Diana Lewis\’s Blog

The stock market jumped on Friday, maybe there is hope for the new year.   Consumer confidence is the key to the economy turning around.   Lets hope this is a sign of things to come.

The election is over and I can breathe again.   I have not been very proud of American for the last several years.   Gitmo, Abu Grabe, disappearance of more of our civil rights, the government spying on its own cititzens without warrants and the list goes on has all added to my lack of pride and causing a great deal of worry.   Now I can say that America has lived up to its promise by electing B. Obama as president.   It was a coming together of Americans in all walks of life, color, and religion.   It was a proud to be an American moment.   I hope we have many more over the next four years.

Learn to listen carefully to the national or local news cast.   Often they have so called “experts” on talking about one subject or another.   They will use words like “maybe”, “probably”, “should”, “could be” and others.   These words translate to “I don’t know”.  

Another example was on CNN in May when Diane Oreck spoke about foreclosures.   To quote her “Over 47 states had foreclosures that  had grown by more than 20 %”   Since there are only 50 states in the union, which is it – 48, 49 or 50?   Nationally the foreclosure rate has averaged about 1% of total loans, so if they have increased by 20% this would mean that the foreclosure rate is  1.2%.   This does not mean that some areas in the country have not been hit hard by foreclosures, they have.   But not all of the states  are in the same boat.   New Mexico is still well below the national average.   Just be careful of general statements by the so-called experts.  

Pruning rose bushes is intimidating to many gardeners, but actually very good for the plants.   Becoming an accomplished rose pruner takes time and practice, but keep in mind that it is very hard to kill a rose with bad pruning.   While there is disagreement among rose experts regarding how and when to prune roses, it is generally agreed that most mistakes will grow out very quickly and it is better to make a good effort at pruning roses than to let them grow rampant.

Use clean, sharp tools.   Look at the overall plant, but begin pruning from the base of the plant.   Prune to open the center of the plant to light and air circulation.   Make your cuts at a 45 degree angle about 1/4 inch above a bud that is facing toward the outside of the plant.   Make sure it is a clean cut.   Remove all broken, dead, dying or diseased wood.   Remove any weak or twiggy branches thinner than a pencil.   Remove sucker growth below the graft.   Remove any remaining foliage.

Most rose pruning is done in the spring, with the blooming of the forsythia as a signal to get moving.   If you don’t have forsythia, watch for when the leaf buds begin to swell on your rose plants, meaning the bumps on the canes get larger and reddish in color.

According to the National Association of Realtors, the national median price drop of 5.8%, to $206,200 from $219,300, was the steepest ever recorded by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), which has been compiling the report since 1979.   NAR officials blamed the liquidity squeeze that began last summer for much of the drop. Home buyers had trouble obtaining mortgage financing, especially for more expensive properties.

“The continuing crunch in the jumbo loan market that began in August has disproportionately reduced the number of transactions in higher price ranges,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, in a statement. Fewer expensive homes were sold, bringing down median prices.  

California, south
Florida, D.C., many of the high-cost markets are reflecting that,” said Walter Molony, a spokesman for NAR. Each of the four
U.S. regions recorded losses compared with the fourth quarter of 2006. The West took the worst hit, at 8.7%. Prices dropped 4.8% in the Northeast, 5.4% in the South and 3.2% in the
Midwest.

In
Lansing, Mich., square in the Midwest Rust Belt, prices plunged 18.8% to $109,600. In Sacramento, Calif., prices fell 18.5% to $197,600, and in both Jackson, Miss., and
Riverside, Calif., prices dropped 16.8%.

Seventy-three of the nation’s 151 real estate markets recorded price gains.
Cumberland, Md., led the winners with an increase of 19% to $116,600.

In December of 2007 there was a decline of single family detached listings with the Albuquerque Real Estate market.   Detached listings dropped from 6,131 in October of 2007 to 5,523 in December of 2007.   The average sales price for the same period decreased from $246,522 to $240,602.   Average days on the market increased from 51 in October to 60 days in December.   —Albuquerque Metropolitan Boad of Realtors

    Four fundamentals give any room a sense of style

                                                                        —-Maxiwyn Evans

BALANCE

Balance means using furniture and other objects to make each part of an arrangement roughly equal in visual weight so that one are harmoniously complements the other.   Perhaps the easiest way to achieve balance is through symmetry, where one side of a room exactly matches the other.   It’s balanced, but it’s also formal, which may not be the look that appeals to a specific buyer.   Balance can also be asymmetrical, with one large piece of furniture offset with several small furniture pieces or objects.

HARMONY

Harmony in a room occurs when all parts of the arrangement–from furniture to accessories to wall color–combine to create a pleasing whole.   An easy way to achieve harmony is through repetition–in color, texture, or shape.   So a green chair might be echoed by green in the draperies and green pillows on the sofa.   Repetition doesn’t necessarily mean duplication, however.   You can change color intensities, for example, from a deep to a lighter hue, and still gain a sense of repetition.   But don’t go overboard; too much repetition can make a room feel predictable and boring.

EMPHASIS

Every well-designed room needs a focal point–a fireplace, a terrific view framed by a compelling window treatment, or a powerful painting–to draw the eye into the space.   Large spaces may need several points of emphasis.

FUNCTIONALITY

In a home, the adage “form follows function” (made famous by master architect Louis Sullivan) should be the golden rule.   A room where children play and the family gathers needs furniture with durable fabric, a layout with space for blocks or homework, and relaxed furniture styles to fit the room’s many functions. “Everything in a given space should be appropriate to and support the experience of what will take place there,” says Attila Lawrence, head of the interior architecture program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Home rehabbers who are considering a move in the not-too-distant future should focus mostly on exterior upgrades.   That’s the message from REALTORS who participated in Remodeling magazine’s 20th annual “Cost vs Value Report,” done in cooperation with REALTOR Magazine.

Of the projects that saw national cost recovery rates of more than 80 percent in 2007, only one–a minor kitchen remodel, with 83 percent of cost recovered–was a strictly interior job.   The others were a wood deck addition (85.4 percent) and vinyl and wood window replacements (81 percent and 81.2 percent, respectively)

Below are stats for remodeling in the Albuquerque and New Mexico area.

Stats were taken from REALTOR Magazine, December 2007

Albuquerque met its prediction for 2007 as the nation’s top market for rising home prices according to the Albuquerque Journal, January 14,2008.   Home prices increased 8.9 percent in the metro in 2007, just short of the 9.1 percent estimate from last spring according to Mike Colpitts of Florida based Housing Predictor.

Housing Predictor is giving a less rosy picture for 2008.   In Housing Predictor’s new Top 25 Appreciating Markets for 2008, Albuquerque is rated number 24.   While Albuquerque is not the top city, it is still in the top 25.   Housing Predictor has projected a 3.5 percent increase in home values.   “Albuquerque hasn’t gone from boom to bust like other markets in more populated states,” say Housing Predictor’s analyst.

The greater Albuquerque Association of Realtor reported a 7.6 percent increase in the median sales price of single-family homes in the first half of 2007 compared to a year earlier.   Housing Predictor calculates their numbers differently than those of the Albuquerque Association of Realtors.   Housing Predictor includes homes for sale by owners (FSBO) and homes in foreclosure according to the Albuquerque Journal.

A few days ago there was a headline on CNNMoney.com that read “Home Prices Post Record Decline”. That decline, the article went on to say was – 6.7% decrease year-over-year for the month of October, comparing 2007 to 2006, according to the Standard & Poors / Case-Shiller study cited and based on a survey of 10 US Cities.   It is worth mentioning that several of those cities had experienced the steepest run-up in home prices during the boom years of 2004 and 2005.   But, when you add in numerous other US cities to the study’s results, that average changes to a year-over-year home price decline of -5%. The fact residential real estate prices have surged upward so strongly over the past 3 to 4 years, that a decline of 5% compared to last year is, quite simply, not such a big deal in the overall scheme of things.

As to Albuquerque, the study did not include Albuquerque or any New Mexico city in it’s aggregate of cities which created the statistic.   According to the OFHEO (Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight), their most recent study says that New Mexico had the fourth highest rate of appreciation in the nation between the third quarter of 2006 and the third quarter of 2007, coming in at +7.4%!

Being a little doubtful of even federal stats I checked on local new home pricing.   Here is what I discovered.   Albuquerque’s average new home base “asking” price as of Jan 1, 2008, SALESTRAQ, is $253,942, and the median new home base “asking” price is $228,950.   That’s a -1.2% decrease on the average year-over-year comparing December 2007 to December 2006 and a -1.3% decrease on the median.     Finally, as we move into another year, let’s learn a lesson from these headlines and remember that there is no such thing as “one size fits all” when it comes to real estate.   Perhaps a good motto for examining statistics should echo a familiar one, “LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION”.