Landlords. when renting a unit/property do you provide and document an EPA lead paint disclosure pamphlet? If you don’t you are placing yourself at serious risk.
The EPA is on a crusade, and you are the target.
The EPA has levied fines of as much as $40,000 for failure to kneel at their altar.
Read the story.
What would you do if you had just lost your job? You did not want welfare? How cheaply could you live? Do you think you could live in a 168 square foot house? Along with 3 other family members. What would you be willing to do to get out or stay out of debt?
This family built their house for $12,000 and then managed to save for their next larger home. I cheer them on and wonder if I could do it myself.
Do you remember the problems with Chinese drywall. It was making a lot of people sick and I think caused some corrosion and discoloration of the walls.
I think it happened mostly in the South. I didn’t hear of any cases here in Nevada.
Well the wonderful Chinese quality control is on display once again.
Imported Chinese copper pipe already blamed for leaks in hundreds of new homes, may not even be manufactured from copper and could installing copper pipe pose serious toxic health risks, according to a U.S. consumer watchdog group.
This time it happens to be the copper plumbing is failing. Apparently the copper is not all copper. You know that real copper is expensive and the manufacturers managed to slip in a bit of less costly metal along with the copper.
The Chinese manufactured pipes are being found as defective after they begin to slowly leak in crawl spaces under homes and in basements. Standard homeowners’ insurance policies do not cover the damage since policies don’t typically cover defective materials used in the construction of homes.
Apparently this time the problem is occurring nationwide.
Read more: http://www.housingpredictor.com/2012/new-toxic-scare.html
Do you need/want an FHA loan? It will soon get more expensive.
Expect to pay more. FHA needs the money and thinks you can afford it. The new fees are set to begin April 1 of this year.
Even though FHA itself doesn’t make the loans, it insures them.
First, the mortgage insurance premium will rise from 1.15% to 1.25% for loans under $625,000. The premium will be even larger for larger loans.
FHA will also increase the upfront mortgage premium from 1.0% to 1.75&.
According to The New York Times, a borrower with a 3.5 percent down payment with a mortgage of $193,000 can expect to pay an upfront mortgage premium alone of $3,377, compared to the prior $1,930
The premium can be rolled into the mortgage.
The FHA expects to raise $1.25 Billion additional revenue by Sept. 2013.
The NAR (Realtors) is strongly opposed to this action.
Read more on mortgage fees.
If you ever bought or even tried to buy a short sale you are aware of the problems and difficulty in completing the transaction. You might have wondered, “how could the banks be so obstinate?”
We now learn that even though the banks may have been difficult to work with, much of the problem came from the government in the name of Freddie Mac. “But, I thought the government wanted to help us,” you say.
Freddie went out of their way to paint the investors as the enemy. They issued policy letters describing potential mortgage fraud with the intention of making the investor out to be the criminal. The only problem was that Freddie itself was the real fraudster.
The truth is that Freddie Mac actually placed their bets against the housing crisis actually ever getting solved. Freddie made money whenever they were able to stop a short sale. Freddie benefited whenever the rest of us lost.
For more than a year, Freddie Mac has adopted numerous policies designed to prevent the private purchase of toxic assets and forced servicers to enforce these policies. Demands for unreasonable offers on short sales, delays in processing short sales, affidavits preventing resale of their properties after being rehabbed and deed restrictions on real-estate-owned properties restricting resale price are among the myriad obstacles private buyers face in trying to buy Freddie’s inventory.
Besides delaying the unwinding of the troubled entity, several of these policies may in fact be illegal. Restricting the ability of private buyers to resell their properties and attempting to dictate resale value constitute unreasonable restraint on alienation. In plain English, once Freddie sells one of its toxic assets, it has no standing in future transactions related to the property.
Freddie has attempted to justify these policies through a taxpayer-funded media campaign arguing that the act of buying, rehabbing and reselling a property constitutes a crime and is inherently an act of fraud. Both Freddie and Fannie Mae have worked with enforcement officials to convince them of this lie. To the embarrassment of these enforcement officials, Freddie left out one important detail: Every time it stopped a short sale, Freddie made money.
Here’s another “best of”, “worst of” list and Reno wins another prize. It may not be the prize that Reno would like on its resume although it’s not necessarily our fault. It is not just a story about Reno or Northern Nevada. This is an American problem, and I believe it was completely caused by politicians.
This is a list from 24/7 Wall St. of 9 cities that the article claims were nearly destroyed by the recession. Reno was scored in second place.
2. Reno-Sparks, NV
> Pct. jobs recovered: 1.6%
> Q4 2012 jobs: 187,600
> Pre-recession jobs peak: 225,200
> Recession jobs trough: 187,000
> Pct. jobs lost: 16.9%Between 2007 and 2010, the median home value in Reno-Sparks, Nevada declined 37.4%, the 13th biggest drop in the country among metro areas. The problems of the recession have plagued states in the southwest, which once had booming housing markets, arguably more than any other part in the country. From the beginning of 2007 to the third quarter of this year, jobs are projected to decline by 38,200, or 16.9% of the workforce. And according to the report, only 600 jobs, a mere 1.6%, will be recovered by the end of the year.
Read more: http://247wallst.com/2012/01/19/the-nin-cities-that-havent-recovered-from-the-recession/