In a move to ward off foreclosure, a luxury condo developer has turned the units intended to sell for more than a quarter million dollars into a homeless shelter with the help of a New York-based nonprofit.

The Brooklyn units come complete with granite counter, terraces, marble bathrooms and walk-in closets, according to the New York Daily News, and the city is paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars per month ($90 per unit per night) to house homeless families in the city.

“City officials said the condos – which couldn’t attract buyers in the fizzled housing market – are part of an effort to help an “unprecedented” number of homeless families who have ended up on the street because of the tough economy,” according to the report.

It’s the first time luxury condo has gone homeless shelter, according to Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York. Avi Shriki, the developer of the project, says leasing the building for the next 10 years to the Bushwick Economic Development Group, a non-profit homeless shelter group, was the best Plan B he could find.

He can pay the mortgage with the deal and still keep the building, instead of going into foreclosure.

M.A. Carr

Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s controversial new appraisal rules are now coming direct attack by the biggest lobby on Capitol Hill – the National Association of Realtors.

Though the association is saying nothing publicly, officials have confirmed to Realty Times that they are gearing up for a fight in Congress and elsewhere to derail the “Home Valuation Code of Conduct” (or HVCC) for 18 months.

The code, which took effect May 1, has been widely criticized for raising appraisal costs to consumers, encouraging the use of inexperienced appraisers willing to work for rock-bottom fees, and for giving too much control to unregulated “appraisal management companies,” some of them owned by major mortgage lenders.

The Realtors campaign is targeted initially at Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s chief regulator – James Lockhart, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency – and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo’s office drafted the HVCC last year as part of a settlement with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Cuomo threatened to subpoena Fannie and Freddie executives as part of an investigation of the companies’ appraisal practices. No evidence that an investigation actually took place or turned up problems has ever been made public.

In a call to action memorandum to state Realtor association leaders last week, NAR laid out a strategy of fly-ins to lobby Congressional representatives, and said the association would pursue a legislative fix on the HVCC issue if Lockhart and Cuomo declined to go along with the idea of an 18 month moratorium.

The legislation could take the form of either a stand-alone bill or an amendment that could be attached to an appropriations bill already moving through Congress with a high likelihood of passage.

In identical letters to Lockhart and Cuomo, Charles McMillan, president of the National Association of Realtors, complained that the HVCC is causing significant problems for home sellers and agents – “delays in closings and cancelled sales, which result in artificially low existing home sales.”

In an unusual move June 23, Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the association, attributed a lower than expected increase in existing home resales in May to appraisal problems caused by the new code.

“Lenders are using appraisers who may not be familiar with a neighborhood, or who compare traditional houses with distressed and discounted sales,” said Yun.

In his letter to Lockhart and Cuomo, McMillan said the heavy involvement of lender-owned appraisal management companies leads to conflicts of interest. The association wants regulators – or Congress – to prohibit lenders from using any appraisal report from an appraisal management company where the lender, or the lender’s affiliate, has an ownership stake in the management firm.

K. Harney

Leaking toilets result in six billion gallons of water loss every day according to Richard Quintana, founder of AquaOne Technologies. That astonishing figure is a real problem with financial and physical effects. Here’s how the water gets washed away. Quintana says there are more than one billion toilets in the U.S. and, according to the American Water Works Association, one out of five leaks. The toilets can lose anywhere from 30 to 500 gallons of water daily just from a small silent leak that is the size of a staple.

According to a report from the Associated Press, handyman jobs are increasing for practical repairs like leaking toilets. These days, in a tough economy, homeowners are trying to preserve their homes and to conserve wherever they can. But, Quintana says it’s not just water loss which translates to financial loss that can hurt homeowners. Leaky toilets lead to black mold and even injuries.

“A senior who had a problem with his toilet getting plugged walked into the bathroom and didn’t notice the water on the floor and had a slip and fall injury,” says Quintana. Due to his age and the injury, the fall landed him in a nursing facility.

That’s why Quintana promotes the use of a small product that’s the size of a goose egg. The product, H2Orb, is a water management system that has a sophisticated microprocessor in it to help with toilet overflows and water loss by detecting, identifying, and resolving toilet malfunctions. The product was initially designed for use in senior housing and assisted living facilities but today it’s being used by homeowners to ward off toilet troubles.

Quintana says the product not only stops overflow but it also tells you where a leak exists. “It can tell you if you have a silent leak. A silent leak is often from a flapper that’s closed but it’s [slightly] warped,” says Quintana. The flapper is the part of the rubber mechanism on the flush valve that seals water into and out of the tank when the toilet is flushed. A silent leak can cause significant water loss.

“The H2Orb can tell you exactly what needs to be taken care of in your toilet. It will show you an icon on the device screen telling you to change a particular part,” says Quintana. The device actually sounds an alarm and stops the water flow. For more information visit “A toilet overflow creates a tremendous amount of property damage and one leaky toilet alone can cause that in your home,” says Quintana.

Here are a few tips to help prevent water loss and leaks.

1. Check toilet for cracks. Even a tiny crack in a toilet can cause significant water damage that may not be visible unless inspected thoroughly.

2. Make sure the base of the toilet is sealed using special waterproof caulking.

3. Replace flappers every two to three years or as needed.

4. Install appropriate device to detect leaks and manage possible toilet overflows.

5. Check for toilet sweat. Not a pleasant concept, it can cause water damage. In regions where the water coming into the toilet is colder than the humidity in the room, the toilet can produce condensation and leave a puddle of water behind the toilet.

Toilet insulation kits are available. They provide rigid pieces of foam that fit inside the tank and prevent the cold water from touching the tank walls. Or you can buy a new toilet with an insulated tank.

P. Chongchua

Now, mortgage modifications can include second mortgages — not just first mortgages — and cash incentives are sweetening short sale deals, thanks to new efforts by the Obama Administration.

The new efforts give some homeowners a second shot at a home-saving loan modification, especially if they were originally turned down — or turned off — because the second mortgage (piggy back, home equity loan or line of credit, etc.) impeded the process.

Other homeowners may now be able to take the short sale escape route from unaffordable mortgages that could otherwise wind up in foreclosure.

Second mortgage modifications

Loan modifications are designed to make the home loan more affordable, typically by reducing the interest rate, extending the term of the loan and, less often, by reducing the principal. They are not refinanced mortgages, which pay off the old mortgage with a new mortgage.

Under Making Home Affordable’s new second-lien program, borrowers whose first mortgages are modified will automatically have payments reduced on their second mortgages as well, provided the first and second-mortgage lender participates in the program.

Twelve mortgage servicers currently do. Among them are large banks including, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Countrywide, Citibank, Chase and others.

Eligible homeowners looking to modify their first mortgage must be an owner-occupant of the home; have an unpaid principal balance that is no more than $729,750; have a loan that was originated on or before January 1, 2009; have a mortgage payment (including taxes, insurance, and home owners association dues) that is more than 31 percent of their gross monthly income; and have a mortgage payment that is not affordable, perhaps because of a significant change in income or expenses.

Under the new second mortgage program, in addition to lowering the payment, lenders can also opt to erase a borrower’s second mortgage in exchange for a lump-sum payment from the government.

New short sale incentives

Short sale incentives were among recent refinements to the Obama administration’s housing rescue programs.

In a short sale, the lender closes the mortgage in return for whatever sale price the homeowner can net. However, the difference is sometimes considered income for which the selling homeowner may be taxed. It’s important to include a tax professional’s advice in the deal.

Under the new short sale incentive, lenders can receive a $1,000 payment from the U.S. Treasury for allowing the owner to sell the house for less than the amount owed on the mortgage and for accepting the proceeds as full repayment, rather than treat it as a short sale.

Lenders can also receive $1,000 for accepting a deed-in-lieu transaction, in which the deed is simply transferred to the lender instead of going through a costly foreclosure.

Homeowners who agree to short sales or deed-in-lieu deals can receive up to $1,500 in closing costs. To help stop second mortgages from blocking the deal, the Treasury will pay second lien holders up to $1,000 to relinquish their claims in such transactions.

B. Perkins

It might sound a little surprising, but in investment real estate, residential lots are hot, especially in markets that saw the highest peaks and the worst busts during the past three years.

On Florida’s west coast, Gary Tasman of Cushman & Wakefield affiliate Commercial Property Southwest of Florida, says bulk purchases of developed building lots are “really brisk right now” with prices in some local areas nearly doubling from their low point.

The reason: Home builders are now looking ahead to 2010 and 2011. They see the rebound already taking shape. And they need well-located lots ready to go for the future construction they’re planning.

The best deals are bank-owned lots taken back in foreclosures from earlier, unsuccessful developers. They often come with bare-bones pricing, but Tasman warns that rising demand – from builders and investors – is putting pressure on those prices.

For example, in Cape Coral, some lots that once were selling at $5,000 to $6,000 now command $9.000 to $10,000 or more, Tasman told Realty Times in an interview last week.

In other boom-to-bust-to-rebound markets – Arizona and California for instance – similar land rushes are getting underway again.

Gregory Vogel, CEO of the Land Advisor Organization, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, says demand for bulk-sale, deep-discount residential lots is now, in his words, “nothing less than stunning.”

Publicly-traded builders are scooping up developed lots by the hundreds in REO transactions, he told Realty Times, and are then “land banking” them for their own building – or for resale to other builders or investors – in the coming several years.

In one recent sale, Communities Southwest bought 891 foreclosed single family lots from Bank of America for $8.3 million. A major land banker in its own right for the past two years, Communities Southwest now is marketing about 2,000 lots – primarily targeted at builders gearing up for better days ahead.

But there’s an important factor to keep in mind if you’re looking to invest in residential lots in the coming months: There is virtually no financing available for developed lots. So-called “A-D & C” loans – that’s acquisition, development and construction – are few and far between from banks or other conventional lenders.

So buying lots at deep discounts – attractive as it may be — is an all-cash investment activity. You go in with your own bucks. Or you partner with equity investors who know good timing when they see it.

K. Harney

The most bearish of Wall Street economic analysts have made the same point for the past 18 months. There’s no recovery or rebound in the housing market, they said, until home builders start building again.

Hey there bears, here are the numbers you asked for: Last week the Commerce Department reported an unexpectedly large increase in new single family home starts during May – up by seven and a half percent.

That was the THIRD consecutive monthly gain in single family starts. Total starts, including multifamily apartment starts and condos, were up by 17 and a half percent!!

Not only were starts up a lot, but so were other key indicators of future home building activity: single family permits, which surged by about 8 percent. That was the second straight monthly gain in permits – and points to at least moderately higher starts in the coming six months to a year.

On top of the good news about new construction, which has clearly been the weakest segment of the housing market since 2007, we also got some other positive reports last week:

Consumer confidence, which is extremely important for home buying, was up again for the fourth consecutive month, according to the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey.

Even retail sales were up slightly — and that’s an important sign that people are slowly coming out of the shell they’ve been in since last Fall, and are now starting to spend money again.

The latest inflation readings — both the Consumer Price Index and the Producer Price Index — were down slightly in May. Despite rising gas price, a dollar bought a little more in goods and services last month than the month before. That’s good.

The National Association of Home Builders now projects that the current recession will end in the second half of 2009, with a one point five percent growth rate in the overall economy between July and December.

Finally, mortgage rates took a slight dip last week after several weeks of increases. Fixed thirty year rates averaged about 5.5 percent last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, after climbing to 5.6 percent the previous week.

Many lenders had actually been quoting much higher rates – all the way to 6 percent – because of inflation fears in the bond market.

We’ve definitely got to keep our eye on mortgage rates, but otherwise the rebound appears to be underway.

K. Harney

There’s no question about what had Washington buzzing the most last week – and that buzz is likely to continue for months.

It was the unveiling of President Obama’s far-reaching plans to reform the U.S. financial regulatory system – including important changes affecting home mortgages and real estate.

Though the plan is aimed mainly at banks, hedge funds, Wall Street and insurance companies , it also focuses on protecting consumers who take out mortgages, credit cards and other forms of debt.

Obama wants to create a new super-department – called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency – that would have the power to review, regulate and even ban loan products considered too risky for the mass market consumption.

It would be able to oversee first and second mortgages marketed by any source – from banks to mortgage companies, credit unions or brokers.

For Realtors, builders and mortgage companies, the new agency would take over a slew of important legal powers. For example, it would become the sole regulator for RESPA – the federal Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.

That law, administered by HUD since 1974, covers many key aspects of the home buying process – from the upfront “good faith estimates,” or GFE, disclosures to the settlement sheet itself.

Equally important, RESPA bans kickbacks, sets guidelines for title insurers and settlement service providers, and creates complex rules governing all “affiliated businesses” in the real estate, mortgage and title fields.

Under the Obama plan, all this would be shifted from HUD to a new, potentially more aggressive consumer protection agency.

The new department would also get full authority over the Truth in Lending Act from the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Trade Commission.

It would also be the sole regulator for the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, and the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act – all of which are now in other agencies’ bailiwicks.

The White House white paper covering the plan said the new agency “should give consumer protection an independent seat at the table in our financial regulatory system.”

Though real estate and mortgage trade groups generally made muted comments on the Obama plans, bankers came out swinging.

Edward Yingling of the American Bankers Association said his members “are dumfounded by the scope” of the consumer protection agency – creating a whole new layer of oversight and bureaucracy.

“It’s not like the current regulators don’t (already ) have all the authority they need,” he said.

K. Harney

It’s not always what buyers can see in a home that causes them to want to buy it or not. Sometimes it’s the way the home feels. I’m not talking about staging, the size, or how spacious the home is, although those factors are important too. In this column I’m focusing on how buyers’ allergies may be affected when they tour your home.

“We have about 300 million Americans and about 60 million of them have allergies or asthma,” says, Mike Tringale, Director of External Affairs for the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA).

Allergy problems can be debilitating for sufferers. Many will go to great lengths to avoid any possible influences that might bring on symptoms. Allergies and asthma are increasing, Tringale says, “some of that may actually be because of the houses we’re living in.” He adds, “it all comes down to the air quality in the home.” According to AAFA, there are some simple steps that you can take to help clear the air in your home and reduce any harmful fumes—making it more appealing to those with allergies and even those without.

Tringale says do this three-step process: take an organized approach to looking at how your home is built, look at materials used in your home, and understand the types of cleaning agents that you’re using and how they can affect indoor air quality.

Check for mold. Mold is one of the most common indoor allergens. “Look for cracks in foundation. Check to see if the windows are completely sealed or if moisture is getting in—too much moisture can lead to a mold problem,” says Tringale. He adds that there are also housing products, such as wallboard, that are mold resistant. So be sure to check for those items when replacing housing materials.

Clean with hydrogen peroxide or sodium perborate not bleach. Bleach is a common cleaning chemical but it has a very strong odor and, people with highly sensitive allergies to bleach, often immediately can sense symptoms coming on even if with just a brief exposure to the chemical.

Use PVC-free shower curtains. Hard to imagine that a pretty shower curtain can wreak such havoc on people’s allergies, but the polyvinyl chloride shower curtains can release more than 100 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) including two (toluene and xylene) that are classified as hazardous pollutants by the Environmental Protection Agency. Having PVC shower curtains hanging around while your home is being shown can make those suffering from allergies feel the need to escape quickly.

Opt for area rugs instead of wall-to-wall carpeting. The U.S. Green Building Council provides information on “going green,” the Council says carpeting can be particularly troublesome because the padding underneath is very difficult to clean or remove for drying. Carpets also harbor dirt, organic detritus, and moisture and can become a significant source for mold and mildew. Instead use area rugs over a hard-surface floor. The Council also recommends avoiding all biocide-treated (moth repellent) wool or cotton carpets.

Use products that contain low volatile organic compounds (VOCs). A lot of homeowners will paint just before they list their homes for sale. But Tringale says, if you do, be sure to use paints that contain low VOCs. “Many paints contain volatile organic compounds and smells that can linger for weeks and cause all kinds of symptoms including eye irritations for people,” says Tringale.

“If you’re re-staining your floors ask for the low VOC stains, or even better, put in pre-treated floors rather than raw wood that you then have to apply polyurethane over the top of,” says Tringale. He cautions sellers to “Make smart choices; otherwise you’re going to have a house that is really chemically offensive to buyers who are walking through.” For more information visit asthmaandallergyfriendly.com.

P. Chongchua

[Note: To follow is an excerpt of an interview with Michael A. Anderson, CES, Certified Exchange Specialist. Michael is president of Exchange Services, LLC, an affiliate of Zions Bank that serves the QI needs of the affiliate banks and national customer base. To listen to the show archive or download an MP3, go to www.IncomePropertyInvestmentTalk.com/052009.]

Mosca: Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code provides a series of different things for different types of investors. What is a 1031 tax-deferred exchange as it relates to the real estate investment and why is it so valuable?

Anderson: The point of owning real estate is to have it appreciate in value and if you want to change that or sell that property, you may have a substantial tax liability as a result through capital gains taxes, both state and federal. Section 1031 allows you to exchange one investment property for another and doing so appropriately defers the capital gains tax that might be due in such a transaction if it were a sale. As you near closing for the sale of your investment property, you have to decide whether to do an exchange or not before you actually close on your sale. As you near that point, you decide to call a qualified intermediary or QI like myself or any of my colleagues in the business and the QI will set up some documents for you which will convert your sale into an exchange. What that does is it transfers typically the right to receive the proceeds of the sale to the qualified intermediary, so when the sale closes the funds go to the QI to hold them for you while you go look for your replacement property. You have to acquire or identify your short list of replacement properties within 45 days of the sale and you have to actually close those properties you want to acquire within 180 days of the sale or the due date of the tax return for the year in which the sale took place including extension. Planning ahead always helps in life and this is another situation where planning ahead helps you avoid heartburn at the last moment.

Mosca: What separates or makes Zions Bank or your Exchange Services, LLC different or unique from the typical exchange provider?

Anderson: At Exchange Services, we use the qualified trust model, which means that we don’t own the funds. Typically the QIs in the past have used the safe harbor where the QI gets to own the funds in between and they get to do with it whatever they want in general. Under the qualified trust model, we create a trust for the taxpayer and the funds belong to the taxpayer but are restricted from their access according to the safe harbor for the qualified trust by means of the trust. We also invest the funds in separate bank accounts, which have the benefit of FDIC insurance.

Mosca: As an example, I am one investor of maybe 17 who has invested in a tenant in common property and that property is going to sell in September. I want to invest the gain again in another income property. What is the process from there?

Anderson: Basically what we do is compare some documentation to convert your sale to an exchange. Then, at the closing, the funds come to us and we hold them in a qualified trust account for your benefit while you go look for new property and you have up to 45 days to identify your short list and then you have up to 180 days to actually close on your replacement property.

Mosca: Another example, I am investor and I feel it does not make sense to exchange today with the way the market is and it is better to just pay the taxes. What do you say about that?

Anderson: Whenever you pay the tax, the tax money is gone and it is really hard to make up that loss from a return basis. Some people are saying tax rates may go up and there is a good chance that they will. We have even done some modeling here and it turns out that even if rates go up say to 35 or 39%; it’s hard to catch up once you pay that big chunk of capital gains tax. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it in certain situations but it’s just giving yourself a handicap that’s hard to catch up with. A 1031 is a good way for people to create flexibility in their investor plans as they decide to go from one type of investment, say your duplex or into a TIC or other sort of vehicle. It’s a great way to do so without being penalized.

Mosca: One of the overriding themes of this program is the importance of relationships with experts in this business to success. Do you agree?

Anderson: This past weekend, I was at a conference of people in our industry — the Federation of Exchange Accommodators. We review there and talk to each other about what we are doing and about new authority and regulations and decisions on related parties and vacation homes and partnership return questions and it’s a fun time to get together and talk shop and catch up on things. It is important to look for people who have those professional qualifications and in our industry it for the Certified Exchange Specialist. I would encourage people to look for professionals as you say that are qualified and have made commitment to the industry.

Mosca: Mike, we are now in a global economy. Does the law apply to foreign properties?

Anderson: Generally, you can exchange domestic properties for domestic properties and foreign properties for foreign properties.

Mosca: Is there any discussion to change that or do you think it’s always going to stay domestic to domestic and foreign to foreign?

Anderson: It’s hard to know what Congress is going to do at any given time. There has not been as much pressure on that as there has been on other issues.

Mosca: What are some of the other issues coming up in the months or years ahead?

Anderson: There is concern about folks who are unwittingly involved as customers in failures and offering some sort of relief for them, especially those that lost a lot of money in capital and had to pay ‘boot.’ I’d like to see some support for those folks, but I don’t know what hope there is for that. Boot is income that is subject to tax; the tax liability is called boot in an exchange.

Mosca: Can you talk about some of the different ways to protect customer funds?

Anderson: Certainly. Some problems came as a result of honest mistakes and not necessarily unscrupulous activities. It happens either way. The most important thing is to understand who is holding your money, who they are, what their qualifications are, what their management strategy is, and what they’re holding strategy is. For example, there are three safe harbors the IRS allows for this kind of a procedure. One is the qualified intermediary, one the qualified trust, and the other, the qualified escrow. The qualified intermediary approach has been more common. Basically the qualified intermediary receives the funds and they are the qualified intermediary’s funds in the interim. The qualified intermediary can go invest those funds and if they pay that taxpayer 2% and they can make 4% or 5%, they keep the difference. Under the qualified escrow, qualified trust model the funds belonged to the taxpayer and are just held in escrow or in trust for the taxpayer. Again, in a situation where there is a bankruptcy or some question about who the funds belonged to, the qualified trust or the qualified escrow models are much clearer legally belonging to the taxpayer then the qualified intermediary approach. Most of the qualified intermediaries are very honest, very straightforward. It’s an actual layer of protection we give to our customers. We do not put them in pooled accounts. We put every single taxpayer in a different, separate bank account. Plus, we pay all the interest to the taxpayer.

Mosca: What is your golden nugget for today?

Anderson: Even though the economy has had some turbulence recently, don’t lose heart, look forward, be careful, think things through, don’t throw away your money needlessly, make good decisions, analyze, underwrite, ask questions, and we will all make it through this.

P. Mosca

I think I could base an entire blog on what I read in the Chicago Tribune each day. Why I even read the Tribune is a quandary to me, given that the paper reads more like the Huffington Post these days. From time to time I enjoy real estate writer Mary Umberger, although I think she’s a little pessimistic on the market, and do think she ignores the real reasons that people buy houses for. And she ignores me when I write to her with article ideas.

Recently she wrote a little pros/cons section on whether or not it’s the time to buy a house. Reasons to buy? High inventory, low prices, low interest rates, etc. Reasons not to buy? Prices still in decline, renting isn’t a crime, financing is more complicated, etc. Good reasons Mary, but what about addressing the real reasons that people buy and don’t buy? What if, instead of providing biased opinions from those on each side of the argument, we broke it down and really made it easy to figure out if it’s a good idea to buy or not to buy? What if some people don’t really buy because of interest rates after all, and what’s all this garbage about a market bottom? What if people buy because they’re confident and don’t buy because they’re scared and the rest of the reasons are just fluff? If people buy because of interest rates, why did anyone buy a home from 1980 to 1983? Interest rates aren’t the key, market indicators aren’t the key, lifestyle accomplishment is the key.

First, let’s get this “market bottom’ theory out of our way. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, market bottoms are only easy to identify once they’ve happened. Look at the stock market. By most accounts, we’ve been to the market bottom of this recession cycle.

Take a look at a stock chart, or individual stock hi/lows, and you’ll see that most stocks hit their 52 week lows on March 5th of this year. Did you buy a a hundred thousand dollars worth of stocks on March 5th? If you did, you probably would have turned $100k into $300k pretty easily. What’s that? You didn’t buy on March 5th? But that was the market bottom! Why on earth didn’t you buy? What’s wrong with you? I really can’t believe you were sitting there, at your computer screen, with Etrade account open, and you didn’t pull the trigger on Citi at 97 cents.

See why market bottoms aren’t too cool? Because when they happen, there’s usually too much fear in the market to encourage buying. What is true for the stock market is also true of the housing market. Market bottoms sound great in theory, but they’re just too darn hard to identify while they’re happening. Instead of an identifiable bottom, why don’t we just focus on a bottom trough, a trough that we’re certainly in right now.

Movements to either side of this current point are going to be prevalent, which is why we’ll see positive housing numbers one quarter, and negative housing numbers the next. We’re in a sideways market, and I’d suggest we’re in a market bottom that we’ll stay in for another year or so. Jon Stewart fans, mock Jim Cramer all you like, but he’s been saying that the time to buy a house is before June 30th, 2009, and he’s probably going to prove to be right on the mad money with that recommendation.

So if we’re in the market, why buy? Do you believe the market bulls or bears? Do you focus on Mary’s 5 positive signs, or are you negative and you prefer to side with the cons? Go right ahead and rent for the rest of your life, and maybe, just maybe your landlord will let you paint a white wall tan. If you ask nicely. What if you just let the 5 reasons to buy and the 5 reasons to wait cancel each other out, and buy for lifestyle. Housing bull? No thanks. Call me a lifestyle bull. A lifestyle bull in a confidence sapped china shop. Buy because that house you grew up admiring just came on the market. Buy because you‘re confident in your job status, and that new development just slashed their prices 35%.

Buy because you really can’t stand the heat in the city on the weekends. Buy because cool lake breezes are better than warm alley breezes any day of the week. Buy because you’ll walk a little taller if you live on that street where the Maples high overhead reach across the street and shake hands with each other Above all, buy because you want a better lifestyle for you, for your friends, and for your family, and the purchase you’re contemplating allows you to more easily obtain that lifestyle.

If you need fundamentals to buy, realize that interest rates are unbelievably low, even if they’re not 4.5% like Obama told you they would be. Realize that whether or not the market bottoms, you’re not going to know when it does. If you’re hoarding cash hoping for market bottom balloons to be released from the unicorns in the sky, I hope you have fun swimming in your money vat a la Scrooge McDuck. Just buy because of the 320 months of summer we’re all hoping for out of life, way too many of them have already been wasted worrying about 5% market swings, and 5% interest rates.

D. Curry