Little Energy Item Could Put Big Damper on Home Sales
By Robert Freedman, senior editor, REALTOR® Magazine
One of REALTORS®' priorities going into the NAR Midyear Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo in Washington next week will be a little provision in a very large bill. This is Sec. 204 of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, a 648-page bill that covers everything from cap-and-trade climate rules to green jobs. Sec. 204 would require the energy-efficiency labeling of homes, apartments, and commercial buildings and is a classic example of a well-intentioned effort that could hurt millions of home owners. Although the details of how the labeling would work have yet to be released, a protocol for measuring home energy efficiency would be written. Based on that protocol, the efficiency of a house would have to be measured and then disclosed at a sale, among other times. In effect, each house would be labeled based on its energy efficiency.
Clearly this could have a severe dampening effect on sales involving existing homes, particularly older existing homes. And such a requirement couldn't come at a worse time.
NAR has sent out a limited Call For Action on the issue. Right now it's just targeting members of Congress who sit on the committee that's working on the bill, so only a portion of NAR's membership has been asked to write to their members specifically on this issue.
In its communication on the topic, NAR makes a pretty clear-headed point that there are many ways to get at the goal of improving the energy efficiency of our country's housing stock. Among them is to give owners reasonable incentives to make energy-efficiency improvements. As it is, Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) has a stand-alone bill, H.R. 1778, that would do just that, and NAR is making the case that this is an approach worth supporting.
Looking ahead, with climate change and other environmental issues on Congress' agenda, we can expect more efforts by lawmakers to advance proposals that might appear small-scale on the surface but that could have enormous impacts on markets. That's why it's crucial REALTORS® stay engaged in what's going on. You're the ones who know what the impact a proposal could have on markets.
By Robert Freedman, Senior Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
Trying to get details yesterday on what House and Senate conferees did and didn't include in the $790 billion economic stimulus legislation working its way through Congress was a challenge--and not just for those of us who don't work on Capitol Hill. The back-and-forth of negotiations was so rapid-fire that it seemed no single office had the conclusive take on what would be in the final bill.
With the dust having settled somewhat, NAR analysts say the bill contains several NAR-backed changes to the home buyer tax credit, including an increase in its size, from a maximum $7,500 to a maximum $8,000 ($4,000 for married households filing separately). News reports had conflicting takes on this yesterday, with some identifying the $8,000 limit and others saying it remained at $7,500.
In any case, one of NAR's top priorities for the tax credit was to get the repayment feature removed, and the conference report does that, for home purchases in 2009. Buyers also have to hold onto the house for at least three years. That's a safeguard against speculators.
NAR also wanted the life of the credit expanded, and the conferees provided that by making the credit available for all of 2009. Right now it's set to terminate at the end of June.
A couple of things remain the same. One, the credit remains refundable, which means you can get the balance of the credit sent to you in a check from the federal government if your credit exceeds your tax liability. And two, if your buy a house this year, you can elect to claim the credit on your 2008 tax return. That enables you to realize the benefit on your taxes as soon as possible.
If both the House and the Senate pass the final bill today, as they've been talking about, and if President Barack Obama signs the legislation into law by Monday, we could know by Tuesday the final details of the tax credit and other pieces of the legislation that REALTORS® have been advocating for, including the increase in conforming and FHA high-cost loan limits.
By Stacey Moncrieff, Editor in Chief, REALTOR® Magazine
A New York Times story yesterday quoted former real estate broker Johnny Isakson, the Republican senator from Georgia, on the $15,000 homeownership tax credit amendment that had just passed in the Senate ("Senate Advances Tax Break for Homebuyer").
Isakson was responding to critics who called that amendment, as well as one to stimulate car buying, "pandering." The senator recalled a similar economic downturn in 1974 in which a tax credit brought balance back to housing inventory and stabilized values. "The only reason I know all of that," he told the Times, "is I was selling houses in 1974. That’s what I was doing to feed my family and make a living.”
Isakson's comment reminded me of a series we've undertaken at REALTOR® magazine to spotlight practitioners who've been through challenging times and lived to tell about it. In the coming year, senior editor Wendy Cole will be interviewing some of the association's REALTOR® Emeritus members (those who've been in the business at least 40 consecutive years). Our first interview is with 81-year-old Geary Jones) of Santa Cruz, Calif. Geary started the call with Wendy by saying he didn't know how much he'd have to offer; in the end, his comments were both uplifting and instructive.
So what questions would you ask a REALTOR® Emeritus? And what are your thoughts on the $900 billion stimulus package now working its way through Congress — and particularly on the "new, improved" homebuyer tax credit?
By Robert Freedman, Senior Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
President Barack Obama has a lot on his plate but if you could spend a few minutes with him, what idea would you put in his ear to help improve housing markets?
Trulia CEO Pete Flint recently posed that question to readers of the Trulia blog. The closest thing to a consensus opinion among the 28 readers who responded: Get the U.S. Treasury to do what it originally said it would do when it lobbied for the $700 billion in Wall Street rescue funds back in October 2008. As one reader says, "Get the mortgage companies that were given bailout monies to loan that money out to people to start buying."
The fact is, REALTORS® were concerned with banks' intentions from the very beginning. When lawmakers were debating the rescue package, two leaders of our industry—Gary Keller of Keller Williams Realty in Austin, Texas, and Ken Riggs of Real Estate Research Corp. in Chicago—told me and other REALTOR® Magazine editors in a conference call we hosted that bank actions needed to be monitored carefully because banks were under no obligation to pass their money through to borrowers. "Although the intent of the legislation is to free up capital for lending on homes, cars, college, and business inventories, the government doesn't have a mechanism in the bill for making the banks turn around and lend the money back," Keller said at the time. "So no one knows what will actually happen once a bank has its capital freed up."
Here we are several months later, with half of the funds spent, and real estate professionals are still waiting for the banks to plow assistance into credit markets.
Other responses to Flint's blog post fell into three broad categories:
1) Help households become homeowners
2) Help home owners at risk of default stabilize their position
3) Help the industry help itself.
Top among the suggestions for helping households become owners is allowing people to save for a downpayment using tax-free dollars, what one person called a home savings account. Other actions recommended are in line with what NAR has been advocating for months: Increase conforming and FHA high-cost area loan limits, bring down interest rates, and make the homebuyer tax credit a real credit rather than a loan in disguise.
One person said getting interest rates down to 4 percent would make a real difference in getting people off the fence. NAR doesn't advocate aiming for a certain rate—that would encourage prospective buyers to stay on the fence waiting for the target rate—but it did applaud the Federal Reserve's actions last month to begin buying mortgage-backed securities. The move helped bring down rates to just under 5 percent for a time without the Fed having to lower its short-term target rate, which is already just barely above zero.
There were all sorts of suggestions for helping troubled home owners, but a recurring theme throughout was the need for the federal government to get lenders to rethink overly tight underwriting standards and take whatever steps are necessary to get lenders to take loan modifications seriously. Replacement loans with 40- and even 50-year maturities should be an option as well.
Suggestions for the industry to improve itself really don't fall into President Obama's portfolio. Many commenters said the industry must make it harder for practitioners and mortgage brokers to get licensed, but that's a state issue. All the federal government can do is encourage, recommend, or cajole states to take action. Stricter enforcement mechanisms for violations are needed, too, some readers said.
A few people weighed in on the stimulus bill now making its way through Congress. Here the focus needs to be on long-term investment that will produce a real payoff in future increases in economic activity and new jobs. One person pointed to the ideas being generated at a think take called the Davinci Institute, which is touting investment in future-oriented technologies like a national wireless Internet grid, massive data storage libraries, self-navigating on-demand automobile systems, a "whole earth" genealogy project, digital upgrading of community libraries, a space elevator, a transcontinental freeway, and space-based power stations. Few of these ideas have anything to do with real estate but they could conceivably pave the way for the kind of economic expansion that really does growth the pie, making home ownership possible for more people.
The Obama Administration: Policies and People (Including You)
By Amy Konstas, REALTOR.org Staff
Did you know that as we begin the transition to a new presidential administration, there's a role for REALTORS® to play? Over 3,000 federal appointment positions will be filled in the Obama administration, and given the current housing and economic environment, those with knowledge of real estate will be in demand, this according to three experts on presidential transitions.
“We’re in a good place.” That’s how 2009 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® President Charles McMillan characterized the 2008 federal election results to the magazine’s senior editor Robert Freedman.
McMillan spoke to Rob when the election of Sen. Barack Obama as president of the United States and gains by Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate were all but certain. REALTORS®, he said, "stand ready to work with our new president and the new Congress on issues that are at the heart of the American dream of homeownership.” Those issues include the availability of affordable mortgage financing and affordable health insurance.
Lest anyone think the R in REALTOR® also stands for Republican—a phrase I’ve heard occasionally in my years with NAR—McMillan and other NAR leaders put that notion to rest. “There is no partisan divide when it comes to homeownership, strong communities, affordable health insurance, and strong commercial real estate markets,” McMillan said.
NAR provided election support through the REALTORS® Political Action Committee (RPAC) to more than 400 congressional candidates, with Democrats getting a slight edge in support, reflecting the larger number of Democrats in the outgoing 110th Congress. “Ours is the most bipartisan PAC in the country,” RPAC Chair Larry Edwards told Rob. (The association doesn’t take sides in presidential races.)
Among the NAR-backed victors Tuesday was Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of the House Financial Services Committee. Capito has advocated for NAR-backed small business health insurance coverage and helped pass FHA reform, the first-time homebuyer tax credit, and expansion of homeownership opportunities for U.S. veterans.
In Pennsylvania, Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) pulled off a surprising victory over Republican challenger Lou Barletta, the mayor of Hazleton, Pa. Polls had predicted a loss for Kanjorski, but at 11:15 p.m. EST with 86 percent of precincts reporting, the Associated Press declared him the winner. Kanjorski has been an ally of REALTORS® in the fight to keep large national banks out of real estate, authoring the original “Community Choice in Real Estate” bill.
Not all NAR candidates fared so well. Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.), a veteran lawmaker on the House Financial Services Committee, lost a hard-fought campaign. Shays helped pass housing stimulus legislation this year and has been a steady supporter of NAR-backed legislation to keep banks out of real estate. He was defeated by Democrat Jim Himes, a former Goldman Sachs vice president who went on to become an executive with Enterprise Community Partners, a leader in affordable housing and community development.
Robert Freedman also contributed to this blog post. His full election story will appear in today’s REALTOR magazine online news.
When Senate Banking Committee Chair Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) conducted a hearing last week on the credit crisis, he took aim at banks' intention to use funds from the massive $700 billion federal rescue to shore up their financial position rather than tackle the liquidity problem in the mortgage market that was so core to the government's goal in passing its bill.
"It's beyond troubling," said Dodd, "that those lenders who will be receiving billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers are considering using those dollars not to make loans, but rather to pursue 'some acquisition opportunities' and to create a capital 'cushion' on which they will comfortably sit while the American consumer and small business person struggles."
That concern over banks' inward-looking use of the funds is one of the driving forces behind NAR's call for Congress to meet after the national elections in a lame-duck session to reinvigorate housing markets. One of the proposals NAR is touting in a four-point plan that it would like to see incorporated into legislation before the end of the year is a provision to hold banks to the purpose of the rescue by pushing them to use funds for lending.
NAR also wants to urge banks to stop dragging their feet on short sales and REO sales. "Qualified buyers must be able to get safe and affordable mortgage loans," NAR President Richard Gaylord said.
Since the introduction of its four-point plan, NAR has been in communication with members of Congress and their staff on the details. In addition to the bank provisions, the plan calls for expanding the $7,500 first-time home buyer tax credit to all buyers and eliminating that program's repayment requirement; making permanent the prohibition against banks entering real estate brokerage and management; and making permanent the high-cost conforming loan limit of $729,750, which has been in effect for less than a year.
Time is of the essence on the high-cost loan limits because the $729,750 drops to a permanent high-cost limit of $625,500 on Jan. 1.
NAR analysts say the $729,750 limit, to be effective, needs more time to work, so making it permanent before its expiration is crucial for stabilizing housing markets in high-cost areas like parts of California and Massachusetts.
To help push its four-point plan in Congress, NAR is planning a major communications push at the 2009 REALTORS Conference & Expo in Orlando Nov. 7-10 with a Call for Action to all members of Congress. To help publicize the campaign, NAR will invite REALTORS to sign their names to the exterior of a giant model house on the Expo floor emblazoned with the slogan, "We support the NAR housing stimulus plan."
The house symbolizes what the federal government's rescue package is all about: helping homeowners, buyers, and sellers on Main Street. That's something NAR hopes lawmakers, and banks, keep that in mind as hundreds of billions of federal dollars in rescue money goes to banks on Wall Street.
In an attempt to revive sagging financial markets, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 263-171 to approve a rescue plan today that would allow the federal government to buy up to $700 billion in failed mortgages from banks and other financial insistutions.
"This legislation is critical to stopping the economic turmoil that millions of Americans are facing," said NAR President Dick Gaylord in a statement. "Today’s action will go a long way toward ending the current economic crisis crippling the housing and financial markets."
The legislation will help to restore liquidity to the mortgage market and stabilize the housing market, Gaylord said. "Mortgages as well as personal and small business loans would become more available and less costly," he said. "Protecting Main Street not only benefits individuals, families and communities, but also supports the larger U.S. economy." (See Why NAR Supports Government Intervention)
Mix of Opinions Is Good, But Inaction Would Be Bad
Robert Freedman, Senior Editor
With Wednesday's Senate vote, 74-25 in favor of the economic stabilization package, the federal rescue legislation moves closer to enactment. The House, after narrowly voting down the package earlier this week, is expected to take a second stab at the bill on Friday. Whatever the outcome, the vote is likely to be close once again, and for good reason.
The hundreds of billions of dollars worth of mortgage-backed securities that are weighing down the balance sheets of Wall Street bankers put the country in unchartered economic territory. There's uncertainty among lawmakers as well as financial industry experts about how the rescue package will ultimately play out in the market.
Would a massive infusion of public spending impact real estate in unforseen ways over the long run? NAR has made clear that failure to address the credit freeze immediately could lead to devastating consequences, not just for real estate. As NAR President Richard Gaylord says, a persistent credit freeze could lead to a "sharp rise in unemployment and severe hardship for many ordinary Americans" and far more costly financing for those who could get it.
Given the sheer size of the stabilization bill, it's not surprising we're seeing such a mix of opinion on what is the right course of action, including among real estate professionals. Healthy back-and-forth discussion shows real estate professionals are taking the time to educate themselves about the important issues of the day that can impact their business and their customers.
NAR leaders, in strongly backing the bill, aren't out to bail out Wall Street, bring back the go-go days of 2004, or nationalize our financial system. They're acting on the belief that failure to act today will bring terrible consequences tomorrow ... not just for Wall Street, but for Main Street as well.
The subprime meltdown precipitated the credit crisis that the Bush administration and Congress are now trying to fix with the proposed $700 billion Wall Street bailout, but shifts in global capital flows would have wreaked havoc in the U.S. mortgage market even if subprime lending hadn't gotten out of hand, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers told a housing and mortgage credit forum in Washington on Tuesday.
"Trillions of dollars in surplus capital abroad" were seeking a place to go, he said, and U.S. mortgage-backed securities were one of the top destinations for that money.
As a result, he said, "bubbles" would have formed in the housing market even without the attraction of high-yield securities backed by subprime mortgages. "It's not accurate to say subprime caused this," he said at the forum, hosted by the Brookings Institution.
The problem now, though, is to figure out how to get these mortgage-backed securities--whose values have fallen way below what they were originally priced at--off the balance sheets of financial institutions so they can get recapitalized and start making loans again, said Summers and other speakers at the forum, including Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chair Sheila Bair.
Summers and Bair agreed the bailout package must be big and quick but Summers warned
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Arizona Sen. John McCain vowed to stand up and fight for the country to keep it safe from global threats and help rebound from a sagging economy, as he accepted the Republican party’s nomination for president of the United States here tonight.
“These are tough times for many of you,” McCain told the crowd at the Xcel Center. “You’re worried about keeping your job or finding a new one, and are struggling to put food on the table and stay in your home. All you ever asked of government is to stand on your side, not in your way. And that’s just what I intend to do -- stand on your side and fight for your future.”
During his speech, McCain said he found the right partner in his vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, to help him shake up Washington, which drew cheers from the crowd, who had been won over by Palin after her energetic speech last night.
“I fight for Americans,” McCain said. “I fight for you. I fight for Bill and Sue Nebe from Farmington Hills, Michigan, who lost their real estate investments in the bad housing market.
More than 200 Republican and about 100 Democratic delegates at the 2008 Republican and Democratic National Conventions are also REALTORS®. Why did they decide to take on this role in our country's election process and how has it helped them in their real estate business? We caught up with several REALTOR® delegates during the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. Watch the video and hear how their political involvement has helped them.
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Watch video footage from REALTOR Randy McKinney, a Republican delegate from Alabama, as his state casts its delegate votes for the presidential nomination of Sen. John McCain.
Republican Convention: Keeping the Focus on That First Rung of the Housing Ladder
Robert Freedman, Senior Editor
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- As the political excitement at the Republican National Convention entered its third day, much of the attention among politicos and the media was on the upcoming speech of vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska. But about a mile from the Xcel Energy Center, where the festivities are taking place, NAR President-elect Charles McMillan paid a visit to Ravoux House, a high-rise public housing project with several hundred elderly and disabled residents that’s everything critics and supporters say public housing should be: safe, decent, and affordable.
“There are still people who cannot afford the American Dream and in the current environment that’s becoming even more difficult,” said McMillan, who went on to praise the work of the St. Paul, Minn., Housing Authority for its success with its Ravoux community. “But we must do more to help not only those struggling to get on the bottom rung of the housing ladder, whether that’s ownership or shelter through rental programs, and we must do more to preserve homeownership for those who are threatened with losing their homes.” (Watch a video of McMillian's remarks.)
Inside the Xcel Center, amidst all the political speeches, some 2,000 delegates and tens of thousands of other convention-goers heard that same call for homeownership preservation.
“Today, Americans are concerned about keeping their jobs, about keeping their homes,” said Carly Fiorina, former chairperson and CEO of global technology giant Hewlett-Packard, who spoke on the convention floor that evening.
The core of any plan to stem the mortgage crisis and ramp up economic growth must start
Watch video highlights of NAR President-elect Charles McMillan, and REALTOR® and Nevada Republican delegate Jack Woodcock talk about the real estate and politics at 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.
Republican Convention: Service Is Showcased, REALTORS® Show the Way
Robert Freedman, Senior Editor
ST. PAUL, Minn. — When Bill Gross was at the podium in the Xcel Energy Center Tuesday evening, the second day of the Republican National Convention here, he moved many of the delegates and other convention-goers with his stories of the farmers helped by Farm Rescue, a nonprofit group he founded. The group doesn’t step in with money; rather, it deploys volunteers — often other farmers — to help plant, maintain, and harvest crops for farmers who’ve suffered a disabling injury and need time to recuperate before they can get back to their fields.
As Gross put it, “We give them an opportunity to continue their livelihood during an unexpected crisis.”
Shortly after Gross made his remarks, the convention heard from Ashley Gunn, a junior at the University of Pennsylvania who launched a nonprofit that turns abandoned houses into affordable homeownership opportunities for indigent households.
What struck me as I was listening to these stories is how much they resemble the kind of work REALTORS® do every day in their communities and that are showcased each year in the REALTOR® magazine Good Neighbor Awards. As a frequent judge for these awards, I know that the winners and runners-up represent just a fraction of the hundreds of entries submitted each year. Without a doubt, for REALTORS®, every day is “service” day.
That’s a message NAR and the hundreds of REALTORS® serving as delegates to this and the Democratic convention last week have been sharing with lawmakers and others involved in the
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The scene of protestors on Kellogg St. outside the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul was chaotic but for the hundreds of REALTORS® here attending as delegates to the Republican National Convention the focus was on the Gulf Coast.
As they did when the Gulf Coast was struck by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, REALTORS® stepped up with donations to the REALTOR® Relief Fund. But in this case, they were opening their wallets even before it was clear what the full impact of Hurricane Gustav would be.
“It was extremely moving to see how quickly REALTORS® came forward in this time of need,” said NAR President-elect Charles McMillan.
While Gustav was making landfall, NAR and another group, the Creative Coalition, were hosting a joint forum to hear from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development staff on the recently passed housing bill at a restaurant across the river in Minneapolis. The Creative Coalition is the social advocacy arm of the entertainment industry, and the group, along with NAR, also hosted a joint meeting at the Democratic National Convention in Denver the previous week.
Official activities at the convention were curtailed because of Gustav, with First Lady Laura Bush and Cindy McCain, wife of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona -- the only two keynoters on Monday. However, convention-goers stayed busy with a phalanx of meetings and forums outside the convention hall.
More than 200 REALTORS®, representing 44 states, were in town as delegates to the convention. They’ll be joining more than 2,000 other delegates this week to vote on the nomination of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska for vice president and John McCain for president.
For the REALTOR® community, they’ll be communicating the importance of REALTOR® issues
Watch highlights from this week's Democratic National Convention. Stay tuned next week as we bring you coverage from the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis.
DENVER – Obamamania was in full force tonight as Barack Obama accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in front of a thunderous crowd of 80,000.
“It’s time for us to change America,” Obama told a cheering crowd, who waved American flags in the air and created a rumble in the stadium by stomping their feet in agreement.
Crowds lined up starting midday, waiting in security lines that at times stretched more than a mile, all so they could watch Obama accept the party’s nomination Thursday night at Invesco’s Mile High Stadium.
“We meet at one of those defining moments - a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more,” Obama said. ”Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can't afford to drive, credit card bills you can't afford to pay, and tuition that's beyond your reach. These challenges are not all of government's making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush.”
Throughout the evening, Obama and other speakers – including Al Gore and Vice President nominee Joe Biden – sought to closely tie the policies of Bush to McCain.
In his 45-minute speech, Obama offered up some specifics of what his “change” agenda
DENVER - REALTOR® Michael Eaves, a broker specializing in commercial real estate investments for Long & Foster REALTORS® in Bel Air, Md., is one of nearly 100 delegates who are REALTORS® at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Eaves serves as a delegate in Maryland.
Watch some of his video reports from the convention floor on Wednesday.
Melissa Dittmann Tracey, Associate Multimedia Editor, and Robert Freedman, Senior Editor
DENVER – No matter who comes out on top in the presidential race, several REALTOR® issues are likely to be at the forefront of the national legislative agenda, NAR Chief Lobbyist Jerry Giovaniello said at the 2008 Democratic National Convention here yesterday. (Hear it in his own words: Watch video highlights of Giovaniello talking about these key REALTOR® issues.)
During a housing reception hosted by NAR, the National Association of Home Builders, and the Independent Community Bankers of America, Giovaniello predicted small business health care will be one of the first orders of business in Congress.
“Whichever party is elected there’s going to be a lot of resources devoted to coming up with a workable, bipartisan health care plan,” Giovaniello said.
The government will also take a closer look at modernizing the financial system for housing. By early 2009, lawmakers will have a clearer picture of what needs to be done based on the
DENVER - It’s too dark to see clearly in Osteria Marco, one of Denver’s trendy bistros, but the person sitting against the back wall is definitely Spike Lee, the famed movie director, and in the center of the room actress Susan Sarandon. And not far from the two of them is Henry Cisneros, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development during President Bill Clinton’s first term.
These three and others have gathered in this restaurant about half a mile from the national democratic convention center to participate in a town hall meeting about the other housing crisis, the one hitting low- and moderate-income renter households (Watch some video highlights.) More than six million renter households must pay more than 50 percent of their monthly income for rent, leaving them little for food, transportation, and health care.
Cisneros, who now heads up a company that develops housing for working families, says lawmakers in 2009 must address the homeownership slowdown without ignoring the ongoing, yet far less visible, crisis in the rental world.
Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, another participant, agreed that the challenge for housing advocates is to keep him and other lawmakers on top of both problems at once, an admittedly tough task given the primacy of the homeownership market to the overall U.S. economy.
“Housing is the economic crisis of the country,” he says. “But you need to keep us honest. We need to stay focused on rental housing.”
It might seem incongruous to have a discussion about low-income rental housing at a swanky bistro but this incongruence is part of what makes the town hall discussion effective; it’s bringing together the high-profile world of Hollywood and New York City with the high-power
Democrats Meet in Denver, Amidst is the REALTOR® R
Robert Freedman, Senior Editor
DENVER – Sixteenth Street is packed beyond imagination. This wide boulevard, redeveloped by the city about two dozen years ago into a downtown pedestrian mall with service by a cheery electric streetcar , is where you find much of the throng that’s gathered in this city to attend the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
You have protest groups in which everyone is dressed in black, and those in which everyone is dressed in pink; you have vendors hawking a dizzying array of stickers, buttons, and T-shirts of the Democrats’ presumptive nominee, Barack Obama; you have an even dizzier array of people with their credentials hanging prominently around their necks; and you have security personnel, many armed with black and glistening automatic weapons, on every street corner and in the doorways to the restaurants and stores.
But amidst this chaos it’s the truck that’s been making a loop up and down 16th Street and around the delegate headquarters at the nearby Colorado Convention Center that attracts my attention: It’s a sign truck with a gigantic REALTOR® R and the message “Make sure you use a REALTOR® to get real results,” sponsored by the Colorado Association of REALTORS®.
I know I’m not the only one here who takes a professional interest in this friendly reminder of what sets REALTORS® apart from others who sell real estate; out of 4,233 delegates in town,
NAR leaders are feeling good about the settlement agreement announced Tuesday with the U.S. Justice Department. I spoke with NAR General Counsel Laurie Janik and Associate General Counsel Ralph Holmen on Wednesday. They emphasized two important wins for REALTORS®.
First, MLSs are strengthened: They can now prevent the participation of nonpractitioners who just want to sell buyer leads back to working brokers. Second, sellers will have more say in how their listings are presented online. Under the final order — which will be open for a 60-day comment period before it's truly final — sellers can have false or undesirable information (such as unfavorable blog posts) removed from their property listing on so-called "virtual office Web sites." These VOWs were at the heart of the lawsuit the DOJ filed against NAR in 2005.
Not surprisingly, attorneys at the Justice Department are characterizing the settlement as a government victory. That's because under the final order, brokers won't be able to selectively opt out of having their listings placed on VOW sites.
The federal government is spending some $20 billion a year or so on infrastructure development and modernization but according to a report released last week by the Urban Land Institute, that annual investment falls short by some $200 billion a year of what's needed. That's because much of our infrastructure is about 50 years old and is not only becoming structurally unsound but needs redevelopment to accommodate the size of loads we put on it today.
One of the things I’ve enjoyed since joining REALTOR magazine last July is the amount of contact we have with our readers. We get lots of e-mail and letters, and that’s a great thing. One of the primary missions of quality journalism is to promote discussion by providing information people need to and want to know. Getting feedback from readers helps us do that.
With that said, though, I have to say I was a bit surprised by the number of e-mail messages we received in reaction to a story in our December 2007 issue outlining the views of various presidential candidates on real estate and real estate-related issues.
Several readers objected to the pictures we used of the candidates. They alleged we were somehow trying to steer our readers to vote for a Democrat because the Democratic candidate were smiling in their photos while the Republicans were not.
Let me put that issue to rest. As I’ve already written some of the concerned letter writers, all those photos were supplied to us by the candidates. We in no way wanted to influence anyone or indicate support for any candidate by the pictures we used.
Nor do we expect readers to be sycophants for the real estate industry. (One letter writer chastised us for being too parochial.) We realize that you won’t choose a candidate based
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Arizona Sen. John McCain vowed to stand up and fight for the country to keep it safe from global threats and help rebound from a sagging economy, as he accepted the Republican party’s nomination for president of the United States here tonight.
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- As the political excitement at the Republican National Convention entered its third day, much of the attention among politicos and the media was on the upcoming speech of vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska. But about a mile from the Xcel Energy Center, where the festivities are taking place, NAR President-elect Charles McMillan paid a visit to Ravoux House, a high-rise public housing project with several hundred elderly and disabled residents that’s everything critics and supporters say public housing should be: safe, decent, and affordable. 
Inside the Xcel Center, amidst all the political speeches, some 2,000 delegates and tens of thousands of other convention-goers heard that same call for homeownership preservation. 
DENVER – Obamamania was in full force tonight as Barack Obama accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in front of a thunderous crowd of 80,000. 
“We meet at one of those defining moments - a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more,” Obama said.
”Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can't afford to drive, credit card bills you can't afford to pay, and tuition that's beyond your reach. These challenges are not all of government's making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush.”
DENVER - It’s too dark to see clearly in Osteria Marco, one of Denver’s trendy bistros, but the person sitting against the back wall is definitely Spike Lee, the famed movie director, and in the center of the room actress Susan Sarandon. And not far from the two of them is Henry Cisneros, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development during President Bill Clinton’s first term. 
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