The economy is growing and there are job gains, so consumers have the financial wherewithal to purchase homes. Sure, the rise in rates has been inhibiting buying recently. A lot of the boom markets that boomed over the last several years are cooling off and home sales are dropping. But if the economy were in a recession, this would be worse. And mortgage rates aren’t rising too high — they’re only going up to 7% by the end of the year.

The last two years of the boom were exaggerated because of lending. There were more loans, such as negative amortization loans, allowing people to put off their debt payments until later. In some metropolitan areas, this exaggerated home prices and increased them further than they should have gone. To that extent, there’s some risk in those local markets. For example, if you take any local market in California, they’ll have interest-only loans and adjustable-rate mortgages because prices got too high. If mortgage rates increase, then some of those markets are vulnerable. But the forecast isn’t for interest rates to go up significantly. I have mortgage rates going to 7%, not to 10%. (more…)

search for : mortgage rates, negative amortization loans, interest-only loans

Those sentiments summed up the feelings of 1,213 people who logged on and signed an electronic petition online by midday Tuesday seeking support for Emerald Isle’s efforts to protect the last fishing pier in town.

The petition, www.saveourpier.com, went up Monday. And most respondents backed Emerald Isle’s efforts to partner with the state of North Carolina to purchase Bogue Inlet Pier for perpetual public use. The pier and surrounding properties are under contract to be sold to a private real estate development firm with plans to redevelop an approximately 15-acre site. (more…)

search for : Emerald Isle, fishing pier, www.saveourpier.com

Slow sales and dropping prices aren’t normally the stuff of real estate industry presentations. If they are mentioned at all, they are usually quickly skipped over or tempered with a quick nod to other, more positive economic signs. The housing industry, from Realtors to developers to builders, must adapt to weather the rough waters that are probably ahead for the real estate market. Homebuilders must provide products that focus on quality, not quantityt. Gone are the days when cookie-cutter designs that scrimp on design will be snatched up by buyers who are eager to get into the home-buying frenzy.

Concern about what will happen when the payments on all the loans taken out last year increase plagues many builders. If home prices do not rise significantly many borrowers with interest-only loans could be stuck with higher mortgage payments. Absent higher prices, the buyers won’t be able to refinance by cashing in on anticipated equity. It’s the loans that were taken out in 2005 that there’s an upside-down concern about. However, if those borrowers had two- or three-year introductory terms, many borrowers will manage to maintain their payments. It’s possible that borrowers could be actually helped in the next few years if interest rates — and consequently mortgage payments — come down. (more…)

search for : Slow sales, dropping prices, real estate, Realtors, home prices, borrowers, interest rates, mortgage payments

Most people probably wouldn’t readily associate the tagline, “a taste of the mountains,” with Asheville’s water system. But soon, the water that comes out of your tap could be moonlighting under the name “Blue Ridge Mountain Mist.” Water Resources Director David Hanks said the city is considering bottling water for promotional use and to possibly sell at area stores. “We’ve actually been looking at bottling some more water for quite some time,” Hanks said.

Four years ago, the city started bottling water for use by city employees. The bottling was motivated by health and sanitation concerns over the use of five-gallon water coolers by city employees working outside. Hanks said the city would probably initially truck about 5,000 gallons of treated water to the Blue Ridge Mountain Water bottling facility. The company, located near Hendersonville, bottles its own brand of natural spring water but also takes requests for custom bottling from organizations in the region. (more…)

search for : Asheville, Blue Ridge Mountain Mist, Hendersonville

Over his six-plus decades, John Santosuosso has cultivated a soft spot for outcast nations, animals, and even plants. But none of that has kept him from earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in the stock market. To the contrary, he says, those values have for nearly two decades guided him to promising companies, often in far-flung places he’s researched as a professor of political science at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Fla. To him, a country known to brokers as an “emerging market” is sometimes “a good place to put money” in a moral as well as a financial sense.

But having high ethical standards can also lull investors into complacency, according to Santosuosso. He says he held for too long his stock in Nortel, a Canadian communications firm that joined the Dow Jones North America Sustainability Index this year. He watched as a profitable track record vanished. His lesson for other ethically minded investors: Don’t get greedy - or self-righteous. (more…)

There is a bill in Congress to open up drilling in the Atlantic Ocean. This has been opposed in Virginia and North Carolina, but it is still alive and well in South Carolina. This is a slap in the face to Myrtle Beach. As usual, our leaders and politicians in Washington and Columbia do not seem to care what happens here on the Grand Strand. They might care, however, if our tourist and real estate economy goes through an oil spill. Can you imagine what would happen if oil washes up on our beautiful beaches? The proponents of drilling will surely say that it can’t happen.

Those who stood to gain from oil and gas exploration were certainly saying nothing bad could happen also when a blowout from an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico poured 30,000 barrels of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico for 10 months. This was in 1979, but the ocean floor and coast in the gulf are still spoiled to this day. (more…)

search for : Atlantic Ocean, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Myrtle Beach, Grand Strand, Gulf of Mexico

The 50-year mortgages were created in the aftermath of the government’s decision to resume sales of 30-year Treasury bonds in early February. The new products are a direct shot fired by some savvy marketers to fit between two other mortgage products that are growing in popularity: the interest-only loan and the 40-year mortgage. Both are designed to help consumers get more house. Stretching out the time frame on a traditional fixed-rate mortgage to 40 years lowers payments, allowing the consumer to buy more house and then accrue equity in the house over the long haul.

While the 50-year mortgage builds equity, unlike the interest-only deals, the pace of that growth makes a snail look like a race car. The equity appreciation for five years on a 50-year loan is less than 2 percent. And while the payment is lower, it’s not necessarily creating a huge savings, because one trade-off consumers make when stretching out the length of the deal is that they pay a higher rate. Ultimately, that means the consumer might well be in the same financial boat in five or seven years, if the rate adjusts and gets ugly enough to make refinancing a smart move. Maintaining the exposure to interest rates, rather than locking in a fixed rate, counteracts the steps the consumer is taking to get an affordable payment now. (more…)

search for : 50-year mortgages, Treasury bonds, interest-only loan

Stretching some 469 miles along the Southern Appalachian Mountains and linking two eastern national parks — Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and North Carolina/Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains — the Blue Ridge Parkway has often been referred to as “America’s Favorite Drive.”

It’s certainly the country’s first rural route — parts of it date back to 1930s (when construction began as a make-work project during the Depression) -– and one of its longest, with breathtaking scenery and dozens of recreational opportunities to distract you when you need to stretch your legs. (more…)

search for : Southern Appalachian Mountains, Virginia, Shenandoah National Park, North Carolina, Tennessee, Great Smoky Mountains, Blue Ridge Parkway, America’s Favorite Drive

You may remember the 1990 movie Crazy People in which Dudley Moore plays an advertising executive whose idea to write “honest” advertising copy like the following lands him in an insane asylum: Volvo… they’re boxy, but they’re safe. Porsche…you can’t get laid in one, but you will once you get out. As outrageous as those taglines were, they were successful in the movie (and probably would have been in real life, too) because they spoke to what people really wanted–far beyond what car companies learn from customers in rank-the-features surveys.

Our organizations face the same problem automakers do. I certainly don’t think my firm’s marketing and sales consulting services or training offerings are anywhere close to commodities. I believe we have deeper insight, more experience, a watertight methodology…a laundry list of reasons why we can provide value no one else can. I bet you feel the same way about your core products and services. But the truth is that many other organizations claim to have the same things we have. And if you delude yourself thinking that what’s on your website and printed marketing collateral is significantly different from what others have written down, then you’re full of it. (more…)

search for : Crazy People, Dudley Moore, advertising copy, insane asylum

To succeed in a tough market, you’ve got to change your strategy. MONEY found owners, sellers and buyers making smart moves in three very different markets.

That doesn’t mean, however, that real estate is about to crash across the United States. First, if you live someplace that hasn’t gone wild - think Atlanta or Philadelphia or just about anywhere in the Midwest or Texas - you’ll see slower rates of increase, but losses aren’t likely. “There are sizable parts of the nation’s housing market that will be just fine,” says Zandi. Second, a strong economy and job growth should hasten a return to a normal housing market in which prices rise just a bit faster than inflation. Since World War II, notes Stiff, the housing market and the economy have moved largely in sync. (more…)

search for : MONEY, sellers and buyers, Atlanta, Philadelphia, housing market