United Press International - NewsTrack - Home builders try extras to lure customers
The evidence is mounting that the new housing market is maxed out, and we already know that resales are softer than a few months ago.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- A glut in homes for sale is prompting Washington, D.C.-area home builders to offer extras to snag customers. Daniel Oppenheim, an analyst with Banc of America Securities, said he's seen freebies worth up to 5 percent of a sales price. That includes kitchen upgrades, interest rate locks and coverage of closing costs or mortgage payments. There are more than twice the number of homes for sale this year than last.

Holy cows remain subject of legal fight
Another non-HOA story concerning differences of opinion regarding what constitutes a family member...moo.
Buffalo, New York - A Hindu couple whose sacred cows were banished from the western New York village of Angelica in 2003 have renewed their fight to bring them home. Stephen and Linda Voith are appealing a state Supreme Court decision that sided with Angelica officials, who cited rules governing farm animals within village limits. The Voiths, members of the Krishna Consciousness branch of Hinduism, insist that their six cows are not farm animals but part of the family and integral to the practice of their religion that protects and celebrates cows.

US home sales data signal end to boom

Not to talk down the US economy in unpatriotic fashion, mind you, but there are lot of unsold HOA and condo units on the market.

Sales of existing US homes dropped 1.7 percent in November while the stock of unsold homes on the market climbed to a 19-year high, the National Association of Realtors said. Admitting a slowdown is now under way, the industry group said existing home sales dropped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.97 million last month, the lowest since March. "Housing activity has peaked," said David Lereah, chief economist for the association. But he insisted the market will not implode after years of red-hot growth. "There are no balloons popping." Inventories of unsold homes increased 1.2 percent to 2.9 million, the most since April 1986.

'Inversion' in Bond Rates Hits Stocks: The yield on the 10-year Treasury note drops to a level at or below those of shorter-term securities, in what may foreshadow an economic slump.

I don't pretend to understand this tea-leaf reading, but it sounds ominous. Check out what one analyst said about the effect on the housing market. On the other hand, Alan Greenspan says this is not a problem at all. So go figure.

Normally, longer-term bonds pay more than shorter-term issues to compensate investors for the risk of tying up their money for an extended period. When long- and short-term interest rates converge, it often is a sign that bond investors believe the economy will slow ? so they're locking in long-term yields in anticipation that rates overall soon will level off or even head lower...The 10-year T-note yield, a benchmark for mortgages and other long-term rates, ended at 4.34% on Tuesday, down from 4.37% on Friday and the lowest since Sept. 30. By comparison, the Treasury sold new six-month bills at an annualized yield of 4.35% on Tuesday. And the two-year T-note ended at 4.34%, down from 4.36% on Friday...The last time rates inverted was in the second half of 2000. By spring of 2001, the U.S. economy was in recession...AIG SunAmerica's Cheah said he was more pessimistic about the economy because he worried about the effects of a rate inversion on the housing market. Banks, he said, may no longer find it profitable enough to make long-term loans such as conventional mortgages. "I'm betting that ? many banks will stop lending to the housing market," triggering broader economic weakness, he said.

PJM News - Amazon.com Exec to Open Aerospace Venture (6778237/AP)
Further progress toward the privatization of space travel? Got this link from Instapundit.

KENT, Wash., Dec. 26, 2005 (AP Online delivered by Newstex) -- Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos expects a rocket-ship complex for his aerospace venture Blue Origin to open early next year. City records show that an office and warehouse he's revamping in this south Seattle suburb will be used to design and build spacecraft and engines. Blue Origin has released few details about the project. But a Texas newspaper editor who interviewed Bezos earlier this year said the billionaire talked sending a spaceship into orbit that launches and lands vertically, like a rocket, and eventually building spaceships that can orbit the Earth _ possibly leading to permanent colonies in space.

Kansas man appeals ticket over anti-war signs
Not in an HOA, either. This happened in...

PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan. - A suburban Kansas City man is appealing a ticket Prairie Village gave him for homemade yard signs opposing the war in Iraq. The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and Western Missouri is helping David Quinly appeal the citation in Johnson County District Court. Quinly sought the ACLU's help after losing an appeal in municipal court. At issue is a Prairie Village ordinance prohibiting signs bigger than 5 square feet and limiting the total area of temporary signs displayed on a property to 10 square feet. Signs can't be up more than 60 days.

Abiding by rules of your neighbor: Disputes increase as more live under home associations - baltimoresun.com
From Nancy Levy comes this link to a Christmas day story about conflict in HOAs. It is worth reading and has quotes from me, Bob Nelson, and other suspects. Unfortunately it starts with the "good fences make good neighbors" line. I have to digress here. I wish reporters would give poor old Robert Frost a rest and switch to somebody more pithy, such as Edgar Allen Poe. How about starting a story on HOAs with a long quote from Poe that is appropriate to the subject, such as "...the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think." That's from The Masque of the Red Death.

See? Now here you have wall, gates, authoritarian government, and separation of the fortunate few from the rabble. That would get the reader's wheels turning. But I digress. Here's a passage from the Baltimore Sun story (did you know that Poe lived and died in Baltimore?):

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Favored by developers and local governments, community associations are also popular among home-buyers because they usually help keep up the neighborhood. But they can be nightmares for the unwary, who learn the hard way that their homes are not their castles. And politics in homeowner or condo groups can sometimes make the former Soviet Union seem democratic. Associations represent a "de facto privatization of local government," says Evan McKenzie, a political scientist at University of Illinois, Chicago. The problem is, he says, these entities designed for economic purposes often conflict with the civil liberties and accountability Americans expect...Half of all new housing built since 1980 has been in community associations, estimates Robert H. Nelson, a professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and author of a recent book on the phenomenon. The growth of what he calls "private neighborhoods" is transforming how people live and govern themselves, he suggests. "Americans may want less government," says Nelson, "but that's at a higher level. At a lower level, they want more government. They're voting with their feet."

Condo alliance heads to capital -- Coalition targets homeowner association laws

Fred Pilot sent this link. Some sort of evil pop-up ad that will not die goes with the link, but it's a good story. The emergence of this new group comes on the heels of legislative successes over the last two sessions by owner activist groups like Cyber Citizens for Justice. Note that the Coalition's policy goals amount to a rollback of some of those very victories. Anybody who has information one way or another on this group is invited to comment.

The newly formed statewide Coalition of Community Associations is readying for its first descent on Tallahassee. With representatives from nine counties, including Palm Beach and Broward, the coalition is looking to spread its influence to legislators who write homeowner and condo association law. The group formed earlier this year as a way to counteract the influential consumer group Cyber Citizens for Justice, which advocates for homeowners battling their associations...For a coalition that believes in less state intervention, this spring's legislative session will be the first test of its political prowess. Some of the issues the group will pursue: ensuring a board's ability to place a lien on owners who fail to pay dues, eliminating mandatory mediation for homeowners and boards and adding standards of objectivity to the condo ombudsman's office.

Judge upholds Chicago's pigeon ban
A federal judge has ruled that Chicago's ban on keeping racing pigeons is constitutional.

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The article explains that Chicago adopted the ban in 2003 and is the only city in the nation with a total ban on domestic pigeons. Somebody forgot to tell the fifty billion wild pigeons that are pooping all over the city. Which is why I think this is an uncommonly stupid law. It's about as effective as Chicago's gun ban.

A Man's Home May Be His Castle, but Only to a Point
Here's a link to the New York Times article on HOAs, with a quote or two from me:

To Evan C. McKenzie, an associate professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the squabble over the house is yet another expression of "privatopias": the growing power of homeowner associations that, he said, are "completely transforming the definition of home ownership."

Professor McKenzie, author of "Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government," noted that in a regular municipality, the Duffields' application to build a 72,000-square-foot house "would have to be evaluated according to the guidelines that applied at the time." But because of the power wielded by homeowner associations, he said, the Bryan Ranch residents were able to "basically move the goal posts."

"Home ownership has always meant a sense of dominion and control over the intimate parts of one's life," he said. "But when you buy into a homeowners association, it's a different form of government. It's not a liberal democracy."

BREITBART.COM - New Home Sales Plummet in November
It seems obvious that the real estate bubble is losing air in a number of markets. Yet for some reason this has become a partisan issue with some conservatives, who argue on the radio and in the press that anybody who points out that fact is talking down the economy in order to help Democrats in the 2006 elections. If there is a more ridiculous argument, I haven't heard it. Facts are facts, and it sure looks to me as though the housing market is in for some tougher times. I don't see a collapse, but there is no way the insane prices in some markets can keep going up, and that spells trouble for some people who are betting everything they have on continued housing price inflation.

Sales of new homes plunged in November by the largest amount in nearly 12 years, providing the most dramatic evidence yet that the red hot housing market over the last five years is starting to cool down. The Commerce Department reported Friday that new single-family homes were sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.245 million units last month, a drop of 11.3 percent from October, when sales had surged to an all-time high. Last month's decline was even bigger than the 8.7 percent drop-off that Wall Street analysts had been expecting. While sales of both new and existing homes are still on track to set records for a fifth straight year in 2005, analysts are forecasting sales will decline in 2006 as the housing boom quiets down.

Private Cities: Global and Local Perspectives...
...is now out, selling for a mere $130.00 (!) That is the new book edited by Chris Webster, Georg Glasze, and Klaus Frantz about the internationalization of the gated community/private neighborhood is out. I have a chapter in it. The Amazon link is here.

City probes neighborhood's upkeep - The Clarion-Ledger
Fred Pilot sent this piece about "Who picks up maintenance bill after homeowners group dissolves," a question I think a lot of municipalities will need to answer as the years go on...

Home Is Where The Rules Are
Bob Nelson's Op-Ed in the Washington Post, giving a boost to his new pro-HOA book...thanks to Nancy Levy for the link.

Did you know that this planned community was the set for "The Prisoner"?
Patrick McGoohan's series was shot here. How's that for planned community trivia?

Our Continental superiors leave the homeless to die in the streets?
People walk past as a homeless person takes cover from the cold on a Paris sidewalk November 28, 2005, as six homeless have died in France since the arrival of winter temperatures.
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Mais non! This cannot be! First the riots in the suburbs, and now homeless corpses frozen to the sidewalk. I thought we boorish, selfish Americans were supposed to be taking instructions in social policy from Les Francais. And their enlightened approach was to be the core of the policies of the European Union, wasn't it?

Residents Put Gates On Road
Fred Pilot sent this link to a story of an HOA that decided to fort up by building the Black Gates of Mordor at the entrance, but unfortunately didn't actually, technically, uh...own the street they tried to close. Oops.

WESLEY CHAPEL -- In their effort to privatize their streets, Grand Oaks residents have built a new gatehouse and installed black metal gates at the subdivision's entrance on County Road 54. But, according to Pasco County, Grand Oaks' streets remain public and can't be gated. "They can put up the structures. They can't close the gates," said Richard Sliz, real estate manager for Pasco County, which officially owns Grand Oaks' streets. Grand Oaks is one of a handful of Pasco communities trying to remove their streets from the public domain.

How Condops Differ From Condops - New York Times
You learn something new every day. Nancy Levy just provided me with this neologism: "condops." Check it out.

Arthur I. Weinstein, a Manhattan lawyer who is vice president of the Council of New York Cooperatives and Condominiums, said that while the term condop was originally coined to describe a legal combination of co-op and condo, the term now seems to have morphed into a way of describing - usually for marketing purposes - a relatively unusual type of co-op. When the term condop is used in the legal sense, Mr. Weinstein said, it describes a building (or a complex of buildings) that is part co-op and part condo. Usually, the entire residential portion of the building (which contains co-op apartments) is legally one condo unit, while the commercial and professional spaces are owned as one or more additional condo units, he said.

Owners paying price at condos without financial reserves

Fred Pilot sent this in. I think inability to pay for major repairs will soon become a big issue for many condos and HOAs. Here's an example. People don't want to pay today for somebody else's room ten years down the road. The article lays that out clearly. Then the inevitable big ticket repair comes along, and it's special assessment time to the tune of about five digits.

But note the incredible comment from Florida's condobudsman Virgil Rizzo, to wit: "I'm against reserves, it puts money into coffers that directors can [illegally] get into," said Virgil Rizzo, the state condo ombudsman. I think that attitude is fairly widespread, but it is a bit strong coming from the condo ombudsman, I think. Distrust of the BOD is yet another reason people vote against assessments that are high enough to maintain adequate reserves. And I suppose all those folks will be quoting Rizzo at the next annual meeting. But look: if Rizzo believes we can't trust directors to handle reserves that are intended for common area repair, and if taking care of the common area is their main function (as it is), then it seems to me he should be working to abolish condos instead of taking a job that is intended to make them work better--shouldn't he? Because what is saying is that we can't trust volunteer directors to carry out their most basic responsiblity (property maintenance), and the only way to fix that problem is to deprive the corporation of a sinking fund. They would just operate on a hand-to-mouth basis, because the directors can't be trusted with anything more than that. That to me is the clear implication of his statement. Any comments on that?

Fairies stop developers' bulldozers in their tracks

Here's a new anti-development strategy from Great Britain that US preservationists and Wal-Mart haters could try:

VILLAGERS who protested that a new housing estate would ?harm the fairies? living in their midst have forced a property company to scrap its building plans and start again.