E.J. "Mike" Carlier ABR CRS GRI Apple Valley MN

Tonight, most of us will need to move our clocks forward an hour, and that means we will lose an hour of our lives, sort of. While Daylight Saving Time will give us an extra hour to tour homes after work and to do whatever else requires that it be done before sunset, it also takes away an hour of bed rest for most of us. It's considered by most to be a reasonable trade off.

Time is a commodity that is irreplaceable, almost. The almost part exists in the one hour that we will lose tonight and actually get back in a half year. It is the only time that will eventually be replaced in like kind.

When we have children, we have them for eighteen years, more or less. After that, they are gone forever, not as individuals who we will love forever, but as children. Their childhood has expired, along with our opportunity to do whatever we had planned for our children. Did we spend enough time with them? Maybe, but probably never quite enough. Did we give them the best home in the best neighborhood with the best schools possible? Maybe.

Whatever your wants and needs, wishes and goals, the most precious obstacle is time. Although we have to make adequate plans and proper decisions, delaying a good decision degrades the one component that cannot be replaced. Other than the hour we'll get back in the fall, time passes and never returns.

If you're pondering a lifestyle upgrade that will affect you and your family, delay will only diminish its benefits. Go for it.

The Apple Valley Chamber will again host its annual Home and Garden Expo on March 31. The event has been well attended in past years with around 5,000 attendees. Held at that Dakota County Western Service Center, the event is one of the more popular ones of its kind in the area.

Hours are 9AM to 3PM, and parking and admission are free. Over 100 exhibitors will be present, along with gardening seminars, Minnesota Zoo animals, fire trucks and free children's arts and crafts. Dakota County Western Service Center is located at 14955 Galaxie at the intersection of Highway 42. Put this one on your calendar.

According to a Gallup report as cited in 24/7 Wall Street Wire, Hawaii is the happiest state, followed by North Dakota and Minnesota. In aggregate, employment, health, longevity, and education point to these three states as the happiest.

The report makes for entertaining reading, but it probably does little to enrich the status of the folks who live in the top rated states. Pondering the effects of this data on the average citizen, it's not likely to make anyone happier or less happy, except during the time they are reading the report. We seem to be presented with more and more data in the form of ranked lists almost daily. Fact is that a low unemployment rate is almost meaningless to someone who can't find a job. A low poverty rate and high average income mean little to persons living in poverty.

The report is not necessarily flawed, it's just a report. Similar to the Gallup report, there are housing reports showing that a high percentage of homeowners are underwater, there are a pile of homes that have been or are soon to be repossessed by lenders, prices are dropping/increasing/remaining the same.

When you look at a ranking of states with the highest or lowest housing misery, it should only affect your every day life for the few minutes you are reading the report. It's not much more than entertaining reading, more or less. Your decision to buy or sell a home should depend on only a couple criteria. If you have the financial resources, and if you want to change from one place of residence to another, you should probably do it.

Life is short (a little longer in HI, ND, and MN), and the best time for a lifestyle upgrade is when you are able to make it happen. Considerations about possible later economic gains and losses have to be tempered with considerations about the perishable nature of children who have a "shelf life" of around eighteen years start to finish, and your own life cycle which needs to be enjoyed and appreciated to its fullest.

The Lakeville Area Chamber of Commerce has announced their ninth annual Landscape Home Expo and Consumer Showcase. It will take place on March 17, at Lakeville North High School. This is a great event to research all your needs for home improvement projects and services. Over 150 exhibitors will be featured. Hours are 9:00AM to 3:00PM, and admission is free.

There are about a half generation of homeowners who are underwater today, and some are looking at options. The group can be separated into people who are comfortably meeting their payments and those who are having some trouble, maybe serious trouble. Those two groups can be further divided into those who love their homes and want to stay there, and those whose homes fail to fill their reasonable wants and needs -- they hate the place and want to live somewhere else.

Banks love underwater homeowners who are easily making payments and love their homes. They aren't going anywhere, and the loans could run their full thirty year terms. All the banks have to do is not change their address without notice, and the money will arrive on schedule.

Then there are the others, people who love their homes but can't afford to live there, and they are a challenge for banks. Fortunately, there are some government programs to help the homeowners with the least serious problems. Maybe there's a way to modify the loan terms to make things work out. Maybe not.

The most serious problem is the group of homeowners who really don't like where they live. They have several choices. They can tough it out for the long run and remain substantially unhappy, failing to address the growing needs of their families. They could also choose self help and either try to convince the bank that they should be allowed a short sale, or perhaps they could just leave and never look back. Those are about all the possibilities.

Banks will lose little if they modify the terms of a loan. They will lose a pile if they approve a short sale, but it's a smaller pile than they will lose if they have to repossess and re-sell the home. There is one alternative that has been ignored, portable debt.

Banks could consider requests from owners who could afford a higher payment in a home more suitable for them and their families to transfer debt from one home to another. Assuming that the owner paid closing and selling costs and had some type of minimal down payment, the bank would substantially have a new loan with the same debt as the old one. There are a few differences, mostly in the bank's favor. First, the owners now have a home that they like, and they are far less likely to walk away in the future. Second, the bank owns a new loan with a better (well, less bad) LTV than the previous loan.

Overall, portable debt would benefit lenders, homeowners, neighborhoods, and the housing industry. Why is there no portable debt option for responsible homeowners?