The FourStory Weblog

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The Largest Green Friendly Development Ever

by Donna Schoenkopf 2010-09-02

Want to see what the homes look like that Brad Pitt and fourteen architects have been working on in New Orleans?

These homes are part of the largest green-friendly development in the world.  They feature:

    *  solar panels which result in zero energy use

    *  framing that can stand up to 130 mph winds

    *  Kevlar coated windows (like the bullet-proof vests) that can stand up to hurricane winds

    *  Energy Star appliances

    *  cisterns to harvest rainwater

    *  fiber cement board for strength

    *  low flow toilets and zero VOC paint

    *  landscaping that fits the environment

    *  built 5 to 8 feet above ground in case of flooding, with escape hatches to the roof

Check it out on this website.  The homes are beautiful inside and out.  Love you, Brad Pitt!!

http://inhabitat.com/2010/07/05/vote-for-make-it-right-and-energy-efficient-homes-for-new-orleans/make-it-right-foundation-houses-1/?extend=1

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Inflating Home Prices

by Tony Chavira 2010-08-30

Great article in the L.A. Times today!  I'm just going to slap up the best excerpts for ya:

You can't force someone to buy a house.

But as a society we've long tried to make homeownership an offer you couldn't refuse.

And since the real estate mega-bubble burst three years ago, the government has tried even more tricks to get people to sign home purchase contracts.

Now, a grim reality has set in: Despite the still-rich basket of tax breaks for residential property owners, and the lowest mortgage rates in a generation, the pool of willing or able buyers is dwindling. [...]

"It's not a housing issue anymore — it's an overall economic issue," said David Crowe, chief economist for the National Assn. of Home Builders. [...]

Congress figured the tax-credit giveaway would encourage buyers, and it did to an extent. [...]

But the risk of offering any giveaway with a deadline (in this case, April 30) is that it will artificially inflate activity for a limited period and simply steal from future sales.

Though government intervention may be well-meaning, each new effort "completely clouds whether there has been any fundamental improvement in the housing market [...]

Government policy has been aimed at slowing or stopping the decline in prices, for obvious reasons: A further drop in home values would push more owners underwater, meaning their homes would be worth less than their mortgage balance. An estimated 21.5% of single-family homes with mortgages were underwater in the second quarter, down from 23% a year earlier, according to Zillow Real Estate Market Reports.

A continuing rise in house prices would mean that more homeowners who can no longer afford their mortgages might be able to sell for enough to cover their loans, thus avoiding adding to the mountain of homes already in foreclosure. [...]

For government to stand in the way of a further price decline is unfair to the next generation of buyers, he said. "The people who get hurt the most are those who are overpaying for houses today [...]

The Obama administration's program to persuade banks to modify troubled home loans has met with relatively little success. And few banks over the last year have been willing to take the step of permanently reducing struggling borrowers' mortgage debt to keep them in their homes. [...]

Christian Weller, an economist at the Center for American Progress in Washington, argues that debt reduction on a huge scale is inevitable. "Right now the pain is with the consumer," he said. "We should force the banks to take some of that pain." [...]

All of these ideas, however, are bailouts of one sort or another. "There is no 'fair' answer here," Green concedes.

Well, there is one: Leave housing to market forces, let prices fall until buyers are motivated to come in, and hope that the economy can stand one final cathartic wave to clear the excesses of the bubble.

I don't need to be an economist to know that something fundamental needs to change regarding how we purchase homes.  Maybe that change is simply that the entire market is inordinately inflated, and that those who took out multiple loans to pay for their homes need to come to grips with the idea that their homes were never worth from the beginning. 

I suppose it's hard being told that after you put yourself in debt for 30 years to afford the American Dream though.

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Taking Poor People’s Homes

by Tony Chavira 2010-08-27

For a furious fix of malfeasance this Friday, check out this cruel coup conducted by that meretricious mobster, the Montgomery Mayor:

The Daily Caller pretty much sums it up (bold emphases are mine):

Imagine you come home from work one day to a notice on your front door that you have 45 days to demolish your house, or the city will do it for you.  Oh, and you’re paying for it.

This is happening right now in Montgomery, Ala., and here is how it works: The city decides it doesn’t like your property for one reason or another, so it declares it a “public nuisance.”  It mails you a notice that you have 45 days to demolish your property, at your expense, or the city will do it for you (and, of course, bill you).

Your tab with the city will constitute a lien on your property, and if you don’t pay it within 30 days (or pay your installments on time; if you owe over $10,000, you can work out a deal to pay back the city for destroying your home over a period of time, with interest), the city can sell your now-vacant land to the highest bidder.

Well, if deterrent zoning laws don't cut the mustard and you don't think eminent domain rules should apply to you, here's another way to sleaze the working-class man off of his property and out of your neighorhood.  Granted, there was a great response regarding blighted homes and the taking of property by government entities for revitalization in MarketWatch by Lew Sichelman.  A reader asked him "With all its mighty political power, what, if anything, is the Realtor nation doing to fight local governments' land grabs via bogus "blight" designations, or just wanting the land for developers?"  Despite the clearly anti-government bias in the question, Sichelman's response had a lot of clarity to it for those who don't understand why cities have this power in the first place.  Here is it, but I'll cut to the chase for ya by putting the key points in bold:

According to a NAR [National Association of Realtors] spokesman, the organization believes that using the power to take property to encourage commercial or economic development can put the entire community at risk and place the dream of homeownership in peril. Therefore, it opposes any federal legislation that would impose a one-size-fits-all solution on all states. Rather, NAR maintains that this is a states' rights issue, and that each state should set its own criteria regarding the practice.

"It's difficult to guess what should be done about the case you describe, since how an action by a local government is interpreted and characterized depends intimately on the details of what the local government actually does," my NAR contact said.

"People in the area can judge that better than the national organization can. For example, in your question, the key word is 'blight.' Every locality defines blight differently, and subsequently, proposes different measures to address it.

"NAR advocates requiring local governments to justify their condemnation actions by proving that real and substantial community benefits can accrue from the taking of private property. Citizen participation in the debate at the local level is essential for hearing various viewpoints and is less costly in the long run than entering into the laborious lawsuit process."

From this perspective, demolishing homes in Montgomery may help to revitalize blighted communities as the city determines "blighted," but the city probably set the bar at that point deliberately in order to demolish the homes of these poor poor-people.  That's my best guess anyway, and the only way to move forward would be to oust the current leaders and install some people who are more interested in revitalizating and beautifying communities from the ground up, not just knocking down their constituent's homes.

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You Won’t Be Sorry

by Donna Schoenkopf 2010-08-26

Who knew that Stan would find me and then put me in touch with Ann after all these years?  Fifty-two, to be exact.

We were best friends in Junior High, back in the day when they called Middle School, Junior High. 

Ann writes a blog about her life in Los Osos.  It is fantastic.  Seriously.  It is fantastic.  She writes about everything from the antics of local wildlife to the state of the Union.   Don't thank me.  It's my honor and my pleasure.

http://www.calhounscannon.blogspot.com/

 

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Future States

by Donna Schoenkopf 2010-08-26

I stumbled across this website while reading this month's copy of Sierra magazine.

When I went to the site I found a fascinating series of short films made by the "hottest Indie filmmakers" around. Their films include subjects like a futuristic China that encourages its female workers to have their one child through surrogates and scientifically reduced time for pregnancy. Another film is about a plastic bag. The voice of the plastic bag is Werner Herzog. And then there is the film about an American family immigrating ILLEGALLY to another country to a "new land of opportunity." Eight films in all.

You'll love this one.

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