11/22/2006
By JONATHAN GIBBS
When lives are stripped away of frill, affectation, artifice and the generally unnecessary, what's left? What's needed, as opposed to wanted?
Most would settle on food, shelter and safety as the bare essential minimum needs. Try going without the security of having those three basic elements of survival for, say, more than a year, and you have a situational crisis unprecedented in this, the most affluent country in the world.
This crisis has a name that will long be associated with bureaucratic inertia, governmental ineptitude and neglect on all levels: Katrina. We all saw the images: submerged houses with people clinging to their rooftops; streets turned into canals dotted with floating detritus and worse.
The area that bore the most extensive damage was Louisiana, specifically New Orleans. It was here that a group of realtors from Rhode Island joined last week with the National Association of Realtors (NAR) members - 20,000 strong (out of nearly one million total) - to help bring some life and much-needed cash back to the flagging convention industry in New Orleans.
The numbers associated with Katrina tell one truth: 645,000 people displaced from their homes. About 6 in 10 of these persons were again living in the home from which they had evacuated. The metropolitan New Orleans area saw 1,185 people die, and there are 485 still missing.
And those who saw the TV images and read the accounts were aghast at the numerical representations of this national tragedy. But it can safely be said that the only way to truly experience the state of the city in all of its terrible ruination is to see it close-up, in person. And that is what the Rhode Island contingent of the NAR convention did.
Ron Phipps of East Greenwich, the National Chapter of NAR Liaison for Housing and Diversity, was among those who toured the city.
"It can't help but leave you with a profound sense of lossBIG EASY, from page 1 and sadness," Phipps says of his visit. The most visceral of these feelings was felt during the group's visit to the city's Lower Ninth Ward, where many of the houses still have 'X' marks on the doorway for every dead person found who was found within.
"It's appalling how bad the Ninth Ward is," he says. Burnt-out and rolled-over cars, trash all over the street and water-ravaged, mold-encrusted houses staring back as if scolding the onlooker for the blatant neglect that had been paid to them.
NAR decided to do something about the carnage about one year ago, says Phipps, who in his role as NAR Liaison, directed the effort with Rebecca Moniz of North Kingstown. Not only did the Rhode Island contingent raise $70,000 for the Habitat for Humanity effort to rebuild New Orleans , they contributed their time and poured sweat into the rebuilding by framing four (of a planned seven) houses. While there, they dedicated another completed house the group built this past August.
They put their money - and calloused hands - where their mouths were.
"You can write a check but there's no real connection there," says Phipps. "When you build a house and then watch a family move in, there is a sense of involvement. The time you spent working on the house is always there."
Moniz says she, too, was shocked at the suffering she saw there and the lingering nightmare experienced by those who are trying to rebuild their homes.
"I want everyone to know that the devastation of Katrina has not gone away," Moniz says. "New Orleans and the Gulf Coast live this nightmare everyday. Imagine losing your home, and every record existing that you are actually the property owner. Most people don't understand that even the chain of title was washed away. ("Prove it was yours. Where is your lot line? Prove it.")
Along with the water damage, bureaucratic roadblocks also persists.
"The landscape [of this kind of disaster] is virtually uncharted," adds Moniz. "Imagine trying to come up with a record that has vanished and the only source you have is the insurance company that you're fighting with. In this section, where the levy actually broke, houses were swept off the foundation and fell apart. Nothing was left. They certainly need more help."
The NAR volunteers certainly helped. During their one-week stay there, they put in more than 8,600 hours.
In addition to the putting up money and man-hours to build the houses, they helped out with the cleanup of area hospitals and city parks. They worked organizing books for the New Orleans Library, helping it get back on its feet and open sometime within the next two months as opposed to the previously-expected six months timeframe.
"Realtors are, by their nature, 'fixers,' says Phipps. "It was really something to see some of the leaders in the market, some very affluent and successful people, down on their hands and knees picking up trash to get the site ready for building. It was one of my proudest moments as a realtor. This was a true group effort for Rhode Island and all of the realtors across the country."
Monday, November 27, 2006
Monday, November 20, 2006
COPING WITH THE HOUSING SLUMP
OF4-11/2/06 9:25AM COPING WITH THE HOUSING SLUMP
The Osgood File. I'm Charles Osgood. Most of the time for decades now. housing prices have risen. and KEPT rising. But that was then. Moody's economy.com is forecasting that overall. across the country will fall three and a half percent next year. CBS News correspondent Anthony Mason spoke with Moody's Mark Zandi.
"When's the last time we saw that?" asked CBS News Correspondent Anthony Mason.
""That's unprecedented. You'd have to go all the way back to the great depression to find a year in which house prices declined." said Mark Zandi, Moody's Economy.com.
Some straws in the wind.
Home builders who have been expanding in boom times are now contracting. Hovnanian, one of the biggest, has more than 6000 employees.
"It was closer to 7. Its slowly been getting closer to 6." said Ara Hovnanian, CEO Hovnanian.
Ara Hovnanian is CEO. He tells Anthony Mason many people who planned to buy homes are getting cold feet.
"Right now, a lot of customers are saying, boy, I think this is not the right time." said Hovnanian.
"How long do you see this period lasting?" asked Mason.
"That's the million dollar question." said Hovnanian.
People with homes to sell are trying to think of ways to entice buyers. In Connecticut Lou Aloupis cut the price of his place by 60 thousand dollars. That didn't do it.
"And one night it just came to me. I said, hey, why not offer my Mercedes. And here we are." said Lou Aloupis, homeowner.
So now, the price INCLUDES the Mercedes. Ron Phipps a broker in Rhode Island. knocked more than a hundred thousand dollars off the asking price on one Waterfront home. And now.
"We're including this 33 foot sailboat as part of the total purchase price." said Ron Phipps, realtor.
With Another house:
"It's a little dated with the wallpaper but really lovely." said an interior decorator.
So Phipps is throwing in 10 thousand dollars worth of interior decorating. Anything to get the buyers attention says Phipps.
"Now the real litmus test is do we sell it." said Phipps.
The Osgood File Charles Osgood on the CBS Radio Network
The Osgood File. November 2, 2006
The Osgood File. I'm Charles Osgood. Most of the time for decades now. housing prices have risen. and KEPT rising. But that was then. Moody's economy.com is forecasting that overall. across the country will fall three and a half percent next year. CBS News correspondent Anthony Mason spoke with Moody's Mark Zandi.
"When's the last time we saw that?" asked CBS News Correspondent Anthony Mason.
""That's unprecedented. You'd have to go all the way back to the great depression to find a year in which house prices declined." said Mark Zandi, Moody's Economy.com.
Some straws in the wind.
Home builders who have been expanding in boom times are now contracting. Hovnanian, one of the biggest, has more than 6000 employees.
"It was closer to 7. Its slowly been getting closer to 6." said Ara Hovnanian, CEO Hovnanian.
Ara Hovnanian is CEO. He tells Anthony Mason many people who planned to buy homes are getting cold feet.
"Right now, a lot of customers are saying, boy, I think this is not the right time." said Hovnanian.
"How long do you see this period lasting?" asked Mason.
"That's the million dollar question." said Hovnanian.
People with homes to sell are trying to think of ways to entice buyers. In Connecticut Lou Aloupis cut the price of his place by 60 thousand dollars. That didn't do it.
"And one night it just came to me. I said, hey, why not offer my Mercedes. And here we are." said Lou Aloupis, homeowner.
So now, the price INCLUDES the Mercedes. Ron Phipps a broker in Rhode Island. knocked more than a hundred thousand dollars off the asking price on one Waterfront home. And now.
"We're including this 33 foot sailboat as part of the total purchase price." said Ron Phipps, realtor.
With Another house:
"It's a little dated with the wallpaper but really lovely." said an interior decorator.
So Phipps is throwing in 10 thousand dollars worth of interior decorating. Anything to get the buyers attention says Phipps.
"Now the real litmus test is do we sell it." said Phipps.
The Osgood File Charles Osgood on the CBS Radio Network
The Osgood File. November 2, 2006
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
A Maserati -- as bait
Sellers, builders and agents are pulling out all the stops, and perhaps a plasma TV.
By Ann Brenoff, Times Staff Writer
September 24, 2006
Stopping short of installing glue traps to ensure that prospective buyers can't get away, sellers, builders and real estate agents have been reaching deeper into their bag of tricks in their efforts to move the ever-increasing homes-for-sale inventory.
They are giving away new cars, trucks, plasma TVs and chances to win expensive vacations to those who buy, refer a buyer or, in the case of Coldwell Banker, even just agree to chat with them without using a pseudonym.
The market's slowdown has spurred a flurry of buyer incentives — and some creativity — on the part of people trying to sell homes, new or otherwise.
So, how creative are they?
A Denver-area couple, whose condo was listed for more than a year, made national news when they announced they would give away round-trip, first-class tickets to Europe or a bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild — worth thousands — to a buyer willing to sign on the dotted line.
Closer to home, Mark Tacconelli, an agent with Noble Real Estate in Ladera Ranch, has clients who are offering a brand-new Toyota pickup truck to whoever buys their 2,300-square-foot La Habra home, listed at $750,000.
"If they don't want a pickup, they can have a Prius," Tacconelli said, covering all bases. "Or if they don't need a new car and just want to knock $15,000 or $20,000 off the price, that's fine too." The man is practically begging here.
Then there's this spin on the car giveaway: Instead of giving the car to the buyer, the seller of a new Tuscan villa with five bedrooms and seven bathrooms in Bel-Air will give a 2006 charcoal Maserati to the realty agent who brings him a buyer. The house is listed at $5,280,000, says listing agent Michael Mandekic, Prudential Realty Beverly Hills, who has co-listed the property with Todd Marks of the same agency. The Maserati is already parked in the driveway; the seller will pick up the lease for two years. Please, no drooling.
Thinking "green"? Builder Clarum Homes, trying to sell five energy-efficient homes in a Watsonville senior citizens housing development, is giving away the popular Toyota Prius hybrids to buyers of their units. Clarum, which incorporates solar panels and water-conservation features into its homes, hopes the hybrid will be more tempting buyer bait than upgraded counter tops or fancier appliances.
Appealing to a different market are the developers of a San Diego condo complex with a primo downtown address and relatively low prices, starting at $300,000. They've resorted to giving away free plasma TVs and gift certificates worth $5,000 toward decorating.
If you buy a Beazer Homes town house in its Iris Landing project in the Moreno Valley, you'll also get a free 42-inch plasma TV.
When it comes to giveaways, Ron Phipps of Phipps Realty in Warwick, R.I., may rule the roost. He offered a Lexus last November with one of his listings. The buyer wound up rejecting the car and taking a price cut instead, but the gimmick generated a lot of interest in the house, he said.
Phipps' personal favorites on the creativity scale: $5,000 toward the installation of solar panels; a tradable time share; a $10,000 gift card and a personal shopper to help use it; and, one that his wife abhors — a fur coat — apparently a popular giveaway in the colder climates of the East Coast.
Phipps now tries to tie his own promotions to some specific aspect of the property he is selling — things like free landscaping for a year or paying the homeowner association fees for a fixed period of time.
What's in a name?
Sometimes, it's just a matter of getting clients in the door — even just to talk.
That's why Coldwell Banker is offering to send a lucky Californian on a $10,000 trip to New York just for giving the agency his or her name and contact information. The sweepstakes program offers three or four trips a year, said Coldwell Banker's Sarah Mac Donald, who sent the contest mailings to the Santa Monica neighborhoods she sells in.
Agent Mac Donald considers it just one piece of her overall marketing pie. She's been selling real estate for 22 years and says she personally would never advise clients to offer cars or trips when they list their homes.
"It's silly," she said. "This is a price-driven market; it's that simple. If it's priced right, it will move."
Go tell that to home builders with unsold inventory who have joined the giveaway bandwagon.
Greg Paquin of the Gregory Group of Folsom, which provides market research and consulting services to the new-home industry, has seen builders in the Sacramento area offer free trips to Las Vegas, home-entertainment systems, gift certificates to local furniture stores and an annual membership in the golf club.
Dallas-based Centex Homes gave away in-ground swimming pools to buyers of their last few, lingering houses in a Northern California development, Paquin said.
Then there are home builders who figure that the best way to reach someone may be through their wallet. They "buy down" interest rates to make their homes more affordable or absorb closing costs for their buyers. Some builders offer special incentives to those who already own one of their homes if they refer a friend.
Centex, for an unspecified "limited time," is offering Southern Californians special financing programs with initial interest rates starting at 0.875%.
Cars, TVs, free vacations — does it really make sense to do business this way?
Not from a buyer's property-tax perspective. If the value of the car being given away is $40,000, why not just lower the price of the home by that much and be done with it? After all, the new buyer will be paying property taxes based on the purchase price of the home. The lower the purchase price, the lower the annual tax bill. Of course you may not need the tax break, given that the interest on that hefty mortgage payment is tax-deductible.
In this market where competition for buyers' attention is fierce, it may be that the agent with the most clever gimmick will win the prize.
ann.brenoff@latimes.com
Times staff writer Gayle Pollard-Terry contributed to this report.
By Ann Brenoff, Times Staff Writer
September 24, 2006
Stopping short of installing glue traps to ensure that prospective buyers can't get away, sellers, builders and real estate agents have been reaching deeper into their bag of tricks in their efforts to move the ever-increasing homes-for-sale inventory.
They are giving away new cars, trucks, plasma TVs and chances to win expensive vacations to those who buy, refer a buyer or, in the case of Coldwell Banker, even just agree to chat with them without using a pseudonym.
The market's slowdown has spurred a flurry of buyer incentives — and some creativity — on the part of people trying to sell homes, new or otherwise.
So, how creative are they?
A Denver-area couple, whose condo was listed for more than a year, made national news when they announced they would give away round-trip, first-class tickets to Europe or a bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild — worth thousands — to a buyer willing to sign on the dotted line.
Closer to home, Mark Tacconelli, an agent with Noble Real Estate in Ladera Ranch, has clients who are offering a brand-new Toyota pickup truck to whoever buys their 2,300-square-foot La Habra home, listed at $750,000.
"If they don't want a pickup, they can have a Prius," Tacconelli said, covering all bases. "Or if they don't need a new car and just want to knock $15,000 or $20,000 off the price, that's fine too." The man is practically begging here.
Then there's this spin on the car giveaway: Instead of giving the car to the buyer, the seller of a new Tuscan villa with five bedrooms and seven bathrooms in Bel-Air will give a 2006 charcoal Maserati to the realty agent who brings him a buyer. The house is listed at $5,280,000, says listing agent Michael Mandekic, Prudential Realty Beverly Hills, who has co-listed the property with Todd Marks of the same agency. The Maserati is already parked in the driveway; the seller will pick up the lease for two years. Please, no drooling.
Thinking "green"? Builder Clarum Homes, trying to sell five energy-efficient homes in a Watsonville senior citizens housing development, is giving away the popular Toyota Prius hybrids to buyers of their units. Clarum, which incorporates solar panels and water-conservation features into its homes, hopes the hybrid will be more tempting buyer bait than upgraded counter tops or fancier appliances.
Appealing to a different market are the developers of a San Diego condo complex with a primo downtown address and relatively low prices, starting at $300,000. They've resorted to giving away free plasma TVs and gift certificates worth $5,000 toward decorating.
If you buy a Beazer Homes town house in its Iris Landing project in the Moreno Valley, you'll also get a free 42-inch plasma TV.
When it comes to giveaways, Ron Phipps of Phipps Realty in Warwick, R.I., may rule the roost. He offered a Lexus last November with one of his listings. The buyer wound up rejecting the car and taking a price cut instead, but the gimmick generated a lot of interest in the house, he said.
Phipps' personal favorites on the creativity scale: $5,000 toward the installation of solar panels; a tradable time share; a $10,000 gift card and a personal shopper to help use it; and, one that his wife abhors — a fur coat — apparently a popular giveaway in the colder climates of the East Coast.
Phipps now tries to tie his own promotions to some specific aspect of the property he is selling — things like free landscaping for a year or paying the homeowner association fees for a fixed period of time.
What's in a name?
Sometimes, it's just a matter of getting clients in the door — even just to talk.
That's why Coldwell Banker is offering to send a lucky Californian on a $10,000 trip to New York just for giving the agency his or her name and contact information. The sweepstakes program offers three or four trips a year, said Coldwell Banker's Sarah Mac Donald, who sent the contest mailings to the Santa Monica neighborhoods she sells in.
Agent Mac Donald considers it just one piece of her overall marketing pie. She's been selling real estate for 22 years and says she personally would never advise clients to offer cars or trips when they list their homes.
"It's silly," she said. "This is a price-driven market; it's that simple. If it's priced right, it will move."
Go tell that to home builders with unsold inventory who have joined the giveaway bandwagon.
Greg Paquin of the Gregory Group of Folsom, which provides market research and consulting services to the new-home industry, has seen builders in the Sacramento area offer free trips to Las Vegas, home-entertainment systems, gift certificates to local furniture stores and an annual membership in the golf club.
Dallas-based Centex Homes gave away in-ground swimming pools to buyers of their last few, lingering houses in a Northern California development, Paquin said.
Then there are home builders who figure that the best way to reach someone may be through their wallet. They "buy down" interest rates to make their homes more affordable or absorb closing costs for their buyers. Some builders offer special incentives to those who already own one of their homes if they refer a friend.
Centex, for an unspecified "limited time," is offering Southern Californians special financing programs with initial interest rates starting at 0.875%.
Cars, TVs, free vacations — does it really make sense to do business this way?
Not from a buyer's property-tax perspective. If the value of the car being given away is $40,000, why not just lower the price of the home by that much and be done with it? After all, the new buyer will be paying property taxes based on the purchase price of the home. The lower the purchase price, the lower the annual tax bill. Of course you may not need the tax break, given that the interest on that hefty mortgage payment is tax-deductible.
In this market where competition for buyers' attention is fierce, it may be that the agent with the most clever gimmick will win the prize.
ann.brenoff@latimes.com
Times staff writer Gayle Pollard-Terry contributed to this report.
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