Ed Newman

Just heard a great one liner that will give you a chuckle during these hard times.

Neil Cavuto on the FBN said: "If you put the Federal Government in charge of the Sahara Desert, pretty soon we would have a shortage of sand."

He was talking about the TARP "black hole" - no one in government can tell you where the $350B TARP money went.

Ed Newman

Alamo Infrared www.umrt.com

Not surprising - People that over charged their credit cards, over qualified for their mortgage on a home that they couldn't afford in the first place, with an ARM that they could never face when it came due (my dad would say - bit of more than they could chew) faced defaulting and foreclosure went crying to the government and the government replied with mortgage modifications earlier this year and after a short sigh of relief - guess what? They are defaulting again - Re-defaulting

Surprising? Not surprising at all!

"The results, I confess, were somewhat surprising, and not in a good way," said John Dugan, head of the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, in prepared remarks for a U.S. housing forum.
"Put simply, it shows that over half of mortgage modifications seemed not to be working after six months," he said.

Ed Newman, Alamo Infrared Home Inspections

The United States Department of Energy supports Thermal Imaging. Going so far as to say that you shouldn't buy a home without having a thermal image inspection.

Check out this YouTube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXPXE0qsmjg

Ed Newman

Alamo Infrared Home Inspections

www.umrt.com

We all knew the numbers are falling, but these numbers are surprising - they are prelim and from an un-named source. The hard numbers will be out in the next few days. The real numbers for Salt Lake County (988M pop) for Sept 08 were home and condo sales at 1010 and sales for Oct 08 at 820 - a drop of 18%. The Nov 08 numbers are looking like 539 or a drop of 35%. Following the natl trend, especially after the market slump in late Sept/early Oct. This mirrors the numbers in Atlanta and Charlotte and Austin.

The SLBR sent the annual agent dues/bill out the 1st of Oct, with a grace period or last payable date of Dec 31. So far only approx 3100 agents have renewed. I 'spect' it will be 'purdy' busy around the board in the next few weeks. [This is only verbal from an unamed few] Last year in Mid December - 4200 agents had renewed so if it follows suit we stand to loose about 30% of the agents we had at the first of the year which is what most people that I speak with on a weekly basis predicted. A 30-35% drop; which is far below the CA, NV and AZ stats exceeding 50%

As I am listening to a Merle Haggard song - "If We Make it Through December We'll Be Fine"

Ed Newman

www.umrt.com

I talked to Teri Horton of Griffinspect Home Inspections in Coeur d' Lane today about Infrared Cameras. She is wanting to step up and buy an infrared camera. After spending the better part of an hour telling her all of the things that I have found with infrared (or would of missed with out one) and all of the horror stories of post inspection (after move in)problems discovered with homes being inspected the old "legacy" flashlight and naked eye method - she had to hang up and order her camera. So it looks like in a few weeks Idaho will have a super inspector. Less than 1% of the estimated 16,000 home inspectors are using infrared. Congrats Teri

Ed

www.umrt.com

www.utahenergyaudit.com