Big Season in Home Sales

Despite the broader housing market is far from reaching bottom and prices are likely to keep falling into 2010, tentative signs of recovery are observed in hard-hit areas like California and Florida. In inland areas of California, for instance, sales are surging now that prices have fallen sharply. But most of the sellers are not individuals but rather banks that foreclosed on homeowners who could not or would not pay their mortgages. In January, home sales in the state jumped by 54 percent from January 2008, but about 60 percent of the previously owned homes sold had recently been in foreclosure, according to DataQuick, a publisher of real estate information.

In cities like New York and San Francisco the market is largely frozen. Prices are down as much as 50 percent from a few years ago, and many properties are getting multiple bids, said Carlos Kozlowski, a real estate agent from San Francisco.

based on article of VIKAS BAJAJ, http://www.nytimes.com

How Prospective Sellers Find an Agent

SPREAD THE NET
Check local newspapers for at least three agencies: ring them and make clear you want to sell and would like to meet to hear their proposals; pay attention to how the receptionist handles your call – does he/she happily offer to pass your inquiry to the boss? In today’s market, many agents are reporting big dives in listing numbers, so they should be eager to earn the right to sell your biggest asset.

“Go to at least three agents including major brand names, and smaller local companies,” suggests Robb Fleischer from American Marketing Systems, Inc., (AMSI), San Francisco based rentals, property management and real estate sales company.

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE
Nobody knows your market better than the real estate agent based in your market. They should have sold similar properties and should be working with potential buyers and other Realtors.

“You want an agent who is local to the subject property,”  Mr Fleischer suggests.

THE INTERVIEW
You have lined up at least three face-to-face interviews with prospective agents. Watch the agent’s body language. Do they look over-confident, under-confident? Do you feel rushed? Are they well-presented?

COMMISSION
An agent’s sales commission depends on the property’s price. It is negotiable, and do not let it be the chief deciding factor when picking an agent, experts warn.

WHAT TO ASK
Frank Valentic, of Advantage Property Consulting, suggested direct questions about agent marketing strategies and negotiation skills.
“Ask why should we choose your company and who will be looking after me personally?” Mr Valentic said. “Do they have much property expertise and how many other clients will my agent be managing? Ask what similar properties the selling agent has sold recently and what was the result.”

One chief question may be: “What are you going to do to sell my house in this quieter economic climate?”

Based on article by CAROLINE JAMES published in Sunday Herald.

Helping a house to say “choose me!”: seven strategies for making your home feel like their home.

With personal budgets and lending standards tight during the economic downturn, home sellers are competing for every would-be buyer this spring, local real estate experts say. Those experts point out that it’s more important now than ever for sellers to take steps to help their homes stand out from the crowd. With that in mind, here are seven points to consider when attempting to sell in this buyers’ market.

1. Declutter and depersonalize

ADVICE Before showing a home, sellers should clear cluttered rooms, place personal items in storage and “neutralize” bright paint with tans or beiges, Lindenhurst-based home stager Christine Doukas says. This can help buyers visualize themselves in the home, she and others say.

WHY IT MATTERS Bowling trophies and bright red paint only serve to distract buyers from the details of the home that are important to the sale, Doukas says. “Knickknacks that you love, all of that stuff needs to be removed so they [buyers] can see the details like the molding or hardwood floors,” she adds.

2. Order a pre-listing inspection

ADVICE Hire a licensed home inspector to examine the house before listing it on the market. Jim Freebody, owner of National Property Inspections in Westbury, says sellers’ inspections go for, on average, $350 to $400.

WHY IT MATTERS Issues – from big problems like a buried oil tank to smaller ones like faulty wiring – will surface eventually, real estate experts say, so it’s better policy to identify and address them early. A pre-listing inspection can help identify those issues, Freebody says.

Sellers who find out, for example, that their 17-year-old roof may need to be replaced can be upfront with potential buyers and drop the listing price to reflect future costs. Potential buyers surprised by defects they learn about through an inspection later in the purchasing process often become wary of the property and may abandon the deal, Freebody and other real estate experts say.

 3. Price home to market

ADVICE List the home at a price consistent with today’s market conditions. Frank Urso, president of the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island and owner of Long Island Village Realty in Syosset, insists that sellers consult a Realtor to determine an appropriate listing price. Many homeowners also look to real estate sites such as www.Zillow.com, www.Trulia.com to research recent sales in their neighborhood.

WHY IT MATTERS Sellers must reject the common misperception that their home has been exempt from the market’s downturn, Urso and other experts say. Real estate prices across Long Island have fallen about 20 percent in the past two years, according to the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island, and, with buyers looking for bargains, overpriced homes will languish.

“You want to attract buyers, not lookers,” says Urso. “Perception might be, ‘My house is worth a lot more.’ Reality is, over the last six to eight months, prices have dropped. You have to aggressively price. If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be on the market.”

4. Timing matters

ADVICE Consider pricing, but don’t stop there. Doran says that marketing a home should be a deliberate process that takes into account elements like timing.

WHY IT MATTERS Strategically timing a listing – deciding precisely when a home hits the market – can help the seller ensure his or her home will draw an ideal amount of attention, Doran says.

Generally, marketing a home around holidays when brokers and buyers are busy is a bad idea, she adds. But deciding when to list a home can be more nuanced. Listing on a Saturday can be less successful than listing on a Wednesday, for example, when brokers are at their desks, monitoring new homes entering the market.

5. Find those occupancy certificates

ADVICE Gather important paperwork before listing a home. Missing certificates of occupancy can be particularly damaging when hoping to close a sale.

WHY IT MATTERS Occupancy certificates – documents from a town certifying building code compliance – are issued after a homeowner constructs a second-floor deck or an in-ground swimming pool, for example. If a homeowner failed to certify such a project, documents will be noticed as missing by the buyer’s attorney or another professional involved in the sale at some point during the purchasing process.

6. File an assessment protest, if necessary

ADVICE Keep an eye on the home’s tax assessment. Homeowners who feel their home is overassessed should file a protest, says Willets Meyer, a partner specializing in property taxes at the law firm Farrell Fritz in Uniondale.

WHY IT MATTERS A property assessed at a value higher than its perceived market worth can be unattractive for buyers sensitive to tax costs, Meyer says.

7. Homes should feel lived-in and ‘loved’

ADVICE Lastly, sellers should remember to cater to the emotional side of home buying, experts say, by creating a familiar atmosphere and addressing appearance issues before inviting would-be buyers into the home.

WHY IT MATTERS “Oftentimes, people believe that buying a house is an intelligence decision,” says Doran, the Daniel Gale broker. “Actually it’s very much an emotional decision. It’s the feeling they get. Does the house talk to them?”

Displaying fresh flowers when showing the home or popping cookies into the oven are a couple tricks professionals use to make potential buyers feel comfortable, Doran says. Filthy welcome mats and faulty doorbells have the opposite effect, adds Doukas, the home stager. “Repairing your home is loving your home,” she explains. “Nobody wants to buy your dirt.

Article written by Jonathan Starkey, Newsday (New York)

5 home buying rules making a comeback

There are important lessons to learn from the housing bust, lest we repeat our mistakes. Chief among them is that some old-school traditions need to become new-school traditions.
Another spring, another dormant season in real estate?

Maybe yes, maybe no.

In 2008 alone, the housing bust wiped out an estimated $2 trillion in home values. But for the first time in a long time, we are finally seeing an upside.
The same falling home prices that wreaked so much havoc in the economy are queuing up as the solution to the bust.
With prices down about 25% from their 2006 peaks, homes and buying incentives are tempting bargain hunters once again. Many economists agree that we’ve seen the bottom of the market and can see a faint but discernible light at the end of the long, dark tunnel. Sale volumes are up in many parts of the country, but prices aren’t.
In early April, the average 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage loan dropped under 4.8% to historic lows, according to Freddie Mac, prompting some qualified buyers to buy and others to refinance.
At a spring speech, Harvey Rosenblum, executive vice president and director of research for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said the economy will improve markedly in 2010 and should be back on track by 2011. Housing, which led the country into this economic mess, could well lead it out, he said, partially because of the Obama administration’s $75 billion mortgage relief plan.
The stimulus plan, in part, is offering first-time homebuyers a tax credit up to $8,000, plus a refinancing program that gives much-needed help to owners who are struggling with mortgages and incentive to their lenders.
Credit is finally starting to flow again, and prudent families with a reasonable down payment are for the most part getting the go-ahead to buy. Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, noted this spring that falling housing prices are likely to slow heading into the summer months and possibly show improvement, cautioning that “foreclosures are weighing heavily on prices.”
The repricing of home values almost everywhere in the country brings with it a whole new real-estate reality, one that marks a return to some of the real-estate “rules” of the past. It’s a reversion to many tried-and-true fundamentals you should recognize and comprehend:

1. Save smart for a down payment. It’s true that tying up all your equity in a mortgage can take away your emergency cash buffer in a downturn. But with the market starting to stabilize, the benefits of a large down payment — from 15% to 20% — will pay off in the form of higher equity, lower payments, better interest rates and more readily available refinancing.

2. Borrow within your means. Just because you’re approved by a lender for a specific mortgage amount doesn’t mean you can really afford the home. The wholesale defaults that occurred on tens of thousands of too-lenient loans carry a strong message: Live within your budget. Lenders grew more complacent with underwriting and appraisal standards because double-digit annual price appreciation lulled them into believing their collateral was safe. In their gamble, they abandoned the three C’s of mortgage lending — credit, capacity and collateral — and everyone lost. Until the run-up in values, a safe mortgage on a home was considered no more than three times a buyer’s annual family income. Some old-school traditions need to become new-school traditions.

3. Buy for the long term. This isn’t the time to try to make a fast buck in real estate. There’s still some market pain left, and it’s unclear when prices will rebound. If you’re buying this year, plan on staying put for the long haul.

4. Your market is unique. National housing trends don’t mean anything. Understand your market’s dynamics, which include the health of the local job market, local foreclosure statistics, price movements, a home’s average time on the sales block, the lack — or abundance — of newly built homes coming upstream and the prices of comparable sales in your specific neighborhood of interest.

5. Watch for the pricing warning signs in the next cycle. Continued home-price run-ups year after year should raise a big, bright, red flag in your castle. From 2000 to 2005, U.S. housing prices increased by an average of 53%, with many markets far exceeding that, including California at 109%, Nevada at 94% and Florida at 90%. That party ended abruptly, and nearly everyone suffered a hangover.

This article was written by Steve McLinden.
For the complete article visit Bankrate.com.

7 Landscaping Tips

These ideas offer some of the best returns for your renovation dollar. Plus, the payoff increases over time.

NEW YORK (Money Magazine) — If prospective buyers looked at your house today, what would they see outside? A giant evergreen that looks as if it might swallow the station wagon, perhaps, scraggly old foundation plants or maybe a kitchen-table view of the neighbors’ kids’ trampoline?

If so, you have a truly inexpensive opportunity to boost your home’s curb appeal.

By spending $500 to $3,000 on plants and materials and a few hours of time, you can achieve a well-landscaped look without shelling out for professional help.

Besides the personal enjoyment you’ll get from a prettier yard, landscaping adds more value than almost any other home renovation.

A recent Michigan State University study found that depending on where the house is located, high-quality landscaping adds 5 percent to 11 percent to its price.

If you have no immediate plans to move, all the better: Landscaping is the one home improvement that actually appreciates over time.

So how do you decide which projects to tackle? That depends on how long you think you’ll be around to enjoy the results.

If you’re selling in a year or less

Edge the beds Cutting fresh edges where grass meets mulch makes the lawn look well kept. A move as simple as curving the edge of your flower beds could increase the value of your home by 1 percent, says horticulture professor Bridget Behe, the lead researcher on the MSU study.

Also, if your foundation plants are overgrown, widening the beds by two feet will make the shrubs seem smaller.

Nourish the grass For truly lush turf, ideally you should start regular fertilizer treatments a year before listing the house. But you can green up the lawn with just a single application.

Spend $45 on a broadcast spreader, which quickly distributes fertilizer over a lawn, enabling you to nourish a quarter-acre lot in about 10 minutes.

For a yard that size, expect each monthly application to cost about $20 (for straight fertilizer) to $30 (with weed killer).

Scatter color throughout For about $1 a plant, you can blanket your yard with petunias, impatiens and other small annuals that will flower throughout the current growing season.

Also invest a few hundred dollars in some larger perennials and in shrubs that stand at least four feet high.

“A few good-size plants have more sex appeal than 20 little ones,” says Chicago landscape architect Douglas Hoerr.

If you’re improving for the long-term

Cut back the jungle Many everyday yard plants, such as azaleas, forsythia, hollies and rhododendrons, will fill out with new growth after a season or so even if you hack them down to stumps, says Christopher Valenti, a landscape contractor in Lewes, Del.

Be careful, though, of yews and junipers, which won’t grow new leaves on old wood and may need to be removed altogether if they’re severely overgrown.

Add drama with foliage A distinctive yard will make your home more appealing to buyers, says Los Angeles realtor Dana Frank. So replace plants that don’t flower, or provide interesting foliage with eye-catching alternatives, like a patch of blackeyed Susans, a flowering crabapple or a cutleaf Japanese maple.

If you’re planning to stay put, you don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars for big plants. You’ll save 50 percent or more by buying small ones and waiting a few seasons to get the full visual impact (when planting, make sure to space them based on the mature size listed on the label, not how they look now).

Consider new angles Most yards have almost all the plants along the foundation and the property lines. But if you place yours throughout different parts of the property, you’ll create a depth of field that makes your home look farther away from the road, says architect Hoerr.

Try putting some near the house’s corners to accentuate its shape, others near the street to define the yard, and some in between, where they can block unfortunate views and be admired from indoors. Many nurseries offer free design help to buyers.

Cover your rear It’s nice to wave hello to your neighbors out front, but the backyard should be a private space. If yours feels overexposed, fencing can offer a quick fix.

For each eight-foot section, you’ll pay about $100 (for a plain cedar stockade fence) to $300 (for an elaborate Victorian model), plus another $50 to $150 a section for installation.

You can also achieve the same effect at a much lower cost by planting small evergreen shrubs, although you’ll have to wait a few seasons for full coverage.

Or, rather than pruning those hulking foundation plants, hire a landscaper to transplant them along the property line. As long as they’re healthy and evergreen, it’s a great way to maximize the value of the plants you already own. 

By Josh Garskof, Money Magazine contributing writer

Basic tips to start green remodeling

Are you planning to sell you house? Small improvements can add value to your property. Try to remodel your house with green adjustments and you will see that buyers appreciate the sustainable approach.

‘Regreening’ basics

• Give your home the once over. Obtain an energy audit from a home energy expert to identify problem areas and pinpoint areas that need energy efficient improvements.

• Tighten the ship. Get a heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) contractor’s check up. Seal major air leaks identified by the energy audit, replace defective or substandard ductwork and seal all ductwork.

• Tighten it more. Increase the level of insulation in the house especially in attics and crawl spaces. Choose from sprayed-in, closed-cell and Volatile Organic Compounds-free (VOC) foam insulations that can achieve a high insulation value even in small stud or rafter cavities.

Material world

• Weight didn’t break the wagon, waste did. Reuse original components from the home. Recycle items that can’t be reused. Repurpose materials, such as grinding up old stucco for the driveway base.

• Be a good Material Girl…or Boy. Choose VOC-free paints and varnishes. Seek engineered wood products and Forestry Stewardship Council-certified (FSC) woods, as well as carpet made from natural fibers such as wool.

See the big picture

• Improve energy efficiency. To increase efficiency and lower bills, install the latest, most efficient HVAC equipment, using double or triple-paned windows with reflective coating. Select EnergyStar rated appliances. Install newer low-flow, dual flush toilets that flush once for liquids and twice for solid waste.

• Top off improvements with a green roof. Extend the roof overhangs to protect the exterior from weather and shade the house from the high summer sun. Install solar equipment on a roof area with unobstructed, south-facing access to sunlight.

Think big, start small

• One beats a zero. Include as many green upgrades as possible when remodeling, but if it all seems overwhelming, choose one and do it well. One small green step for each home, is one collective green step for the planet. Simply changing the furnace filter once a month is one of those small steps.

For more information on how to remodel your home in a green way, visit the original article in the Realty Times.

Article from The Realty Times

Property tax revenue likely to stay weak

The steep drop in California home values will lower property tax revenue for years, undermining education and other critical public services, according to speakers at a roundtable discussion on Thursday.

The chief culprit is Proposition 13, the 1978 voter initiative that caps property tax increases at 2 percent a year unless homes trade hands, said the real estate, education and political experts speaking at the City Hall event organized by San Francisco Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting.

As hundreds of thousands of California properties fall into foreclosure and sell at values well off recent peaks, the amount of money funneled into government is declining dramatically, by nearly $400 million last year, according to an estimate by ForeclosureRadar.com. Those losses are likely to persist into the foreseeable future, with repossessions rising and owners forced to hold onto properties longer amid a real estate climate expected to remain chilly for years, the panelists said.

“Our tax roll will be significantly lower than last year,” Contra Costa County Assessor Gus Kramer said. “Next year will be even worse, and 2011 will be even worse than that.”

Communities are taking an additional hit from owners of depreciating homes who are appealing for temporary reductions in their taxes, as allowed under an amendment to the proposition.

Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, countered that the proposition his organization championed provides predictability in property taxes, noting this is the first year they’ve declined since the passage of Prop. 13. He added that the measure protects owners, whose incomes often don’t rise as quickly as property values, sometimes threatening their ability to meet the tax obligation and keep their homes.

“It gives security to both the homeowner and government,” he said.

The 1 percent tax on the purchase price of homes mainly goes to K-12 schools, community colleges, towns and special districts. A long-standing complaint about Prop. 13 is that it limits the ability of government to benefit from real estate booms, withholding money needed for these public services, while leaving it wide open to busts.

“Prop. 13 has been a disaster for the services we provide,” said Linda Plack, vice president of the United Educators of San Francisco union. “This is the time when we have to have real reform.”

While several speakers on Thursday suggested eliminating Prop. 13 was good public policy, none asserted it would be politically possible. It’s long been considered an untouchable “third rail” in California and remains highly popular among voters.

Instead, several suggested it could be amended or made up for in ways that would increase the amount that could be collected from taxes, including: tightening rules defining changes in ownership, allowing commercial real estate to be routinely re-evaluated based on current market valuations and lowering legislative requirements for passing tax increases through a state constitutional convention.

Research firm Beacon Economics predicts that property tax revenue in California will drop by 6.1 percent from July 1 to June 30, 2010, followed by 3.6 percent and 0.8 percent declines, respectively, in the next two fiscal years. It will take until 2012-13 before statewide property taxes begin to rise and then only by 1 percent, the Los Angeles company forecasts.

Chronicle staff writer Carolyn Said contributed to this report. E-mail James Temple at jtemple@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Article from the San Francisco Chronicle

To Rent or Buy in 2009

Given recent changes in home prices and the current low mortgage rate climate, there have been significant gains in affordability for prospective first-time homeowners. Earlier in 2009, a provision in the Stimulus Bill provided for a first-time Homebuyer Tax Credit of 10 percent of the purchase price of the home up to $8,000. The CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® analyzed the difference between renting and buying a home in light of recent market and policy developments. Housing costs and tax implications of buying a home and renting a home were computed as a part of the analysis.

Assumptions:

• The household currently rents a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom
   apartment at the prevailing rent and purchases rental insurance.
   The prevailing rent for a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment was
   $1,855 per month (Q4 2008, latest available). The household
   purchases renter’s insurance at a cost of $247 per year or $20
   per month.

• The household considers the purchase of a home at the entry-
   level price, which is 85 percent of the statewide median price.
   The monthly cost of housing is equal to the mortgage
   payment,taxes, and insurance.

• The entry-level home is priced at $248,000, or 85 percent of the
   prevailing median-priced home of $291,800.

• The monthly payment including taxes and insurance (PITI) was
   calculated using a 10 percent down payment, a 40 percent
   qualifying ratio, the prevailing one-year ARM mortgage rate, and
   a 1.038 percent assumed insurance costs and property taxes.
   The monthly PITI payment under these assumptions is $1,630.

Tax Benefits of Owning Versus Renting

Existing tax laws allow homeowners to itemize and deduct the mortgage interest and property taxes from their taxable income. In addition, for First-Time Buyers purchasing a home between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30, 2009, the Homebuyer Tax Credit substantially elevates the tax benefit of buying a home this year. For example, consider two households earning the same income—$48,900 a year—which is also the minimum income needed to purchase the statewide entry-level home price of $248,000. The household that purchases a home (First-Time Buyers) at this price along with the prevailing market factors will give that household a tax deduction of over $15,800 in the first year of ownership (assuming a full year of mortgage interest) as well as the one-time tax credit of $8,000 at that home price. The other household that continues to rent (Renters) will most likely only be eligible for the IRS Standard deduction of $10,900, less than that of their home buying counterparts without even factoring in the $8,000 tax credit. In the first year, the taxable income for the First-Time Buyers is roughly $5,000 lower than that for the Renters, and the difference in the tax liability totals over $8,700 in favor of the First-Time Buyers, mainly due to the Homebuyer Tax Credit in 2009.

Renting Versus Buying in 2009

5 years Tax Saving Outlook

 

						Renters
	Year1	Year2	Year3	Year4	Year5	Year1-year5
Household Income	$48,900	$48,900	$48,900	$48,900	$48,900	$48,900
Standard IRS Deduction Married Filing Jointly	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	$10,900
Mortgage Interest Deduction	$13,364	$13,195	$13,015	$12,825	$12,622	n/a
Property Tax Deduction	$2,480	$2,480	$2,480	$2,480	$2,480	n/a
Total Deduction	$15,844	$15,675	$15,305	$15,305	$15,102	$10,900
Total Taxes Income	$33,056	$33,225	$33,405	$33,595	$33,798	$38,000
Total Taxes Owed	($4,958)	($4,984)	($5,011)	($5,039)	($5,070)	($5,700)
Homebuyer Tax Credit	$8,000	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
Annual Tax Liability	$3,042	($4,984)	($5,011)	($5,039)	($5,070)	($5,700)
X 5 Years						5
5 years total tax liability					($17,062)	($28,500)

 

First-time Buyer purchasing in 2009 5-Year Tax Savings: $11,440

The tax benefit in subsequent years of homeownership decreases as the mortgage note approaches maturity, the amount of interest declines each year assuming all else remains constant. However, the overall tax liability savings in the first five years of ownership is well over $11,000 for the First-time Buyer household.
Cost of Owning Versus Renting

With the current market environment, prospective first-time buyers will also save when taking into account the monthly out-of-pocket expenses of owning versus renting. Using the same two household scenarios, the First-time Buyer’s monthly PITI is $1,630. That is $250 less than the Renter’s monthly expense of renting a 3-bedroom/2-bathroom apartment including renter’s insurance for $1,875. In 12 months, the First-time Buyer household saves nearly $3,000 in monthly out-of-pocket housing expenses compared to the Renter household. That differential jumps to nearly $15,000 in five years of owning a home.

Renting Versus Buying

Out-of-pocket Cost Analysis

 

	Buying a home-first-time Buyers	Renting a 3Bdr/2ba Apartment
Mortgage payment/rent	$1,340	$1,850
Taxes & Insurance/ Renter’s insurance	$290	$20
PITI /total Rental costs	$1,630	$1,875

Monthly savings	$245
Annual savings	2,940
5-years saving	$14,700

 

Assume all pmts/costs remain constant

 

While these comparisons consider the tax benefits and cost savings homeownership offers prospective home buyers, there are many other nonmonetary benefits of homeownership, including an overall economic stimulus to the lagging economy. In addition, homeownership tends to boost social benefits such as education and civic involvement, as well as lower crime rate and welfare dependency. The many benefits of homeownership coupled with the bargains that can be found in today’s real estate market, makes 2009 a special year to buy a home, especially for first-time buyers.

To learn more about our Trends Newsletter, please contact the Research & Economics Department at  research@car.org or (213) 739-8352.

 

By Sara Sutachan, Senior Research Analyst

For more Information contact the CAR website

AMSI recruites!

Today’s business climate is one of great diversity and creativity. Today’s job market is the same. AMSI is always looking for Realtors who are in the game, no matter what the score. If you are going to play the game to win, then we want you on our team.

Right now, we are offering options of working with our brand paying ala carte for marketing services or a flat fee. We have room for players in San Francisco, Marin County, and San Diego.
Spring is the time for new beginnings. Call us today if you are interesed in a fresh approach to you Real Estate career.\

 

Method	Minority Job Seekers	White Job Seekers
Large Online Job Website	41%	35%
Company’s intranet site or Website	39%	37%
Newspapers (print)	34%	36%
Newspaper (online)	29%	29%
Local Job Websites	23%	24%
Face to Face networking/ Word of mouth	22%	29%
Contacted co direct	21%	18%
Help-wanted signs	21%	14%
Employment agency/recruiter	20%	14%
Career fairs	17%	9%
Your co-intranet website	14%	13%
Occupation specific jobsites	12%	10%
College websites	10%	11%
Online professional networking	10%	9%
Educational training	9%	9%
College career office	8%	4%
Online Social networking	8%	4%
Referral programs	6%	5%
On-campus recruiting sessions	5%	2%
Trade/ industry publications	4%	8%
Online diversity networking	4%	1%
Trade or industry events	3%	6%
Diversity recruitment website	3%	1%
Union/work group	1%	3%
Niche job websites	1%	1%

Document from Monster.com

 

Fore more information, please contact sally Aderton
Office number: 858-488-6700
E-mail: saderton@amsisd.com

C.A.R. launches Mortgage Protection Program

To help provide first-time home buyers with peace of mind when purchasing a home, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®’ (C.A.R.) Housing Affordability Fund is offering a new mortgage protection program to first-time home buyers.

Through the C.A.R. Housing Affordability Fund’s Mortgage Protection Program, first-time home buyers who lose their jobs due to layoffs may be eligible to receive up to $1,500 per month, for six months, to help make their mortgage payments. A qualified co-buyer also can participate in the program, and receive a monthly benefit of $750 per month for up to six months. Program benefits also include coverage for accidental disability and a $10,000 death benefit.

For more information including eligibility requirements and information on applying for the C.A.R.H.A.F. Mortgage Protection Program, please visit: www.car.org/aboutus/hafmainpage/carhafmortgageprotection/

Article from C.A.R Website.