Lebanon, OH

There are approximately 180 students (K - 6th Grade) who have been identified by teachers and staff as showing signs of chronic hunger in Lebanon City Schools. With your help and through a partnership with Shared Harvest Food Bank, Manna Worldwide, Heritage Baptist Church and Lebanon City Schools, we have an opportunity to ensure students that are in greatest need receive six nutritious meals each weekend. The cost of the program is fully funded by donations from various sources including local businesses, churches, organizations and citizens.

This school year, volunteers will be needed on Wednesday evenings to help fill the backpacks at Heritage Baptist Church. Donations will also be accepted, and 100% of your tax-deductible donation will go toward the purchase of food.

Hunger has an impact on children's ability to learn, their behavior and attendance. Hunger causes physical and mental impairment that might never be reversed. Your assistance can provide the necessary support to children in this community who are unable to consistently get enough nutritious food to lead a healthy life.

Please visit the link below if you would like to donate to the Warriors BackPack program. Thank you for your support!

http://www.warriorsbackpack.com/Welcome.htm

At the Lebanon Huntington branch we are doing our best to offer our customers the best programs to get out of debt, lower expenses and invest to have a better way of life. With that said check out this program the is exclusive to Huntington in our market.

This program will lower your qualified rate by 3% as long as you use at least half of the loan to do your upgrades to your home. The program has a couple qualifying guidelines: the loan has to be used to make your home more energy efficient. For example energy-star products, windows, and insulation. This is just a short list of items that the loan can be used on.

Example

You qualify for a loan at 8% with the Huntington loan (with discounts) we will give you a rate of 5% for the next five years.

This loan is not for everyone but it is a very useful tool to know about if you are looking to make your home more energy efficient. Why put it on a credit card?

Loan example

$15000.00 @ 9.5% over five years = $316 per month add biweekly payments at no extra cost to pay if off about three months faster! This will lower the over all interest paid to save you more money!!

You can get a survey inspection on your home under $100, this could help you understand where your home is losing the most energy. This helps lower your heating bill, increase the value of your home in any kind of market, your home becomes more marketable. The list of benefits goes on. Also you can receive information on how long it would take to make a return on your investment.

By now, you might have heard about the tax credit offered to first time home buyers. The government is offering a $7500 (or 10% the value of the home, which ever is less) tax credit to first time home buyers that purchase a home between April 9, 2008 to June 30, 2009. There are some income restrictions on the tax credit.

Obviously, this can be a significant tax incentive for a first time home buyer but I do have some mix emotions about this incentive. According the house bill, 2 years after a person claims this tax credit they have to start re-paying the tax at 6.67% per year for the next 15 years. If the individual decides to sell the property prior to paying the full the amount back, the remaining balance is due in that year. So, what this credit amounts to is an interest free loan.

My concern is when a person goes to sell the home and have to pay back the remaining balance. Most repeat buyers use the equity in their current home for the down payment on their next home. Although I feel this tax incentive can be helpful in kick starting the current market, what damage are we doing to any future markets. Are we creating situations where home owners will be stuck and are unable to sell in the future?

In short, I do feel first time home buyers should take advantage of this credit or interest free loan but I do believe that we as Real Estate Professionals need to make sure they understand the future effects so that they can plan accordingly.