My Way News - Homeowner Equity Is Lowest Since 1945

My Way News - Homeowner Equity Is Lowest Since 1945: "NEW YORK (AP) - Americans' percentage of equity in their homes fell below 50 percent for the first time on record since 1945, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. Homeowners' portion of equity slipped to downwardly revised 49.6 percent in the second quarter of 2007, the central bank reported in its quarterly U.S. Flow of Funds Accounts, and declined further to 47.9 percent in the fourth quarter - the third straight quarter it was under 50 percent. That marks the first time homeowners' debt on their houses exceeds their equity since the Fed started tracking the data in 1945. The total value of equity also fell for the third straight quarter to $9.65 trillion from a downwardly revised $9.93 trillion in the third quarter."
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This is scary.

Nevada County Local News: Embezzle case: Balch changes her plea to guilty - TheUnion.com: "In front of six elderly victims in court Thursday, the wife of a former Nevada City mayor pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $100,000 from their homeowners association, of which she was treasurer."
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Yet another "isolated incident" that in no way implies there is any larger problem with embezzlement and other misuse of association funds by those entrusted with them. Move along. Nothing to see here.
Thanks to Fred Pilot for the link.

Vultures Ripping Apart Roofs, Chewing Cars - Orlando News Story - WKMG Orlando

Vultures Ripping Apart Roofs, Chewing Cars - Orlando News Story - WKMG Orlando: "City officials said little can be done about the hundreds of black and turkey vultures because they are federally protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act."
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You can't even scare them away. You have to stand there and watch while they eat your roof and your car. Maybe the Migratory Bird Treat Act needs an amendment? Just suggesting...

HeraldTribune.com - Real Estate - Real estate and homes news stories about Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte counties in Florida, from the newspapers of record. - HeraldTribune.com: "If you have a problem with your condominium association, there is a place to try to get relief, or at least an explanation of your rights.

Created by the Florida Legislature in 2004, the Office of the Condominium Ombudsman has become a resource for unit owners, board members, condominium associations and others.

So far, lawmakers have not created a similar office for homeowners associations, but one is being considered."
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Nice photo of Danille Carroll. The last line in the piece quotes her as saying something I said when we were both speaking at Frank Askin's conference in New Jersey: "You are only one election away from having a bad condo board." And that is the Achilles Heel of this entire institution.

wcbstv.com - Queens Building Uses 'Mosquito' To Quiet Teens: "QUEENS (CBS) ― Teenagers who hang out inside one apartment building in Jamaica, Queens are getting an earful these days. A new security device called 'The Mosquito' has been installed in the lobby of a building on 170th St. where there have been chronic problems with noisy teens. The wall-mounted device emits a high-frequency screech that can only be heard by people aged 13 to 25. Most older people cannot hear it."
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You mean to tell me that there is a "high-frequency screech" that is actually worse than the music they pay for? I don't believe it. Soon that screech will be the most-downloaded mp3 file on the planet.

My Way News - Luxury Homes Burn in Apparent Eco-Attack: "WOODINVILLE, Wash. (AP) - Three seven-figure dream homes went up in flames early Monday in a Seattle suburb, apparently set by eco-terrorists who left a sign mocking the builders' claims that the 4,000-plus-square-foot houses were environmentally friendly. The sign - a sheet marked with spray paint - bore the initials ELF, for Earth Liberation Front, a loose collection of radical environmentalists that has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks since the 1990s."
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I hope they find a nice set of cozy prison cells for these folks. But it may not be so easy to catch them.

Court may consider broadcast decency rules - The Boston Globe: "WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court this week may reopen for the first time in more than 30 years the debate over what qualifies as an 'indecent' broadcast...The issue before the court now is delicately described as the problem of 'fleeting expletives' in over-the-air broadcasts, which are still regulated. Television viewers who watch some of the entertainment industry's award shows may be familiar with the phenomenon."
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The Federal Communications Commission licenses broadcast stations to use particular frequencies, and requires them to avoid "indecency" as a condition of keeping those licenses. Celebrities delight in dropping "F-bombs" here and there to show how cool they are and get free publicity. What should happen to the station that broadcasts it?

MyFox Chicago | Prepare to Pay More in Sales Tax by November: "'Chicago now has the unfortunate notoriety of having the highest sales tax in the country, and our region will now be a more expensive place to visit, live, work and operate a business,' said Jerry Roper, head of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. 'The people of our region should be outraged.'"
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Chicagoans have the privilege of being governed by Democrats at the state, county, and municipal level. That means lots of free stuff being paid for by business and the middle class through high taxes. Would you locate your retail business in the city with the highest sales tax in the USA?

Homeowner loses in porn case -- OrlandoSentinel.com: "A Sanford appellate court has ruled against a woman sued by her homeowners association in 2003 for leasing her Brantley Harbor home to a gay-porn Web site. The original suit sought a court order to have Charles Foulk shut down the site because he was operating a business in the upscale subdivision in violation of the association rules."
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Would it have been different if she had been living in a condom-inium?
Sorry.

This town is shut down | Macleans.ca - Canada - Features: "Howard Anderson, all his former neighbours will say, is a stubborn man among stubborn men. So stubborn, in fact, that he has outlived Aylmer Sound, the village in which he was born and that, last year, officially legislated itself out of existence. He chops wood, shoots rabbits and watches nature shows on satellite TV. He says the only way he'll leave the town that no longer exists is with a gun to his head."
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Why should he leave? Sounds like the libertarian utopia has finally been realized. The government is gone, and so is everybody else. He has the place to himself and can be a true individual. No taxation, no regulation...

£80m: most expensive house sold in London | News: "A record price for a London home has been set with the £80million sale of a large detached house in Kensington.

It smashes the previous high of £67million for steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal's home in Kensington Palace Gardens and is claimed to be the world's most expensive single residential dwelling."
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And all because they put "No HOA!" in the ad.

American Thinker: The Home Equity Partnership: "The problem with the real-estate market is that it forces ordinary people to use far too much leverage. Americans are mostly pretty conservative about their finances. But for many Americans the only way that they can afford a home is by accepting a very risky proposition, borrowing 80 percent or more of the purchase price of their home."
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And the writer of that blog thinks conservatives should make themselves into reformers of this situation. A provocative article.

Mold threatens Miami courthouse - Yahoo! News: "MIAMI - A federal judge has closed portions of Miami's historic downtown courthouse after a report identified widespread mold infestation and ongoing water leaks, with one part of the basement termed 'disgusting' by inspectors."
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I wonder if this will help the associations who have mold remediation lawsuits on file in that courthouse.

Alaska town sues over global warming - USATODAY.com: "ANCHORAGE (AP) — A tiny Alaska village eroding into the Arctic Ocean sued two dozen oil, power and coal companies Tuesday, claiming that the large amounts of greenhouse gases they emit contribute to global warming that threatens the community's existence."

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The Inupiat village of Kivalina is built on a barrier reef. The reef is now exposed to heavy storm waves because of the reduced sea ice and it is eroding. Apparently this is the fault of the oil industry? I assume this case will be tied up in demurrer and dismissal motions and then go up on appeal, so don't expect the big Global Warming Trial anytime soon.

FOXNews.com - Michael Jackson's Neverland Foreclosed; Auction Date Set - : "Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch is set to be sold at auction on March 19. Jackson received word Monday from Financial Title Company, the trustee, that unless he pays off $24,525,906.61 by that date, a public auction will go forward in Santa Barbara, Calif., in front of the county courthouse. It's not just the house either. When Neverland is auctioned, it will include everything: all personal property inside, all fixtures and appliances, furniture, and "all merry go round type devices," any rides, games. The auction literally includes every single thing that is or isn't nailed down.


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I think 24 million plus sounds a bit pricey, even if it does have an amusement park. Maybe the real value is on the things that aren't "nailed down," Elvis Presley's bones or something.

Cairns.com.au - Monster python eats pet: "These pythons used to feed on wallabies but now they feed on cats and dogs in suburbia,' he said."
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I guess in Oz you get a different brand of suburban problems than in, say, Phoenix.

DailyTech - Temperature Monitors Report Worldwide Global Cooling: "Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on. No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously."
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So why does Al Gore keep saying "the debate is over"?

Green Bay Press-Gazette - Using torch to clear snow, he sets shed on fire: "Using torch to clear snow, he sets shed on fire"
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Yet another egg broken in the quest for the omelette of human innovation. Or something.

January foreclosures up 57% - Feb. 26, 2008: "NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Foreclosure filings nationwide soared 57% in January over the same month last year - another indication that the nation's housing woes are deepening.

A study released Tuesday by RealtyTrac, an online marketer of foreclosure properties, showed that 233,001 homes were affected, 8% more than in December. Of that total, 45,327 homes were lost to bank repossessions."
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Yikes.

newsobserver.com | Board tempest roils Raleigh suburb: "The rift at Harrington Grove, a 1,241-home community in northwest Raleigh, is an extreme example of how wrong things can go with homeowner boards, private organizations that often serve as unofficial forms of local government."

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From Fred "Good News" Pilot. Actually, there are many examples of things going a whole lot more wrong than this.