The Big Leap In Jumbo Loans

The less publicized second part of the recently signed Economic Stimulus Package includes a temporary jump(from July through December) in Jumbo home loan limits from from the current $417,000 to about $600,000 in the NY Metro area.
According to the NY Times:

...the Department of Housing and Urban Development will multiply the median sales price for the area by 125 percent. The National Association of Realtors says the area’s median is now $476,100. HUD could use a different source or a combination of sources to determine its median figure. In any case, the agency said it would announce its decision next month.

Record Jury Award for NNJ Asbestos Death

We've dealt with many buyers who've nearly walked away from their Dream Home because of asbestos issues that turned up during the home inspection. If "friable" or exposed in worn insulation, it usually becomes the responsibility of the seller to cure the issue.
In a job related death, it can take years to prove liability in the courts. On Wednesday, a Bergen County jury found two Industrial giants liable for 30.3 million in the death of a former Glen Ridge resident, Mark Buttotta in 2002. He had worked in GM warehouses in Bloomfield(where he grew up) and Englewood.
From AP and FoxBusiness.com:

The award is believed to be the largest in New Jersey for mesothelioma, an aggressive lung cancer.

However, Buttitta's father worked there, and his brother also spent summers at the warehouse, their lawyer said. The three men wore the same work clothes for several days "bringing home cancer-causing fibers every day from work, unknowingly letting the microscopic fibers fragments waft throughout their home and settle," said Moshe Maimon, who specializes in asbestos cases.

Railing on Transit

While PATH was celebrating its 80th anniversary with free rides for all today, NJ Transit was pooping at the party in Bloomfield with parking fees for it's popular Grove Street commuter lot. Starting March 1, the daily rate will be $2 or $40 monthly.
Adding insult to injury was the Sunday Times mostly glowing report on NJ Transit Village success stories that singled out Bloomfield lagging efforts. Since winning the designation in 2003, the township is still looking for the light at the end of its tunnelvision:

Nine years after it was officially created, the state's Transit Village program has been extended to 19 communities eligible for grants and aid to revitalize the deteriorated neighborhoods around train and bus stations.

In a number of those communities — notably Hoboken, Jersey City, New Brunswick and Cranford — the program has generated tangible success, with thriving shopping areas and new condominiums and rental apartments enlivening once empty streets.

In other towns, change is clearly in the works. In Montclair, for instance, new housing and retailing is in place beside the downtown train station, and a large mixed-use building is under construction. In a few communities, like Bloomfield and Hamilton, progress has mostly been stalled by local land-use debates.

Right now, though, even as the overall real estate market languishes, developers and analysts report that many Transit Village projects are proceeding and more communities are applying to the program.

Re-Listing Secrets Exposed

Tonight's ABC's Nightline highlighted Realtors' "dirty little secret" for refreshing stale listings featuring NJ's legendary whistleblower--:James Bednar
......[Relisting guru Niece]“So a buyer’s going to be way more positive as they look through a home that says 25 days versus 125 days.”

Niece believes that re-listing is an important marketing tool in tough periods like this, because first impressions are crucial.
…
But Bednar says re-listing is simply unethical. “As a buyer, it does make me angry,” he said. “I need to know how long a home’s been on the market or what the original price is.”

“Hiding that market information from consumers is wrong, and it’s got to stop,” he added.
Bednar started blogging in 2005 after growing aggravated with realtors during his own house-hunting search.

“The issue here is that when a re-listed home is sold, it skews the market transaction data,” he said. “When an agent typically says they can sell a home in 30 or 60 days, is that really true? If they’ve re-listed a home, that might not necessarily be true.” In an effort to gain access to market data, he actually got a real estate license and a membership with his local listing service. With a few key strokes he can find the true history of any listing in his northern New Jersey neighborhood.

“The most common outcome is probably that a buyer overpayss...."


We never let our buyers make an offer without first checking the property's MLS history.

Blogs R Us

The polls have closed and the results are in from Houseblogger.com

It seems over a quarter of us are writing web posts!

Simultaneous Media Survey (SIMM 11) studied15,727 participants on the subject of the blogosphere.

26% of all adults say they regularly or occasionally blog.

* Of those, 53.7% are male
* 44.7% are married.
* 28.4% hold a professional or managerial position
* 10.4% are students.

Average age of a blogger? 37.6

More blograta:

* 69.7% of Bloggers are White/Caucasian
* 12.2% are African American/Black
* 3.7% are Asian
* 20% are Hispanic

* 24.6% of registered voters say they regularly or occasionally blog.
* 37.6% of Libertarians regularly/occasionally blog
* Democrats (26.9%)
* Independents (25.7%)
* Republicans (22.9%)

Renting In the Heart of Rush Hour

From The Star Ledger:

When Catherine Valero tells people where she lives, some assume she's homeless. She and her mother, Karen, live in a train station.

But the pair aren't squatters -- they're renters. For seven years, they have called Montclair's Mountain Avenue Station home.

Theirs is the only home that doubles as an active NJ Transit station,

Packing It In -- To Save the Landfill

Fellow packrats of the world unite! In our own small way, we're all trying to save the planet.

from CNET.com:
Ari Derfel likes living with his garbage. He hasn't thrown anything away in more than a year, but he insists he doesn't suffer from any compulsive hoarding disorders.
Rather, Derfel views the bins of bottles, boxes, leaflets, cartons, and wrappers he's stacked in his Berkeley, Calif., home as fruits of a continued meditation about sustainability.

Derfel, 35, is joined by a handful of bloggers who are going to extremes to keep their trash out of the landfill. Motivated by global warming, they say they are fed up with promiscuously packaged, toxic products and other evils of conspicuous consumption they say are trashing the planet.

These pack rats are stashing their trash at home and then writing about, photographing, and even weighing it. They belong to a growing cadre of " lifestyle bloggers" who provide a personal angle to broader issues covered by big-name ecoblogs such as Treehugger.com.

To avoid packaging, Derfel and other trash bloggers tote reusable bags to the grocery store, carry reusable water canteens, and buy in bulk. They even count their nail clippings, rip off the paper tablecloths from chic restaurants, and fly home with waste from Hawaii vacations. Composting food scraps for garden fertilizer keeps them from dwelling with a vermin-infested stench. "Not In My Backyard" environmentalism it's not.

Housing Sales vs Inventory

From the North Jersey Real Estate Reports comes this revealing comparison of sales to inventory in recent years.(click to enlarge)

Shooting the Breeze in Wayne

There’s not much talk of property taxes, national politics or even the Giants on Wayne’s NJO forum these days. Topic A is the effect of wind mills on property values.

Wayne has recently won national attention for it’s
pioneering efforts to generate a measurable degree of energy
self-sufficiency with an experimental wind mill and turbine. State agencies and organizations have already taken notice of Wayne's plan. The Sierra Club, the state League of Municipalities and the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group have all praised it.

Robert Burke recently announced plans to add his own wind mill and turbines to his “eco-friendly “Auto Spa” on Wayne’s Hamburg Pike.
His proposal comes before the town’s zoning board Feb. 11, but most Wayne residents seem to already have a position on the issue.

Slowing Developers

If you're interested in what others have to say about the Slow Home movement check out this site.
Worldchanging.com is one of the best sites we've seen for resources and inspiration for sensible development and planning.

Slow Homes

[Hudson Valley home designed by Paul Cha]


John Brown is the editor of theslowhome.com and the founder of the Slow Home movement. He is a registered architect and a Professor of Architecture at the University of Calgary.
Slow Homes is an international movement devoted to bringing good design into real life. It takes its name from the slow food movement which arose as a reaction to the processed food industry. Browns belief is that "the sprawl of cookie cutter housing that surrounds us is like fast food - standardized, homogenous, and wasteful. It contributes to a too fast life that is bad for us, our cities, and the environment. In the same way that slow food raises awareness of the food we eat and how these choices affect our lives, Slow Home provides design focused information to empower each of us to take more control of our homes and improve the quality of where and how we live."

Power on a Shoestring

Looking for money saving energy sources that are less expensive than solar?
The folks at OtherPower.com can provide you with your own wind turbine kit for as little as $1800. They also market a wide range of low tech energy sources. "All of our houses and shops run on only solar, wind, water and generator power...not because we are trying to make some sort of political or environmental statement, but because these are the only options available. And we refuse to move to town."

30 Year Rates Approach 5%

From The Star Ledger:

The average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dipped Thursday to 5.25 percent, the lowest point since mid-2004, according to Bankrate.com. The average 15-year fixed-rate mortgage, a popular choice for refinancing, stood yesterday at 4.79 percent, also the lowest since mid-2004.

Four weeks ago, the average 30-year mortgage was 6.31 percent, while 15-year loans averaged 5.98 percent, Bankrate figures show.

Mortgage rates have fallen so fast, Princeton Mortgage in Pennington published four price changes during the day Wednesday as 30-year rates dipped near 5.1 percent before creeping up overnight to yesterday's level, said Brian Jennings, the company's chief operating officer.

"This is an unbelievable buying opportunity," Jennings said. "This is the first time in recent history you have near-historic-low mortgage rates at a time home prices are falling in New Jersey."

Rates have come down as New Jersey's inventory of existing homes for sale is growing and, for the first time in years, property values in some areas of the state are falling.

Nasty Game of Chicken With MSU's Weekly

Let the puns flow freely!
There are more than enough ruffled feathers to go around.
(We couldn't resist)
From The Star Ledger:

SGA President Ron Chicken halted publication of this week's edition of the college's Montclarion student newspaper in a dispute over the hiring of an attorney to advise the newspaper on issues that include coverage of the SGA's practice of holding closed meetings to discuss campus matters.

"We're enraged," Montclarion news editor Shayna Jacobs said of Chicken's decision to halt publication.
"I'm completely shocked that he would go to these measures," she said. "We feel violated as student journalists. I think they're bullying us."

The center's legal consultant, Michael Hiestand, said suspension of the newspaper's publication, is a blatant violation of its constitutional rights.
"It's very unusual," he said. "It's unusual not just because it doesn't happen very often, but because it's illegal. It's a complete violation of the First Amendment."

Hiestand said the SPLC receives just one or two complaints a year of student newspaper suspensions or threatened shut downs.
"Usually once you remind them of what the law is, the situation resolves itself very quickly," he said.

He said SGA President Chicken is ignoring the advice of Montclair State officials in the dispute.

Candle Power

This may not solve all your heating needs when the temps get down to the teens, but it's the cheapest low tech device we've seen to take the bite off this cold snap. From greenbuilding elements.com comes The Kandle Heeter Candle Holder

The aecret is the the terracotta pot topping the candle with a multi-core radiator, where the inner steel core can be driven to very high temperatures — 500-550 degrees Fahrenheit — by the burning candle flame and becomes a central radiating body. ityields an efficient 50BTUs an hour for an total of 1000 BTUs to cut the chill,
The ceramic — a high ‘thermal lag’ material — absorbs the heat rising from the candle, as it is dense and heavy with tile, concrete, water, thus, storing heat well. The pots actually concentrate the heat, and can focus on to where you need it to heat up. A 3-inch diameter by 3-inch dollar candle can get you about two days of heating, which amounts to 0.50/day! And if the winter days turn out to be wet, cold, it would cost you about $50 for a whole heating season.
Now, you can purchase this little energy saving candle-transformed radiator and considerably cut on to your heating bills. Giving the ambiance of a miniature “fireplace”, it will keep the cold out and coziness in. Normal fire precautions apply although a light bulb can be substistuted if the flame makes you nervous.

Catching Up At Home

If you're a homeowner who's falling behind on your mortgage payments, please -- ACT NOW! Here's what Fannie Mae recommends:
Call your lender or loan servicer today. The telephone number is listed on your mortgage bill and on the year-end tax statement you receive from your lender.

If you take action now, you improve your chances of working out your situation with your mortgage lender or loan servicer. For example, depending on your situation, you may be able to incorporate missed or late payments into future payments, re-work the terms of your loan, or refinance into a different loan with payments you can more readily handle. The important thing is to take action immediately.

Help is Available

Many homeowners are struggling to keep up with their payments, especially those with adjustable-rate loans that reset to a higher rate and those whose job or family situation has changed. Free information and counseling are available to help you.

Call the Homeownership Preservation Foundation at 1-888-995-HOPE to talk with an experienced counselor or visit the Foundation website at www.995hope.org.

A Belated New Years Wish

Watch your back!
I wish I could have watched mine.
Longest I’ve been offline since entering the cyberworld in late 90’s.
Staphacoccus Virens is not the rarest bug in the world. It drifts around the mouth and skin of most of us. It’s only when gets into the bloodstream that the fun begins. It seems to enjoy messing with your spine. In describing this Epedural Abscess, Back surgeon, Mark Drzala, kept reminding me that I won the lottery by catching one of the most common bugs in one of the trickiest areas to access, but surgically removed in time(on New Years Eve) to avoid significant bone loss.

Warmest gratitude and thanks to Madison’s A-1 EMT Mensch Eddie Schmeltz and many of the best Bloomfielder buddies anyone could wish for: Nick Joanow, Mary Shaughnessy, Paul Schneider. and, most of all, Rebecca Shaw

I'M BACK!

Brad Pitt's New Green Housing for New Orleans

Combining philanthropy with a genuine love of innovative home design,
the actor's interest in architecture and love of New Orleans has led him to commission 13 firms to design 150 homes for areas devastated by Katrina, with restraints: 1,200-square-foot, flood-height-friendly homes for $150,000, and they have to be green, reducing upkeep costs by 75%. He promised that each model will match what residents want to see with what engineers need to provide to protect against climate change and future floods. “Our goal is to bring green technology to the affordable level and not have it look like a Prius,” Pitt said.

Foreclosure Scam Alert Flap

It has been on YouTube less than a week, but this scam warning has already drawn complaint from a YouTuber that "This is typical heavy handed democrat propaganda. Pure Bullspit! To portray a perfectly good pre-forclosure sale transaction as a scam..." Most viewers are defending Freddie Mac.
From Newsday online:
To reach out to homeowners in trouble, Freddie Mac has produced a two-minute video on how con artists can prey on delinquent borrowers.

Though it may not win any Oscars, the video shows how scammers can get copies of foreclosure notices at city hall or a county courthouse and then persuade borrowers to hand over their deeds in exchange for solving their financial problems. The con artists then use the deeds to secure new loans for themselves but let the new loan go into foreclosure, leaving the distressed homeowner out on the street.

Freddie Mac, one of the nation's largest investors in residential mortgages, took its message to the Web after conducting a survey that found one in four borrowers go to the Internet before their lender when they fall behind in their payments.