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When the National Association of Realtors and the American Land Title Association claim to be doing something to benefit consumers, those same consumers can expect to be fleeced once again.  Currently, they are trying to ban private transfer fees by getting the Federal Housing Finance Agency to amend rules so that almost defunct Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can no longer back properties that have private transfer fees covenants recorded against them.

I’ve written about private transfer fees on Bloodhound before. At the time, I promised to do more work with them and report back.  Since then I have looked at them, and received proposals from Freehold Capital, on implementing them on two of my own projects.  I haven’t recorded their instruments on my projects even though I do like the concept.  As a developer, private transfer fees would be great if they could be securitized so the money was available up front to pay for infrastructure costs.  My issues with the Freehold proposal is they currently do not have a securities market for the instruments and I believe their cut of the action is too rich for what they are providing.  So, I have made a private decision that I do not see enough value in their proposal.

That does not mean that I think Private Transfer Fees should be banned.  It does not mean that a competitor, or Freehold themselves, might not have a proposal in the future I would like to be able to do.  The concept, used as I described it, could be fantastic and help create more valuable properties we can all sell!

Jeremy Yohe, spokesman for the American Land Title Association, claims that “The casual homebuyer would have no clue that these fees are even attached to the property that they’re going to purchase” as his reason that these fees should be banned.  He forgets to mention that the members of his association have the job or providing accurate title information for things recorded on the title, like covenants.  I just love it when people argue their own incompetence is a reason that something should not be allowed.

There are already three groups that take a percentage of the price of a home at each closing that have no ownership interest in the property.  The real estate agents (NAR), the title companies (ALTA) and the government with excise taxes.  This is the same triad that doesn’t want anybody else to be able to do something similar, even if they are just financing the very infrastructure that that created the development in the first place!

I’m sure there are ways that private transfer fees can be abused.  Pretty much anything can be abused.  However, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to have the right to make my own choices.  I also want the NAR and ALTA to quit trying to justify the protection of their pocketbooks while claiming to be watching out for consumers, when they aren’t.

Without private transfer fees, fewer developments will get done and consumers will have fewer, and more expensive options.  The FHFA has submitted the proposal to the Federal Register for public comment, which will be open for 60 days.  If you want to comment on private transfer fees one way or another, email: regcomments@fhfa.gov. Please include “Guidance on Private Transfer Fee Covenants, (No. 2010-N-11)” in the subject line of the message.

I’ve been a bit quiet on BHB due to some personal issues I’ve been working through.  But, I was very happy to see Greg’s latest post on challenging everything!  I had a little holiday brainstorm today and wrote a post on my local Lake Chelan blog on a Real Estate Declaration of Independence for the consumers of services from Real Estate Professionals.

I want to share it here on BHB and get your thoughts on what I missed, should add or could have said better!  So, without further ado here is my Independence Week start to the Real Estate Declaration of Independence:

Real Estate Declaration of Independence

We, the people who buy and sell real estate, hold these truths to be obvious:

• We the people believe that information on real estate for sale should be readily accessible without surrendering our private information.  We reject having to register on a web site in order to view listings in an area.  We value our time and will contact a real estate professional when we are good and ready for their services.
• We the people reject all policies of the National Association of Realtors that are not in the best interest of the real estate buying and selling public.  Limiting our access to information, restricting our ability to a free and open market through regulation and limiting our market choices are all examples of policies we reject that are designed to line Realtors pockets at the expense of the public.
• We the people reject “Dual Agency,” where a real estate agent has an inherent conflict of interest with his agency and fiduciary duties by attempting to represent both the buyer and seller in order to earn a larger commission on our transaction.  If the agent is truly delivering value, both parties of a transaction have an equal right to that value without a conflict of interest and each party deserves their own agent in the transaction.
• We the people reject the practice of real estate agents trying to “Buy the Listing” by telling a potential seller an above market price in an attempt to secure a listing.  This practice costs sellers time and money while their home sits on the market as the agent waits for the seller to cut the price to where it should have been to start.
• We the people reject the practice of real estate MLS systems that limit a home seller’s exposure to potential buyers in an attempt to control access to a market.  A listing agent’s responsibility is to market a property to the best of their ability and limiting the exposure of our home costs us money.

We the people are independent in a country that still allows us to make market choices.  We the people demand better service and will exercise our freedom of choice and only choose Real Estate Professionals who deliver better value.

You might want to have a look at the entire post and give me feedback on it as well.  Feel free to use it as your own if you agree to it and I would truly love suggestions to improve it.

I’ve been a bit slow on this one.  I have been wondering what sector of the economy was going to over inflate and burst next.  The answer has been right in front of me the whole time but the reason I did not see it very clearly is because I was wondering what part of the private economy would burst next.  Sure, I knew the government was in trouble, but I did not think of it as a “bubble”, like real estate or the dot.com era.

A simple headline today put the perfect perspective out there for me to get it.  If I apply “bubble economics” to the government sector, it is perfectly clear.

The economic collapse of Greece is a wake-up call. The unsustainable combination of a bloated public bureaucracy, high deficit spending and unfunded pension obligations busted Greece’s government bubble. Now the birthplace of modern democracy is on the brink of becoming a failed state.

The Bank of England recently warned that the U.S. is on the road to the same fiscal failure as Greece, and the Obama administration’s insistence on massive public spending and increasing deficits is the reason.

At this rate, the U.S. government will be the next economic bubble to burst. We’ve seen similar downturns: the information technology bubble in 2000, housing in 2007 and Wall Street in 2008. If unchecked, America’s government bubble will depress our economy with higher interest rates and defaulting state and local governments.

Politicians Aren’t Businessmen

Federal spending alone this year accounts for 25% of our nation’s gross domestic product. If you add state and local spending, the number is closer to 50%. No economy can thrive when nearly half of all economic output is directed by politicians rather than entrepreneurs and small businesses.

After big government spending, government employee unions pose a serious threat to America’s fiscal health. Over the past 30 years, union membership has declined significantly, from 23% of all workers in 1980 to about 12% today. But the percentage of union members working for government has soared: Over 50% of all union workers in the U.S. are employed by the government compared with only 17% in 1980.

In addition, government workers make about $10 per hour more than the average private sector worker.

And when they retire, taxpayers are on the hook to pay for lucrative pensions promised by a generation of politicians trying to win the next election. America’s small-business owners could only dream of providing the type of pensions that government workers take for granted. – IBD Editorials

Due to social media, I prayed for Anna to have the grace of god with her this morning.  I did not feel like I was damaging the fabric of our country by my simple action.  So, I was surprised to learn our president laments that the new media is not “a tool of empowerment.”  I translate his words to mean that such things are not yet a tool of his empowerment.  If you haven’t seen his comments, here they are:

BlackBerry-loving President Barack Obama declared war on technology, singling out Apple’s super-popular iPods and iPads for criticism at a commencement ceremony in Virginia, the New York Post reported Monday.

Obama — whose election was credited in part to his skillful use of modern media, from smartphones to Twitter to Flickr — on Sunday told college graduates that high-tech gizmos and apps were straining American democracy.

“With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation,” Obama said at Hampton University in southeastern Virginia.

Obama described the most popular offerings of companies like Apple, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo as distractions that are putting unnecessary pressure on the country.

Obama also lamented the spread of social media and blogs, through which “some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction.”
“All of this is not only putting new pressures on you,” Obama said. “It is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy.” – FoxNews

Do you think patriots should drop their iPads?

Think about this:

If one has no financial stake in our country, how much of a say-so should he have in its management? Let’s put it another way: I do not own stock, and hence have no financial stake, in Ford Motor Co. Do you think I should have voting rights or any say-so in the management of the company? I’m guessing that the average sane person’s answer is no.

Walter Williams is becoming one of my favorites.  He is certainly thought provoking.  The quote above is from an Investors Business Daily editorial by Walter Williams on Linking Voting Rights With Taxes Paid.

This week there has been a bunch of consternation in the press about 47% of the population not paying income taxes.  The question, Bloodhounds, is do you think “taxes paid in” or “ownership of real estate” or something else altogether would be a better way to encourage voters to support policies that strengthen and are good for the country rather than just protecting their handouts?

In one of Greg Swann’s posts on finding splendor for yourself he came to the conclusion that we don’t have to get there, we are already here!  Here’s what Greg said towards the end of that post:

Good news: We’re already here. You’re already a sane, normal person, and you already live among your neighbors in peace and prosperity. Yes, the state preys upon you like a vast, hideous vampire, reeking of death, impetuously random in its predations. But it matters less and less to civilized people with every passing day.

I don’t ever favor trying to defeat or take over evil institutions. It is sufficient to supplant them. And this sane and civilized people are already doing, just by living their sane and civilized lives. Consider eBay. Consider PayPal. Now think of a clearinghouse like PayPal unknown to anyone except its depositors. Does anything like this already exist? How would you know if it does? How hard would it be to create, now that you know it could exist?

I love the idea of supplanting systems that have lost their utility.  I read that and wondered.  Does anything like this already exist?  Is there a world, in reality or in cyberspace where civilized people are able to engage in commerce freely?  The answer is of course there is!

In previous career choices I used to do business with entrepreneurs and business people from Europe and Asia.  They were from some of the highest taxed economies in the world.  To me, it appeared they spent considerable time and effort structuring their businesses to keep assets in various places worldwide so they did not have to realize the taxes on them in their home countries.  It seemed like a bunch of trouble compared to just living somewhere where tax rates were acceptable, like the United States in those days.

Since then, we’ve had the internet revolution.  The tax climate in the United States is changing.  So, I wondered how those folks might function today.  What I found is that their goal of earning and keeping assets in various places and countries has become much easier.  There are tools today I wouldn’t have dreamed of 20 years ago.  Of course, those trying to track and take assets have new tools as well.

I love profits, earning profits and having them to do with as I wish.  With the weekend’s events, I’ve been thinking how do people, like the Europeans I used to see, find ways to “make themselves unappetizing to predators.”  With just a few minutes on the internet I found I was extremely behind the times and naïve as to the options out there.

Yes, there is electronic money.  iGolder, WebMoney, Liberty Reserve, Pecunix, ECU Money, GlobalDigitalPay and EuroGoldCash to name a few.  There are debit cards that draw directly from that money and hand it to your from your local cash machine!  There are stores that access electronic money and send you products anywhere in the world!  Businesses doing international purchasing and sales no longer need to go through all the delays and expenses of letters of credit like we did in the old days.  I’m no expert in international finance, but I was conversant in the business transactions of twenty plus years ago.  It looks like things have changed.

Of course, there are potential problems too.  Having assets isn’t much good if the IRS decides you belong in jail, their ultimate coercion system, because you did something that they don’t approve of.  There are other issues to consider with electronic currency, potential for fraud, ease of money laundering, hacking, exchange rate instability and the stability of the providers themselves.  Some of these systems are supposed to be backed by gold and some are backed by currencies.  They all have their own approach to providing their services.

There are also electronic stores, debit cards and exchanges that will convert electronic money to currencies in almost any country.

Is there risk in these electronic currencies?  As in all things in life, certainly there is.  Am I recommending any of these services?  Nope.  I just find it fascinating that there are markets and currencies that can operate with a degree of privacy outside the mainstream systems.  With our government’s current approach to governing, I am sure they will find many more customers from the less and less free United States looking for ways to do things to improve how much of their profits they get to keep.

I’ll leave it to others to suggest how e-currencies might be used legally and effectively.  Personally, I’m still trying to figure out if and how to use Private Transfer Fees!

Have you heard of Private Transfer Fees?  A private transfer fee is a fee that is required to be paid each time a property is sold at closing.  The transfer fee is attached to the property as a covenant that can run for a period, often 20 or 100 years.

The fees are being used for a variety of purposes.  In some cases, they have been used to satisfy demands from environmental groups.  Developers have also used them, by securitizing them up front, to help pay mitigation costs and up-front infrastructure costs on new developments.  Supposedly even private home owners might be able to add a 1% transfer fee to their homes with revenues serving as future household income.

The NAR, American Land Title Association and the NAHB are all looking at ways to prohibit or limit private transfer fees.  While that tends to make me like the idea of transfer fees on its own, I really don’t see issues with them.  Admittedly, I develop properties from time to time.  Yes, I am frustrated with impact fees, mitigation and infrastructure fees that have climbed to the stratosphere in my little part of the world.  This approach could really help to create some affordable homes that people might actually buy.

Freehold Capital Partners is active in the reconveyance fee financing arena working with developers to structure financing for infrastructure improvements.

Essentially, the concept is based on the premise that improvements which enhance real property are in the immediate and long-term public interest; and a system enabling present owners of private property to better and more fairly apportion present costs and profits amongst multiple future beneficial owners increases economic efficiency.

Traditionally, initial buyers shoulder 100% of the burden of amenities, infrastructure and other improvements, which creates a high barrier to entry into the development. By utilizing this funding tool, developers can now more fairly apportion expenses incurred for permanent improvements among successive owners of the property who will be enjoying the amenities and improvements for years to come. (A familiar example would be bonds issued to finance new schools, where the bonds are paid off over time by the same families whose properties continue to benefit from having a school in the community.) In fact, Transfer Fee financing has often been referred to as the creation of a “mini-bond”. However, unlike traditional bond financing, the transaction costs associated with creating Transfer Fees Rights are minimal.

Flowing from this premise, reconveyance fee financing enable institutional owners and developers to allocate costs amongst future willing buyers by requiring, in connection with each subsequent transfer of title, the payment of 1% of the gross sales price.. – Freehold Capital Partners

The NAR, ALTA and others cite concerns about disclosure.  However, a properly recorded covenant should show up in a title search so I think that cannot be the real concern.  They cite concerns that people never read covenants.  That floors me!  I can’t imaging buying a home without reading the covenants.

The National Association of Realtors and the American Land Title Association, for example, are asking their members to persuade legislators to prohibit or limit the use of investor-oriented private transfer-fee programs. Even the National Association of Home Builders, some of whose members reportedly have signed up to offer transfer fees, isn’t convinced the idea is sound.

“It’s a very creative concept,” said David Ledford, the builder association’s senior vice president for housing finance, “but it’s largely untested and controversial politically.” – Seattle Times

Homes that are subject to a reconveyance fee should sell at a lower price due to the reconveyance fee.  That lower price should be reflected in assessments and lower property taxes.  So, all those infrastructure improvements the developer had to put in wouldn’t show up completely in the taxed value of the property.  I like that the property owner may not end up paying property tax on improvements which are typically deeded to the local government which was simply double taxation before.

California has laws that require upfront disclosure of reconveyance fees.  Texas has some prohibitions on them.  Kansas, Oregon, Florida and Missouri do not allow them.

So, here’s a method that helps developers fund projects, lowers the price of housing and lowers the ongoing cost of property taxes for a home.  The instrument of this tool is recorded on the title of the property for all to see.  Tell me.  What’s not to like?

Mr. Obama’s latest program for the foreclosure crisis attempts to stabilize the market in a different way than his previous attempts.  Before, the feds tried to keep people in their homes by negotiating reduced payments through loan modifications.  Few people were able to use the programs and of those that did the rate of default recidivism was 50% within six months.  The “new” approach is to help those in trouble get out of their homes by streamlining the short sale process and adding requirements that will force banks to accept many more short sales.  Basically, the feds will pay owners to sell at a loss and give them a little cash in the process.

Starting April 5th, hundreds of thousands of delinquent borrowers will be encouraged to sell their homes through this process.  Since the basic laws of economics still apply, that flood of inventory at fire sale prices will create heavy downward pressure on other homes in their markets.  Prices should fall.

That’s just one problem with this approach.  The Home Buyer’s Tax Credit was already a magnet for fraudulent filings. The government mandated short sale process could be even worse.

Short sales are “tailor-made for fraud,” said Mr. Lawler, a former executive at the mortgage finance company Fannie Mae.

Last year, short sales started to increase, although they remain relatively uncommon. Fannie Mae said preforeclosure deals on loans in its portfolio more than tripled in 2009, to 36,968. But real estate agents say many lenders still seem to disapprove of short sales.

Under the new federal program, a lender will use real estate agents to determine the value of a home and thus the minimum to accept. This figure will not be shared with the owner, but if an offer comes in that is equal to or higher than this amount, the lender must take it. – MSN

With the high regard that the public holds for real estate agents, they should be a pinnacle of integrity when it comes to setting values for lenders.  Or, could that be a problem?  I’ve found that real estate agents offer different values, at times in spite of the comparables, to suit their desired outcome to get a listing. Also, there is rarely enough information on comparable properties, particularly in a small market like Lake Chelan, to make a realtor’s Comparative Market Analysis statistically meaningful (for those the agents that understand statistics) making the estimate, at best, a hopefully educated guess.  How much of your tax money do you want to see spent this way?

For responsible home owners who might be looking to sell if this new program actually attracts sellers, you could be facing sales competition from subsidized homeowners in as little time as one month.

Incredibly, the IRS cannot do a lot to stop you, or anybody, from cashing in on the stimulus tax credits.

According to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the IRS is “unable to verify eligibility for the majority of Recovery Act benefits at the time a tax return is filed.” That doesn’t mean they can’t audit you, but only a small portion of filers are audited.  If audited, you would have to correct any mistakes and you might face penalties.

Understand that the IRS prefers that you file electronically for efficiency reasons.  They rely on taxpayers to provide accurate information.

For example, the inspector general recommended that the IRS require taxpayers to provide documentation to verify first-time homebuyer credit claims, but the IRS said no. Such a requirement, officials said, “would be burdensome and would potentially exclude as many as 2 million taxpayers from electronically filing.”

It wasn’t until the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009 was signed into law on Nov. 6 that additional documentation was required for the credit and the IRS was given additional authority with respect to returns that did not include that documentation.

Moreover, the IRS did not have math error authority – meaning that officials are not authorized to check calculations – to stop payment of erroneous credit claims. In essence, the IRS relied on taxpayers to be honest, didn’t require hard documentation and could not check the math on certain credits.

That same article quoted above has a sidebar titled “Getting money you don’t deserve.” It goes through a hypothetical scenario of how the First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit can be scammed for extra benefits.  The limitations of e-filing do not allow the IRS to transfer paper documentation to electronic format.  So, there is a level of trust in the system.  There is a level of trust in the system that the 73,799 taxpayers who are suspected of not correctly claiming the tax credit as of last July do not justify.  Those suspected incorrect claims may total $504 million.

Expect more news of fraud as this version of the Homebuyer Tax Credit, and other stimulus credits, wind down if they ever do.  Thank the NAR and NAHB, and your support as Realtors, for another program we can be proud of.

All the election news last week was not as rosy as Massachusetts.  Oregon voters approved two measures that invite businesses and high wage earners to move out of Oregon.

Voters approved an increase in the minimum excise tax paid by every business from $10 each year to $150, a 1500% increase.  Excise tax rates were also increased for all gross revenue classes.  They also raised the corporate income tax from 6.6% to 7.9% on earnings over $250,000.

If you are an Oregon resident who makes over $125,000, if you’re single, or $250,000 if you file jointly, your income tax rate just increased from 9% to 10.8%.  If you earn over $250,000 and are single or a joint filer of over $500,000 your rate increased from 9% to 11%.

In other news from the Northwest of interest to those in North Carolina, the Washington State Democrats are telling Boeing to leave.  They aren’t going to let little things like agreements that they already made stand in their way.

Boeing spokesman Bernard Choi said the bill “would take away our ability to run our business” and says the company has met all the detailed conditions in the 2003 tax agreement. – Q13

For those of you from Oregon and Washington reading this, Texas is one of 5 states with no income tax.

Real Estate professionals in Idaho, Texas or elsewhere where the disenfranchised Oregon and Washington achievers might move may find the Northwest a productive place to look, as well as California, for buyers of high end homes.  Personally, I’ve lived in Texas before and don’t rule it out in the future.

I really like real estate.  I like the way it is such an integral part of wealth creation.  I like it so much, I can’t help but play with it.  For me, that means buying properties and doing something productive with them.  But, I don’t like real estate so much that I want to lose money for the privilege of playing with it.

I am also in a tiny market.  In 2009, there were only 125 sales of homes in the whole Lake Chelan area.  There were just 2 sales of commercial properties all year! There are about 100 agents and even with just the top few making most of the sales.  I would have to do virtually every transaction in the area to make the income I desire.  So, generally I make far more from the profits on what I develop than I do from selling other people’s properties.

That is one of the reasons that I run my own real estate agency.  I am virtually unemployable at other brokerages because my cost to pay a point or two to a broker on all the sales of inventory I created on my own would be more than I would make in commission selling other folks properties.

But, last year I didn’t create a single new parcel, home or business.  The footing just felt too unsure.  That means I have a few properties I’ve just been sitting on.  There’s not much profit in that.  So, I’ve been rethinking how to make money with those bits of real estate and found some opportunities are out there.  For me, it is time to get some projects moving.

The opportunity is as easy as taking something that isn’t doing anything and making it turn some profit.  For example, I have a bit under 10 acres along a highway and across from a large boat launching facility I had originally purchased to do some commercial development on.  Today, it just doesn’t make sense and I don’t expect it to for several, or many, more years.

But, rather than being insane and spending millions on commercial improvements that nobody would want right now, the planned development for this property also allows me to make it into other things including a mobile home park.  There’s demand for a mobile home park and this one even has beautiful lake views.  To create it takes far less investment and it can generate a very respectable rental income.  Wacky government agencies and non-profits will even pay to help people live there.  Who knows, somebody might even want to buy it.  Or, I can sell off the individual living spaces.  Any of those things make me money.  All of them can make for a handsome overall profit on a property that I bought even when the market was above where it is today.

Since I can’t count on luck, flexibility and creativity have always been requirements for making money.  Skinning cats in development is simply being able to sell what people want to buy.  What people are buying today is a huge shift from a few years ago.  But, they’re still buying or renting something.  I finally understand the current market well enough to create product for it that will have appeal whether the market improves, declines or hangs on as it is.  In this market, I also have to have plans to be able to succeed that are interest rate proof.

Even so, I have some options that look promising on my other properties as well.  I should have them well in hand by the middle of the year.  At that point, I will probably create a bit different type of inventory by starting another business I can sell when the economy ticks up.

So, I’m off down the road doing something I do well.  I’ve been really busy and a little quiet on BHB lately.  But, I’ll chime in a bit more about how all this proceeds.  Some of the projects involve aspects of selling that I don’t usually associate with real estate marketing.  But that will make the discussion on them all the more interesting.  How about the other hounds, are there opportunities to create product in your markets?

The Verizon versus AT&T debate has come up lately particularly with the introduction of the Droid.  I don’t even use a smart-phone yet, but I am married to someone who has been an expert in the network side since before the first portable phones were brief case phones converted from car-phones.

So, I came across this article that has further thoughts on the AT&T / I-Phone versus Verizon / Droid for network performance and coverage.  I think he may be on to something in that he supposes the I-Phone has created a higher expectation for AT&T.  It sounds plausible to me.

I’m imagining U-Stream on 4G already…

Robert Worthington is right.  Do you want to know how right he is?  According to Goldman Sachs, who ought to know about government intervention, the feds interventions into the housing have pushed home prices 5% higher on a national average than they would have been otherwise, Goldman Sachs estimates in a report released late Friday.

The government over the past year has slowed the pace of foreclosures through moratoria and the drive to modify mortgage terms to keep more borrowers in their homes. It also has pumped up demand for housing by giving tax credits to many first-time home buyers and by driving down mortgage interest rates. As a result, home prices in some areas have risen in recent months, particularly for homes that appeal to investors and first-time buyers. Bidding wars for the more attractive bank-owned homes have become common.

But these artificial props won’t last forever and may have created a false bottom in the market. “The risk of renewed home-price declines remains significant,” Goldman economist Alec Phillips writes in the report, “and our working assumption is a further 5% to 10% decline by mid-2010.” – WSJ

If they’re right, rather than a healthy market heading into 2011, what do you think we might actually have?  We could be looking at falling home prices, rising interest rates and a government whose currency is faltering.  Does it sound like a double dip?  Will you be happy that the functions of the market were tampered with once you realize the misery has been extended, for years? Remember to say thanks to the NAR, thanks to the NAHB, thanks to the Feds and most of all, thanks to us realtors who supported the larceny.  But, at least you may have universal access to a health care waiting list.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with Randall O’Toole from the Cato Institute, but he’s much better reading than Lawrence Yun.  I was just acquainted with one of his latest works entitled How Urban Planners Caused the Housing Bubble.

If you’re in real estate, it is a must read.  I live in a strict Growth Management state from a public planning perspective.  As a freedom loving individual, it is frustrating.  But this analysis not only talks about the costs of planning, but the volatility it introduces into the market and why.  It compares different policies of various states.

The correlation between planning practices and pricing volatility is uncanny!  Fed policy, the Community Reinvestment Act and other hair brained political practices can’t explain the phenomenon without the inclusion of growth managment into the equation.  The costs for growth managment are also staggering!  For real estate nerds, it is required reading!

The Federal Trade Commission, in the name of protecting America’s consumers, released new guidelines on Monday requiring bloggers and social media users disclose paid endorsements starting December 1, 2009.

The regulations are being described as unnecessary, too vague, totalitarian and a digital double standard since they don’t apply to traditional media at TheAtlanticWire.com.

After December 1, be careful out there when you blog about a listing or even the latest software product that you run across that you want to share.

As usual, there is always an opportunity.   Does someone want to come up with the shortest legal disclosure for use with the 140 character limit on twitter?  Oh yeah, I received no monetary  compensation for this post on my review of the FTC’s new requirements.