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October 2006 |
A Publication of ELLIOTT®
& Company Appraisers |
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DECREASE
IN HOME PRICES PREDICTED |
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 Moody’s
Economy.com has projected a fall in housing prices in well over 100
U.S. metropolitan areas. The company predicts that the median sales
price for an existing home will drop by 3.6% in 2007. If this
prediction comes true it would be the first nationwide decline in
home prices for an entire year since the 1930s.
"Prices are going to go down and stay down for a while," said Mark
Zandi, Economy.com’s chief economist. "It will take at least a
couple of years to work off the excesses of the last decade."
Most of the 133 areas that Economy.com has forecasted for declining
housing prices are concentrated in California, Florida and the
Northeast Corridor from southern Maine to northern Virginia. The
Moody’s affiliate predicts the biggest decline in home prices to
occur in Danville, IL, a city that has lost jobs in automobile
production and other forms of manufacturing. Fort Myers, FL, is
expected to drop 18.6% in median house price from the last three
quarters of 2005.
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HOUSES ARE LARGER, BUT
YARDS ARE SMALLER |
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 The
U.S. Census Bureau reports that the median size for a new one-family
house was 2,227 square feet in 2005. That is 40% higher than they were
in 1976. Meanwhile, the Census Bureau lists the median yard size for
such a house at 8,847 square feet in 2005, a 12.6% decrease from that of
1976.
"Land costs are going up continuously," said Gopal Ahluwalia, vice
president of research of the National Association of Home Builders. "The
home buyer is willing and has been willing to buy a smaller lot, but not
a smaller house."
Census data also revealed that detached single-family homes have
accounted for over 60% of occupied housing in this country for at least
the past eight years.
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PAYING OFF
APPRAISERS LANDS EX-LAWYER IN PRISON |
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Albert Innarelli, a former
Massachusetts lawyer, was sentenced to six years in prison after
pleading guilty to money laundering and 67 counts of wire fraud.
The disbarred attorney was already serving a suspended sentence
for embezzling $662,000 from real estate clients.
The Springfield, MA, resident had been buying low-cost real
estate, paying off appraisers to inflate values, attracting
first-time buyers and drafting false documents in order to
obtain mortgages. Many of the sales, as a result of this scheme,
wound up as foreclosures. In addition to prison time, Innarelli
has been ordered to pay an amount totaling $80,000 to eight
homebuyers and over $1 million to banks that lost money due to
his shenanigans.
Jonathan Frederick of Agawam, MA, admitted to signing off on 35
appraisals in this scandal. Frederick’s appraisal license is
long-gone, but he did manage to avoid an active prison sentence.
Instead, he was given four years of probation, which included
six months of house arrest and six months of community
confinement.
The leniency the ex-appraiser received may have been aided by a
profuse, five-minute apology he gave the court.
"I can’t apologize enough," the contrite Frederick told the
judge. "There’s no earthly excuse for my actions. There’s no
rock to crawl under." |
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QUOTES OF WIT &
WISDOM |
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"Autumn is the second spring,
when every leaf is a flower."
-- Albert Camus
"If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of
lying there and worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not
the loss of sleep."
-- Dale Carnegie
"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of
the overcoming of it." -- Helen Keller
"A good listener is a good talker with a sore throat."
-- Katharine Whitehorn
"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I
have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance
to the first." -- Ronald Reagan
"Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with
others." -- Robert Louis Stevenson
"Work saves us from the three great evils: boredom, vice and
need." -- Voltaire
"A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult
than it is for other people." -- Thomas Mann
"Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn."
-- George Bernard Shaw
"The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that,
you’ve got it made." -- Jean Giraudoux
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