Foreclosure Risk Rising, But Only in Key Areas

Daily Real Estate News October 19, 2007

The risk of foreclosure continues to climb, but it is concentrated in regions of the country with a souring economy or in areas where many homes were financed with subprime mortgages, according to a First American CoreLogic report.The Core Mortgage Risk Index rose 1.6 percent form the third quarter, which is a slower rate of growth than earlier this year, says Mark Fleming, chief economist.Fleming says the findings show that the brunt of the anticipated rise in foreclosures won’t be felt nationwide. The burden will fall on areas where local economies are struggling because of lay-offs, Fleming said.It doesn’t matter to a home owner in Detroit — the riskiest mortgage market — whether he has a burdensome adjustable-rate mortgage or a more manageable fixed-rate loan if he no longer has a paycheck, Fleming says.In contrast, rising foreclosures in California and Florida reflect a correction in home prices, Fleming says.Overall, fewer than 2 percent of mortgage borrowers are at risk of foreclosure. In much of the rest of the United States home prices are stable, rising at about the rate of inflation. "As long as people have jobs there is little risk of delinquency and ultimate foreclosure," Fleming says.

Source: Reuters News, Jim Christie (10/18/07)

Creating A House Rules Policy for Your Tenant

This story was printed from CompleteLandlord.com,
located at file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/herjoy2/My%20Documents/real%20estate/blog%20info/to%20be%20used/creating%20a%20house%20rules%20policy%20for%20your%20tenant.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------
One important addendum to any lease or rental agreement is a House Rules or Tenant Behavior Policy. Landlords create House Rules so tenants will understand what behavior is expected of them on a day-to-day basis. Present the House Rules along with the lease or rental agreement, and ask your tenants to sign a copy acknowledging they understand your expectations in regard to parties, quiet hours, parking, garbage, pets, painting or repairs.
You can include any of the following House Rules in your lease or rental agreement:
Tenants may not store trash in hallways, on decks or porches.
Tenants should use hallways for entry and exit to their apartments only.
Tenants should use only non-glass containers near the pool (if you have one).
Tenants should not cook or use barbecue grills on balconies or patios.
Tenants should not behave in a loud or obnoxious fashion, especially after dusk and before dawn.
Tenants may not disturb or threaten other tenants or their guests.
Tenants may not own or show a weapon in any common area.
Tenants may not change or otherwise tamper with any electrical connections including cable wiring.
Tenants may not use windows for exit or entry to their own or another tenant’s apartment.
Tenants may not use, buy or sell drugs or other illegal substances in the rental property.
Tenants may not heat an apartment with a portable cooking stove or portable unit heater.
Tenants may not store any gas appliances in closets.
Tenants may not change the locks or paint without permission from the landlord.
Other recent Property Management tips for landlords:

Bounced Checks
The Roommate Trap with Late and Partial Payments

Know the Law, Know the Law, Know the Law

by Robert L. Cain, Copyright 2007 Cain Publications, Inc.

One property manager I knew told the story about the time she was talking to a landlord about her rental property and said "the law says. . ."

The landlord replied aghast, "There are laws!!!?"

Yes, ma'am, there are laws. And in most states those laws were written to protect the "poor, abused, downtrodden" bad tenant. Also in most states there are too many judges who take it a step farther and interpret the laws and rule in ways that provide bad tenants even more rights to not pay the rent and trash property.

Shame on the legislatures and shame on the judges, but that is the situation we face when we own and manage rental property.

Rental property is one of the most regulated industries in the country. It is filled with traps, pitfalls and snares awaiting the unwary landlord. The rental property business is one of the easiest to get into, as well. All you have to do is buy house,tidy it up a little, find a tenant, and rent it out.

Then the fun begins for the bad tenant when the landlord he or she rents from is totally unaware of the landlord-tenant law of the state. Landlords enter without proper notice, harass tenants when the rent is late, apply the apartment complex's rules unfairly,select tenants in violation of the Fair Housing Act, and handle security deposits improperly.

Bad tenants often know the law. They know the law because they have had experience using it and have probably sued a landlord or two over the course of their bad-tenanthood pillaging and devastation. Again and again they catch landlords who are unaware that laws govern our business. They lurk behind moldy tall grass and under rocks waiting for their landlords to violate the law ever so slightly, and then they slither out to try to get a judge to let them live rent free for months and months.

The landlord-tenant laws of most states are easily obtain able either online from the Rental Property Reporter website, online from your state's secretary of state, or from your local apartment, landlord or rental owners association. Having them on your bookshelf is one thing, but actually taking the time to read them and understand them is another.

Whenever I travel to another state to speak, I always print out that state's landlord-tenant act and read it. The first thing I look at are notice requirements, that is, how much time a landlord has to give to terminate a tenancy, change the terms of the rental agreement, allow after the rent is due before filing an eviction, and before he or she can enter a tenant's home for inspection or repair.

Next I want to know the security deposit requirement. Is there a limit on how much a landlord can collect? Does the deposit have to be placed in a special bank account? What are the requirements for accounting for it when a tenant moves out?

In most states' landlord-tenant laws, you can expect to see similar rights and responsibilities for both landlords and tenants. The real differences lie in entrance, notification and security deposit requirements. Those are the ones that will get you in trouble if you violate them, and the ones that bad tenants can probably recite verbatim.

If you don't know the law, you leave yourself wide open for the scheming of bad tenants. These people will take your property,your money and your sanity. Know the law, know the law, know the law.

Robert Cain is a nationally-recognized speaker and writer on property management and real estate issues. For a free sample copy of the Rental Property Reporter or Northwest Landlord call800-654-5456 or visit the web site www.rentalprop.com

Another choice to scraping those ceilings

http://www.ronhazelton.com/howto/victorian_ceiling_tiles.htm
Install Victorian Ceiling Tiles

and now ror a little bit of the unusual.....

Daily Real Estate News September 14, 2007
Auto-Size Elevators Bring Your Car Inside Your Home

A Singapore-based developer, Hayden Properties, is building a 30-story condominium with individual elevators for cars so owners don’t have to worry about their wheels getting dinged in the garage."It's not a gimmick. I love my cars and I'm worried they might get accidentally dented in a shared car park," says Ong Chih Ching, director of Hayden Properties, who owns two Porsches and an Aston Martin. "This solves that problem and lets you look at your car all the time."Similar buildings with individual high-rise garages are being built in the United States and Dubai, but Hayden's $663 million project would be the tallest, Ong says.

Source: Reuters News (09/14/07)

Defaults Leave Condo Associations in the Lurch

Daily Real Estate News September 13, 2007

Condo associations are feeling the pain of increased delinquencies and foreclosures, which leaves them with unpaid assessments, additional legal fees and other expenses.Establishing an aggressive collections policy is the first step toward mitigating the problem, says Jim Stoller, president of The Building Group management company in Chicago. He recommends turning over any account that is 60 days late to the association’s attorney.Prompt legal intervention also will permit the association to go to court for temporary possession of the unit. It can be rented out until the debt is paid. The process takes several months and possession ends when the foreclosure occurs.Another option is to wait until the foreclosure and hope there's enough equity after the lender gets paid first. But that's risky. "Today we rarely see any surplus," says attorney David Sugar of Arnstein & Lehr in Chicago.Under certain circumstances, an association can collect up to six months of unpaid assessments from the buyer when the unit is sold for foreclosure, but the law is a new one and the process is complicated, says Sugar.

Source: Chicago Tribune, Pamela Dittmer McKuen (9/13/2007)

Reliance on Credit Cards Reflects Subprime

Daily Real Estate News August 29, 2007

FalloutThe credit card business to date seems to have escaped the growing reach of the subprime meltdown, with card delinquencies remaining flat even as defaults have skyrocketed among homeowners, but analysts at Merrill Lynch say the sector's resistance to the turmoil be weakening. "The next shoe to drop from this subprime mortgage fiasco, which has already fed into the asset-backed market, is probably going to be the credit card business," according to Merrill Lynch economist David Rosenberg.

Credit card borrowing was up 11 percent in May and June, likely because homeowners are using plastic to pay for daily expenses to free up more cash to make their mortgage payments. Moreover, while borrowers previously have tapped into mortgage equity to produce the money needed to resolve credit-card and other debt, a Goldman Sachs report notes that "cash-outs" peaked during the fourth quarter of 2005.

Source: Investor's Business Daily, Reinhardt Krause (08/27/07)