plus 4, Market Watch - Seattle Post Intelligencer

Market Watch - Seattle Post Intelligencer
Land Use - Seattle Post Intelligencer
Park River Implement - AG Week
Unfortunate Misdial and a Running Tub - Flathead Beacon
More From WERA West At Auto Club Speedway - RoadracingWorld.com

Market Watch - Seattle Post Intelligencer

Posted: 12 Jan 2010 08:48 AM PST

As we all know, the economy has given all of us a huge wallop in all levels of our personal finances. In June 2008, I had 8 clients decide to wait to buy or sell homes. In more than 20 years I have never had that significant of a 'pull back' in a single month. So far, only 1 of those clients has returned to an active interest in the real estate market.

Maybe I'm saying that wrong all 8 clients certainly still have an interest in the real estate market, just not as active as being ready to make a buying or selling decision. Of course since June 2008 I have had other clients who did choose to buy or sell; and I do see improvement to our current housing market. We may or may not be at 'bottom'. In the under $400,000 price range, I think we may be at bottom. For the $400,000 - $800,000 price range, I think there still is such a large amount of inventory for sale, that prices will have to come down a bit more.

However, the very best properties in any area that are RARE and truly 'very best' are doing very well, and will continue to hold value in the strongest possible way. Above $800,000 is more subjective there are a great many properties for sale, partially due to past difficulties with lender financing of jumbo loans. Things are easing in the jumbo loan category, which will help reduce this rather large number of homes for sale.

My synopsis? In +/- 18 months I think we'll see 6.5% or higher interest rates. If you have a 30-year mortgage of $500,000 at 5.25%, you pay $2761.02 principal & interest. If you have a 30-year mortgage of $500,000 at 6.5%, you pay $3160.34 per month principal & interest.

That's a $399.32 monthly payment difference. No one truly knows what home prices will do in the next few months or years. If you choose to buy now and get 5.25% interest vs. 6.5% interest, perhaps you have a level playing field even if home prices reduced another 15% (which I don't believe will happen).

Here's that example:

$650,000 house today with $500,000 mortgage at 5.25% = $2761.02 p & I

That same house, 18 months from now, at a price 15% less than today = $552,500.
20% down payment means the mortgage is $442,000 at 6.5% = $2793.74.

So, if home prices go down 15%, and interest rates rise to 6.5% you'll pay about the same monthly payment. But if home prices stabilize, and either go down much less than the example above, or hold steady, you could end up paying more each month on a new mortgage by waiting.

It's a tough decision and a very personal decision for anyone who is thinking of buying or selling. However, if everyone continues to hesitate, home prices surely will continue to decline. One step forward, three steps back

No economy ever gets better with masses of people sitting on the fence waiting for a signal, yet as the old saying goes, 'a confused mind takes no action'.

Buying decisions before a true bottom is defined will mean you have far more home choices. Once we hit 'bottom' there will be a surge of fence-sitters coming into the market, looking and ready to buy. That could mean fewer choices of good homes, more competition, and a rise in prices on the RARE and truly 'very best' properties.

For those of you who have ridden countless hours and days in the car with me looking at homes, you know my definition of RARE and truly 'very best' for every 100 homes, only 3 are the RARE and very best. If you haven't refinanced, and plan to stay in your home, get it done now. Interest rates are below 5% right now and that usually doesn't last more than a few weeks. Not months. If you need recommendations to a good lender, let me know, immediately.

Happy Fall! Set your clocks back one hour, Sunday, November 1, 2009.

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Land Use - Seattle Post Intelligencer

Posted: 12 Jan 2010 08:48 AM PST

As we move through some extremely difficult economic challenges, we sometimes get away from the focus of planning for the long term growth of our Puget Sound region.

I've just read a 70- page report put together by ULI, Urban Land Use Institute and the Quality Growth Alliance regarding an event called
Reality Check 2008.

It's about an unusual collaboration of 250 key leaders from important groups in four Counties:

-- business
-- political
-- environmental
-- community
-- non-profit

The four Counties are King, Snohomish, Pierce and Kitsap. The first sentence of this report crystallizes the purpose of the collaboration: Change is coming to the Puget Sound region.

We all are part of these groups in one way or another, and we certainly know that these groups have often been at loggerheads over goals and planning. This report indicates some good participation from each group in working towards the mutual goals of thinking together, and working together (successfully). The purpose of this collaboration was to have all 250 participants work together to frame a vision for how to accommodate the addition of 1.7 million new residents, and 1.2 million new jobs in our Puget Sound region by 2040.

Yes, I said 1.7 MILLION new residents, and 1.2 MILLION new jobs.
Want a visualization of that?

Think the entire metro area of Portland, OR.

Add it here.

This collaboration has resulted in the Quality Growth Alliance: A Framework for Sound Action to:

-- Raise greater awareness of land use, transportation and climate change
-- Provide expertise to key communities
-- Research compact development policy and best practices
-- Highlight regional successes

To see the Quality Growth Alliance video, click here: When this opens, you'll need to click the arrow on the left side of the screen, it will take awhile to load, and it's initially going to look like the page is missing content, just click the arrow on the left and be patient.

Here are some quotes by some of the participants.

"There are two very special characteristics of the Puget Sound region. One, it's just beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful, and we all have a responsibility to maintain that beauty. Number two, the economic engine in the Puget Sound Region is truly extraordinary. We've outpaced job growth for 30 years over national averages. So we can have both. We can have prosperity and we can have beauty, but we can't keep them both without planning effectively." --Patrick Callahan, Reality Check Co-Chair, CEO of Urban Renaissance Group

"Transportation, open space, affordable housing, climate change all those things really boil down to land use. It's the common thread." -- Greg Johnson, President, Wright Runstad & Company, ULI Seattle Chair, Reality Check Partner

"To meet the region's long-term need for housing and environmental responsibility, we must ensure that our essential workforce has innovative and affordable housing choices near where they work." --Sam Anderson, President, Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties, Reality Check Partner

"Over the last couple of decades we have made remarkable progress in coming together to think as one region. We have powerful tools to achieve our growth management, environmental, economic, and transportation goals. But it will take a lot of hard work and committed leadership at all levels -- public and private--to make it happen. --Bob Drewel, Executive Director, Puget Sound Regional Council, Reality Check Partner

"Every day we come to work and mark our time hour by hour, day by day, week by week. This is a time to mark it decade by decade, to confront reality as we know it, and truly predict it, and adjust for it. Too often we let it happen to us. This is our chance to take control of reality." --Emory Thomas, Publisher, Puget Sound Business Journal

"It's worth taking a day . . . to think, to debate, and to dream a little bit." --Doris Koo, President and CEO, Enterprise Community Partners, Reality Check Partner

"This region is incredibly beautiful. But it is also incredibly fragile. And the actual buildable land is very constrained." --Stephen Norman, Director, King County Housing Authority

"The people are here, but the jobs are over there. We don't have enough transportation available, either roads or rail or ferry or whatever. So you really get a clear picture of where the bottlenecks are." --Tom Kilbane, Member, Kitsap Community Foundation

"Many of the issues we are confronting are usually considered in isolation, in their own separate planning initiatives. By combining climate change with land use decisions, zoning and transportation infrastructure and looking at it together, that allows us to solve things in a more effective manner." --Patrick Callahan, Reality Check Co-Chair, CEO of Urban Renaissance Group

"What comes out of this will be a big second wave and possibly a new approach to how we look at growth management in the region." --Jay Kipp, Graduate Student, UW College of Architecture and Urban Planning

"Our goals must include the creation of highly livable, compact, complete, connected urban neighborhoods--beautiful ones--that will help us grow cooler." --Bert Gregory, President and CEO, Mithun

"The elected officials in the room and others who we all vote for and support have got one heck of a burden on their shoulders. They are going to have to reinvent zoning. They are going to have to reinvent processes. They are going to have to speed the works because we've got until 2040 when the equivalent of the metropolitan Portland population is here in our region." --Bill Kreager, Reality Check Co-Chair, Principal, Mithun

"From today we're starting to see the beginning of a consensus that we can build on to fundamentally improve this region. --Gene Duvernoy, Reality Check Co-Chair, President, Cascade Land Conservancy

"RealityCheck today, April 30, is the start of two years of implementation work. We have to take all of the great ideas that come out of today--all of the energy, all of the vision, all of the inspiration and excitement, and this time we have to make it work. We have to take our principles and achieve quality growth." --John Hempelmann, Reality Check Co-Chair, Chairman, Cairncross And Hempelmann, P.S..

"Where these 1.7 million new residents live and work will affect everyone and have a dramatic impact on quality of life throughout the region," said Greg Johnson, chairman of the Urban Land Institute's (ULI) Seattle District Council. "Residents will either live in walkable, thriving transit-oriented communities near job centers, or in spread-out, auto-centric areas that many of our current planning policies encourage. We can take a new approach to address today's problems, or we can continue responding with decades-old strategies. The choice is ours and now is the time to decide."

For the 87 page final report, click here. Change is coming to the Puget Sound Region.

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Park River Implement - AG Week

Posted: 12 Jan 2010 08:33 AM PST

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Rolla Implement
1 Front Street
Rolla, ND
701.477.3116

Houtcooper Implement
701.968.3211
Cando, ND

Park River Implement sells a complete line of New Holland Equipment, Premium Auto & Truck Parts, Honda ATVs and Motorcycles, Honda Power Equipment as well as short line equipment in Northeast North Dakota. We service New Holland, Honda and other makes of equipment to fulfill our customers needs.

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Unfortunate Misdial and a Running Tub - Flathead Beacon

Posted: 12 Jan 2010 06:46 AM PST

Monday 1/11

12:07 a.m. A county vehicle struck a deer on Highway 35.

12:35 a.m. A local man received a call from an unfamiliar female subject who asked him to open the back door because the cops were on the way. The woman, who had dialed the wrong number, was found to be involved in unspecified illegal activity.

1:37 a.m. Two subjects arrived at a residence on Columbia Falls Stage Road, took a pair of ATVs and threatened the reporting party. The situation turned out to be a civil issue.

1:49 p.m. Guests at a party on Springhill Road apparently damaged the garage and other items in the home, much to the dismay of their host.

2:25 a.m. Someone witnessed two subjects hitting one another in a moving vehicle on Birchwood Court.

2:41 a.m. A vehicle was seen on its top on Highway 2 near the airport. No one was around the vehicle when authorities arrived.

6:43 a.m. A mailbox was destroyed on Sunnyside Drive.

10:43 a.m. A home was totally destroyed in a fire on Upper Lost Prairie Road. No one was harmed in the blaze.

1:57 p.m. Someone on Highway 2 East tried to get his neighbor to fight with him.

3:19 p.m. The manager of a local tire shop noticed that the outdoor security lights had been unscrewed and tires had been stolen.

3:55 p.m. A local woman locked herself out of her bathroom while the tub was running. She solved the problem before authorities could respond.

6:14 p.m. Someone in Columbia Falls fears that their home may have been burglarized after finding a door open. No items were missing, and authorities found no signs of entry into the home.

6:31 p.m. A county vehicle struck a deer on Highway 83.

7:32 p.m. Two adults and two children left an Alberta auto dealership for a test drive and didn't return. The subjects have been missing since Thursday.

9:07 p.m. A Bigfork man called to report that a male subject pushed the reporting party's mother. All parties were separated for the night.

11:03 p.m. A woman in a camouflage coat shoplifted bras from an Evergreen box store.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Posted: 11 Jan 2010 03:30 PM PST