Any questions on what the right improvements in your home may be… simply give me a call and I will happily meet with you, make some cost saving suggestions, and introduce you to the professionals that can get it done right, and a great value to you. Talk to you soon…

The power may be out.

Check the circuit breakers, fuses and plugs. Ensure that the circuit breakers are not tripped, or the fuses blown. Reset the circuit breakers if needed.

The batteries in the thermostat may need to be replaced.

Check the batteries in the thermostat and replace them if needed.

The thermostat may be set incorrectly.

Ensure that the thermostat is set to the A/C setting, COOL.

The thermostat may be set too high.

Set the thermostat on the air conditioner below room temperature.

The selector switch may be set to FAN ONLY.

Set the selector switch to circulate. Seal any leaks where the housing meets the window.

The outdoor temperature may be too cool.

The outside temperature must be over 70° in order for the air conditioner to work to capacity. Set the thermostat to COOL first thing in the morning to maintain the temperature throughout the day.

There may be obstructions or debris in the ductwork blocking the flow of air.

Clear the ducts and the unit of any debris or obstructions for proper air flow.

The registers may be closed.

Open the register(s) to let air flow into the room(s).

If these solutions don’t solve your problem or you still need help, feel good knowing that I have a great referral for you. All you have to do is take out your cell phone, look up my number and give me a call so you can get the help you need from some you can trust, like me. Have a great day and make sure you share this with your friends and family.

By Jim Puzzanghera and Alejandro Lazo, Los Angeles Times -March 30, 2011
Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles—

Major banks may be forced to let severely delinquent homeowners sell their houses for less than the loan amounts owed as part of a broad settlement of federal and state investigations into botched foreclosure paperwork, according to government officials involved in the negotiations.

The requirement to allow so-called short sales would be in addition to forcing mortgage servicers to reduce the amount some homeowners owe on their loans, said two officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because negotiations are ongoing.

The goal of short sales would be twofold: provide a quicker and more economical way for banks to dispose of distressed real estate and to help stabilize the real estate market by clearing out a backlog of defaulted mortgages that are poised for foreclosure.

They would be used in situations in which borrowers were so underwater that the more costly and time-consuming process of foreclosure would seem to be the only option.

Read the full article here

High residential vacancies are killing many housing markets, as foreclosed homes sit on the market and depress sale prices and property values.

The national vacancy rate at 11.4% according to a release Tuesday from the Census Bureau.

“Vacant homes equal more downward pressure on home prices,” said Brad Hunter, chief economist for Metrostudy, a real estate information provider.

Maine had the highest proportion of empty housing stock, at 22.8%. Other states with gluts of empty houses included Vermont (20.5%), Florida (17.5%), Arizona (16.3%) and Alaska (15.9%).

The way the census calculates the vacancy rates, however, is problematic. It includes properties such as ski lodges, beach houses and pied-à-terres that many real estate statisticians would not.

10 fastest-growing U.S. cities
These are often summer homes or second homes, but census lumps them together with homes that have been sold but not occupied, empty homes for sale or rent, and homes used by migrant workers. Basically, anything other than a primary residence is considered vacant.

“You can only live in one home,” said William Chapin of the Census Bureau’s Housing Statistics Branch. “If you own five homes that you occasionally live in, four of them will be counted as vacant.”

But Paul Bishop, the vice president for research for the National Association of Realtors, countered that these properties aren’t vacant in the usual sense of the term. “A vacation home is hardly the same situation as a foreclosed home that has been taken back by the bank,” he said.

Read the full article here

Washington —— Sales of previously owned homes dropped 9.6% in February and prices fell to their lowest level since 2002, reflecting a continued slump in the U.S. real estate market.

The National Assn. of Realtors on Monday said home resales dropped to an annual rate of 4.88 million from an upwardly revised 5.4 million in January. The data is seasonally adjusted.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected sales to drop to a rate of 5.1 million.

Sales of new and used homes have been down in the dumps since a housing market bubble burst during the recession. High unemployment, combined with stricter lending standards, have made it harder for Americans to buy homes despite low interest rates.

The Internal Revenue Service says it’s trying to help people who are struggling to pay delinquent tax bills, so it’s reducing the number of property liens and easing rules for small businesses to enter into installment agreements.

As the economy has soured, the agency has filed an increasing number of liens on property owned by delinquent taxpayers. The IRS filed nearly 1.1 million liens in the fiscal year that ended in September, compared with 426,000 in 2001.

The steps announced Thursday will double the amount of back taxes a person can owe to $10,000 before facing a possible lien. Previously, taxpayers who owed at least $5,000 and ignored numerous IRS notices would get an automatic lien placed on their property.

The change will make it easier for people to have liens withdrawn once tax bills are paid or they start paying under certain installment plans. More taxpayers can settle their tax debt for less than they owe, if they meet certain income and debt requirements.

Small businesses with larger delinquent tax bills will be eligible for 24-month payment plans. Previously, the tax bill had to be less than $10,000; now it’s up to $25,000.

The agency believes the changes “will help people trying to get right with their taxes and we think it strikes the right balance to protect the interests of the government,” said Doug Shulman, the IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said.
Read the original article here

If you bought a home last year, you may be eligible for a tax credit of up to $8,000 when you file your 2010 tax return. But before you start shopping for hardwood floors, make sure you qualify. And even if you’re eligible, you’ll need to take extra steps to prove that your claim is legitimate.

Congress first enacted a home buyer’s tax credit in 2008 in an effort to revitalize the housing market. Since then, the credit has been revised and extended several times. Here are the factors that will determine your eligibility for the credit:
•When you signed the contract to buy your home. To claim the credit on your 2010 tax return, you must have signed a contract to purchase your primary residence before May 1, 2010.
•When you closed. Home buyers who closed as late as Sept. 30, 2010, qualify for the credit, as long as their original contract called for the purchase to be completed by June 30. Congress added the extension because many of last year’s home purchases involved short sales or homes in foreclosure, and banks have been slow to process those transactions, says John W. Roth, analyst for tax publisher CCH.
•Where you lived before you bought the home. For homes purchased Nov. 7, 2009, to April 30, 2010, there are two tax credits: a first-time home buyer credit and a repeat home buyer credit.

Click here for the full article

You can talk all you want of renewed interest in housing, slowly increasing sales and supposed stabilization in prices, but the elephant in the room is slowly growing, and banks, Fannie, Freddie and the government know it. I’m talking about foreclosures.

Home in Foreclosure - Getty Images

REO inventory is rising, he proved through some slides. Four million seriously delinquent loans, out of 50 million first mortgage loans, “so that’s a lot.” And while he noted that the problems appear to have peaked, there are still over 600,000 properties in REO, which will only put more pressure on prices when they come to market.

Zandi called modification efforts “inadequate,” despite the 1.5 to 2 million modifications a year. “In the context of all the problems that we’ve got, it’s still quite small,” he noted. Zandi’s biggest concern is that 14 million homeowners, according to his calculations, are underwater (owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth), and 4 million of those are underwater by more than 50 percent. “That’s deeply underwater,” he elaborated.

This testimony just happened to coincide with a few blurbs of information I’ve noted over the past few days.
Click here for the full article…

The meltdown of the U.S. mortgage market and rising foreclosures have wiped out more homeowners than were created in the 2000-07 housing boom, some industry watchers say, the latest indication of the severity of the housing bust.

In the fourth quarter of 2010, 66.5% of Americans owned homes, down from 67.2% a year earlier and the lowest rate since the end of 1998, according the Census Bureau. During the boom, when easy credit made mortgages available with less regard for income or ability to pay, the ownership rate surged to a record 69.2% in 2004′s second and fourth quarters and stayed near that level until the recession deepened.

Some industry watchers expect the rate to slip below 65% as the housing market meltdown forces millions more Americans to give up their homes.

That “shows how big the bubble was and how catastrophic the bursting has been,” said Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist with Capital Economics. “We have pretty much reversed all of the increases in the home-owner rate generated by the housing boom.”

The nation’s homeownership rate gained 0.8 percentage points from 2000 to 2007, but has lost 1.3 percentage points since 2007, erasing the boom’s gains, said Stephen East, a Ticonderoga Securities housing analyst.

Read the full article here…