Boise Ranked #9 By Forbes Magazine! March 29th, 2009
March 25, 2009. Boise rated #9 by Forbes Magazine for Best Places For Business And Careers. Forbes.com says Boise is the ninth best place among 200 largest metropolitan areas in the country for business and careers. Forbes rated cities based on 11 criteria. They include job growth over time, labor supply, crime rates, and local colleges. Forbes also included two new statistics to its annual survey: job projections and the ratio of subprime mortgages to loan originations for the last three years. Boise ranked in 17th place as the lowest cost of doing business and the in the country and 47th best projected job growth at 0.5 percent. Forbes found nearly 17 percent of mortgages written between 2005 and 2007 fell into the sub-prime category compared to Huston TX at 22.7%, Baton Rouge LA at 21.5%, and Chicago IL at 22.7%. Overall, Boise has a bright future and will continue to grow.
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SilverCreek Realty
254 S Cole Rd Boise, Id 83709 208-377-0422 |
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WASHINGTON, March 04, 2009
The following is a statement by National Association of Realtors® President Charles McMillan:
“NAR’s 1.2 million members are eager to help make President Obama’s Making Home Affordable plan a reality. We are pleased that the president released the guidelines today for refinancing and mortgage loan modifications and that the guidelines will be implemented immediately to help struggling homeowners as well as millions of eligible homeowners who have stayed current in their mortgage payments.
“Housing stabilization must be the key component of any federal recovery plan. Helping families keep their homes is critical to this effort and for the health of our economy and communities across the country.
“NAR has long called for a multipronged approach to address the housing and economic crisis. Allowing eligible homeowners to refinance or modify their loans will help millions of families avoid foreclosure. This in turn will support the housing recovery by slowing the growth in inventory due to foreclosures. Lowering unsold inventory will help stabilize home prices and values. We believe that the incentives the loan modification plan offers to borrowers and loan servicers will encourage additional loan modifications, reducing the default rate.
“Moving forward, we must not only work to prevent foreclosures, but also bring financially healthy home buyers to the market to further reduce unsold inventory. Toward this end, we hope that the president and his administration will continue to look for new and creative approaches that will lower interest rates for all homeowners and buyers.”
For more detailed information on the Making Home Affordable plan, visit www.financialstability.gov
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Copyright National Association of REALTORS®, Reprinted with permission.
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SilverCreek Realty
254 S Cole Rd Boise, Id 83709 208-377-0422 |
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Realtors® Urge Congress to Help ‘HOPE For Homeowners’ February 7th, 2009
WASHINGTON, February 03, 2009
The National Association of Realtors® today announced its support for new legislation introduced by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., that is designed to ease loan modifications and improve refinancing options for America’s troubled homeowners by revamping the HOPE for Homeowners program.
“HOPE for Homeowners, was designed to help families refinance into safer, more affordable mortgages, in many cases helping those families avoid a devastating foreclosure,” said NAR President Charles McMillan. “Despite being well-intentioned, the HOPE for Homeowners program has had limited success. Lenders have found the program difficult to participate in because of many of the program’s constraints. This legislation, H.R. 703, is expected to make the program more lender-friendly, while preserving the benefits to homeowners. It would also limit risks to the FHA fund and to the American taxpayer. This is important legislation and we hope Congress will move forward with it.”
The legislation would also provide access to Troubled Asset Relief Program funds for small institutions and community banks and encourage additional actions to expand mortgage funding capacity in the primary market. “Stabilizing the housing market will help the nation’s economic future,” said McMillan. “H.R. 703, along with other stimulus bills being considered, will go a long way to help families keep their homes.”
NAR continues its push to enact legislation that will help stabilize and stimulate the housing market. Its four-point plan, introduced in November, is designed to spur home sales and stem the rapid rise in foreclosures by lowering mortgage interest rates and unclogging the credit market, extending the home buyer tax credit, making the increased loan limits permanent, and increasing liquidity in the both the commercial and residential real estate market.
NAR expressed support and vowed to work with Congress and the administration to establish strong housing legislation that will help stabilize home values, prevent foreclosures and put the U.S. economy on the road to recovery. “Providing relief for families facing foreclosure will help stabilize our real estate markets and our economy,” McMillan said.
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SilverCreek Realty
254 S Cole Rd Boise, Id 83709 208-377-0422 |
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Do Consumers Follow Agents & Not Brands? February 3rd, 2009
Do consumers follow agents and not brands? I’ve been surveying my clients at closing as to why they used me as their real estate agent. I got some interesting answers! Some of my clients said they called me because of past business, some found me on the internet, and some were referred by friends, family, or past clients. The biggest surprise comes when you ask if they know what company I work for? Most of them get a strange look on their face and say no. Some search madly in their wallet or purse for my card, but not one person could tell me off the top of their head who I worked for! At that point I would reassure them that not knowing who I worked for was the correct answer. Most of my business comes from the internet and a lot from out of state. The discussion continues as to how they found me on the internet, why they used my website, and eventually called me. They tell me they did a search on one of the major search engine for real estate or homes in our area and found my website, saw the flashing home search button, clicked on it, and started searching for homes in the Nampa Id area. I’m told the home search is easy to use, you can save listings, and find out more information about listings than on other sites. I’ve even been told that they might find a listing on another site but return to my website to research the listing because there’s more information about the listing on my website. They tell me they bookmark my website so they can return and continue to us it and when they find a home they would like to look at they either email me or call me to set up an appointment. And remember, all this time they haven’t even paid any attention to what company I worked for, all they were interested in was getting provided the service they were looking for! That service was being able to search for homes and not be bothered. You see when you click that flashing home search button, it does not ask for your name, email, telephone number, address, first born, or anything, it just allows you to search for homes in the Nampa Id area! As far as I’m concerned, my websites are a service to the people and if I provide them the service they are looking for they will keep coming back to that website and eventually email or call me to show them homes. Being a real estate agent is a service business, agents are here to serve you the client, not to treat you like some kind of unconvinced to tolerate!
So, what I’ve found out is that the consumers out there don’t care if I work for some Big Box Company, they don’t care what the name of the compay is that I work for, but what they care about is being provided the service they are looking for and being treat with courtesy. Today there is a move going on toward more virtual offices and less brick and morter office. The internet real estate agent working from a home office is the future. The old idea of the bigger franchised offices is slipping away to smaller brick and morter offices with agent working from home communicating with clients by phone, email, and emailing documents to clients, lenders, and title companies. The Future Of Real Estate Is The Internet! I hope our paths cross if you are searching for a home in the Nama Id area!
Thanks! Have A Teriffic Day!
Tom Zumwalt, ePro Realtor©
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SilverCreek Realty
254 S Cole Rd Boise, Id 83709 208-377-0422 |
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Effective Implementation Critical for Home Buyer Tax Credit Success January 18th, 2009
WASHINGTON, January 14, 2009
If all home buyers become eligible for a tax credit without a repayment feature, it could result in an additional 555,000 home sales – enough to meaningfully draw down excess housing inventory, according to the National Association of Realtors®.
An evaluation of options for a home buyer tax credit by NAR shows wide ranging implications and benefits. A full credit to all buyers means an additional 2.22 million households would meet the income requirements for purchasing a home, but only one in four of those households would actually make a purchase.1
Under the current $7,500 first-time home buyer tax credit, which must be repaid over 15 years, 264,000 households meet the purchase requirements. Using the same assumptions, with plans to hold their home for a median 10 years, it would mean only 66,000 additional sales.2
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said NAR is advocating a tax credit for any home purchase meeting qualifying underwriting standards. “A home buyer incentive is critical to help reduce housing inventory and stabilize home prices,” he said. “The bigger the incentive, the faster housing can help pull the economy out of recession. The cost to the Treasury would be far less than the additional costs of a prolonged recession with insufficient housing stimulus.”
Analysis of other options shows that if only first-time buyers are eligible and the repayment feature is dropped, it could mean an additional 202,000 home sales. If extended to all home buyers but the repayment feature is retained, the gain would be 181,000 home sales.
NAR President Charles McMillan, a broker with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Dallas-Fort Worth, said a flexible approach to the tax credit would have added benefits. “A home buyer tax credit also should be allowed to be used as a part of downpayment. This would instantly add an equity cushion for homeowners – a vested financial interest provides the foundation for sustainable homeownership, which helps improve economic stability,” he said.
NAR estimates only 25 percent of newly eligible households would become homeowners, and does not capture the effect of increased trade-up buying activity. As such, these projections may understate the full impact of a home buyer tax credit.
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SilverCreek Realty
254 S Cole Rd Boise, Id 83709 208-377-0422 |
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