a good way to communicate.
"That's the importance of public relations, of advertising, of everything we do," Marriott said.
"And this is just another channel." Marriott also likes how the blog shows that he's "a human just like everybody else." He sometimes breaks from writing about corporate issues to post about the movies he sees on Saturdays with his wife.
Marriott has thousands of employees around the world, who make up about one-fifth of the blog's readership and comment frequently. "It is the virtual substitute for Bill Marriott visiting every hotel," Matthews said.
He's not your typical blogger -- he doesn't use computers. Instead, he dictates entries into a recorder and a staff member transcribes and posts them. The audio is also on the site, which averages about 6,000 visitors per week and has had more than 600,000 total visitors since its inception in January 2007.
Marriott has made more than $5 million in bookings from people who clicked through to the reservation page from Marriott's blog.
Viget Labs, a Falls Church Web consulting firm, began a blog in 2006. In his field, it's practically obligatory, chief executive Brian Wynne Williams said. "If we didn't blog," he said, "people would start to wonder about us."
The one blog has since expanded to five, each focused on a division of the company.
Wynne Williams said Viget's blogs, which target industry peers, have had a "huge impact on recruiting."
"Anybody that we've hired in the past couple of years, I think any of them would tell you that they read the blog heavily to get a sense of our people," he said.
Designer Samantha Warren said her decision to take a job with Viget was sealed by the blog. "The design was fantastic. It just made me feel like, 'I want to be part of something this good,' " she said.
Smaller businesses are experimenting, too, since a blog can be an economical way of getting attention.
"It's a small business, so we don't have a marketing budget," said Robb Duncan, who began a blog for his Georgetown gelato shop, Dolcezza, about two years ago. "We've never done any ads or promoting because we can't afford it. So I guess it's kind of guerrilla marketing, and it's free."
When his second store opened in Bethesda in July, Duncan used his blog to advertise an opening night ice cream giveaway. He ended up serving over 300 gallons of ice cream to more than 1,000 customers that night.
Though blogs may not always yield immediate results, they can be part of a "halo effect" that ultimately gives a business a bigger online presence, says Debbie Weil, a corporate blogging consultant and author of "The Corporate Blogging Book." "I think that the really important thing about using a blog as a business strategy is that usually you cannot connect the dots directly from blogs to revenue," Weil said.
The strategy part is important because a blog may not work for every business. Before starting one, companies have to "make sure that the blog fits in with the existing culture of the company," said Walter J. Carl, a professor of communications at Northeastern University who has studied corporate blogging. He says a blog is a "really bad idea" for companies that are secretive or tend toward non-disclosure.
As Weil said, "Some brands are just not hip, informal, conversational."
For well-read blogs with active reader feedback boards, there are tough decisions about how to deal with comments that are off-topic, negative or downright offensive. Marriott's comment section is moderated, which means no comments go up until someone approves them.
Matthews says they do not remove a comment simply because it's negative, but they do cut those not germane to Marriott's original post.
Wynne Williams, on the other hand, does not moderate comments on Viget's site, because he said it "stifles the discussion." In fact, Viget's blog for its Web strategy division has a post titled
"You're Moderating Your Site to Death."
Calacanis now focuses on a personal e-mail list, not directly affiliated with Mahalo, with about 4,000 subscribers. With the list, he said, "I have a much tighter relationship with people." He said it's more intimate and generates more substantive feedback than his blog did.
"It's basically become a mudpit and it's very loud," he said of the blogosphere. In his final post, he wrote, "Today the blogosphere is so charged, so polarized, and so filled with haters hating that it's simply not worth it.
But "the limitation of the medium is the strength of the medium," he said. "It's open to everybody."
KB Home takes top spot in survey on green practices
Major area home builders garnered high marks for policies geared toward green building practices in a report issued Tuesday.
Los Angeles' KB Home claimed the top spot among 13 publicly traded home builders in a report on the industry's sustainable practices. Clcik here for more.
Los Angeles' KB Home claimed the top spot among 13 publicly traded home builders in a report on the industry's sustainable practices. Clcik here for more.
The Forgotten Victims-Housing Crisis
Tenants of foreclosed properties can face intimidation, bribes, and jacked-up rent to force relocation.
By Wendy Patterson-January 2, 2008
Tina Marie Williams For Tina Marie Williams, it all started one day in late August: "A black SUV pulled up and a guy got out," she recalled. "He looked around for about thirty minutes then taped a piece of paper on my mailbox. That's how I found out the property was going to be auctioned on September 2 at 12 p.m."
Williams is now fighting eviction, the last hold-out renter in a dreary fourplex on 90th Avenue in East Oakland. As the sub-prime mortgage debacle and foreclosures dominate the headlines, less visible is the plight of such renters. When buildings are put up for auction or banks repossess, tenants like Williams are often caught in limbo — abandoned by their landlords, threatened or bribed by Realtors to leave, and faced with the challenge of finding new housing.
East Bay housing organizations are reporting marked increases in calls from desperate renters living in properties facing foreclosure. The East Bay Community Law Center's Housing Specialist Gracie Jones said they got 24 calls in one day recently. On average, they receive about thirty a week.
Often the first tenants hear of a problem is when they get a notice saying the property has been repossessed or is now owned by someone who bought it in auction. Other times, their utilities are turned off because the owner has stopped paying the bills.
Banks, which are often outside of the area, hire local property managers or Realtors to negotiate. But tenant advocates say they often threaten tenants and pressure them to move out.
Berkeley, Hayward, and Oakland have ordinances to protect tenants from being evicted without "just cause." But tenants who don't know their rights can feel frightened by the notices they receive. Some take "cash for keys" offers, even though it may be impossible for them to find a comparable rental.
In Contra Costa County, however, a tenant can be evicted with only thirty days notice following the sale of a property, said Claudia Johnson, managing attorney for Bay Area Legal Aid in Oakland. Johnson said Legal Aid is getting hundreds of calls from all over the Bay Area by tenants in distress. "Tenants are telling us of owners at risk of foreclosure who are really stressed out and they are taking it out on their tenants by being really mean. They are desperate and are not going through a legal process. And these tenants are often the most vulnerable: the disabled, the elderly, single moms."
In Williams' case, she said her landlord, Sunday John, told her nothing was wrong after the notice was posted. So she continued to pay the $950 monthly rent for her two-bedroom apartment. "He just lied all the way," Williams says. John could not be reached for comment.
For complete article, click here
Pets becoming casualty of foreclosure
"People are losing their homes, and animals are the fallout of that," said Cecily Tippery, a Coldwell Banker agent who specializes in foreclosed properties, and now also in rescuing pets left behind.
Although local animal control officers say there's no evidence of a big spike in abandoned pets, stories of often starving animals left behind in foreclosed houses have begun to crop up across the country.
No one has documented the number of pets turning up after foreclosures, but there is anecdotal evidence of a statewide problem, said Paul Bruce, regional program coordinator for the Sacramento regional office of the Humane Society of the United States.
Foreclosures are "leaving the cities with all of the problems, including animals that have been left behind," said Bruce.
Realtors speculate that many of the animals were abandoned by former homeowners who turn to rental housing where the landlords bar pets.
One Contra Costa County animal control official said the law requires the banks, or whoever owns the home, to tend to the abandoned animals. Lt. Joe Decosta said he expects more forsaken pets as the wave of foreclosures and the economic fallout washes away more homeowners.
For complete article, click here
By Wendy Patterson-January 2, 2008
Tina Marie Williams For Tina Marie Williams, it all started one day in late August: "A black SUV pulled up and a guy got out," she recalled. "He looked around for about thirty minutes then taped a piece of paper on my mailbox. That's how I found out the property was going to be auctioned on September 2 at 12 p.m."
Williams is now fighting eviction, the last hold-out renter in a dreary fourplex on 90th Avenue in East Oakland. As the sub-prime mortgage debacle and foreclosures dominate the headlines, less visible is the plight of such renters. When buildings are put up for auction or banks repossess, tenants like Williams are often caught in limbo — abandoned by their landlords, threatened or bribed by Realtors to leave, and faced with the challenge of finding new housing.
East Bay housing organizations are reporting marked increases in calls from desperate renters living in properties facing foreclosure. The East Bay Community Law Center's Housing Specialist Gracie Jones said they got 24 calls in one day recently. On average, they receive about thirty a week.
Often the first tenants hear of a problem is when they get a notice saying the property has been repossessed or is now owned by someone who bought it in auction. Other times, their utilities are turned off because the owner has stopped paying the bills.
Banks, which are often outside of the area, hire local property managers or Realtors to negotiate. But tenant advocates say they often threaten tenants and pressure them to move out.
Berkeley, Hayward, and Oakland have ordinances to protect tenants from being evicted without "just cause." But tenants who don't know their rights can feel frightened by the notices they receive. Some take "cash for keys" offers, even though it may be impossible for them to find a comparable rental.
In Contra Costa County, however, a tenant can be evicted with only thirty days notice following the sale of a property, said Claudia Johnson, managing attorney for Bay Area Legal Aid in Oakland. Johnson said Legal Aid is getting hundreds of calls from all over the Bay Area by tenants in distress. "Tenants are telling us of owners at risk of foreclosure who are really stressed out and they are taking it out on their tenants by being really mean. They are desperate and are not going through a legal process. And these tenants are often the most vulnerable: the disabled, the elderly, single moms."
In Williams' case, she said her landlord, Sunday John, told her nothing was wrong after the notice was posted. So she continued to pay the $950 monthly rent for her two-bedroom apartment. "He just lied all the way," Williams says. John could not be reached for comment.
For complete article, click here
Pets becoming casualty of foreclosure
"People are losing their homes, and animals are the fallout of that," said Cecily Tippery, a Coldwell Banker agent who specializes in foreclosed properties, and now also in rescuing pets left behind.
Although local animal control officers say there's no evidence of a big spike in abandoned pets, stories of often starving animals left behind in foreclosed houses have begun to crop up across the country.
No one has documented the number of pets turning up after foreclosures, but there is anecdotal evidence of a statewide problem, said Paul Bruce, regional program coordinator for the Sacramento regional office of the Humane Society of the United States.
Foreclosures are "leaving the cities with all of the problems, including animals that have been left behind," said Bruce.
Realtors speculate that many of the animals were abandoned by former homeowners who turn to rental housing where the landlords bar pets.
One Contra Costa County animal control official said the law requires the banks, or whoever owns the home, to tend to the abandoned animals. Lt. Joe Decosta said he expects more forsaken pets as the wave of foreclosures and the economic fallout washes away more homeowners.
For complete article, click here
Them (Book Review)
By Nathan McCall
ATRIA; 339 PAGES; $25
For those who reap its benefits, gentrification often means a hopeful, relaxed trajectory toward urban progress. But for the usually ethnic-minority communities eroded by it, gentrification can be a silent, insistent violation. Nathan McCall's first novel, "Them," dramatizes the troubling side of this complex race- and class- driven phenomenon in American cities.
The setting for such a story could be Harlem, Boston's Roxbury or San Francisco's Fillmore district. But McCall sets the action on one block in Atlanta's historic Old Fourth Ward, the neighborhood, not coincidentally, where Martin Luther King Jr. came of age and began his ministry. King's presence hangs over the increasing tension. We witness an Atlanta characterized by a strained reverse integration that King could hardly have imagined. Liberal whites priced out of the upscale Buckhead and Virginia Highland areas settle warily in a neighborhood where the established African American community receives them with stony resentment.
The action is told mainly through Barlowe Reed, a bitter, isolated man struggling to save enough money from his printing job for a down payment on the house he rents. At the outset of the story, Barlowe drifts uneasily through his drab days. Unhappy with his job and unable to sustain relationships with women, he finds escape by playing the lottery, drinking beer and reading travel books from the library. Whenever a police car comes into view, he rails against Caesar, his term for all government authority. He deeply distrusts the few white people he has regular contact with, especially a smarmy foreman named Spivey who pressures him to work overtime without compensation. McCall overlays this racial anxiety with a post-9/11 apprehension in which security surveillance seems to happen at random moments.
Paralleling Barlowe's story is that of Sandy Gilmore, a white liberal who buys the neighboring property with her reluctant husband, Sean. She is typical of the seemingly well-meaning newcomers to the neighborhood: personally kind but socially ignorant. She self-servingly espouses King's vision of racial harmony, and blinded by white privilege, is baffled when longtime residents snub the wide-eyed new arrivals who install sprinkler systems and presume to clean up the neighborhood. In a scene of stinging burlesque, Sandy summons her courage to enter the corner store under the stares of the locals hanging out there, mentally likening herself to the first girl at Little Rock's Central High to bravely cross the school's racial divide in 1957.
McCall can be a keen, satirical observer of off-kilter racial interaction, and he maintains a studied balance in exploring the blind spots between his black and white characters. McCall first explored these tensions in his brilliant 1994 coming-of-age memoir, "Makes Me Wanna Holler," perhaps the era's defining narrative of the black male experience. "Them" broadens the scope to uncover the pervasive myopia of these two populations.
The white characters display an obtuse ethnocentrism. Sandy regards the black community's public culture of informal gatherings on front yards and vacant lots as an affront to social respectability, thinking to herself that "if the rowdy card games were not bad enough, there were front-yard cookouts, where folks hovered around hideous steel drums, barbecuing chicken and ribs, with thick, black smoke billowing forth." Even more offensive are the real estate cherry pickers, who cruise into the neighborhood from the suburbs and knock on doors to ask about buying properties. The act has the ring of urban colonialism.
The African American community, on the other hand, comes off as blindly reactive, circling the wagons to keep whites from invading. In one incident that presages greater tumult, neighbors merely gawk after the Gilmores' mailbox is set on fire. Events escalate ominously along this one block, rippling through every relationship in a pattern that recalls Spike Lee's film "Do the Right Thing."
But McCall's social analysis gets hemmed in by his static characters, and he loses an opportunity to observe the greater psychological nuances of racial interaction. Instead, we get a cast of stock supporting characters: the young hustler Tyrone, skirting the edge of the law; the old corner store fixtures Ely, Amos and Willie, hanging out and sizing up passing women; the square-jawed, tobacco-spitting foreman Spivey, who longs for the days before black employees argued so much; the Al Sharptonesque preacher Pickering, orating histrionically in defense of the neighborhood and fancying himself MLK's direct successor.
McCall strives to enter more complex psychological terrain when he portrays a tentative cross-fence dialogue between Sandy and Barlowe. The fence represents an unbridgeable mental barrier, but through their persistence in facing the increasingly volatile confrontations along the block, each neighbor finds in the other an unlikely emotional ally. Only in these moments, as they move each other toward a freer, more expansive outlook, does the story advance beyond its satirical confinements and into richer territory.
The relationship between Barlowe and Sandy offers hope in a climate that seems otherwise devoid of understanding. In a world of quietly brutal displacement, the end of legal barriers seems hardly to matter to the broad social divide. But a small bridge built by two earnest people offers brief consolation.
Erik Gleibermann is a San Francisco writer and an academic mentor in private practice.
This article appeared on page M - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle
ATRIA; 339 PAGES; $25
For those who reap its benefits, gentrification often means a hopeful, relaxed trajectory toward urban progress. But for the usually ethnic-minority communities eroded by it, gentrification can be a silent, insistent violation. Nathan McCall's first novel, "Them," dramatizes the troubling side of this complex race- and class- driven phenomenon in American cities.
The setting for such a story could be Harlem, Boston's Roxbury or San Francisco's Fillmore district. But McCall sets the action on one block in Atlanta's historic Old Fourth Ward, the neighborhood, not coincidentally, where Martin Luther King Jr. came of age and began his ministry. King's presence hangs over the increasing tension. We witness an Atlanta characterized by a strained reverse integration that King could hardly have imagined. Liberal whites priced out of the upscale Buckhead and Virginia Highland areas settle warily in a neighborhood where the established African American community receives them with stony resentment.
The action is told mainly through Barlowe Reed, a bitter, isolated man struggling to save enough money from his printing job for a down payment on the house he rents. At the outset of the story, Barlowe drifts uneasily through his drab days. Unhappy with his job and unable to sustain relationships with women, he finds escape by playing the lottery, drinking beer and reading travel books from the library. Whenever a police car comes into view, he rails against Caesar, his term for all government authority. He deeply distrusts the few white people he has regular contact with, especially a smarmy foreman named Spivey who pressures him to work overtime without compensation. McCall overlays this racial anxiety with a post-9/11 apprehension in which security surveillance seems to happen at random moments.
Paralleling Barlowe's story is that of Sandy Gilmore, a white liberal who buys the neighboring property with her reluctant husband, Sean. She is typical of the seemingly well-meaning newcomers to the neighborhood: personally kind but socially ignorant. She self-servingly espouses King's vision of racial harmony, and blinded by white privilege, is baffled when longtime residents snub the wide-eyed new arrivals who install sprinkler systems and presume to clean up the neighborhood. In a scene of stinging burlesque, Sandy summons her courage to enter the corner store under the stares of the locals hanging out there, mentally likening herself to the first girl at Little Rock's Central High to bravely cross the school's racial divide in 1957.
McCall can be a keen, satirical observer of off-kilter racial interaction, and he maintains a studied balance in exploring the blind spots between his black and white characters. McCall first explored these tensions in his brilliant 1994 coming-of-age memoir, "Makes Me Wanna Holler," perhaps the era's defining narrative of the black male experience. "Them" broadens the scope to uncover the pervasive myopia of these two populations.
The white characters display an obtuse ethnocentrism. Sandy regards the black community's public culture of informal gatherings on front yards and vacant lots as an affront to social respectability, thinking to herself that "if the rowdy card games were not bad enough, there were front-yard cookouts, where folks hovered around hideous steel drums, barbecuing chicken and ribs, with thick, black smoke billowing forth." Even more offensive are the real estate cherry pickers, who cruise into the neighborhood from the suburbs and knock on doors to ask about buying properties. The act has the ring of urban colonialism.
The African American community, on the other hand, comes off as blindly reactive, circling the wagons to keep whites from invading. In one incident that presages greater tumult, neighbors merely gawk after the Gilmores' mailbox is set on fire. Events escalate ominously along this one block, rippling through every relationship in a pattern that recalls Spike Lee's film "Do the Right Thing."
But McCall's social analysis gets hemmed in by his static characters, and he loses an opportunity to observe the greater psychological nuances of racial interaction. Instead, we get a cast of stock supporting characters: the young hustler Tyrone, skirting the edge of the law; the old corner store fixtures Ely, Amos and Willie, hanging out and sizing up passing women; the square-jawed, tobacco-spitting foreman Spivey, who longs for the days before black employees argued so much; the Al Sharptonesque preacher Pickering, orating histrionically in defense of the neighborhood and fancying himself MLK's direct successor.
McCall strives to enter more complex psychological terrain when he portrays a tentative cross-fence dialogue between Sandy and Barlowe. The fence represents an unbridgeable mental barrier, but through their persistence in facing the increasingly volatile confrontations along the block, each neighbor finds in the other an unlikely emotional ally. Only in these moments, as they move each other toward a freer, more expansive outlook, does the story advance beyond its satirical confinements and into richer territory.
The relationship between Barlowe and Sandy offers hope in a climate that seems otherwise devoid of understanding. In a world of quietly brutal displacement, the end of legal barriers seems hardly to matter to the broad social divide. But a small bridge built by two earnest people offers brief consolation.
Erik Gleibermann is a San Francisco writer and an academic mentor in private practice.
This article appeared on page M - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle
VizzVox provides tools that can turn homes for sale into movie stars
By Carol Lloyd, Special to SF Gate
The music rises, the picture fades in and the story begins ... Once upon a time there was a house on a tree-lined street ... sunlight flickered off the windows, and inside the people lived a life we all dream of living: of blooming gardens, pristine kitchens, tranquil living rooms filled with antiques ...
Of all our modern industries, none has been so persistently fraught with fairy tale figments as real estate. But let's face it, that real estate postcard dropped through your mail slot can do only so much to ignite the imagination. Likewise with the Sunday open house: While other buyers trample through rooms commenting on the water damage and agents troll for possible clients, it's hard to fall deeply into an unadulterated dream of the perfect home.
But VizzVox, a new online tool for creating commercials and short movies, has built the ideal stage for real estate fantasies. Although the Web-based technology can be used for anything from a multimedia love letter to a corporate commercial, real estate agents have been among the first to jump on the new tool and make it their own.
The technology allows agents to create narrated slideshows or movies complete with musical scores in less than an hour. The effect is simple but deft. A voiceover narration accompanies the home tour, allowing the agent to add a flourish about the neighborhood, a detail about the handcrafted woodwork.
The result puts the seduction back in real estate, big time. One tour of architect Andrew Knoll's 1922 Italianate estate in Los Altos positively oozes luxury. Accompanied by soft classical music and birdsong, the British tour guide luxuriates in the Moroccan-tiled fountains, the Asian tea house, the spa-like master bathroom, sounding like a man who has fallen in love for the first time. During the tour of a Marin waterfront home, we're exhorted to "indulge in the magic of sea breezes, soaking up spectacular views which can be seen from almost every room!"
At $150 per per spot, or Vizzie, this seductive marketing tool is also relatively affordable. Some agents invest in professionally produced videos of their listings. But, at $6,000 to $15,000 for a three-minute spot, such videos are only cost-effective for the most expensive homes. VizzVox launched in June, and its first Vizzies were personal stories about vacations or momentous events. Software engineer Steve Harshbarger came up with the idea after spending an arduous weekend creating a short DVD for friends about a recent family trip to New Zealand.
Harshbarger decided to automate the process, and partnered with Robert Beth, a business consultant and entrepreneur, to launch VizzVox. Since then, the technology has been used to create commercials for small businesses and eBay products, as well as real estate.
Katharine Holland, a San Francisco agent with Coldwell Banker, has created Vizzies for 10 of her listings. "I was the first agent in the U.S. to use this technology," she told me. "My only regret is that I did not do it sooner."
Holland says that in addition to helping her sell homes, VizzVox has already helped her obtain two more listings. "When the clients saw my Vizzies for other listings," she explained, "they both said, 'We want you.'"
In a moment when low sales volumes are forcing many real estate agents to consider other lines of work, Holland sees her adaptation of VizzVox as giving her an edge on the competition. "As the number of listings increase, it is one way to break through the noise." she says. Another useful aspect of the Vizzie is its power to track where viewers are coming from. "I have reached Seoul, New Zealand ... On one property, I have more hits on the VizzVox than I do on the multiple listing service."
Chief executive Robert Beth says that creating a Vizzie is extremely simple — a process that even non-techies can easily master. "It's designed to mimic the process of a person sitting on a couch, showing you some photos of their recent trip," he said. "I've heard about people creating their Vizzies in 15 minutes."
Instead of beginning with a complete script and editing visuals to fit it, as a professional videographer might, VizzVox allows users to choose photographs or video clips, drop them into an order that tells a story and then add bite-sized voiceovers to accompany each image or clip.
The user then gets to choose from a library of soundtracks or add their own, and the software stitches the pieces together. The result often looks seamless even when it's simply a collection of snippets smoothed together with a musical score. For those agents who cringe at the sound of their own voice, VizzVox offers voiceover professionals for $50 per Vizzie and scriptwriting for $70 per Vizzie.
At this point, the technology has only begun to reach the real estate industry. But it has attracted a fair number of Bay Area agents, a smattering from elsewhere in North America, as well as one corporate booster. Alain Pinel, the seventh largest real estate company in the country in terms of overall sales, is actively encouraging its agents to use VizzVox.
But if agents appreciate VizzVox for its marketing potential, real estate connoisseurs may enjoy it most for its sheer entertainment value. In one tour of an 8,000 square-foot home in Mendocino, we hear about the nearby lighthouse built on a "spectacular headland thrusting out (emphasis not mine) into the Pacific Ocean." In a tour of a Pebble Beach townhome, along with licks of sultry jazz, we hear that the "sinuous staircase leads to the upstairs master."
With home tours like this, who needs cheesy television?
The music rises, the picture fades in and the story begins ... Once upon a time there was a house on a tree-lined street ... sunlight flickered off the windows, and inside the people lived a life we all dream of living: of blooming gardens, pristine kitchens, tranquil living rooms filled with antiques ...
Of all our modern industries, none has been so persistently fraught with fairy tale figments as real estate. But let's face it, that real estate postcard dropped through your mail slot can do only so much to ignite the imagination. Likewise with the Sunday open house: While other buyers trample through rooms commenting on the water damage and agents troll for possible clients, it's hard to fall deeply into an unadulterated dream of the perfect home.
But VizzVox, a new online tool for creating commercials and short movies, has built the ideal stage for real estate fantasies. Although the Web-based technology can be used for anything from a multimedia love letter to a corporate commercial, real estate agents have been among the first to jump on the new tool and make it their own.
The technology allows agents to create narrated slideshows or movies complete with musical scores in less than an hour. The effect is simple but deft. A voiceover narration accompanies the home tour, allowing the agent to add a flourish about the neighborhood, a detail about the handcrafted woodwork.
The result puts the seduction back in real estate, big time. One tour of architect Andrew Knoll's 1922 Italianate estate in Los Altos positively oozes luxury. Accompanied by soft classical music and birdsong, the British tour guide luxuriates in the Moroccan-tiled fountains, the Asian tea house, the spa-like master bathroom, sounding like a man who has fallen in love for the first time. During the tour of a Marin waterfront home, we're exhorted to "indulge in the magic of sea breezes, soaking up spectacular views which can be seen from almost every room!"
At $150 per per spot, or Vizzie, this seductive marketing tool is also relatively affordable. Some agents invest in professionally produced videos of their listings. But, at $6,000 to $15,000 for a three-minute spot, such videos are only cost-effective for the most expensive homes. VizzVox launched in June, and its first Vizzies were personal stories about vacations or momentous events. Software engineer Steve Harshbarger came up with the idea after spending an arduous weekend creating a short DVD for friends about a recent family trip to New Zealand.
Harshbarger decided to automate the process, and partnered with Robert Beth, a business consultant and entrepreneur, to launch VizzVox. Since then, the technology has been used to create commercials for small businesses and eBay products, as well as real estate.
Katharine Holland, a San Francisco agent with Coldwell Banker, has created Vizzies for 10 of her listings. "I was the first agent in the U.S. to use this technology," she told me. "My only regret is that I did not do it sooner."
Holland says that in addition to helping her sell homes, VizzVox has already helped her obtain two more listings. "When the clients saw my Vizzies for other listings," she explained, "they both said, 'We want you.'"
In a moment when low sales volumes are forcing many real estate agents to consider other lines of work, Holland sees her adaptation of VizzVox as giving her an edge on the competition. "As the number of listings increase, it is one way to break through the noise." she says. Another useful aspect of the Vizzie is its power to track where viewers are coming from. "I have reached Seoul, New Zealand ... On one property, I have more hits on the VizzVox than I do on the multiple listing service."
Chief executive Robert Beth says that creating a Vizzie is extremely simple — a process that even non-techies can easily master. "It's designed to mimic the process of a person sitting on a couch, showing you some photos of their recent trip," he said. "I've heard about people creating their Vizzies in 15 minutes."
Instead of beginning with a complete script and editing visuals to fit it, as a professional videographer might, VizzVox allows users to choose photographs or video clips, drop them into an order that tells a story and then add bite-sized voiceovers to accompany each image or clip.
The user then gets to choose from a library of soundtracks or add their own, and the software stitches the pieces together. The result often looks seamless even when it's simply a collection of snippets smoothed together with a musical score. For those agents who cringe at the sound of their own voice, VizzVox offers voiceover professionals for $50 per Vizzie and scriptwriting for $70 per Vizzie.
At this point, the technology has only begun to reach the real estate industry. But it has attracted a fair number of Bay Area agents, a smattering from elsewhere in North America, as well as one corporate booster. Alain Pinel, the seventh largest real estate company in the country in terms of overall sales, is actively encouraging its agents to use VizzVox.
But if agents appreciate VizzVox for its marketing potential, real estate connoisseurs may enjoy it most for its sheer entertainment value. In one tour of an 8,000 square-foot home in Mendocino, we hear about the nearby lighthouse built on a "spectacular headland thrusting out (emphasis not mine) into the Pacific Ocean." In a tour of a Pebble Beach townhome, along with licks of sultry jazz, we hear that the "sinuous staircase leads to the upstairs master."
With home tours like this, who needs cheesy television?
Senate not giving borrowers much help
Small group blocking bill that would aid high-cost markets
Kenneth Harney
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Thousands of Americans may be losing their homes to foreclosure or facing hefty mortgage payment increases, but Congress appears to be in no rush to offer help.
While the House has passed several major housing-relief measures in recent weeks, the Senate hasn't managed to pass even one. On the eve of the two-week Thanksgiving recess, the House approved by a bipartisan vote the most sweeping reforms of the national mortgage system in more than two decades.
Meanwhile, the Senate stalled legislation that would strengthen the Federal Housing Administration's mortgage programs - a key resource for people who need to refinance out of adjustable-rate loans with rapidly escalating monthly payments into affordable fixed-rate mortgages.
-more-
Kenneth Harney
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Thousands of Americans may be losing their homes to foreclosure or facing hefty mortgage payment increases, but Congress appears to be in no rush to offer help.
While the House has passed several major housing-relief measures in recent weeks, the Senate hasn't managed to pass even one. On the eve of the two-week Thanksgiving recess, the House approved by a bipartisan vote the most sweeping reforms of the national mortgage system in more than two decades.
Meanwhile, the Senate stalled legislation that would strengthen the Federal Housing Administration's mortgage programs - a key resource for people who need to refinance out of adjustable-rate loans with rapidly escalating monthly payments into affordable fixed-rate mortgages.
-more-
Bills Would Let Judges Remake Mortgages
Bankruptcy Legislation Aims To Prevent Foreclosures
By Dina ElBoghdady Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, November 20, 2007; Page D01
Congress is considering legislation that would allow bankruptcy court judges to rewrite loan terms for people at risk of losing their homes, a change that supporters say could save half a million borrowers from foreclosure through early 2009.
Under this plan, judges could lower the interest rate of a mortgage on a primary home, extend the life of the loan or forgive part of the debt -- as they currently can for vacation homes, farms and investment properties. Doing so could reduce by a quarter the 2 million foreclosures expected in the next 18 months, according to Moody's Economy.com.
Of all the legislative proposals aimed at helping at-risk borrowers, this one is thought by consumer advocates to offer the most wide-reaching and immediate relief. The House has held two hearings on a bill introduced by Democratic members, Brad Miller of North Carolina and Linda T. Sanchez of California. Similar legislation has been offered in the Senate. -more-
By Dina ElBoghdady Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, November 20, 2007; Page D01
Congress is considering legislation that would allow bankruptcy court judges to rewrite loan terms for people at risk of losing their homes, a change that supporters say could save half a million borrowers from foreclosure through early 2009.
Under this plan, judges could lower the interest rate of a mortgage on a primary home, extend the life of the loan or forgive part of the debt -- as they currently can for vacation homes, farms and investment properties. Doing so could reduce by a quarter the 2 million foreclosures expected in the next 18 months, according to Moody's Economy.com.
Of all the legislative proposals aimed at helping at-risk borrowers, this one is thought by consumer advocates to offer the most wide-reaching and immediate relief. The House has held two hearings on a bill introduced by Democratic members, Brad Miller of North Carolina and Linda T. Sanchez of California. Similar legislation has been offered in the Senate. -more-
Scooter steers buyer to condo
Developers dream up creative pitches to catch attention in the tough times
Marni Leff Kottle
Sunday, November 18, 2007
It was the promise of a motor scooter - probably candy apple red - that helped seal the deal for Jeanne George and her husband, who closed last week on a $1 million condo in San Francisco.
George, a 61-year-old retiree who lives most of the year in Lake Tahoe, said that she saw an ad promising a Vespa with the purchase of the condo at 733 Front St. in the newspaper and was drawn in.
"The last time I was in the city I had a brand new SUV and I swore I would never drive in the city again," George said. A scooter is "the perfect thing for me to zip over to the Ferry Building from Front Street and zip back again."
-more-
Marni Leff Kottle
Sunday, November 18, 2007
It was the promise of a motor scooter - probably candy apple red - that helped seal the deal for Jeanne George and her husband, who closed last week on a $1 million condo in San Francisco.
George, a 61-year-old retiree who lives most of the year in Lake Tahoe, said that she saw an ad promising a Vespa with the purchase of the condo at 733 Front St. in the newspaper and was drawn in.
"The last time I was in the city I had a brand new SUV and I swore I would never drive in the city again," George said. A scooter is "the perfect thing for me to zip over to the Ferry Building from Front Street and zip back again."
-more-
Housing crisis or window of opportunity?
East Bay Business Times - by Larry Klapow
It seems like each morning when I open my paper I find more alarmist headlines that paint a bleak picture of the country's real estate market. The trouble is, the news media often paints the picture with a mop that covers the entire U.S., missing the details afforded by fine brush strokes. As a result, consumers are often left with a somewhat inaccurate portrayal of the Bay Area real estate market, and that could ultimately cause them to miss an exceptional opportunity.
Real estate goes through cycles and the market has been down nationwide for the past couple of years - at least as far as the number of sales. Inventory levels have risen and loan defaults and foreclosures have increased - but just from historically low levels to more normal rates today. Some parts of the country have indeed seen slight declines in median prices.
But like all politics, all real estate is local. You cannot paint the entire country with one broad brush. There are counties in the Bay Area that continue to see increases in the median price. The most recent DataQuick results indicate slight year-over-year median price increases in Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco and Santa Clara counties. And there are communities within each of these counties that have seen flat to increased sales figures throughout 2007 as well.
Homes that are in a desirable location, competitively priced, in good condition and presented well, are selling - often in a matter of a few weeks or couple of months and sometimes with multiple offers - hardly the bursting bubble that some portray.
While the red-hot real estate market of the past few years in the Bay Area has cooled off, confident real estate investors may find that this is a good opportunity in which to buy. Real estate is a strong, long-term investment. If you look at the last 37 years, we have seen very few times in which property values have dropped in California. In fact, according to the California Association of Realtors, since 1970 the median sale price for a single-family home in the state has only declined seven times - six times under 3.7 percent and once at 4.5 percent.
-more-
It seems like each morning when I open my paper I find more alarmist headlines that paint a bleak picture of the country's real estate market. The trouble is, the news media often paints the picture with a mop that covers the entire U.S., missing the details afforded by fine brush strokes. As a result, consumers are often left with a somewhat inaccurate portrayal of the Bay Area real estate market, and that could ultimately cause them to miss an exceptional opportunity.
Real estate goes through cycles and the market has been down nationwide for the past couple of years - at least as far as the number of sales. Inventory levels have risen and loan defaults and foreclosures have increased - but just from historically low levels to more normal rates today. Some parts of the country have indeed seen slight declines in median prices.
But like all politics, all real estate is local. You cannot paint the entire country with one broad brush. There are counties in the Bay Area that continue to see increases in the median price. The most recent DataQuick results indicate slight year-over-year median price increases in Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco and Santa Clara counties. And there are communities within each of these counties that have seen flat to increased sales figures throughout 2007 as well.
Homes that are in a desirable location, competitively priced, in good condition and presented well, are selling - often in a matter of a few weeks or couple of months and sometimes with multiple offers - hardly the bursting bubble that some portray.
While the red-hot real estate market of the past few years in the Bay Area has cooled off, confident real estate investors may find that this is a good opportunity in which to buy. Real estate is a strong, long-term investment. If you look at the last 37 years, we have seen very few times in which property values have dropped in California. In fact, according to the California Association of Realtors, since 1970 the median sale price for a single-family home in the state has only declined seven times - six times under 3.7 percent and once at 4.5 percent.
-more-
Real Estate Ad Budgets Stretched Thin across Copious Media Choices
Between the soft housing market and tight budgets, US real estate agents and brokers are facing tougher choices when they divide up their ad dollars - especially when media choices have proliferated - according to a new study of real estate ad spend trends.
Less than half - 47% - of the Realtors surveyed said they are spending more for advertising and marketing this year than they did last year, the study conducted by Classified Intelligence and RealtyTimes.com found. That proportion was 58% in the previous year’s survey. More
Less than half - 47% - of the Realtors surveyed said they are spending more for advertising and marketing this year than they did last year, the study conducted by Classified Intelligence and RealtyTimes.com found. That proportion was 58% in the previous year’s survey. More
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