law that requires septic tanks be inspected every five years passed the House Health Care Appropriations

MARCH 8 • 10:25 pm — A bill sponsored by Rep. Marti Coley (R-Marianna) to repeal a 2010 law that requires septic tanks be inspected every five years passed the House Health Care Appropriations Subcommittee today on a 12-3 vote. HB 13 has only one more committee stop before consideration before the full House.

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GENERAL BILL   by Coley and Drake and Ford and Patronis (CO-SPONSORS) Adkins; Ahern; Albritton; Baxley; Bembry; Brandes; Broxson; Corcoran; Crisafulli; Gaetz; Goodson; Hudson; Ingram; Metz; O'Toole; Plakon; Porter; Smith; Steube; Tobia; Van Zant

Onsite Sewage Treatment and Disposal Systems: Revises legislative intent; eliminates provisions directing DOH to create & administer statewide septic tank evaluation program; eliminates procedures & criteria for evaluation program; terminates grant program for repair of onsite sewage treatment disposal systems identified pursuant to evaluation program, to conform; eliminates provisions authorizing DOH to collect evaluation report fee & provisions relating to disposition of fee proceeds & revenue-neutral fee schedule.

Effective Date: upon becoming a law

A measure supported by Florida Realtors to lower property taxes for first-time homesteaders and ensures that property taxes don’t increase when property values decline, cleared the House Community & Military Affairs Subcommittee this morning

MARCH 23 • 12:53 p.m. — A measure supported by Florida Realtors to lower property taxes for first-time homesteaders and ensures that property taxes don’t increase when property values decline, cleared the House Community & Military Affairs Subcommittee this morning. HB 381 by Rep. Chris Dorworth (R-Heathrow) has one more committee stop in the House.


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JOINT RESOLUTION   by Finance & Tax Committee and Community & Military Affairs Subcommittee and Dorworth and Costello and Crisafulli and Bovo (CO-SPONSORS) Davis; Gaetz; Mayfield; Tobia; Van Zant

Property Assessment, Homestead and Specified Nonhomestead Value Decline; Nonhomestead Increase Limitation Reduction; Additional Homestead Exemption; Scheduled Repeal Deletion: Proposes revisions to State Constitution to allow Legislature by general law to prohibit increases in assessed value of homestead & specified nonhomestead property if just value of property decreases, reduce limitation on annual assessment increases applicable to nonhomestead real property, provide additional homestead exemption for owners of homestead property who have not owned homestead property for specified time before purchase of current homestead property, & application & limitations with respect thereto, delete future repeal of provisions limiting annual assessment increases for specified nonhomestead real property, & provide effective dates.

Effective Date: Not Specified

This year’s affordable housing bill,

MARCH 24 • 9:11 a.m. — This year’s affordable housing bill, HB 639 by Rep.  Gary Aubuchon (R-Cape Coral), passed out of its final House committee this morning and is ready to be heard by the full House. This bill removes the $243 million cap on the amount that can go toward housing programs.

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GENERAL BILL   by Aubuchon (CO-SPONSORS) Bernard; Fullwood; Garcia; Gibbons; Jones; Pafford; Sands; Steinberg; Williams, T.

Affordable Housing: Provides housing finance authority with additional purpose for which it may exercise power to borrow; revises provisions relating to local comprehensive plans to authorize inclusion of element for affordable housing for certain seniors; provides for disposition of real property by local government for certain purposes; revises allocation of certain proceeds distributed from excise tax on documents that are paid into State Treasury to credit of State Housing Trust Fund; includes needs of persons with special needs in state housing strategy's periodic review & report; authorizes DCA Secretary to designate senior-level agency employee to serve on board of directors of FHFC; provides for appointment of inspector general of FHFC; requires certain rates of interest to be made available to sponsors of projects for persons with special needs; provides & revises powers of FHFC; limits reservation of funds within each notice of fund availability to persons with special needs tenant group; includes persons with special needs as tenant group for specified purposes of State Apartment Incentive Loan Program; revises & provides criteria to be used by specified review committee for competitive ranking of applications for such program; prohibits funds from State Housing Trust Fund or Local Government Housing Trust Fund that are appropriated for specified programs from being used for certain purposes.


Effective Date: July 1, 2011

10 tips to grow your Twitter following

NEW YORK – April 1, 2011 – To reap the benefits of social networking on Twitter and gain more followers, small businesses should include keywords in their bios and tweets – especially since Google and Bing have added social network content to search results.

They also should share advice and tips, or tweet humorous or thought-provoking messages that encourage subscribers to retweet the updates. Frequent tweeting increases follower count, and many of those tweets can simply be a link to an interesting article or blog, many of which have “Tweet” buttons to promote sharing.

Tweeting about hot topics – using the hashtag symbol before the topic name to make these tweets easier to find –will also draw more followers. Other useful strategies include timing tweets so that the target audience is more likely to seem them, or following other people.

Tweeters should remember to keep their word count shorter than the 140 character maximum so nothing gets cut off, such as a joke’s punch line, when they’re re-tweeted.

Source: Small Business Computing (03/14/11) Martin, James A.

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Drive may be on to kill Fannie, Freddie Mac

WASHINGTON – April 1, 2011 – Senate Republicans introduced legislation Thursday that would quickly phase out government-run housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as GOP lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol intensified their drive to shrink the federal role in the mortgage market.

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, unveiled a bill that within five years would dismantle Fannie and Freddie or cut them loose as completely private entities. In the meantime, it would force them to take steps like charging higher fees and shrinking the size of their mortgage portfolios in hopes of opening up more of the mortgage market to private banks.

On the brink of collapse in September 2008 under the weight of the nation’s housing crisis, Fannie and Freddie were taken over by the government, which has so far spent $150 billion to keep them afloat. The Obama administration and most Democrats agree that the two companies need to be wound down, yet many Republicans would do it faster and leave little or no federal role in the mortgage market, and the GOP has blended the issue into its overall drive to shrink government.

“Never again can we allow the taxpayer to be responsible for poorly managed financial entities who gambled away billions of dollars,” said McCain, who made the near-collapse of the two housing finance companies an issue in his failed 2008 presidential campaign. “Fannie and Freddie are synonymous with mismanagement and waste.”

Fannie and Freddie don’t sell mortgages to consumers. They help supply cash to the mortgage market by buying mortgages from lenders and packaging mortgages into securities that they then sell to investors.

McCain’s bill is identical to one introduced in the House in mid-March by Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas.

House Republicans this week introduced eight smaller bills, each designed to end government support for Fannie and Freddie and help private banks get a larger piece of the mortgage market. With private banks still nervous about investing in housing, Fannie and Freddie, along with other federal agencies, have backed about nine in 10 mortgages in the past year.

The House subcommittee that oversees Fannie and Freddie plans to approve the eight measures next Tuesday. Republicans have decided to push those smaller bills as the Democratic-run Senate has shown little eagerness to consider sweeping legislation overhauling the housing finance system.

The eight measures would take steps like forbidding employees of Fannie and Freddie from being paid more than analogous federal workers, increasing the fees they charge to guarantee loans and ending the requirement that they subsidize lower-cost housing.

Even so, with many Republicans hoping to demonstrate their desire to make big changes in Fannie and Freddie, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., said Thursday that his full committee would consider Hensarling’s bill before it considers the eight smaller ones.

Republicans are hardly in lockstep on the issue, with some worried that eliminating the government role of subsidizing mortgages would jar the already limp housing market – the same view taken by homebuilders, real estate agents and mortgage bankers.

One of those critics, Rep. Gary Miller, R-Calif., said he will soon introduce his own overhaul legislation.
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press, Alan Fram. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

REITs make about-face

NEW YORK – April 1, 2011 – Analysts report that the blockbuster rally in property stocks is beginning to sputter as investors grow increasingly concerned about such global events as the unrest in the Arab world and the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

As of Tuesday’s close, the Dow Jones Equity All REIT Index had posted total returns of 4.6 percent for the year – an about-face from the last couple of years when REIT stocks routinely outpaced the overall stock market.

In the first quarter of 2009, investors began pouring cash into REIT stocks on account of their high dividends. Investors also reasoned that the values of commercial properties would gain as rents and occupancy levels climbed in the recession’s aftermath.

Now, however, more and more REIT investors are moving to the sidelines on concerns that global events could have a negative impact on future REIT profits. Hessam Nadji, managing director of research at Marcus & Millichap, says, “It’s not surprising to see this break in the outpacing of REITs given the long run of past gains.”

Hotel REITs were the biggest laggards in this year’s first quarter, posting returns of negative 1.24 percent. But they were the top performers last year with gains of nearly 20 percent.

Source: “REITs make about-face,” The Wall Street Journal, A.D. Pruitt (03/30/11)

© Copyright 2011 INFORMATION, INC. Bethesda, MD (301) 215-4688

Metrostudy: Housing shortage on the horizon?

WASHINGTON – April 1, 2011 – Mike Castleman, founder and CEO of Metrostudy, which tracks real-time data of the country’s inventory of new homes, says a housing shortage is looming that will soon create a huge surge in demand for new homes. As such, now is the time to buy, he says.

In the 41 cities Metrostudy covers, 78,000 houses are either vacant and for sale, or under construction – that is less than a quarter of the new homes that fell in that category during the housing boom in 2006 and way below the level of a decade ago.

“If we had anything like normal levels of buying, those houses would sell in 2½ months,” says Castleman. “We’d see an incredible shortage. And that’s where we’re heading.”

The historic drop in new construction mixed with the decline in housing prices is laying the foundation for a dramatic recovery in residential real estate, Castleman told CNN. Castleman expects homeowners soon will start returning, which will drive up prices in many markets later this year.

While demand remains low for new construction, he expects that to change. He foresees the recovery following a similar path as previous ones: A severe housing shortage will drive a big increase in demand.

“We’ll get a big surge in demand and the drywall companies will take a long time to ramp up, and it will take years to get new lots approved,” he predicts. “Buyers will show up looking for a house in a subdivision, and all the houses will be sold. The builders will tell them it will take six months to deliver a house.” But they’ll want the house so bad that they’ll “bid the prices up.”

Source: “Real estate: It’s time to buy again,” CNN (March 28, 2011)

© Copyright 2011 INFORMATION, INC. Bethesda, MD (301) 215-4688