Interior House Painting Tips & Painting Techniques for the Perfect Paint Job

From The FamilyHandyman.com

Let the paint dry, then cut the tape loose for a perfect edge

Cut tape when paint is dry

Avoiding Home Mortgage Default

From the Superpages.com

In hard financial times, making the mortgage payment can be a challenge. When financial difficulties occur, cutting off communication with your lender is the worst thing you can do if you want to avoid home mortgage default. In fact, swallowing your pride to make a call to them may be what saves your home from foreclosure.

Before you miss a payment

A foreclosure stays on your credit report for years, making home mortgage default among the least desirable things to do. Understanding your finances is critical before you contact your lender. You must know whether your delinquency is because of a financial emergency or if it’s because of a series of bad choices.

If you’re in the midst of an emergency, let your lender know exactly what’s occurring. An extended hospital stay after a car accident, for example, is an extraordinary circumstance that is unlikely to continue keeping you from making your mortgage payments. On the other hand, a job loss or cut in income can have far-reaching effects on your ability to repay your loan.

When you’re on the verge of home mortgage default because of your own choices, it’s time to make difficult decisions about your money. The first order of business is to create a new budget and figure out what you can actually afford to pay each month. It’s possible that your mortgage company can refinance your loan into one with a more affordable payment.

After you miss a payment

It’s true that you have fewer options after you miss a mortgage payment because your lender may waste no time reporting your delinquency to the credit bureaus. This can make refinancing more difficult, if not impossible. Regardless, don’t delay in opening the lines of communication with your lender. Some lenders will start the foreclosure process after as little as three consecutive missed payments.

Even if you exhaust your options with the lender and they do put your loan into home mortgage default status, hope is not lost. You still have time to bring your loan current after the lender files the Notice of Default, typically about 90 days. If you’ve been making progress towards cutting your expenses and creating additional income, you may be able to come up with the cash you need before your home goes to auction.

Kenny Rogers’ Former Liongate Estate For Sale in Bel-Air

AUTHOR:EMILY HEFFTER
ZILLOW

Source: IMDb

One of Bel-Air’s most famous properties, The Liongate Estate at 616 Nimes Road, is for sale for $65 million.

The estate, once owned by country music star Kenny Rogers, is hidden from view by a long driveway. It takes up an entire block in Bel-Air and was recently expanded to 24,000 square feet. The home was sold in 2010 for $12.2 million by author and LA socialite Nancy Davis, and the new owners, according to published interviews with the listing agent, didn’t spend as much time in Los Angeles as they had planned.

So they listed it with Mia Trudeau of Hilton & Hyland.

And you would have to spend some time to fully experience the Bel-Air estate. You might never have to leave, in fact. Liongate includes a tennis court and viewing area, two fountains, seven fireplaces, a billiards room and media room, a professional-sized gym, a ballroom, three steam showers and a dry sauna, hot-tub and pool.

That’s in addition to 11 bedrooms and 17 bathrooms.

The listing says, in all-caps: “The best views in Los Angeles & by far the finest estate in Bel Air.”

Tips for Moving Furniture

From The FamilyHandymancom

Carry tall items high and low

Center the weight

A tall dresser, filing cabinet or shelving unit is awkward to handle. Make it a two-person job. Tip the item backward at an angle and have one person carry the top while the other carries the bottom. This centers the weight and keeps the item from swinging out of control. Transporting the item up or down stairs is easier too, since the carrying angle will roughly match the slope of the stairs.

Prediction: 50% of buyers in 2020 will be Hispanic

MIAMI – April 15, 2014 – Hispanics lead the growth of U.S. owner households, and many more are credit-ready to buy now if homes were available, according to the 2013 State of Hispanic Homeownership Report published by the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP).

The complete 2013 State of Hispanic Homeownership Report is available online.

"This is a story of pent-up demand," says Jason Madiedo, president of NAHREP. "Latinos are ready to buy homes now. Their biggest obstacle coming into today's market isn't credit – it's lack of available housing. The readiness of this first-time buyer market represents a whole new purchase cycle that can drive recovery in local communities and put the housing recession behind us once and for all."

According to the report, Hispanics achieved modest growth of 84,000 owner households in 2013, but they accounted for an increase of 2.6 million owner households (nearly 47 percent of all U.S. homeownership growth) between 2000 and 2013.

They're expected to comprise 50 percent of all new homebuyers by 2020.

The U.S. Hispanic population has grown to 53 million, a 50 percent increase since 2000. Between 2000 and 2012, Hispanic population growth accounted for more than half of the country's overall population growth. Between now and 2050, Hispanics are expected to grow 167 percent compared to a 42 percent growth rate projected for the rest of the U.S. population.

The 2013 report offers a snapshot of economic and demographic trends that trace the rise in prominence of the Hispanic mega market and its potential to impact the U.S. housing market. It also outlines the challenges and opportunities associated with the market and identifies the housing inventory shortage as the most compelling challenge facing Hispanic homebuyers today.

Hispanic real estate leaders say that the trend of cash sales has all but eliminated affordable housing inventory in the nation's largest Hispanic markets such as Miami, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Atlanta.

According to NAHREP, misguided foreclosure disposition programs that favor cash investors are to blame for the shortage and the missed opportunity for homebuyers.

Key indicators relevant to housing demand

• Population growth: Hispanics continue to dominate American population growth. The Hispanic population is presently 53 million and projected to reach 120 million by 2050, accounting for 30 percent of the total U.S. population. Today one in every four children is Hispanic.
• Education: Hispanics continue to make gains in education at all grade levels. In 2012, 69 percent of Hispanic high school graduates enrolled in college, for the first time surpassing non-Hispanic Whites at 67 percent. The Hispanic high school dropout rate has also dropped by 50 percent in the past decade, falling to 15 percent in 2012.
• Employment and income: Since 2000, Hispanic job gains have accounted for 66 percent of the growth in the U.S. labor force. By 2050, one in three working Americans will be Hispanic. The median household income of Hispanics is $40,400. Twenty-two percent of all Hispanic households earn more than $75,000 annually.
• Consumerism: The purchasing power of Hispanics is estimated to grow to $1.5 trillion by 2015, a $500 billion increase from 2010.
• Homeownership: Since 2010, Hispanics have accounted for a net increase of 559,000 owner households, representing 56 percent of the total net growth of owner households in the U.S. Hispanics also comprise 47 percent of the total net growth of homeowners since 2000. They are more likely than the general U.S. population to prefer owning a home.

© 2014 Florida Realtors®

Miami Beach picks Denver firm for first part of $500 million convention center redo

BY CHRISTINA VEIGA

MIAMIHERALD.COM

Fentress Architects has been awarded a contract for Miami Beach’s on-again, off-again convention center renovation.

City Commissioners on Wednesday picked the Denver-based firm from a field of eight competitors vying for the $11 million contract. The vote was unanimous, except Commissioner Jonah Wolfson was absent.

Fentress will serve as the design criteria professional for a renovation that will cost $500 million. As the design criteria professional, Fentress will draw up partial plans for the project. Its plans will become the basis of another city bid, this one for a “design-build” firm. The design-build firm will finish the plans and build the project.

Fentress specializes in designing public buildings. Its work has included convention centers in Denver, San Diego and Santa Fe.

Michael Winters, director of design and interiors for Fentress, said the studio aims to design a convention center that will “give back to the urban and civic environment.”

The Beach’s convention center has been derided as a concrete box that cuts off access to the surrounding neighborhoods and the Lincoln Road Mall.

“Ultimately, we have to create pride for the neighborhood,” Winters said.

Fentress knows the Miami Beach Convention Center well: the studio was on a team that competed in last year’s competition for a larger-scale renovation of the building and surrounding area. That competition, in which the Fentress team was the runner-up, was scrapped shortly after a new commission was elected in November.

Three new commissioners and a new mayor beat out incumbents who had backed the larger plan, whichwould have cost $1 billion in total and spanned 52 acres in the heart of South Beach. The old plan called for the city to lease out its land to a private developer who would build a hotel, shops and restaurants on his own dime. The city planned to use the lease payments to help fund the convention center renovation.

Concerns about the project’s scope, price tag and doubts about leasing so much city land led the new commission to kill the old project and start over with a new process. The Beach will rely on a bond, a special taxing district and new hotel tax to fund only a renovation of the convention center.

The commission says that the current process — the third in recent years — will speed up a sorely needed renovation. Hotel and tourism industry leaders say the convention center is a major economic driver that needs to be updated to remain competitive.

So far, the process has stuck to the advertised schedule. If that trend continues, the city should have a design-build firm in place by April 2015 and the renovation should be done in time for the 2017 Art Basel fair in Miami Beach.

“It's incredibly important that we move this along very, very fast,” said Mayor Philip Levine. “There’s a huge industry that wants to come to Miami Beach.”

Industry leaders have also pushed for the addition of a headquarters hotel to serve the convention center. Commissioners have said they eventually want to build a hotel, but will likely hold off on picking a location until a design for the convention center is firmed up.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/04/09/4049144/miami-beach-to-consider-architect.html#storylink=cpy

Jimmy Fallon on the Rise in NY Condo Building

AUTHOR:EMILY HEFFTER
ZILLOW

Source: IMDb

Jimmy Fallon finally has the keys to his new Ford F150 pickup truck after a protracted contest on his late-night show.

Now he also has the keys to a four-bedroom unit in a co-op in Manhattan. The Tonight Show host, whose turn behind the late-show desk has been hailed as a success, is expanding his living space in the historic building overlooking Gramercy Park.

The listing for his new 4-bedroom, top-floor condo announces: “Needs work!” and listing agent Judith B. Thorn of Warburg Realty said Fallon will renovate the space to add it to the duplex he owns just below it.

The space has skylights, a view of the park, and one bathroom. It sold for $1.35 million after being listed for $1.575.

The purchase gives Fallon and his wife and baby girl some space to spread out, but it also means even fewer people get to live next door to Zillow’s “most desirable neighbor” of 2014.