Sandra Nickel

Montgomery Real Estate: Regulatory Reform Expected With Obama Presidency

The upcoming presidential transition comes at a time of great challenges within the housing industry and the economy at large. Consequently, many are wondering what a Barack Obama presidency will mean for real estate and housing issues.

National Association of Realtors analysts expect the Obama administration and the new Democratic-controlled Congress to focus on regulatory reform of the financial services industry, with potential changes to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

This fall, Obama responded to Realtor® Magazine's questions about the mortgage crisis, sustainable development, housing affordability and other topics. Read the interview.

to learn more about Montgomery real estate, please contact us at 334-834-1500 or visit HatTeam.com.

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Montgomery Schools Among Best In Nation

Schools are an important decision when buying a home...even if you don't have children. We all want the best education for our children. But schools also affect home values. If you put the same home in two different school districts, the home with the better schools is usually valued higher and will appreciate faster. Home buyers often think schools are better in outlying suburbs than in a city, but this is not the case in Montgomery.

U.S. News & World Report has chosen Loveless Academic Magnet Program High School as the 25th best high school in the nation. LAMP was the only Alabama public high school to receive a prestigious Gold Medal designation from the magazine. Those of us who live in Montgomery are proud of, but not surprised by the gold Medal ranking as LAMP routinely produces state National Merit Scholarship winners, and its graduates win millions in scholarship money from some of the best colleges in the nation.

Bronze Medalists

We can are also proud of the three additional Montgomery high schools that are Bronze Medal winners: Carver High, Brewbaker Technology High, and Booker T. Washington High. A Bronze award places these schools among the top 1,900 public schools in the country.

Also designated as Bronze Medal Schools were Autaugaville and Billingsley high schools in Autauga County, AL. 21,000 public high schools were considered to determine its winners and fifty-four Alabama public high schools were ranked by U.S. News. Three Alabama Silver Medalists include Mountain Brook High School, Vestavia Hills High, and Virgil Grissom High in Huntsville, as well as 50 Bronze Medal schools.

Academic and enrollment data were analyzed in a three-step process. The first step determined whether each school's students were performing better than statistically expected for the average student in the state. The second step determined whether the school's least-advantaged students were performing better than average for similar students in the state. Schools that did well on these first two steps were awarded Bronze Medals.

According to the Alabama Department of Education, schools that passed the first two steps became eligible for judging on the final step - college-readiness performance based on Advanced Placement and/or International Baccalaureate test data.

Gold Medals went to the Top 100 high schools nationally with the highest college readiness index scores, Silver Medals to the next 504 high schools, and Bronze Medals to the next 1,321 high schools that passed the first two steps.

Congratulations to all of our Montgomery Medalist winners! Your hard work has paid off!!

Learn more about Montgomery and buying a Montgomery home by visiting, HatTeam.com.

This month's edition of the Montgomery Real Estate Podcast covers Montgomery real estate market activity and then we will talk about how with every change, there are hidden opportunities for both buyers and sellers.

Features special guest Terri Murphy of US Learning.

Program length: approximately 7 minutes

download podcast mp3 file | subscribe to podcast feed

Learn about Montgomery real estate at HatTeam.com.

Re-capturing The American Dream With Montgomery Real Estate

In the past, owning a home has always been perceived as a major component of the "American Dream." Unfortunately, because of the recent real estate market activity, home-ownership is often seen now as more of a nightmare than a dream. But that doesn't have to be the case! Even in a slower economy, purchasing Montgomery real estate can still be a step toward achieving your own "American Dream!"

Inman News offers some reasons why home ownership still has benefits and advantages, including:

• The opportunity to build equity and create wealth over time.
• Protection from rent increases or eviction at the whim of a landlord.
• The pleasures of a relatively larger home, suitable for a family, and with a backyard, garage or other auxiliary space.
• The freedom - design review boards notwithstanding - to improve, remodel or redecorate to suit one's own style and budget.
• A variety of lucrative income-tax breaks.
• Pride of ownership and a greater sense of security and stability.

So, if you are thinking of purchasing Montgomery real estate, now is the time! Don't let the negative media attention on the market get you down - home ownership is still an attainable goal and a big part of the American Dream.

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John Herzog, Alabama's first Certified Mortgage Banker, is a finance wizard, world class trainer and friend of many years. He has always had the ability to take the most complex concept and restate it in terms that I and others can easily understand.

And once again he's done it: an intelligible explanation for the current state of affairs in the world of high finance. Thanks, John!

"Trying to guess which way interest rates will go in circumstances unprecedented since the great depression is impossible so let's see if we can describe what is going on in laymen's terms to allow each of you to decide for yourself if the government is taking the right course of action.

Banks and investment banks have a lot of delinquent (and potentially delinquent) loans on their balance sheets. These financial institutions are required to hold money (capital) in reserve against the potential of the future losses of the bad loans to be considered solvent. The money held off the market then is lost to the market as capital for future lending. The higher the delinquencies the more capital held out of the market until finally there is no new money for new loans (lack of liquidity). That is about where we are as no new capital is flowing into the mortgage markets.

Potential solution: Issue each of these institutions a Waste Away Bin with two wheels to roll it to the Wall Street curb. Allow them to put all their bad debt in the bin and put it on the curb for the government to come pick it up for some small percentage of its value. The money the government pays these institutions for their bad debt when they drive the garbage truck down Wall Street will be just enough to keep the institution afloat. The real value however will be to free all that capital being held in reserve against future losses to inject into the credit markets (all be it under much tighter credit guidelines and regulation).

Next the Federal Government takes all the garbage back to the dump and tries to make compost out of it so they can sell it later for more than they paid for it so the tax payer does not lose money. It remains to be seen if this step could be accomplished, but it is believed the losses will not be as great as the market currently expects and consequently later the value of these bad assets will rise.

Sounds like a good solution, but there are a lot of variables that will determine if in fact it will work:

1. Will the cost of buying the bad assets drive the dollar down, cause inflation to go up, and make rates rise?

2. Will lenders find enough "qualified" borrowers for their new money under the tighter regulations to stimulate the housing market back into prosperity and avoid recession?

3. Will the government be able to work with the troubled assets (loans) it buys enough to resell them at a profit, or will this "bail out" cost the taxpayer a bundle and be a drag on the economy for decades? To use Barak Obama's phrase, the answers to these questions are above my pay grade and I am glad some of the best financial minds in America are focused on the problem. For me, I am betting they'll work it out."

John Herzog CMB Vice President/Regional Manager
New South Federal Savings Bank
JHerzog@NewSouthFederal.com