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Article source: http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20120520/REAL_ESTATE02/305209988
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Leesville-based Candice Skinner has been recognized by Realtor magazine as one of the rising stars in the industry nationally.
Skinner made the magazine’s “30 Under 30″ list, announced last week. Each spring, the magazine selects 30 young Realtors “who are successful in the real estate business and have demonstrated skill, success, creativity, and leadership in their careers.”
This year’s honorees are featured in the May/June issue of Realtor, the official magazine of the National Association of Realtors.
“I’m very excited,” Skinner said. “I remember when I was getting started in this business at 20 years old, I picked up a copy of that magazine and said to myself, ‘Someday, I’m going to be in there.’ Seven years later, it happened.”
Skinner, who opened Candice Skinner Real Estate last year, was singled out for her work with military families.
“My husband is in the Army, so a big part of my heart is with military families,” she said.
This year’s group of honorees “exemplifies the ingenuity, dedication, and prowess that’s raising the bar in real estate today,” according to the 30 Under 30 announcement.
“I am always astonished to see the ’30 Under 30′ professionals every year and all that they have achieved in such a short amount of time,” National Association of Realtors President Moe Veissi said in a statement.
“What amazes me the most about this year’s class is how they recognize there is no one formula for winning in real estate,” he said. “They have discovered success their own way and display the dedication and hardworking spirit all Realtors possess. As Realtors, we are constantly evolving with the market and it’s important to recognize these young people and learn from them, as they are the future of the real estate profession.”
Unemployment data
The Alexandria metropolitan area’s unemployment rate dropped slightly in April, according to figures released Friday by the Louisiana Workforce Commission.
The seasonally unadjusted rate in the area was at 6.4 percent in April, down .6 percent from March and .1 percent from April 2011.
All eight metro areas in the state saw a slight drop in unemployment in April. Statewide, the rate was 6.4 percent, a drop of .6 percent from March.
Nonprofit award
Capital One Bank is accepting participants in its 2012 “Investing for Good Award,” which provides support through volunteerism and grants to six Louisiana nonprofits that build economic opportunity in the following focus areas: education, financial literacy, and small business and work force development.
Letters of intent to participate in the program are being accepted online at www.cybergrants.com/capitalone/LAinvestingforgoodawardLOI through June 21.
Award recipients are each eligible for grants totaling up to $60,000 over the two-year period.
—”Business Beat” runs each Sunday. Send tips and news to business reporter Jeff Matthews at jmatthews@thetowntalk.com or call (318) 487-6380.
Article source: http://www.thetowntalk.com/article/20120520/BUSINESS/205200334
Tuesday
9 a.m.-4 p.m. The Northeastern California SBDC – Greater Sacramento presents a business plan guidelines workshop at 1410 Ethan Way. Cost is $80. To register, visit www.sbdc.net.
4-6 p.m. FranNet West presents “Encore Business … for Boomers Who Want More” at FranNet West, 970 Reserve Drive, Suite 100, Roseville. To register, visit www.frannet.com.
Wednesday
8:45-11:30 a.m. SARTA presents “How Entrepreneurs Can Give Stellar Presentations” at Drexel University, One Capitol Mall, Suite 260. Cost $40. To register, visit www.sarta.org.
9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. The Employment Development Department and the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement presents “State Labor Law and Payroll Tax Seminar” at Citrus Heights Business Information Center, 7011 Sylvan Road, Suite A, Citrus Heights. To RSVP, visit www.edd.ca.gov.
Thursday
9 a.m.-noon The Northeastern California SBDC – Greater Sacramento presents “QuickBooks Reports Forms” at 1410 Ethan Way. Cost is $40. To register, visit www.sbdc.net.
Noon The Sacramento Public Library hosts a workshop about dressing for interviews at Rancho Cordova Library, 9845 Folsom Blvd. To RSVP, visit www.saclibrary.org.
1-2:30 p.m. The Northeastern California SBDC – Greater Sacramento presents a free workshop called “Sacramento Business Journal: Finding Sale Leads” at 1410 Ethan Way. To register, visit www.sbdc.net.
Friday
10 a.m.-noon The Sacramento Public Library hosts an online job search class at North Highlands-Antelope Library, 4235 Antelope Road. To RSVP, visit www.saclibrary.org.
Email announcements of your business meetings, seminars and other events to bizcal@sacbee.com by noon Tuesday for publication the following Sunday.
© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.
Article source: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/05/20/4500717/business-calendar-week-of-may.html
SACRAMENTO — California’s unemployment rate dipped slightly in April to 10.9 percent, the state said Friday, as a federal survey showed 20,000 new jobs were created.
The state’s jobless rate had dropped below 11 percent during the first two months of the year, only to bounce back up to 11 percent in March.
“A lower rate is always good news, but it just gets us back down where we were in January, February,” said Dennis Meyers, an economist for the state Department of Finance. “I think it’s kind of symptomatic of this kind of low boil we’re on.”
The nation’s unemployment rate also fell in April, to 8.1 percent.
Last month, employers in California added a total of more than 19,000 jobs in four categories — mining and logging, trade, transportation and utilities, and professional and business services.
The figures also showed the subcategory of professional, scientific, and technical services jobs has now regained all the high-wage, high-tech jobs lost in the recession.
However, nonfarm payroll jobs decreased overall by 4,200 in April, breaking a string of eight consecutive monthly gains, said Kevin Callori, a spokesman for the state Economic Development Department.
Seven sectors lost a combined 23,300 jobs in April, including construction, manufacturing, information, financial activities, educational and health services, leisure and hospitality, and government. Construction was the biggest loser, down 6,700
jobs from March.
Several sectors have seen seasonal ebbs and flows in recent months, partly from a rainy spring that may have slowed construction hiring, analysts said.
Michael Bernick, a former director of the Economic Development Department who is now a fellow at the Milken Institute, said the decline in the unemployment rate was due to the drop in the number of Californians who are seeking to be part of the labor force.
More than 2 million Californians are still out of work, but there were 164,000 fewer people unemployed than a year ago, according to the state agency.
California’s unemployment rate trailed only neighboring Nevada, which has the nation’s highest rate at 11.7 percent, and Rhode Island, which had a jobless rate of 11.2 percent.
A year ago, California’s unemployment rate was 11.8 percent. The state agency says 385,600 jobs have been created in California since the economic recovery began in September 2009.
Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_20667615/california-jobless-rate-dips-slightly-10-9-percent
Q: We own a home in Georgia. Due to a job change, my husband moved out of state and took a large pay cut. I stayed in the home for a year after he moved and we depleted our savings during that time.
We were finally able to rent the home out, but the rent does not cover our expenses. Now the mortgage company will not accept our request for a loan modification. We are in the arrears since January of this year. I am truly perplexed why the mortgage company will not work with us. Is it to their advantage to just take the home? We have an FHA loan. And what about the renters who just moved in?
Now that you have moved out of the home, your options may be more limited and you may have to make some hard choices.
You stopped making payments to your lender in January and now the lender has the right to foreclose on the home, sell it and use those proceeds to pay whatever is owed on the debt. Georgia is one of those states that allows for a rather quick foreclosure process. While in some states the foreclosure process goes through the courts and can take quite some time to go from non-payment to a home sale, in your situation, it could take just six months or less.
Now that you have leased the home to tenants, your lender considers the home to be an investment/rental property. Most home loan modification programs and foreclosure avoidance programs have been set up to keep homeowners in their principal residence. Making Home Affordable (www.makinghomeaffordable.gov) doesn’t help real estate investors — even though that isn’t what you intended to be.
Borrowers in trouble with second homes, rental homes and other investment real estate might be out of luck, as few lenders are willing to help them out under any relief programs. Contact your own lender directly and ask; however, since you are months behind in your mortgage, the lender may not feel you qualify.
You still have the ability to sell the home, even if the sale is a short sale (i.e., the proceeds from the sale are less than what you owe). If you sell the home, you will then get rid of the issues that go along with owning it, including the debt.
If you do a short sale, you will have a resulting balance you still owe the lender, called a deficiency. In some states, the lender will be unable to pursue you for the deficiency. In states where deficiency judgments against borrowers are allowed, the lender can sue you for the amount owed and can attempt to collect that debt for years to come.
In your situation, you can wait for the lender to foreclose or you can try to sell the home. If you are successful in selling the home, your credit will have a black mark on it, but your credit history won’t suffer as much as if the home is lost through a foreclosure.
As for your tenant, you are now well into positive balance on your home budget. You’ve stopped paying the lender and you’re collecting rent on the home. It’s time for you to make up your mind as to whether you want to keep the home or get rid of it.
Article source: http://www.northjersey.com/realestate/152189405_Renting_your_home_limits_options_for_mortgage_relief.html
The residential mortgage-foreclosure crisis was good for business at Ahome Affordable Homes in Millville.
Make that too good: After several years of growth, the respected nonprofit agency, which had assisted at least 2,100 people facing foreclosure since 2009, laid off four counselors and several other staff members last month because its funding couldn’t keep up with the demand for services.
A change in how it was reimbursed by the state, new options for homeowners in trouble, and longer waits to resolve cases left Ahome — founded 20 years ago — unable to make payroll, says executive director Donna W. Turner, one of two remaining employees.
“We’ve lost foreclosure prevention at the worst possible time, when the need is the greatest,” says Turner, whose agency continues to offer other housing-related programs.
Ahome was assisting about 440 homeowners in the state’s seven southernmost counties when it ended its foreclosure-prevention services April 1. Clients are being referred to similar nonprofits, such as Clarifi in Cherry Hill.
The New Jersey Housing Mortgage Finance Agency “regrets Ahome’s decision to no longer participate in [our] foreclosure prevention programs,” says its spokeswoman, Lisa Ryan, in an e-mail. “All 23 of the other counseling agencies [in New Jersey] continue with the program today,” she adds, pointing out that those agencies were forced to adjust to the same changes.
Turner says she alerted the state about the cash crunch a year ago.
“We were forced to throw in the towel. We acted in good faith. We hired the staff because there is an absolute need for foreclosure prevention counseling in South Jersey.”
While some might misinterpret the word counseling as hand-holding for people who ought to help themselves, foreclosure prevention is a rigorous process that requires clients to get their financial affairs in order before it’s too late. The goal is to meet, not evade, responsibilities, and to prevent homelessness and the ripple effects of vacant houses.
“We’re not giving homeowners cash,” says Turner, a no-nonsense woman who lives in Deptford. “We’re providing them with the advice they need to preserve an asset they may have spent a lifetime” working to obtain. “We are trying to preserve home ownership.”
According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, 8.4 percent of New Jersey mortgages are in foreclosure, a percentage second only to Florida’s. While the annual number of foreclosures filed in New Jersey dropped from 66,717 in 2009 to 11,037 in 2011, the first four months of this year already have seen 7,595 filings.
“There ought to be more resources to create the infrastructure these foreclosure-prevention programs need,” says Joan Straussman, director of programs for the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey, of which Ahome is a member. “Foreclosure counseling is very difficult, but it can work.”
Inside Ahome’s utilitarian office in Millville, a working-class city whose gritty charms include a downtown arts district, homeowners facing foreclosure still call for appointments that are no longer available. Turner and one of her now-unemployed foreclosure-prevention specialists, Millville resident Sonya Ivanovs, tell me about success stories like George Beacham.
A truck driver, Beacham was on the verge of losing his house in Lindenwold three years ago.
“I got behind on my payments,” he says later by phone. “I made some mistakes, some bad judgments on my bills.”
Ahome counselors helped him get on a budget, and out from under a crippling interest rate. It took about a year.
“They earned my trust,” Beacham says. “Whatever they told me to do, I did it.”
Despite tales such as Beacham’s, and studies by organizations such as the Urban Land Institute that demonstrate the efficacy of counseling, political support for foreclosure prevention appears to be waning nationwide, says Karen Black, a principal in the Media firm known as May 8 Consulting, which specializes in housing, land use, and development-related issues.
“It’s almost as if elected officials have gotten bored and tired with foreclosure, and are pulling resources away when they’re needed most,” she says.
Asked if the state might reduce its funding, Ryan says the Housing Mortgage Finance Agency “has no plans … to reduce its commitment to foreclosure counseling.”
At an estimated cost of $750 per household, such services are a relative bargain, Black says. This is particularly so when you consider the economic and social impact of actual foreclosures, which typically depress the value of nearby homes by an estimated $8,000, she adds. “Too often, government doesn’t know what to do, and just throws money at the problem. In this case, we know exactly what helps.”
Contact Kevin Riordan at 856-779-3845 or kriordan@phillynews.com, or follow on Twitter @inqkriordan. Read the metro columnists’ blog, “Blinq,” at www.phillynews.com/blinq.
Article source: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120520_A_South_Jersey_foreclosure_counseling_agency_reluctantly_closes_shop.html
Recently, 16 members of ERA Team VP Real Estate attended the 2012 ERA International Business Conference in New Orleans, La.
While in attendance at the International Business Conference, Bill Soffel, a local real estate broker, was recognized as one of the nation’s top ERA brokers by global real estate leader ERA Franchise Systems LLC. Soffel accepted the President’s Circle designation for superior performance on behalf of ERA Team VP Real Estate.
The President’s Circle is a group of ERA companies across the nation that rank among the Gold Level for the top 50, Silver Level for the top 100 or Bronze Level for the top 200 in either number of residential sales completed or total amount of completed sales in the ERA network.
“This is an excellent example, for our brokers and the entire real estate industry, of what can be accomplished through innovative thinking and close attention to customers’ needs, regardless of market conditions,” said Charlie Young, president and chief executive officer, ERA Franchise Systems LLC. “Bill’s achievement is a testament to his unwavering commitment to ERA’s core values of innovation, collaboration and superior service as well as his impressive business acumen and deep knowledge of this market – all of which are invaluable assets to homebuyers and sellers in Western New York.”
Individual Associates of ERA Team VP Real Estate were honored as well. Jane Grice and Karen Goodell of ERA Team VP Real Estate in Chautauqua were each awarded a Beyond Excellence designation by ERA Franchise Systems LLC. The designation recognizes the ERA network’s top producers for excellence in real estate sales.
To qualify for the Beyond Excellence designation, ERA sales associates or selling-brokers must have achieved 45 total closed units or $100,000 in adjusted gross commission in 2011.
“An unparalleled commitment to service has clearly contributed to the successes of both Jane Grice and Karen Goodell and I am pleased to congratulate each of them on this impressive accomplishment,” Yuong said.
Anne Walters, ERA Team VP Real Estate’s office coordinator, was also honored during the ERA International Business Conference. She was named a top three finalist for the ERA Office Coordinator of the Year Award by ERA Franchise Systems LLC, in recognition of her local and national contributions. Soffel nominated Mrs. Walters for the award because of the role she has played in the company’s success.
“Anne has been with my organization since 2002, and has been instrumental in the successful coordination of our real estate sales division as we have navigated through both good and poor market conditions, through the rapid changes within the real estate industry, and most importantly, through all of the change and growth that is part and parcel to the transition from an independent company to a franchise company,” Soffel said.
For more information about ERA Team VP Real Estate, visit www.myteamvp.com or call one of the main office locations at 789-2600 in Chautauqua; 699-4800 in Ellicottville; or 585-968-2113 in Cuba.
Article source: http://post-journal.com/page/content.detail/id/604145/Realtor-Named-One-Of-Nation-s-Best.html?nav=5003
QUESTION: My husband and I purchased our first home in 2011. The home is a four-story townhouse in Washington, D.C. Built in the 1880s, it has had many owners and updates.
After living in the home, we noticed the home shakes every time a truck drives down the street. The home is four stories tall and has a basement. If we slam the door, the second floor shakes. The seller was a real estate agent and had the home for several years. He did not disclose this, and now we think the home has serious and costly structural problems. The shaking just isn’t normal. Do we have any recourse?
ANSWER: Unless you know that the house has serious and costly structural problems, you probably don’t have much to complain about. You knew you were buying a home from the 1880s. It’s about 130 years old and is still standing. When the home was built, there were only horse-drawn carriages going down the street, and now you have trucks that are many tons in weight going down your street. It has probably been shaking this way ever since trucks started going down the street.
Presumably, you had an inspector come to the home and go through it before you bought it and did not find any deficiencies in the construction — or at least you decided to buy the home, anyway. The only way you’ll know for sure whether the house has structural problems is to hire a structural engineer to investigate. If you hire a structural engineer, even if he or she finds that the house is not built to today’s standards, that does not mean that it is deficient. The structural engineer will have to find that there has been some recent or new deficiency in the structure that is causing the shaking problem.
Even if you find out that there is a deficiency in the home, shaking alone may not constitute a sufficient problem for the seller to know that the home had a deficiency that needed to be disclosed to you.
There may be a way to make the problem better by installing additional supports or taking other action; you can see what it would cost to do so. But taking that action may be like improving the home and not a true fix to a deficiency that needed to be disclosed to you.
If you buy an older home and some of the elements of the home have aged and become weak, the seller has to disclose to you any problem they know about as a result. If the seller knew, for example, that a center beam of your home was cracked and deteriorated and could fail at any time, it would seem that the seller should have disclosed that to you. However, if the roof of a home is old but is not leaking, and you move into the home and it then starts leaking, you can’t blame the seller for the leak or for the cost of replacing an old roof. You knew the roof was old, and an old roof can start leaking at any time.
You have to take responsibility for your actions and the purchase you decided to make. You need to review the situation, get some expert advice from people who are familiar with homes like yours. You might start by asking your neighbors who live in homes of similar age whether their homes shake when a truck drives past. Assess what, if any, corrective action must be taken, and then talk to an attorney when you have all of this information.
If the fix to your problem is relatively inexpensive, you may want to do it and move on. If the fix looks to be quite expensive, then you may have to investigate the problem more and then determine whether any disclosure laws were broken and whether the seller would have any liability for nondisclosure.
Tell us how things end up once you gather more information.
Ilyce R. Glink’s latest book is “Buy, Close, Move In!” Samuel J. Tamkin is a Chicago-based real estate attorney. If you have questions, you can call Ilyce’s radio show toll-free (800-972-8255) 11 a.m.-1 p.m. any Sunday. Contact them through her website, www.thinkglink.com.
Article source: http://www.freep.com/article/20120520/BUSINESS04/205200406/Owners-of-1880s-house-may-not-have-recourse-over-vibrations
Californians do leave. In the last two decades, nearly 4 million more people have left than have come in from other states. According to a new University of Southern California study, the state’s population growth is slowing significantly, with increases driven by native-born children of immigrants or second-generation immigrants.
But a case can be made for staying in California.
It’s not just for the obvious reasons: the beaches, the mountains, the culture. There are more practical considerations as well. For starters, the problems are the result of bad government, and I’m convinced that acts of government can change, especially now, as years of fiscal mismanagement hit the wall. Plenty of policy tools exist for those who would rather dig in than bug out.
Not that I blame those who leave. “No act of God could wreak such devastation upon our state,” said Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Granite Bay. “Only acts of government could do that.”
There’s no denying the hurdles, especially for business owners who must deal with a government that is hostile to their efforts. The state Chamber of Commerce sponsored a business-closing event near downtown Los Angeles, where companies explained why they were headed to Utah and elsewhere. That was in 2003. Did anyone listen?
A colleague who took a job in the Midwest a few months ago said that he was on a waiting list for moving vans, given the number of people fleeing eastward. Friends and neighbors talk incessantly about where they are planning to move in pursuit of a lower cost of living and better economic opportunities.
The chairman of San Diego Tax Fighters, Richard Rider, regularly updates his “breaking bad” list of California comparisons with other states. It details the many taxes that are higher here than in other states and the many economic indicators that are worse here than elsewhere.
Whereas other blue bastions New York, Rhode Island and even Chicago are tackling pension reform and other problems, California’s leaders resort to their first-reach answer: raising taxes. They refuse to slow the ceaseless increase in regulations.
It’s not just the taxes and red tape. The state’s progressive Democrats seem to loathe the private sector, and such attitudes also figure into business decisions. Chief Executive magazine, in its annual survey of the best states to do business, ranked Texas as No. 1 and California as No. 50. That’s the eighth year in a row California took last place.
Article source: http://www.modbee.com/2012/05/19/2207147/california-can-still-be-land-of.html
SACRAMENTO — California’s unemployment rate dipped slightly in April to 10.9 percent, the state said Friday, as a federal survey showed 20,000 new jobs were created.
The state’s jobless rate had dropped below 11 percent during the first two months of the year, only to bounce back up to 11 percent in March.
“A lower rate is always good news, but it just gets us back down where we were in January, February,” said Dennis Meyers, an economist for the state Department of Finance. “I think it’s kind of symptomatic of this kind of low boil we’re on.”
The nation’s unemployment rate also fell in April, to 8.1 percent.
The picture is slowly improving in both Yuba-Sutter and the state as a whole, but rates for those out of work and looking are also still far from what they’d be during good economic times.
New figures from the state Economic Development Department showed an unemployment rate of 17.1 percent in Yuba County and 19.8 percent in Sutter County last month.
A year earlier, the respective numbers were 18.5 and 21.4 percent.
The numbers in Yuba and Sutter still were among the highest in the state, though Colusa County, at 22.6 percent, and Imperial, at 26.8, led all 58 counties.
Last month, employers in California added a total of more than 19,000 jobs in four categories — mining and logging, trade, transportation and utilities, and professional and business services.
The figures also showed the subcategory of professional, scientific, and technical services jobs has now regained all the high-wage, high-tech jobs lost in the recession.
However, nonfarm payroll jobs decreased overall by 4,200 in April, breaking a string of eight consecutive monthly gains, said Kevin Callori, a spokesman for the state Economic Development Department.
Seven sectors lost a combined 23,300 jobs in April, including construction, manufacturing, information, financial activities, educational and health services, leisure and hospitality, and government. Construction was the biggest loser, down 6,700 jobs from March.
Several sectors have seen seasonal ebbs and flows in recent months, partly from a rainy spring that may have slowed construction hiring, analysts said.
Michael Bernick, a former director of the Economic Development Department who is now a fellow at the Milken Institute, said the decline in the unemployment rate was due to the drop in the number of Californians who are seeking to be part of the labor force.
More than 2 million Californians are still out of work, but there were 164,000 fewer people unemployed than a year ago, according to the state agency.
California’s unemployment rate trailed only neighboring Nevada, which has the nation’s highest rate at 11.7 percent, and Rhode Island, which had a jobless rate of 11.2 percent.
A year ago, California’s unemployment rate was 11.8 percent.
The state agency says 385,600 jobs have been created in California since the nation’s economic recovery began in September 2009.
Article source: http://www.appeal-democrat.com/news/sacramento-116345-slightly-dips.html