We’ve been quiet lately, holed away in our programming dungeon cranking out tons of great new products to be introduced this year… so we were shocked at this sudden, unexpected recognition! The winners will be announced at a ceremony on March 13th. Wish us luck! We won’t be quiet much longer… you’ll be hearing a lot more from us in the weeks to come as we make some big announcements.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Treasury Department are jointly requesting ideas for sales, partnership ventures or other strategies that would help to unload approximately 250,000 properties owned by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration. Those properties account for only half of all properties that have been foreclosed upon and are still awaiting resale nationwide.

With so many foreclosed homes on the market, the sale price of occupied homes continues to be plummet.  In some condo buildings in Florida as many as 1 in 3 units are in foreclosure. When an owner goes to sell their condo for $100,000, buyers can find dozens of foreclosures for $75,000 or less. As a result, the owner must either lower their price, stay put for another decade until prices rebound or stop paying their mortgage (which they are likely upside down in) and allow the bank to foreclose on them. It’s this vicious cycle in the hardest hit parts of the country which are causing  apocalyptic real estate markets.

By taking federally owned foreclosures off the market and renting them out, the administration hopes to stabilize neighborhoods where large supplies of empty, foreclosed properties have crushed property values. In effect, the government is saying that they own a quarter million homes they can’t sell.  If they did, it would contribute to a more severe and prolonged housing price collapse.  This is unprecedented in US history.

The party's over - time to clean up the mess

To give perspective to the impact that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac foreclosures could have on home prices, consider the fact that only 70,000 of their 250,000 homes are currently on the market for sale. We’ve all seen what’s happened to home prices in the past three years. Now picture three times more foreclosures in the market, and continued erosion of America’s employment base. The result, not pretty.

One thing is for sure – someone is going to make a killing when the government decides what action to take.  Unfortunatly, I can garantee you that it will be massive investors that can afford to buy thousands of homes at a time. It will likely even be the same corporations responsible  for millions of Americans losing their homes. Small business owners, property management companies and individual landlords will be left with the scraps of this deal… if that.

It’s going to be a very interesting 2012. Perhaps the Mayans weren’t predicting the end of the world, but rather, the end of an era.

Date: Thursday August 11th, 2011
Where: Monroe Voiture, 933 University Avenue, Rochester, NY 14607 (get directions from Google Maps)
Time: Food starts at 6:30pm, Games begin at 7:30pm.

Topic: GAME NIGHT & PICNIC

We want to do something different for our August meeting…

Knowing that it can be too tempting not to take advantage of our summertime, we thought we’d lighten up things this month for our general meeting.

If you are one of the people who has been wanting to play the financial literacy board games Cash Flow and Millionaire Maker, this will be your chance. Each of these is a fun way to learn, or reinforce, business financial basics and get your mind engaged in an entrepreneurial investor mindset.

FFREIA’s Secretary/Treasurer Susan Holman has enough games to accomodate up to 30 players and needs to know how many to plan for.

And if playing games isn’t enough to get you there on a summer’s evening, FFREIA’s President Leon Griggs is cooking up a batch of his special ribs and needs to know how many to cook for.

You need to RSVP to Susan (susanh@ffreia.com or 585-690-5056) by Sunday, August 7, 5pm.

Graph of US Home Ownership Rates 1965 to 2010

In the August 5th CNN Money article, “Home ownership hits lowest level since 1965” Les Christie describes how the US home ownership rate has dropped from 69.2% in 2004 to only 59.2%. While the official numbers show the home ownership rate at 65.9%, the number drops to 59.2% when you factor in delinquent mortgage borrowers (the ones who are likely to lose their homes at some point).

Since Rochester has been fortunate to evade the worst of the housing crisis, and in the process rack up a number of top 10 placements for real estate investing and home ownership, our home ownership rates are quite a bit more steady. The rest of the nation’s real estate has not been so lucky. In fact, the average home price has declined 32% nationally. Despite the ridiculously low interest rates on mortgages, the market just can’t seem to generate buyers fast enough. The two biggest factors being the much more stringent lending practices and the overall decrease in employed people, ready to make a home purchase.

This bubble, and the consequent burst, were surprises to no one with a fundamental knowledge of economics (regardless of what the talking heads on the news have been saying for the past few years). Having been in a position where I could see this disaster coming, I have to confess that I don’t see anyone making the decisions at a national level that are necessary for us to turn this crisis around.

Perhaps the analysts at Morgan Stanley are right, America will be a much more mobile, renter-centric, society for the foreseeable future.

With locations around the world, we’re lucky enough to have two locations in the Rochester area! There is a Webster Color Me Mine, and a Pittsford Color Me Mine. One owner operates the two of them, so it’s easy to go back and forth between the stores.

At Color Me Mine you pay a studio fee plus the price of the pottery. The studio fee is $7 for kids (12 & under) and $10 for adults. Pottery prices range from $1 beads with letters on them, to as much as $70 for large platters, but the average price for a piece is $20. It takes one week from the day that you finish your masterpiece for it to be ready for pick up.

Kids often gravitate towards pottery like piggy banks, dinosaurs, fairies, and Disney characters, and often enjoy letting their creative side shine. But Color Me Mine also offers a large assortment of plates, mugs, and bowls that can easily be transformed into beautiful pieces of art.

Say you are furnishing your apartment and want special light switch covers that you are searching for in every store without luck, you could go to Color Me Mine and design them exactly the way you want. Or if you just don’t know what gift would be perfect for your friends’ birthdays you could go in and paint them each a monogrammed plate in their favorite colors.

The staff at Color Me Mine is pretty friendly and always willing to help you brainstorm or help you with fun techniques like using bubbles and lace. Painters really seem to enjoy the relaxing atmosphere and the opportunity to be creative. You never know, you might just have a hidden talent that involves painting garden gnomes and teapots!

Hint: Check out their monthly calendar for daily specials that can help you save on the studio fee or pottery price. For example, most Thursdays are “Ladies’ Night Out,” and ladies get 20% off their purchase and can bring in wine and food to enjoy the evening!

Have fun designing for your apartment

We created a tumblr page to serve as an interactive, community-driven inspiration board for decorating your new digs. Our goal is “to create a resource for people to share ideas and inspiration on how to decorate and customize your new digs,” eventually becoming “a one-stop source for all home improvement projects”!

How does it work? If you already have a tumblr account, you can follow us by clicking here. (If you’re not on tumblr already, it’s free and easy to set up an account and you can do that by clicking here.) We want your submissions! Show us pictures of your new digs and share your tips, tricks, and resources. Know a great hardware store in your neighborhood? Tell us about it! Had a great experience working with a local designer or decorator? Let us know!

Maybe you’re not the DIY-type, and that’s fine with us! You can always reblog any visual inspiration you find on the web that you think others would be interested in! There are so many ideas out there and we want to compile them all! We want to build a community of DIYers, weekend designers, and home renovators.  Let’s make the Newdigs Tumblr page the ultimate in Rochester apartment living resources!

Rochester NY Skyline from Ford St Bridge

According to CNN Money, the study’s publisher, a combination of low home prices, interest rates near zero and climbing rents makes investment opportunities in Rochester quite unique.  Rochester was spared from the huge collapse in housing prices, and this stability means home values are expected to increase over the next three years. Another contributing factor is that unemployment in Rochester hovers around 7 percent, a rate that is significantly lower than the national average.

Here’s the core stats that they looked at in the study:

Average home price (2011): $150,500
Projected home price (2014): $155,500
Gross rent (2011): $825
Projected gross rent (2014): $947

Map of Crime in the City of Rochester NY

The federal government put fair housing laws into place to protect home buyers and renters from a myriad of discriminatory practices.  As a result, landlords can no longer post statements like, “great Catholic neighborhood”, or “no children allowed in this unit”.  Restricting this kind of language is obviously a necessity to prevent certain protected classes from being discriminated against.  Sometimes, fair housing regulations leave Realtors in an awkward position, because answering a question the wrong way might get them in a lot of trouble.

When I’m showing apartments or homes to prospective movers, they always want to know if this is a safe neighborhood.  Unfortunately, I can’t legally answer that question because safety is a subjective term, and my opinions or biases may shape what I consider to be safe. For that reason, Realtors can only provide their client with tools to make that determination for themselves.  In today’s edition of the Democrat and Chronicle, the City of Rochester announced that they will be partnering with CrimeReports.com to begin mapping crime in the city of Rochester.  The site also maps the location of every registered sex offender in Monroe County. Now agents and individuals can search police reports on a slick Google map interface and make the determination of safety for themselves.

The CrimeReports website maps robberies, breaking and entering, assaults, thefts and sexual assaults.  For some reason, the Rochester Police Department has chosen not to provide the data to map rape or other sexual assaults.  I certainly hope that they reconsider that, considering every woman would want to know this information about their community. When using this site, bear in mind that the RPD is just about the only local police department reporting data to the website. As a result, the suburbs look spotless, but this is only because they don’t report any crime data.  It is also worth noting that you should completely avoid using their neighborhood layer, which is supposed to show you the different city neighborhoods. There isn’t a single neighborhood properly identified on the site. All in all, it’s a great tool to use if you’re looking to determine just how safe your next community is.

Lease Agreement from EZLandlordForms.com

Building a strong relationship with a new tenant and protecting your real estate investment is of paramount importance when crafting a lease agreement.  There are a multitude of considerations at this juncture that are essential to understand.  Brian Davis, Vice President of EzlandlordForms.com, is a seasoned landlord and top expert on landlord-tenant relationships.  Here he offers his top tips for new landlords as a helpful tool for navigating lease creation and the ongoing considerations of managing a rental property.

1. Understand the Fair Housing Act and how it applies to your rental.  When advertising for a new tenant, it is critical that landlords and property managers understand and comply with the Fair Housing Act. The Fair Housing Act prohibits landlords from using any of the following criteria when evaluating potential tenants: race, color, national heritage, religion, gender, disability, and familial status. While that may sound simple on the surface, consider that stating in a rental listing “perfect for a single professional” is a violation of the Act (bias against familial status). Advertising only in your church’s newsletter discriminates by religion. What landlords can and should use to evaluate potential tenants is financial data, credit histories, and other background data.

2. Know your tenant by thoroughly screening each prospective renter to avoid problems down the road.  This can be accomplished by a few simple steps.  First, conduct a professional credit check to learn an applicant’s credit history and if they have been fiscally responsible in the past.  Bad credit can serve as a red flag and you may wish to avoid such tenants.

Next, ask for references from past landlords.  However, be on notice that while references from prior landlords are worth a quick phone call, they aren’t particularly telling, because tenants can give fake names and numbers, and even if they don’t, the old landlord may well be painting a rosy picture of the tenant in order to get rid of them.

What a landlord should verify are the rental applicants’ credit, employment/income (and historical stability), criminal background, and eviction history. When landlords run these checks, not only can they determine the best rental applicant, but the landlord can defend against any discrimination lawsuits by producing hard data used to choose one rental applicant over another.

3. Build an airtight lease agreement by knowing the laws that apply in your state through a state-specific lease.  Each state has slightly different laws that impact a landlord-tenant relationship.  Accordingly, use a state-specific lease instead of a general lease to best protect your real estate investment.  For example, California requires all lease agreements to include clauses mandated by Megan’s Law, and every state has different limits on security deposits, late fees, etc.

While not an exhaustive list, other elements a lease agreement should clearly define include: Who is responsible for paying the utilities, which appliances are included and who is responsible for maintaining them, whether the lease auto-renews and for what term, details surrounding fees and deposits, and whether is there an option to purchase – and if so what are the terms?

4. Understand the eviction process. Although many of us don’t wish to think about worse case scenarios, it is important to become familiar with the eviction process and be ready to start the process immediately when a tenant violates the lease.  While the specific documents required are different in each state, all states involve the same general eviction process. The landlord or property manager must serve the defaulting tenant with a particular notice, wait a specified period of time, file in court, attend a court hearing, schedule a date for the actual eviction, and so on, and landlords are well advised to understand this process before actually having to go through it, because it is extremely expensive and takes far longer than most landlords anticipate.

5. Devise a Moving In and Moving Out procedure and be sure it is clearly defined.  One helpful tool is a comprehensive walk-through checklist.  This document will be used for the landlord/manager to walk through the rental unit with the tenant and document the condition of the unit upon move-in and move-out.

6. Offer performance incentives: While most lease agreements include a late fee, landlords can further incentivize timely rent by offering a reward for early rent payment, renewing for a longer term period, and/or any other behavior you want to encourage. Rewards can range from the simple, such as rent discounts, to the complex, such as point systems where tenants earn points and exchange them for rebates, gift cards, updates to the rental unit, etc.

7. Establish a relationship with at least two good contractors. Landlords and property managers need at the very least a licensed contractor who can handle large jobs, and an inexpensive handyman who can affordably fix minor issues. Don’t wait until your tenants’ heating system stops working in January, or the roof collapses, as the time lost in trying to find a contractor by that time will cost real money. Instead form these relationships before you actually need them, and then you will simply be able to make a phone call and have the problem resolved immediately.

8. Stay capitalized. One of the most serious problems small landlords face is lack of cash, as being a landlord involves unexpected expenses. These range from tenants suddenly ceasing to pay their rent, to unexpected repairs, to lawsuits, but the only predictable aspect to these unexpected expenses is that they will happen, and with some frequency. Set aside a hefty amount of cash specifically for rental expenses, and resist the temptation to use it for anything else.

Looking for date ideas? You can’t go wrong with the classic “dinner and a movie” combination. Start your night with a movie at Pittsford Cinemas in Pittsford Plaza (may I suggest Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2?) then indulge at Olives Greek Taverna, a classic Greek restaurant in Northfield Common that provides delectable meals made with the freshest ingredients. Follow up your dinner with homemade ice cream from Bill Wahl’s Microcreamery right next door. The canal path across the street extends for miles, but a short walk up and down Schoen Place is enough to feel refreshed after a delicious meal. You can take a seat on one of the many benches along the path, feed the ducks, and watch the sun set over the water.

No matter which night of the week you venture down to the Canal, you won’t be alone! Schoen Place is a popular spot for both kids and adults to spend time. During the day, the path is littered with walkers, runners, and bikers. If you’re going for a run along the canal, expect to weave your way through strollers, empty of toddlers, waddling precariously close to the the water, tossing bread crumbs and bits of ice cream cone to the many ducks who call Pittsford home. The shops and restaurants are often bursting with people, enjoying the warm summer breeze in one of Rochester’s most charming suburbs.