Englewood Voices
Columns or blogs by Englewood people.
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Desperate times heralds desperate measures
Dane Hahn
By Dane Hahn
Real Estate
This week I had the pleasure to attend a presentation by Diane McFarlin, who is the publisher of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Normally I wouldn’t use this space to discuss another media outlet, but I think this time it’s worth taking a few minutes to discuss how it is that the Herald-Tribune (a New York Times-owned daily newspaper) is weathering the downturn in the economy.
From my perspective, the world revolves around real estate. In the newspaper business, the world revolves around advertising and, to a lesser degree, subscriptions.
Continue reading this story…To flip, or not to flip
Dane Hahn
By Dane Hahn
Real Estate
Our daily paper from Sarasota led this week’s real estate “buzz” page with a item on flipping homes.
The headline read “Investor Makes A Quick $262,200.” Not bad — I know you will agree. Heck, I’d like to make a quick $200K. And if he can do it, you and I can do it too — don’t you think?
What did we learn?
Dane Hahn
By Dane Hahn
Real Estate
I just finished reading “Reckless Endangerment,” by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner. The authors make a strong case that the recession and real estate melt-down was a simple case of greed at many levels, and they feel that most of the really bad guys are still known to us and today are very rich.
A plan that may work
Dane Hahn
By Dane Hahn
Real Estate
Here we go again.
With the blessing of our present administration, we taxpayers are about to offer band-aids for all the shaky loans that are still out there.
You will soon be able to refinance your old loan even if you are unemployed, and the value of the house has gone over the edge.
Cuba loosens real estate reins
Dane Hahn
By Dane Hahn
Real Estate
Recently I have been thinking about bucket list travel, and one of the places on my list is Cuba. I know I can go there now. There are lots of shady ways to get into the country. Whenever I bring up the subject of going there people say, “Oh, just fly up to Canada, and change planes for Havana — tell ‘em you’re a Canadian, that always works.”
Good news: Holiday hiring
By Dane Hahn
Real Estate
Recently Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress about what he sees as our true economic outlook.
According to Bernanke, it has been three years since the beginning of the financial crisis, and while there have been improvements, it is clear that the recovery is “less robust” than experts had hoped.
HAFA sell short?
Dane Hahn
As I wrote last week, we are moving away from the term foreclosure for the loss of a house. Our current Administration wants fewer foreclosures. Sounds good. So here’s how they’ll accomplish that: they’ll call them something else—now they will be short sales or deeds in lieu of foreclosure — thankfully this much more “correct” way of explaining how a house was lost is likely to be available through HAFA.
I can’t guarantee that HAFA (the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program) will work for you or even someone you know, but it is designed to help folks who have been trying in good faith to work out a mortgage issue with their bank. It’s a program intended to make short sales easier and more streamlined for homeowners (who did not qualify for a loan modification).
Buy now, and hold on
Dane Hahn
By Dane Hahn
Real Estate
The latest housing numbers aren’t pretty. But they’re about to seem better. Here’s why that’s happening. The whole key to correcting our crappy housing market is to eliminate the excess and surplus inventory of homes.
The issue we are seemingly unable to address is what to do when a homeowner either can’t make his payments, or simply wants out of his contract because as far as he can see, the house isn’t worth the money he agreed to pay, back when he bought it. In either case the homeowner is what we call, under water.