Jodie Miller, Realtor, KW, Pasadena

Great article in the L.A. Times this past weekend about how a slow economy is making solar panel installation all the more affordable. For those of you for whom selling is not an option right now, here's a great way to add value to your home, and help the planet, too!

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cover-solar2-2009aug02,0,7808025.story

A lot ot people have emailed me asking which states were participating in the "$8000 first-time homebuyer tax monetization" program. Well, in accordance with ML09-15, here's the deal so far:

Government entities and instrumentalities of government may provide a second mortgage. Currently, as far as we know, 10 state housing finance agencies offer a product buyers can use that will effectively monetize the tax credit for down payment purposes. These states are Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, New Jersey, New Me xico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.

I will continue to bring you updates as things progress, as there will certainly be more states joining that list.

While most people want to own a home, young singles and couples often find it difficult to find that tough-to-pull-together down payment. Lots of more established people find that getting into that dream house is a tough nut to crack.

But it doesn't have to be. Simple financial strategies exist that allow disadvantaged buyers to split the cost of a house by sharing the wealth.

Using a form of co-ownership called equity sharing, at least two people or entities can own one piece of real estate and the second party - often mom and dad or a friend - doesn't have to be a resident. Nor does the second party have to wait for the property to be sold in order to benefit from the investment. Co-owners who itemize can use the arrangement to claim deductions of their income taxes.

For instance, Mom and Dad might agree to bankroll the down payment in return for a proportional share of the home's appreciation. In some cases, the sellers may be willing to take on the investor role if they haven't been able to recoup the full value of their home.

Whoever the investor is, he or she will want to be named on the title along with the occupant, but may not want to be named on the loan, since it could hamper future investments with high debt-to-income ratio.

Another option is known as a co-occupier arangment, in which at least two parties fund a down payment, pay subsequent homeownership costs, occupy the property together and then split the gains or losses from the sale of the home.

These arrangements, while the only option for many buyers,a re not for everybody.

Some questions the buyers should ask themselves first:

Am I willing to stay in one home for five years? Are my business and personal circumstances stable? Would I feel comfortable discussing future financial problems with my investor? And can I share control of my home?

For investors:

Can I afford to tie up my money for the next five years? Would I feel comfortable delegating control? Am I willing to consider investment decisions from a homeowner's standpoint?

And last but not least, always consult a CPA about all tax angles, and avoid personal loans, which are both difficult to recoup, and non-tax exempt if it's over $12,000 as a gift to a child.

.. and that means financially as well.

I just got back from what had to have been yet another $40,000 wedding. It seems nobody elopes anymore. Remember the last time you got an announcement three weeks after the fact gladly proclaming, "Doug and I got hitched by candlelight in a private ceremony attended by no one but our religious leader and our parents. No gifts, please."? Me, neither. Bad economy and all, people still feel entitled to their Big Day. The wedding industry is out of control.

How did this happen? When did ice swans become mandatory? I know a girlfriend in college who went three years without a date. Nice girl, attractive, just worked a lot, and not a social butterfly. She's getting married in Antigua in July. "What?! " all her college friends said over lukewarm Rolling Rock beer in the back yard, "Anitgua? She couldn't find a groom three years ago, now she needs a passport to marry him?" Why so complicated? And pricey? I promise you, no one who reads this article's grandparents even toyed with the notion of getting married in Antigua, unless they lived in Antigua, and that generation remains more married than the rest of us put together.

I'm a girl, and still, a wedding, not a celebrity wedding, just a regular old "we both work in accounts receivable, dated through college, still own a futon" wedding strikes me as astronomically high. I wanted to scream at the bride, "Isn't this excessive for somethng that at best has a fifity percent survival rate? Don't you know you could buy a house with this money?"

Fortunately, my hubby saw the evil glint in my eye, and whisked the champagne out of my hand. So I'm left here to talk to my would-be brides out there.

Listen, honey, I get it. Everybody wants her own special day. But that one special day could be parlayed into a thousand special days if you used your wedding money as a down payment to buy a house. Little tip: a wedding, while fun, is not an investment. A house is.

And your friends and family will thank you forty times over if you spare them a trip to Antigua to do what countless generations of fiancees did locally our of necessity for thousands of years.

Not sold and still need help with that down payment for a house? Tune in tomorrow, when I give first-time home buyers a primer in ways to find that down payment for that first house. Where did you leave that again? Oh, yeah, under the melting ice swan...

It's been a good year professionally for me, but rough emotionally, as anyone knows me well can attest.

My father passed away recently after a long, and then abruptly sudden, illness. He was surrounded by friends and family.

He was home for his last week on earth, which was both a blessing and a terrible burden. His comfort and his care were in our hands, and so our hands were trembling a lot. More than once, I found my eyes meeting my mother's eyes and the weight of what we had to do was palpable. It was present. It was bad. It was exhausting.

But like all Truly Bad Things, it came with a nice thing sidecar.

Through medication schedules and feedings and washings and diaper changes, I'm not sure how we slept or ate. I just know that food showed up and the nap was offered and somehow we made it through. And I know it was only possible through our neighbors.

Olivia down the street made tamales. Her daughter Alejandra babysat my twenty-one month old son when it was my shift with my dad. Carol next door walked the dog for us when we were late at the hospital. Debbie on the other side of the house has a sick mother; she knew of a great at-home hospice service. Denny, Carol's husband, fixed the fridge.

Lucas across the street knew a good priest.

My mother in-law across town always knew exactly when to show up and offer to watch while I napped.

Somehow flowers kept arriving on my father's bedside table. Not every day, but every three or so, and nothing fancy, just a couple fresh clippings from someone's garden, but they were beautiful, and they gave us all something living to focus on when the days wore on to Very Bad Nights. I later found out they came from Nila's down the street. She'd come over with a couple nice roses, maybe a Gerber daisy, with a wet paper towel at the bottom of it, tell us to throw out the dead ones and put the new ones in.

And we did, and somehow around us, under the worst possible circumstances, life went on. And beautifully.

I know a lot is written about nesting syndrome and the way a lot of modern people don't really know their neighbors. I can't help but think it's not true - I live in Los Angeles, hardly the idealized suburban mecca of genteel neighborli-ness you see on TV, and I have the best neighbors around. All it takes is the little effort.

But if you happen to read this and think, gosh, maybe my relationships with my neighbors could use some sprucing, then hey, go bake that bundt cake. Send that note. Take that flower clipping over. Because you could literally be saving someone's life right then.

So thank your lucky stars for good neighbors, and if you have bad neighbors, work on changing that sitch for the better, either by moving physically or moving on metaphyscially...

Oh, and I happen to know a great Realtor;)