House Watch: Hiring your architect and home builder in tandem can save you money

By Katherine Salant

Homeowners embarking on the construction of a custom home or a remodeling project are often inundated with pitches for “smart” technology — from “smart” wiring to “smart” appliances.

But the most important decision these homeowners will make is how to wisely use their money. Making smart decisions will get them the best house for their budget — though not necessarily the biggest home or one with the most trophy features.
Here are some of my smart-money tips:
Start by hiring experience. An experienced architect or home builder won’t waste time or money on projects that are outside of your budget. Experienced home builders also have relationships with reliable subcontractors, which can be an important part of completing a project on budget.
It’s always difficult to nail down the price of something that is being built for the first time. But there are ways to minimize the risk of cost overruns. The method I prefer is hiring an architect and builder at the same time to work together. Under such a “negotiated bid” contract, their respective fees are determined upfront along with the construction budget.
During the initial phase of the project, the homeowner works with the architect to design the house and the builder monitors the work to ensure that it can be done within the homeowner’s budget. Another plus with this arrangement: A builder can often spot simpler and cheaper ways to achieve the architect’s vision.
Many homeowners are convinced that a traditional process in which they hire an architect to design the home and then receive bids from a builder to complete the project will produce the best — or lowest — price. But that’s not necessarily true.
Even the most conscientious architect can make an error or omission in the design documents that form the basis of the builder’s competitive bid price. When an error emerges during the construction process, the builder will issue a change order to correct the mistake at an additional cost. But they’re not obliged to offer to do it at the lowest price. And the change orders can poison the atmosphere on a project when homeowners have a lot of money on the line.
But with a negotiated bid, the builder’s job is to catch errors during the design phase. And they have a big incentive to make sure they do: Their profit margin is on the line.
Some homeowners are also convinced they can save money by using a “design-build” contract, which is often touted as “design that’s buildable and affordable.” Under this arrangement, the builder hires the architect, who answers to the builder, not the homeowner. But if there is a disagreement, the architect will not advocate on the homeowner’s behalf.
Generally under these arrangements, architects also have less input on the design and far less contact with the homeowner. The architect may produce a schematic design, for example, but the builder will fill in the details.
Homeowners should also consider the cost per square foot of the home they want. It can be a useful tool at the beginning of the project to determine what is possible under different budget constraints.
If you are building a custom home, divide your budget by the size of the home you plan to build. On a $375,000 budget, for example, a homeowner can build a 2,500-square-foot home for $150 per square foot. Using that cost figure, an experienced architect or home builder can estimate what finishes and features would be affordable.
You may quickly realize that you will have to build a smaller house to get the features you want or accept more modest finishes.
But remember, the cost per square foot is averaged over the entire house. The cost of a specific square foot depends on what’s in it. A square foot in your kitchen is more expensive than a corner of your living room that’s merely empty space.
And getting a lot of luxury features at a low cost per square foot is not the hallmark of a good deal. In fact, it can be just the opposite — a sure indication that a builder is using inferior materials or cheap subcontractors. It may also be a sign that the builder, desperate for the work, cut costs to the bone and is at risk of going belly up halfway through the project.
It’s also important to factor in the lifetime costs of maintaining a home, not just the upfront cost of building it.
This distinction becomes clear when selecting building materials. For example, you can save a bundle on cheap windows. But when you factor in the cost of replacing the windows once or twice over the 20 to 30 years of your occupancy, they become the most expensive option. Skimp on insulation and you will saddle yourself with higher utility bills from Day One. Purchase cheaper but less efficient heating and cooling equipment and you’ll have to replace the equipment long before you move out.

Katherine Salant has an architecture degree from Harvard. A native Washingtonian, she grew up in Fairfax County and now lives in Michigan. If you have questions or would like to suggest topics for coverage, contact her by e-mail or at katherinesalant.com.

Why installing solar power looks increasingly attractive for homeowners

 By Miles Brignall

Falling costs plus generous feed-in tariffs mean return is higher than ever – but payback will fall in April

 Chance to shine ... the return for installing solar panels is higher than ever. Photograph: Realimage/Alamy

Are you a homeowner with some spare cash? A 20%-25% collapse in the price of rooftop solar power units in recent months has turned the government's feed-in tariff scheme into one of the most lucrative financial propositions for households with the right sort of property.
The scheme was introduced in April 2010, when the Labour government introduced generous feed-in tariffs to encourage households to install solar photovoltaic systems. Back then, anyone spending, say, £13,000 up front to fit a 2.5kWp system to their home was paid 41.3p per kilowatt hour (kWh) generated – enough to earn them a typical annual income of £900 a year in payments, on top of a £140-a-year saving in reduced electricity bills.
It was described as a good investment because payments for each unit of electricity generated were guaranteed for 25 years, paid tax-free, and set to rise each year in line with inflation.
If you were planning to stay in your home and had a suitable roof (unshaded, at a pitch of about 40 degrees, and facing between south-east and south-west), the main question was how big a system to install – assuming you could raise the installation costs. The bigger the system, the greater the financial return.
However, you shouldn't worry if you put off doing anything because it has emerged this week that waiting has worked in your favour.
Solar experts say that as a result of the installation costs coming down, the investment value of the scheme has become even better. These lower installation costs, an inflation-linked increase to the feed-in tariff payments and the prospect of rising electricity prices all mean the guaranteed returns are now above 10% a year, depending on how you calculate it. And if you install before next April – when new payment tariffs look set to come into force – you are guaranteed the tariffs for the next 25 years at the old rate.
Gabriel Wondrausch, who set up Exeter-based PV installer Sun Gift Solar, says the cost of systems has come down dramatically in 18 months. "We've been supplying PV systems for almost five years now and the prices have been on an almost continuous downward path," he says. "A year ago we were selling a large 4kWp system for around £16,000. Today that same one is costing less than £13,000." (Two years ago the cost would have been closer to £20,000.)
Wondrausch says the volume of sales has been a major factor in UK prices coming down, as has the reduction of feed-in tariffs in Germany, Europe's biggest PV market. The panel manufacturers, it seems, price their panels according to the returns consumers can expect, and have been lowering prices as a result.
Solarcentury, one of the UK's biggest solar companies, confirms the view that prices are falling. And even British Gas has reduced the price of its PV systems. A spokesman says business efficiencies and efficiencies in the supply chain mean costs have fallen by about 20% since June last year. "A typical 2.5kWp system cost around £13,383 last year," he says. "Today it would cost around £10,450. We also need to consider that panel efficiency has increased – panels are 10% more efficient than they were."
Wondrausch points out that the generous tariffs won't be around for ever. In September the government is expected to unveil a new – significantly less generous – scheme for those installing PV systems after April 2012, suggesting that if you want to do it, now is the time to act.
Originally, it was thought the payments for new installations would be cut by 9% from their current level of 43.3p per kWh generated.
Solarcentury says the industry is currently awaiting publication of the government's proposals for tariff cuts. "There is no doubt that the proposed cut for new installations from April 2012 will be higher than the planned 9%," it predicts.
Meanwhile, if you are thinking of installing a system be prepared to spend some time researching the company you are using to carry out the work.
Cathy Debenham, who runs website YouGen.co.uk, says there is growing evidence of dubious sales tactics in the solar PV market. She recently came across one company that claimed you could make money by installing a panel on a north-facing roof, which is nonsense. The consumer group Which? warned that some claims made by firms selling solar PV could not be substantiated. Its advice is that consumers should be wary of any company that offers a quote without visiting the home to carry out a proper survey, or one that makes grandiose claims about the income you will receive.
Debenham's site is a good starting point if you're looking for information, or for a good installer who comes with recommendations from other users. The Energy Saving Trust site has lots of information too.
One thing to ask your chosen installer is which panels they plan to use. Wondrausch, who was one of the first to install PV panels in the UK five years ago, says the panels vary significantly in the electricity they produce – by as much as 12.5%.

Work With the Dead: Strange Ways to Make Money

By Jennifer Derrick
Working with the dead typically appeals to two types of people.
Those who don’t like a lot of personal interaction in their work (the dead aren’t going to complain or engage in office politics, after all) and those who are compassionate and derive satisfaction from helping others through their grief. Either way, working in the funeral industry isn’t as depressing or creepy as you might think. It can be quiet, peaceful work and you can feel good that you sent others into the afterlife with dignity and respect. If you want to work with the dead, here are some job options for you. Grave digging. You no longer need to labor for hours with a shovel. Most digging these days is done with a backhoe. You may not need to grave dig full time, either. Some cemeteries don’t have enough volume to keep a grave digger on staff full time. If you own a backhoe for another business like landscaping or construction, you may be able to work on an “on call” basis for a few cemeteries and help them out when needed. It can be a nice little sideline business for you.
Embalmer: You will be the one who prepares the body for burial by replacing bodily fluids with the preservation chemicals.
Cemetery landscaper: Mowing the grass, pulling weeds, and tossing out old flowers are all the job of the landscaper or caretaker. It’s quiet, peaceful, outdoor work that you may be able to combine with an existing landscaping business.
Funeral director: This job may involve everything from casket sales to arranging/conducting the service to comforting the family and friends. The director also usually retrieves the body from the place of death or the morgue and brings it to the funeral home for preparation for burial.
Hair and makeup artist: If you have a talent for hair and makeup, you can use that skill to prepare the dead for viewing. Beyond hair and makeup you may need some special skills in reconstruction, depending on the cause of death.
Casket/urn design and construction: There is a market for custom made caskets and urns. If you have strong woodworking skills, you can make a good income because custom caskets usually sell for more than their mass produced counterparts. You can design traditional caskets or biodegradable caskets for green burials. If metalworking or pottery is more your thing, you can design urns for cremated ashes.
Headstone artist: There are some cemeteries that still allow the traditional headstone or sculpture. If you are a stone cutter or sculptor, you can make money designing, inscribing, and personalizing grave markers.
Crematorium owner: If traditional burial isn’t for you, you might want to open a crematorium. Restrictions and requirements vary by state and it is a closely regulated industry so you will need special permits and inspections. As an operator of a crematorium, you may also be called upon to comfort the grieving family to conduct brief services prior to cremation.
Hearse or limo driver: If you like to drive, you can work for a funeral home as a hearse or limo driver. If you’re driving the hearse, you’ll drive the body from the place of death to the funeral home and then on the cemetery. If you drive the limo, you’ll drive the family members from the funeral home to the cemetery and then back to their home or hotel. This may not be a full time job. If you own an existing limo business, you can add funeral homes to your client list.
Janitor at a funeral home.: Funeral homes need to be cleaned just like any other business, especially after a service. This can be a great way to get an introduction to the funeral business and see if it’s something you want to be a part of.
Some of the occupations above require some formal education. Embalmers, for example, usually have degrees in mortuary science and must be state-licensed. Funeral directors usually have degrees in mortuary science or funeral service and they usually serve an apprenticeship before getting a full time job. Makeup artists usually have some formal cosmetology training, although it may not be required; talent alone might get you the job. Other jobs such as janitorial work or grave digging may require no formal education.
There are also lots of emerging jobs in the funeral industry that are associated with the green burial movement. Some people are designing monuments for ashes that are then dumped into the sea to act as habitats for sea life. There are jobs designing biodegradable caskets. It’s an open and emerging field and there may be more jobs in the future that have not been identified yet.
Working with the dead isn’t scary or creepy. Unless you’re an embalmer or makeup artist, or you run a crematorium or funeral home, you’re not likely to have much contact, if any, with the bodies. You’ll just be tending to other aspects of the death ritual. If you want quiet work without a lot of office politics or gossip, this may be the industry for you.

Illinois lacks money to help the poor keep cool

Help people stay cool or help them stay warm? Illinois officials decided on the latter. Looking at the money it expected to have to help Illinois' poor stay cool this summer and warm in the winter that follows, the cash-poor state government decided back in the spring that people would have to go it alone in the hotter months. State officials said they had no choice — they expect a drastic decrease in federal funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. But they don't have the money to make up for it and don't want to run short during a long, cold Illinois winter when the demand for help with bills is far greater.
That decision has left potentially tens of thousands of the state's poor without the extra money they need to keep their power on just as the worst heat wave in years hits the region. People such as Cynthia Littlefield.
The 52-year-old woman lives with her husband and 11- and 3-year-old daughters in Paxton, about 35 miles north of Champaign. She lost her job in late 2009, and the family last year counted on the $300 the LIHEAP provided over the summer to help pay its electric bill.
Now they owe $198 she says they can't afford.
"This is going to be a new thing, and it's very scary, especially with the little ones, you know?" Littlefield said Wednesday.
Almost 70,000 households received help from the state with electric bills they couldn't afford last summer, drawing $10.4 million from the fund, according to the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. The much larger winter portion of the program used $217.4 million to help 421,000 households with their heating bills.
The department is still waiting for a federal budget to be passed to find out how much money it will get, but even in the best case scenario it still expects a 60 percent cut. And Illinois' multibillion-dollar budget deficit means the state has nothing to spare.
"With the winter months in Illinois, it's just critical that we provide some type of assistance to help heat programs across Illinois, and that's been the top priority," DCEO spokeswoman Marcelyn Love said.
The department, she said, has no plans to change course, even with the heat wave.
Many Illinois residents who have relied on LIHEAP funds in past summers are surprised to learn that they aren't available this year.
"We just had clients here today asking about it, thinking we were still doing the program," Darlene Kloeppel, who is social services director at the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission, said Tuesday. The commission distributes LIHEAP money in the county.
While she doesn't have many alternatives to recommend to them, in some cases she might try to refer them to organizations that offer other types of help that might free up money to help cover utility bills.
"For example, if they're able to get free food they might be able to pay their utility bills," she said.
Organizations like AARP would like to see Illinois' utilities, particularly the two largest, Ameren and Commonwealth Edison, help bridge that gap. Though it's still waiting for Gov. Pat Quinn's approval, the General Assembly in May passed legislation allowing them to raise their rates to help pay for infrastructure improvements, AARP Associate State Director Scott Musser said.
"Now when it comes time for people to start paying their summer energy bills, they're not helping with that," Musser said.
Ameren has its own fund to help some people who don't qualify for LIHEAP money, but it's very limited, spokesman Leigh Morris said. The utility, which has 1.2 million customers in the state, has no plans to offer other money but will in some cases work out payment plans, he said.
Commonwealth Edison did not return calls from The Associated Press.
Ameren doesn't turn off power when temperatures are in the mid 90s or above, or when heat advisories are in effect, as they are now for much of the state, he said. But if your power was turned off two weeks ago, the utility isn't going to turn it back on because of excessive heat.
"No, we're not going to reconnect," he said.
AARP, Musser said, is also eager to see implementation of legislation signed into law this year that would take some LIHEAP money and put it into a program that would help people pay a little on their bills every month rather than wait until they're in trouble. AARP thinks that would help avoid situations where people are so far behind that power is cut off. Turning it back on is typically very expensive, Musser said.
"A lot of what we see LIHEAP go into now is emergency reconnections; that would drain it," he said.
In Chicago, Mary Ware says she and her son and daughter could certainly use the help with the $650 they owe Commonwealth Edison.
She says the utility has given her a 30-day reprieve but she isn't sure how they'll pay the bill after that. With diabetes and high blood pressure, the possibility of no power and no way to run the fan she says barely helps her to keep cool makes her worry. "It's very hot," Ware said. "It's miserable."

Get your own back on the currency cowboys

Fluctuations in exchange rates are notoriously hard to predict and can leave you out of pocket. Kate Hughes finds out how the experts cope

It's the holiday season, so it's a certainty that someone, somewhere, is being fleeced on their foreign currency right now. But if you've ever thrown a few euros into the back of a drawer only to find they're worth more in sterling the next time you fish them out, it's tempting to think of taking things a stage further and using currency fluctuations to make money. There are plenty of opportunities to invest in and potentially gain from currency fluctuations. But for the unwary, doing so is likely to be a recipe for losing money.

Why? Because there are extreme risks involved in currency trading. For instance, with the so-called debt contagion currently hitting the eurozone, there are fears of a euro crash. While that would be very bad news for the economies concerned, those who move their cash cleverly could avoid being hit by a potential devaluing of the currency. But currency speculation is a huge gamble which, if you pick the wrong choice, could see you badly out of pocket. On the other hand, there are strategies you can follow for your holiday money, or if you plan to buy a home abroad.

For instance, if you know you are going to need a fistful of foreign money in a few months' time, it could pay you to buy it ahead of time if conditions are right. So, for instance, if you could buy euros at 1.50 to the pound, you'd get 1,500 euros for £1,000. If the euro then strengthened to parity with the pound – so that you'd only get a euro for a pound – your 1,500 euros would actually be worth £1,500. So you'd have gained a profit of 50 per cent just by buying your currency early.

The problem, of course, is that no one can predict the future, and the chances of lucking into such a beneficial deal which goes in your favour are extremely slim. Last week, for instance, when Italy and Spain were infected with debt worries, the euro lost 4 per cent of its value against the dollar and was the worst-performing currency. The Italy and Spain debt news led to foreign exchange traders fleeing from the single currency to put their cash in safer homes. But few were tempted to switch into sterling.

"The pound has been helped by the fact that it is not the euro, but apart from that it has little else going for it," said Michael Derks, chief strategist at the foreign exchange dealership FX Pro. In other words, if you were holding only sterling, you wouldn't have noticed much of an improvement against the euro.

In fact, as far as the currency market is concerned, there are currently three big safe-haven currencies: the Japanese yen, the Swiss franc and the US dollar. With specialist dealers you can trade almost any currency against another, so, depending on your view of global markets and currency movements, you could think about switching your cash from sterling to the yen or the US dollar to reduce the dangers of losing out through currency fluctuations.

Alternatively, you could take a contrary approach and switch cash into the euro to take advantage of the unlikely scenario of a sudden recovery in the currency. How unlikely is that? Not all the experts are calling a crash, and the fact that the euro remains relatively strong suggests that the foreign exchange market isn't really that worried about it.

Willem Sels, HSBC Private Bank's UK head of investment strategy, thinks the single currency has a positive future. "In our view, the euro will survive, and longer-term the European economy will emerge from the current crises in much better shape as debt loads are reduced and structural economic reforms are made that should enable the economy to return to decent levels of growth."

Who's right? Only time will tell, which is part of the problem of trying to beat the currency market. There really are no definites, and the market can swing wildly on sentiment, or on what traders predict or worry might happen. If you're not a professional trader, therefore, it's almost impossible to keep ahead or even up with the game, which means it's very easy to get your fingers burnt.

However, taking a long-term view can be a good option if you're planning a major purchase abroad – such as a holiday home. If you can find a currency deal at a rate that you're happy with, it could well be worth doing the deal. For instance, with the sterling-euro rate hovering around the 1.14 mark recently, it could be tempting to buy if the price reached €1.20 to the pound.

There would remain the risk that the euro would weaken further – to maybe 1.30 by the time you need the currency – but if you've got the currency you need at a rate that pleased you, then that can be enough to relax and ignore subsequent ups and downs. In short, acting when the currency price reaches a level which improves the affordability of your overseas asset can make good sense.

Cash in on currency

The simplest way to play the currency game is to buy hard currency through a specialist broker such as HiFX or Moneycorp for larger amounts – at least £5,000 – and keep it in a higher interest account that accepts that currency. This is a popular choice among overseas property owners or expats as the company is dealing in large sums and can offer extremely competitive rates – often within 1 per cent of the rate banks deal with each other at – known as the interbank rate. As with any type of investment, though, there are lower and higher risk currencies among the 150 or so on offer. If you're going it alone like this you'll need to be pretty clued up on the macroeconomic factors affecting both the currency you're investing in and the pound, particularly as foreign exchange brokers don't have to be regulated by the FSA (although the reputable ones are).

If you fancy taking a punt on foreign exchange, the easiest way to access currency markets is through a fund. There is quite a range to choose from and buying into one will mean benefiting from the research and experience of fund managers, rather than having to do all the work yourself. "It really depends on whether you need a specific currency or exposure to movements in exchange rates, how much direct exposure to a currency you want and for how long," says Paul Dimambro, head of currency service at the financial adviser Hargreaves Lansdown. Several fund managers offer private investors currency funds, such as Investec, Fidelity, and Schroders, with recent new fund launches including riskier, but potentially more rewarding, emerging market currencies than the traditional euro, dollar, pound and yen.

"In general, the Swiss franc and Japanese yen tend to do better in uncertain times and high-yielding currencies such as the Australian dollar push on when commodities are up," Dimambro explains. "For short term, investing in a derivative product could be an option, but longer term the charges add up and it would be rash to try to work to short-term forecasts as there are just too many factors which could affect movements in one way or another." He suggests an ETF for medium to longer-term investing – an exchange traded fund with low annual management charges that tracks an entire currency via an index, such as the S&P 500. However ETFs bring with them their own risks, and you really should take expert investment advice and understand the risks to your cash before going anywhere near them.

Place your bets

Then there's the rock'n'roll option: spread betting, where you don't actually own any currency, but place a bet on it moving up or down. The pay-off depends on how accurate you are. It is a popular choice with UK investors as there's no capital gains tax to pay on winnings, nor is there any stamp duty to pay as you don't actually own the currency.

"Spread betting allows you to trade on market movements to take advantage of both rising and falling prices, 24 hours a day," says Mike McCudden, head of derivatives at Interactive Investor, which offers spread betting accounts.

"For example, you might have just bought some euros for an upcoming holiday, and you are worried because you think the value of the money you have bought is going to go down before you go. With a Forex account you can place a bet – a "short trade" – on the euro going down in value against the pound. If it does, you have protected your exposure to the fluctuations in the currency markets and made some money along the way.

"As well as having the potential to profit from falling as well as rising prices, you also pay no commission on trading currencies in this way."

But this is gambling territory. Spread betting is leveraged, which means your initial deposit or bet is small compared with the portion of the currency market you tap into. That means you could become exposed to losses in just a few minutes that are far larger than the original amount you put down. To cash in on this one you'll need to know a lot about the market, monitor your account very closely and use a stop-loss order to automatically close the spread if it starts to fall off a cliff.

Cash or card for holiday currency?

Anyone who turns up at the airport before thinking about their holiday spending is likely to get stung by commission, fees, painful exchange rates, or all three, at the departures lounge Bureau de Change. But pre-ordering your cash for collection can help to secure a better rate, and is often available until around four hours before you need the money. If you can make it to the high street before you check in, Marks & Spencer, the Post Office and Thomas Cook usually offer the best exchange rates, although online providers such as Travelex may beat them to it.

Watch out for seeming "best buy" rates that carry a transaction fee (anything from £3 to £8 or £9), check for delivery charges, and bear in mind that many currency companies won't be FSA-authorised.

Using credit or a Visa debit card to make your purchase should give you protection against your provider going bust. But if you charge cash to a credit card, either at home in sterling or overseas in the local currency, you'll pay up to 32 per cent in interest. But that doesn't mean relying on your usual debit or credit cards is the best solution either. Withdrawal fees can be 2.75 per cent per transaction. And that's before you take into account any fees levied by the ATM providers themselves, or the typical 3 per cent load cost to the exchange rates that many cards will charge you.

You'll often be better off with a credit card that won't add charges to the exchange rate such as Santander's Zero card, Halifax's Clarity card, the Post Office credit card or Saga's Platinum card for the over 50s. Just clear the debt as soon as you're back.

If asked whether you want to pay in the local currency or sterling, never pick sterling. This would mean the merchant doing the conversion themselves, often at a worse rate than even the banks inflict.

Prepaid currency cards, such as FairFX or CaxtonFX, offer protection comparable with a credit card, you just have to load them with cash first. Available in sterling, dollars and euros, the better ones are usually available free online with competitive exchange rates that vary daily, no delivery costs, monthly or transaction fees. 

Source http://www.independent.co.uk/

Residents of foreclosed mobile home park fight to control their future

By JEFF DANNA AND ROBERT MCCOPPIN

GLENVIEW, Ill. - After his wife died, retired plumber Leonard Selinsky tried to simplify his life by moving into Sunset Village, a mobile home park in Glenview with tidy homes and friendly neighbors.
His new home is no trailer - it's a two-story Cape Cod with three bedrooms and an attic.
"I love my house," he said. "This is ideal for me."
But in recent years, Selinsky and other residents say, the park's streets have been crumbling, water service has cut out for days at a time, and they can't drink the water because it's contaminated. Now, the situation has worsened: Sunset Village is in foreclosure, and residents fear it could be sold and demolished, leaving them with homes they can't afford to move.
Opened in 1951, Sunset Village is a rare enclave of affordable homes in the affluent northwest suburbs. Homes in the park sell for $60,000 or less, while the Illinois Association of Realtors reports the median single-family home in Glenview costs $441,000.
Should the mobile home park close, its population of about 1,200 mostly low- to middle-income white retirees, Hispanic families and people with disabilities would likely have to find new homes farther from their schools and jobs.
"If this community is lost, I think they're absolutely priced out of Glenview," said Kate Walz, director of housing justice at the Chicago-based Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, legal counsel for the Sunset Village residents. The situation at Sunset Village mirrors that of some other mobile home parks also operated by Capital First Realty Inc. of Chicago. At least half a dozen properties - including Sterling Estates in Justice and Tri-Star Estates in Bourbonnais - have filed for bankruptcy, according to court records.
In addition, the mobile home magnate and chief executive of Capital First, Richard Klarchek, has filed for personal bankruptcy. He once owned a lodge-like mansion on Lake Geneva, gave $10 million for a new library at Loyola University Chicago, and made $24 million in income as recently as 2009. He declined comment for this story, but said in court documents that he's in debt $50 million to $100 million.
Sunset Village Ltd. Partnership, of which the Klarchek Family Trust owns 99 percent, owes $29 million on Sunset Village and a retail lot next door, according to the foreclosure lawsuit filed last year by the lender, Jefferson-Pilot Investments Inc. A federal judge in Chicago dismissed Sunset Village's bankruptcy plan in May after Jefferson-Pilot argued the site was appraised at only $15 million and was "rapidly depreciating" in value.
In response, residents say, they are moving ahead with plans to take control of their future.
Initially, some residents set their sights on buying the park. After finding they couldn't get the financing, however, the Sunset Village Residents Association is hoping to partner with a nonprofit housing group to obtain financing, primarily government grants, to buy the property.
Nonprofits often work with low-income residents on buying houses or multi-family homes, but don't generally have experience with mobile home parks, which is a hurdle, according to Brendan Saunders, director of advocacy and organizing for the Interfaith Housing Center of the Northern Suburbs, who is working with the residents.
Once derided as trailer parks, mobile homes are now commonly called "manufactured homes." Most stay on one site for good.
Moving such a structure can cost $10,000 or more, so most residents can't afford to leave, according to Terry Nelson, president of the Mobile Home Owners Association of Illinois. Unlike real estate, which is expected to appreciate in value, manufactured homes are considered comparable to motor vehicles and often lose value, Nelson said.
Homeowners at Sunset Village have bought new homes for up to $118,000, but can't sell them for half that. They don't pay property taxes, but say they do pay about $950 a month in rent for the ground beneath their homes.
Anita Noel, secretary of the residents association, said years of neglect at the park have made it impossible for those who live there to sell their homes and move. The lack of maintenance has also prompted lawsuits from both the village and the state in recent years.
Noel says most residents want to stay if improvements can be made.
"We love our homes. We love our neighbors," she said. "This could really be a great place. There are just so many issues that affect the value of our homes and the quality of life."
The biggest frustration is over water service. The pipes, which date from the park's opening, break down repeatedly, forcing temporary water shutoffs and boil orders, village officials said.
And for the past several years, the fire hydrants typically haven't had enough pressure to fight fires, Glenview Fire Chief Wayne Globerger said. Firefighters have had to break down a fence to access hydrants at a condo complex next door.
In 2008, Glenview sued Sunset Village to improve its water and road system. The next year, Sunset Village agreed to spend $3.5 million on upgrades. But Sunset Village went into bankruptcy in 2010, and little of the work has been done, Glenview Director of Development Mary Bak said.
Sunset Village's well water contains radium, a naturally occurring, radioactive element that can cause cancer.
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency cited the facility in 2009 for having radium levels that make the water hazardous to drink, IEPA spokeswoman Maggie Carson said, though not for washing or bathing. Many residents drink bottled water.
The facility has blended water from its wells to lower radium levels, Carson said, but the problem requires a permanent solution.
The Illinois Attorney General's office has taken Sunset Village to court to address the issue. One option would be to connect to water from Glenview, which the village estimates would cost the park owner more than $1.3 million.
Representatives of Capital First would not agree to an interview, but said in an email that the company has invested $8 million in Sunset Village since 2001, including work to dilute the radium. Capital First also said that further steps to bring radium levels into compliance are "under review."
As for the future of the site, Capital First wrote that its officials "are working on a number of financial strategies and will advise our residents at the appropriate time.
"As it is the highest and best use of the land, it is our belief and desire that Sunset shall continue as a top tier manufactured home community," the email said.
During foreclosure proceedings, court-appointed receiver Steven Spinell collects rents and can use the money for maintenance. But he said infrastructure improvements generally cannot be made without a court order.

The cost of such repairs concerns some residents who oppose the association's efforts to take over.
Betty Godemann has lived at Sunset Village for 25 years. She says the residents association is only causing more problems.
The residents "can't afford it," said Godemann, 63. "If we, as people, have to fix these streets, how much is that going to cost?"
She worried that repairs would have to be funded by extra assessments, though association secretary Noel said she believes rents are sufficient to cover any work.
Attracting more residents could help. Sunset Village can accommodate about 400 households, but only about 240 are there today after a decade in which residents said rents rose as much as $50 a year.
If a court determines Sunset Village cannot pay its debt, the property will be sold at a cash-only auction in about six months, said Tony Woller, an Oregon attorney who has advised the community. Residents are trying to partner with a buyer to reach a sale agreement with Klarchek and the lender before then. Woller expects a price of $21 million to $22 million.
Although he said Capital First and its lenders indicated that no serious offers have been made for the property, residents are concerned that someone else could make a play for it.
Sunset Village's situation reflects broader issues in the industry.
Ed Zeman, president of Zeman Homes Inc. of Chicago, which owns about 25 manufactured-home communities in Illinois, said he didn't know the particulars of Sunset Village or Klarchek's situations, but said many operators got into trouble by borrowing too much money during the real estate boom of the mid-2000s.
To address residents' problems more generally, state lawmakers this year voted to establish a trust fund for owners of manufactured home in parks that are sold or shut down. The bill is waiting to be signed into law by Gov. Pat Quinn, who supports it, according to the chief sponsor, state Sen. Michael Noland of Elgin.
Funding is yet to be negotiated, but Noland envisions charging residents $1 or $2 per home per month, perhaps matching that with funding from each landlord who closes a facility. Illinois licenses 791 manufactured home parks, not counting those in municipalities and in Cook County, and counts more than 200,000 such homes statewide.
Unfortunately, the relocation fund would take time to build up and probably be too late for Sunset Village, Noland said.
"I don't think this will come in time for them," Noland said, "but this will certainly assist with similar situations moving forward."

NHS managers told to sell-off land to home developers to pay for frontline services

By Daily Mail Reporter
 NHS managers are being told to find land they can sell off to raise money for frontline services.
Deputy NHS chief executive David Flory has asked trusts to earmark surplus land that could be used to build affordable homes.
A spokesman said 'financial accounting procedures' guarantee trusts reinvest the money in patient care.

According to the department, almost eight per cent of NHS space is under-used, which could be worth £2.5 billion over the next five years, the equivalent of 50,000 nurses.
Health minister Simon Burns said: 'If we want to modernise the NHS and make it more efficient, then we need to be proactive and identify land that is no longer used or needed.
'Any money raised from surplus land will be used to benefit patients.
'We are increasing investment in the NHS by £12.5 billion, but faced with an ageing population and rising costs of treatments, the NHS needs to be smarter with its resources.'
The announcement comes after the Government said in June it wanted to release enough public land to build up to 100,000 new homes by 2015.
The NHS is one of the largest owners of public-sector land.
Dr Peter Carter, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said: 'We fully support all attempts to make the NHS more efficient and this is exactly the sort of initiative which the Department of Health should be undertaking to meet the £20 billion efficiency target without affecting patient care and services.
'Unfortunately, some local trusts are taking a short-term approach, slashing jobs and services at an alarming rate.
'We have already identified 40,000 NHS posts that are earmarked to be lost across the UK and a study of 21 trusts found that more than half of job losses were frontline clinical posts.
'Nurses and patients want to see hard evidence that these efficiency savings are being reinvested back into frontline services.
'There is currently very little evidence to show this is actually happening.'

New Westminster's Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation loses millions on lottery

By Brent Richter, The Record

 Lottery Loss: Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation president Adrienne Bakker says the charity lost $3 million on the B.C. Vacation Home Lottery after only about 44,000 tickets sold. The foundation will have to dip into its financial reserves to cover the costs.

The Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation's B.C. Vacation Home Lottery has lost the charity millions of dollars after not enough tickets were bought to cover costs.
"We fulfilled all our obligations for the lottery. We've paid out all our prizes and paid all our bills related to advertising and marketing that we've done," said foundation president Adrienne Bakker. "That's all taken care of, but in the end, there's $3 million that we've had to borrow from our reserves."
The foundation had hoped to sell 120,000 tickets at $100 a piece for a chance to win $3.2 million in prizes including vacation homes in Kelowna, Whistler and Parksville, but only about 44,000 of the tickets sold.
Bakker said ticket sales early in the spring were slower than hoped for, but the sizable loss comes as a total shock because the foundation had put a year of research into a possible lottery. Surveys, market research and focus groups all seemed to suggest the lottery would be a hit.
"We had tested this thing every which way but Sunday before we even decided to go forward with it and we were getting such high scores on the surveys that had been done by the market research firm, it looked like there was no way it wasn't going to make money, so it is a huge shock to everybody," she said. "We certainly wouldn't have gone into it if we didn't think we were going to make money."
Bakker said there are a number of possible reasons so few people wanted to buy tickets to the lottery, including competition with other better-established charitable lotteries that did turn profits, but ultimately, she said, people didn't respond to the idea of a vacation home prize.
"To put it simply, we had a product we thought the public would support, and the public didn't support it to the level we anticipated," she said.
Bakker said she will "never say never," but the foundation board won't be looking at doing another lottery anytime soon.
To recoup losses, the foundation will have dip into reserves and sell off some of its investment portfolio. None of the funds used for the shortfall will be coming from donors who gave money for specific projects, but other projects and equipment on the hospital's wish list may have to wait as a result, Bakker said.
The foundation's total revenue from donations and earned income for the 2010-11 fiscal year was $3.6 million.
Bakker said she hopes the lottery loss will help highlight RCH's need for better funding from the provincial government. The hospital takes the some of most serious trauma, cardiac, neuroscience and neo-natal patients in B.C. but overcrowding at has been endemic in the last 10 years, Bakker said. In March, Fraser Health and the province drew criticism when the dining area of the hospital's Tim Hortons was used to treat patients when the emergency room was overflowing.
"I'm hoping the province will see this and say, 'Here's a foundation doing whatever it can to raise money for this hospital, which is long overdue for an expansion.' We need them to come to the table and look at the significant investment that the hospital needs to meet its mandate as a trauma centre," she said. "We've got 65,000 people in our emergency room every year - an emergency room that was built for 40,000."
Bakker said some major donors have already contacted the foundation to offer support and pledged to continue their generosity.
"We've had some tweets and some messages on website as well, saying 'Royal Columbian needs our help, what can we do to raise some money?' So that's a wonderful shot in the arm to know people are feeling that way," she said.

Mobile police nab 2 on counterfeiting charges, display funny money

By Brendan Kirby, Press-Register 

MOBILE, Alabama – Police today said they have arrested 2 women suspected of making hundreds of dollars’ worth of counterfeit currency and are pursuing other suspects.
Police declined to reveal the suspects’ names but displayed $752 in counterfeit money they seized from the home of one of the women, along with an HP printer that investigators say produced the bills.
“It appears simple, but it’s significant,” said Officer Chris Levy, a spokesman for the Mobile Police Department.
Levy said police made the first arrest on Monday after developing a suspect who they believe spent counterfeit money at a Quality Inn motel.
At a news conference at the Mobile office of the U.S. Secret Service, investigators showed off the small-denomination bills, which ranged in quality from bills that were difficult to distinguish from the genuine article to obvious fakes in the middle of white sheets of paper.
“Those all look like she was practicing,” said Sgt. Paul Soulier, the supervisor of the Police Department’s financial crimes detail.
Soulier said police noticed a dramatic increase in counterfeit bills in the last month. He said investigators have traced $1,600 in phony money that has been spent at area businesses, ranging from fast food restaurants to convenience stores.
Soulier said the suspect made the genuine-looking money from the relatively inexpensive, standard copier.
“And, there’s nothing special about the paper that was used,” he said.
A close comparison of the fakes and real money reveals telltale signs showing the funny money to be counterfeit. The fake bills lack the security fibers of real money, holographic images on some denominations and color changes.
Levy said police believe some 25 counterfeiting cases can be traced back to the counterfeiters. He said authorities continue to investigate and believe other crimes – including a robbery – may be tied to the counterfeiting operation.
He said it appears that the counterfeiters make money for their personal use. He said that fake $1 bills, a denomination that is rarely counterfeited because the cost of doing so exceeds the value, suggests that the counterfeiters may even have been planning to spend bogus bills on school lunches.
The arrests are the result of a joint investigation by the police, state probation officers and the Secret Service. Soulier said federal authorities plan to prosecute the cases.
He also said that the person who lived in the home that police raided was on probation for an offense she committed while she was a youthful offender.

Double Your Money -- If You Dare -- on Internet IPOs

By Douglas McIntyre
Zillow's (Z) stock more than tripled after its IPO Wednesday, then fell back to settle up a mere 79% at the close. Initial public offerings have become a way to make huge profits in the market, if investors have the stomach for extreme risk -- and the access to buy in.

Zillow tracks home values across the country, offers the data online, and sells ads on its site to make money. It had only $30.4 million in revenue last year and lost $6.7 million. Those numbers are modest, but not modest enough to keep the firm from having a market cap now of almost $950 million, a breathtaking multiple of sales.

The media has been quick to point out that the new Internet IPOs have values that may be unsustainable, but the path to making money in the stock market often has nothing to do with rational assessments of the future of a firm's shares -- or its estimated revenue. People who buy such shares often sell them the next day, or the next week. A case in point is LinkedIn (LNKD), the online community for professional networking. Any investor with the money could have bought shares at $70 on June 24 and sold them for almost $110 on July 15. It has trended down a bit since then, but even Thursday, it was still trading close to $100. During most of the run up, Wall Street analysts said the shares were too expensive. That may be true, but the market ignored the cautions.Pandora Media (P), the Internet radio operator, also gave investors a chance to make a great deal of money in a short time. Shares traded for $14 on June 23. The stock traded for over $21 on July 1. But investors who bought those shares at their IPO price of $20 haven't had many days when they could have sold them at a profit. After the initial day's flurry of excitement, shares dropped below the offering price, and haven't made a sustained advance past it since.

There are more significant Internet IPOs due in the next few weeks. One is for group buying coupon firm Groupon, which some experts have valued as high as $10 billion. The company had revenue of $645 million in the first quarter. It also lost $103 million. Game company Zynga will also probably go public. It made only $11 million on revenue of $235 million in the first quarter of 2011. But some investors are apparently valuing Zynga in the $7 billion to $10 billion range. The profit-and-loss numbers for each company are modest enough to cause some Wall Street experts to challenge those sky-high valuations.

Here's the point: It really doesn't matter what these companies are worth on paper -- or in reality. Traders who move in and out of stocks quickly don't care. Some investors may double their money on Groupon, if it trades like LinkedIn and Zillow did immediately after their IPOs. Or they may take a hit, if they time their moves wrong and Groupon acts more like Pandora. All it appears to take are guts and luck.

Cicutti: Advice or sales?- make the choice

It was to be expected really. No sooner had I written about the dangers of selling financial products than a wave of comments followed from IFAs who not only believe it is a vital part of the advice process but also feel they have failed their clients because they did not sell hard enough.
In addition to the 40 or so comments posted on the Money Marketing website, another 30 or so found their way into my email inbox last week.
Predictably, many of the responses focused on variants of stories that either involved grateful clients thanking their lucky stars that they had listened to their advisers’ sales patter and took out shedloads of insurance, or they didn’t and suffered the consequences.
Somehow, I mysteriously failed to spot any stories of the nurse or teacher who was eternally grateful to their adviser for flogging them a personal pension and transferring them out of their occupational scheme.
Or the millions of homebuyers who listened to the sales spiel of their advisers and took out a with-profits endowment to help pay off their mortgage - which they then surrendered for less than the contributions they had paid in over the preceding years. Alternatively, if they carried on paying into them these products stand no chance of paying off more than a fraction of the homeloans they were intended to settle in full.
Then there were tens of thousands, mostly elderly, investors who were lured into risky split-cap investment trusts and lost hundreds of millions of pounds. Yet no one has proudly stood up to tell us how glad they were to have taken part in that particular selling exercise.
Funny that - and how naive of me to dare to suggest that treating your clients like mugs with so little understanding of financial issues that they need to be treated as if they were idiots is not always a great move.
OK, so this is clearly an issue that lots of readers feel strongly about, hardly surprising really, given that for so many of them the entire experience of working financial services over decades has been based on a proposition that sees the selling process as central to their relationship with clients.
I remember once profiling an IFA for this paper a long time ago and he told me how he had set up what turned out to be a highly successful business in Belfast, his home city.
Basically, it was all down to prospecting, knocking on thousands of doors over a period of years, asking if he could speak to the man or woman “in the house” and then trying to sell him a financial product. If the punter said he was busy right then, the IFA would nod understandingly and then arrange a more suitable time to call round.
In time, this adviser built up a large number of customers, to the point where he no longer felt the need to knock on doors. People started to come to him, either the ones whom he had originally sold to or others recommended to him by his initial clients.
Realistically, there is not a cat’s chance in hell that someone like that, who dragged himself up the hardest way imaginable for any adviser, is ever going to say: “Selling is a terrible way for any IFA to build a business.” And anyone who in recent years went through even a fraction of that man’s experience in financial services will feel that selling is an essential part of how to deal with a client.
So I fully accept that it is incredibly hard for anyone to let go of that entire ethos and replace it with one in which advice is given and discussed in a mature way with the client - including areas where he or she may be underprepared in terms of the protection they need or investments they may need to make in respect of their future retirement needs.
But unless advisers start moving in that direction some time soon, they will never be in a position to realistically implement key aspects of the RDR.
After 2012, the onus will be on genuine IFAs to show their clients that they are not simply after making money by flogging products. That, after all, is part of the desperately needed process of re-establishing credibility with potential clients. So for everyone who continues to defend past practices even when, in many cases, they failed to meet the needs of millions of people in the UK, you really are missing the point here.
And another thing - to the nice senior Million Dollar Round Table person who emailed me to stress the standards of excellence his organisation holds dear to its heart - and then tells me the organisation’s “production requirement” is a starting point to achieve these standards, I have to ask: why is it necessary to do so by means of proving how well you sell? Why are you defining what is “best in the industry” as an ability to sell more than everyone else?
Over the years, I have met many successful salespeople in the industry. I have also come across some fantastic advisers and financial planners. Occasionally, the two will overlap but overall my experience teaches me that most people are either in one camp or the other. Time to make your mind up.
Source http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/

5 Ways Coupons Can Be Bad

By Joe Mont

BOSTON (TheStreet) -- Your supermarket doesn't love you. And the folks who make the pasta, peanut butter, cola and condiments you buy don't really worry about helping your household budget.
Those who deal in coupons do so to make money, not to cut you a break. While it can make good financial sense to save a few cents here and there by clipping and downloading coupons, companies provide that service as a means to get you to spend more, and if you don't think through your purchases using coupons can end up costing you in the long run.
Boiling it down, manufacturers have key goals when it comes to consumers -- they want more of them, buying more, more frequently. Coupons allow them to maintain and build upon their market share, draw first-time buyers into the fold, ease the blow of price increases or size or quantity reductions, and push stores to offer prime shelf displays and aisle placement.
Research by NCH Marketing Services, part of the media and marketing services company Valassis, found that shoppers saved $3.7 billion with coupons last year.
In 2010, marketers distributed 332 billion consumer packaged-goods coupons -- the largest single-year distribution quantity recorded in the United States, exceeding the previous year's record by 21 billion coupons. Redemption volume in the U.S. grew 3.1%, to 3.3 billion CPG coupons.
The study found that 78.3% of shoppers regularly use coupons, compared with 75.8% in 2008 and 63.6% of consumers in the pre-recession survey of 2007.
Coupons are in many ways the ultimate lure, a promise of saving money by doing little more than hitting the "print" button or scissoring away at the Sunday newspaper. But there is no guarantee of a "win-win" if you fail to think strategically before reaching the check-out line.
Here are five ways coupons can be bad.
They put unnecessary items in your cart.
Supermarkets and retailers have long perfected the science of impulse buys. From the layout of aisles and shelves to the decor and signs, nearly every detail is calculated to get you to deviate from your shopping list and spend, spend, spend. Coupons can be a valuable means to that end.
The importance of getting customers to give in to impulse-buy urges was illustrated in recent research by NPD Group, a provider of consumer and retail analysis. It found that 94% of the grocery store shoppers it surveyed prepare a written list before leaving the house; 72% say they never or rarely deviate from it.
"For food and beverage manufacturers and retailers, it's all about getting on the list," says Ann Hanson, executive director of product development at NPD and author of the report. "With so many purchasing decisions being made at home where meals are being planned and shopping lists assembled, it's important to focus on the consumer at home before they leave for the store."
Coupons can serve as a way to wrangle a product into that planning, as well as persuade shoppers lacking such a rigid agenda. NPD found that, of the 25% who do buy on impulse, 80% say they do so when they see an item is discounted.
They lead to pointless upgrades.
The store-brand ketchup is cheaper than "premium" brands such as Heinz and Hunt's. But armed with a coupon, even if it fails to split the difference, you may decide to upgrade.
That's why there was a coupon in the first place. Job No. 1 for pushing a product is to get consumers to try it.
Supermarkets have become particularly adept at pairing up items to increase your "savings." According to NCH Marketing Services, 26% of coupons last year required the purchase of two or more items.
Buy a pound of hamburger and there may be a sticker attached that offers an additional discount on a jar of relish or package of cheese -- if bought together. Failing to pair up the items might make you feel like you left money on the table, even if you have an unopened jar of relish in the pantry at home and just bought higher-quality cheese from a local deli.
Stores and manufacturers score all the more because the paired item is almost always a brand name that would cost more with or without the coupon.

Investors Who Do a Few Mortgages on the Side

By DAWN WOTAPKA

Dallas attorney Joey Messina has a side business some might find surprising: He uses his own money to make mortgage loans to people who banks likely would avoid.
In the past two years, Mr. Messina has funded 20 mortgages, ranging in size from $40,000 to $102,000. The mortgages carry interest rates of 14%—more than double the rates charged by most banks and far superior to the returns Mr. Messina received on his savings account. And despite the housing market's weakness, Mr. Messina believes that originating home loans in the current environment, when many economists believe housing is at or near bottom, is less risky than putting money in the volatile stock market or opaque bond market.
"I can't drive by and look at those [stocks and bonds]," says Mr. Messina, who is 35 years old. Plus, he says, investing in residential real estate earns "passive income that doesn't require much work from me."
He isn't alone. Across the nation, a number of mom-and-pop investors are pulling money out of their retirement accounts and safe, but low-yielding, savings to take on the risk of becoming "hard-money" mortgage lenders, who charge high interest rates to borrowers who have been rejected by traditional banks.
Hard-money mortgage lending represents just a tiny slice of the mortgage market, although the activity is growing rapidly. Guy D. Cecala, publisher of trade publication Inside Mortgage Finance, estimates hard-money loans will account for about 1% of the 5.5 million mortgages expected to be originated this year. But he says activity in that sector is up sharply from a few years ago, when very few hard-money loans were originated.
Some critics compare hard-money lenders to predatory subprime lenders, lightly regulated operations that cater to people desperate for money. NeighborWorks America, a nonprofit housing organization, urges consumers to ask an unbiased housing or credit counselor to study the rates and terms to make sure they aren't predatory.
But others say these private lenders fill an important void. Robert and Yvonne Fassett used a hard-money loan last year to restructure their finances after a kitchen-cabinet distribution business they owned for 30 years suffered in the downturn, ruining their credit. The couple received a one-year, $120,000 loan with a 12% interest rate secured by the equity in a vacation home in Key Largo, Fla. They used the funds to pay off the vacation home and cover mortgage payments on their primary home in Teaneck, N.J., until they could find a buyer. "They rescued me. It bought us a little escape plan," says Mr. Fassett, 59. "The fees and interest rate were no doubt higher than a bank, but it was well worth it since no bank was willing to listen."
For the most part, hard-money mortgage lenders must follow the same rules as traditional mortgage players, such as abiding by truth-in-lending rules, which require lenders to be upfront about the loan's length and cost. States also regulate the industry.
Seminars and training videos are popping up to teach would-be hard-money mortgage lenders the tricks of the trade. Leonard Rosen, a former financial news anchor, is charging between $595 and $995 for a spot at his "Pitbull Mortgage School," a one-day seminar held twice a year. The next one, scheduled for later this month in Las Vegas, has sold 286 of the 300 available seats so far, he says.
Bess Hoffman became a hard-money mortgage lender to supplement her retirement income. In the past three years, the 72-year-old has taken more than $250,000 out of money-market accounts and CDs to fund 13 loans that she says have delivered a 14% annual return, compared with 2010's 11% rise for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
For borrowers who have been turned away by banks, hard-money can provide a chance to take advantage of opportunities in the market. Ever since mortgage defaults surged after the housing crash, banks have been reluctant to lend to certain types of borrowers, including investors.
Keith Borg, a 26-year-old Dallas accountant, has taken out two hard-money loans totaling nearly $200,000 with Longhorn III Investments LLC, a four-year-old, Dallas-based hard-money lender and brokerage. For the first loan, he borrowed $95,000 to purchase a foreclosed home that he rented out for $1,125 a month. Several months later, he refinanced into a traditional 30-year mortgage.
Other borrowers seeking hard-money loans are self-employed individuals who can't fully document their incomes and people with low credit scores, whose mortgage applications these days are routinely rejected by banks.
Judith and Allan Cunningham are a case in point. Allan lost his job as a college professor several years ago and fell behind on his credit-card payments, which lowered his credit score. But recently, the couple took out a $69,000 hard-money loan for the purchase of a $137,000 three-bedroom home in Sunrise, Fla. At 11% interest, the monthly payments are $1,100 for three years. When the loan comes due, Mr. Cunningham hopes to have a job and improved credit. "It's expensive, very expensive, but if you really want to have your own home, and your credit is not up to par, it's the only way to go," he said.
Typically, hard-money lenders are matched with borrowers through loan brokers, who make a commission on each deal. Most loans are short-term, lasting a few months or as long as several years. Some are set up with low monthly payments and a balloon payment due at the end of the loan term.
When the loan comes due, borrowers either refinance into a conventional mortgage, flip the property to pay off the loan or, if those measure fail, extend the hard-money loan. "The hard-money loan is an interim loan," says Sophie Lapointe, a co-owner of Five Star Mortgage in Las Vegas, which doesn't do hard-money loans.
Lenders say that defaults are low, in part because borrowers have plenty of equity tied up in the properties themselves.

Right at Home: Tight college living spaces call for creative packing

By Associated Press

When New Yorker Wendy Koch’s son Bob headed off to Ithaca College freshman year, the car was loaded with great stuff — too much of it. That the nice Pottery Barn rug barely fit in the car should have been the tip-off.
“We were taking our seventh trip up three flights of stairs to the tiny dorm room in stifling temps when his roommate turned to Bob and said, ‘You could probably make a lot of money selling all this stuff on eBay,” Koch recalls. “There just wasn’t room in the room.”
Making the shopping list for the first college living experience is exciting, but pros say to be prudent about how much stuff you buy. Rooms often seem smaller than the floor plans indicate. That spacious looking common room? More like a foyer. And as one veteran of the dorm wars notes, you’ll never again have the closet space you did at home.
So think about smart storage that maximizes space yet looks good.
Unless you’re able to repurpose them as tables, suitcases may not be the best option; they might not fit under the bed or in the closet. Collapsible, storable bags work great. Samsonite’s sturdy nylon Tote-a-Ton bag has 6,452 cubic inches of space. Dormco.com has the Clothes & Go system, which lets you take hanging clothes right out of the closet into foldable bags with a shoulder strap — at the dorm, just rehang.
Bed, Bath & Beyond’s got a ventilated, clear vinyl 6-shelf sweater rack that hangs on a rod — easy to see what’s in it. Some online shoppers have raved about the retailer’s Dorm Space Saver, which assembles with no tools and, being the same width as the bed, serves as an extra headboard or footboard with shelves.
Meg Volk, who graduated this spring from the Fashion Institute of Technology and has traded a tiny dorm room for an equally tiny studio apartment in New York City, recommends “small, lightweight, wheeled dress racks that will fit in your closet” for added hang space. If you do need to come with suitcases, she suggests, use them for out-of-season storage and last semester’s papers.
Dorm gear is often grouped by classic gender colors and patterns — pinks, purples, baroque and animal prints for girls, and surfer, sports, blues and browns for guys. It’s better to choose neutral bedding that you won’t tire of, and put the pattern and color punch in posters and memorabilia collected during the school year.
Ikea’s Dokument series of functional mesh metal desk accessories might appeal to girls or guys. Their Kassett boxes are cheap and sturdy storage options for papers; choose from an array of colors including white, black and orange. The Olesby lamp is a good-looking task light. And Ikea’s giant plastic shopping bags make great dirty clothes totes, for the Laundromat or for the bus ride home to free cleaning.
Dormco’s Bunk Pocket is a convenient neoprene catchall for electronics that slips over a bedpost.
Kenyon College junior Trevor Ezell, who recently returned from a semester studying in England and traveling around Europe, says a duffel bag was brilliant for studying abroad.
“They can be expanded to hold lots of stuff, yet collapsed to store away easily,” he says. What not to pack for long-distance study? “Anything other than clothes,” advises Ezell. “Students studying abroad run the risk of bringing things that might prevent them from absorbing local culture. If you bring a basketball, you might not throw a rugby ball. Bring one overcoat, not several. And one dress-up outfit.” Good advice even for students not headed to foreign lands.
Both Bed, Bath & Beyond and Wal-Mart offer services that let you shop online and pick up the items in or near the college town. If your child is flying or your car is small, it’s a great option.
Sourcebook:
www.dormco.com - Bunk Pocket, $6.94; Clothes & Go bag, $19.99;
www.ikea.com - Olesby work lamp, $9.99; Dokument files, waste bin and letter tray, two for $1.99-$7.99; Kassett boxes, $5.99;
www.bedbath&beyond.com - Dorm Space Saver, $59.99; Samsonite Tote-a-Ton bag, $29.99; clear vinyl sweater rack, $19.99.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Work-from-home business accused of stealing credit card number

By JULIE WERNAU

An online company that claims its customers can work from home and make thousands a dollars a day using Google is being sued in Cook County court by an Illinois woman who alleges that the company's only business is stealing credit card numbers.
In the class-action suit, Illinois resident Lynette Booth says she clicked on an advertisement describing the life-changing experience of a woman that used a product from Florida-based company Convert2Media to make thousands of dollars, but ended up getting no product and seeing unauthorized charges on her credit card bill.
"Work-at-home scams are the scam of the year for 2011 as we see it," said Rafey Balabanian, the Chicago attorney representing Booth. "In the face of this egregious economy where people are just struggling to make ends meet, all they do is take these people's last hard-earned dollars."
The suit alleges that customer testimonials on the company's website appear with stock photos that are used after the company figures the location of the website viewer. The people in the photos are then made to appear to be local individuals.
In one case, the same stock photo was allegedly used twice with different names.
The suit also says the website claims that its products have appeared on Fox News, CNN and USA Today, and includes links to fake news articles mentioning the product.
The products, which allegedly include a CD with software to get started, can be purchased for under $5 to "Start Making Money Today!" But according to the lawsuit, the product never arrives, and charges begin to appear on the buyer's credit card statements - $88.87 and $24.90 a month.
Booth called repeatedly to ask for her money back, the suit claims, but the company refused to comply. Convert2Media said the company had not seen a suit. After Convert2Media was faxed a copy of the suit, it did not immediately provide a comment.

'My money is none of your business': Malema

ANC Youth League president Julius Malema fields questions at a press conference at Luthuli House yesterday about a R16-million mansion he is allegedly building in Sandton.
Image by: LEBOHANG MASHILOANE
The youth leader - who continues to hog headlines for his calls to nationalise the mines and expropriate land without compensation - denied that he demolished his R3.6-million Sandton, Johannesburg, home to make way for the construction of a R16-million mansion.
In a heated press conference at Luthuli House, Johannesburg, Malema said his personal affairs, salary and business interests were "none of anybody's business" because he was not a public representative.
He also claimed to be the only leader in the ANC who was understood by the poor.
"A house costing R16-million to construct only exists in the imaginations of rightwing, narrow-minded and obsessed white people, who always think Africans cannot and should not build houses of their own," he said.
He later said he was referring to opposition parties Freedom Front Plus and the DA, which this week approached Sars to ask it to investigate the youth leader's lifestyle, and look into how he could afford a multimillion-rand home and luxury cars such as his Mercedes Benz C63, and if he were paying tax.
He said the FF+was worse than the DA - a contradicting a statement he made in 2009 when he said: "The FF+ may have their own weaknesses, but they are not that naive compared to the DA and other white political parties."
In what could be seen as an attack on the ANC leadership and President Jacob Zuma in particular, Malema declared himself as the most important ANC leader.
"I'm the only remaining leading political figure in South Africa who gets welcomed in the squatter camps. During the elections, there was a squatter camp called Stjwetla, where they refused ANC people to campaign, where they said you can't come here. But when they heard that Julius [was] coming, they said today you can enter, no problem, you are with Malema. He is going to listen to us," said Malema.
The firebrand youth leader, who was recently re-elected to his position, once said lifestyle audits were "very wrong" if used to target individuals alleged to be corrupt.
But yesterday, he said he would welcome the calls for investigations of his lifestyle.
"Where I get money to build such a mansion, within a short space of time, is none of your business.
"There is nothing that I hide. I pay my taxes, and I will continue to do that. If there is anything Sars want from me, they have got my contact [details].
"If there was anything that we are doing wrong, Sars would have acted immediately, without waiting for any political instruction," he said.
Malema also said he would not dismiss the fact that his personal finances were being investigated.
"I have been investigated throughout my life. There has never been a quiet moment in my life.
"Police, intelligence, Sars, Public Protector, throughout.
"Those who cannot defeat me in political arguments have resorted to multi-tricks, and they have never succeeded."
Malema further contradicted his previous statements when he was asked how much he earned and how he could sustain his lifestyle.
"I'm not going to do that. I can show you an appointment letter I got from the ANC, which says under no circumstances will you disclose your salary to a third party. It is not me, it is in the appointment letter of the ANC."
But in an interview with e.tv news channel last year, Malema said the ANC paid him about R20000 a month, and that his car and house were financed by Absa.
Yesterday, he revealed he owned a cattle farm in Polokwane and a small company, both of which he said were his private affairs.
But last year, Malema told the Sowetan: "I wish I had 50 companies. There is nothing wrong with that. And I wish all of them were making money and with that money I would help the poor because that's who I am. Every cent I have I share with the poor people."
Malema, whose has backed calls for nationalisation with arguments that the wealth of the country is owned by white capitalists who hindered the economic freedom of the poor, side-stepped suggestions that he was also a benefactor of the self-same capitalism.
"One of the things I have learned in my short life in politics is the ability to live in the conditions of capitalism while fighting it and defeating it. I don't exploit people," he said.
According to him, he was accountable only to card-carrying members of the ANC Youth League.
When it was put to him, however, that leading a constituency of radical youth made him a public representative, Malema shot down the suggestion.
"I am not a public servant; I am not a public representative.
"The reason I refuse to go to parliament is because of some of these reasons, that you are going to be questioned about everything else, including when you go to the loo. You must be asked, how many minutes have you spent in the loo?"
Source http://www.timeslive.co.za/

Amid Record Low Tech Layoffs, Cisco’s Is The Year’s Largest Downsizing

Cisco’s announcement that it would be cutting 6,500 jobs stand out as the year’s largest job-cut in an industry that has seen record low downsizing, a report released Wednesday shows.  The company run by CEO John Chambers, once seen as a visionary, is giving further evidence of its battered state.
The tech sector has remained strong amid a weak economic environment.  Companies like Apple and Google have posted record-breaking profits despite 1.8% GDP growth in the country as a whole and a slowing global economy.
In terms of tech jobs, the industry has also delivered.  In what historically has been a sector “that at one time commonly saw job-cut events numbering in the tens of thousands,” announced lay-offs have fallen 60% in the first six months of 2011 (compared to the first half of 2010) and are on track for their lowest ever, according to a report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
As job cuts fell to 14,308 in the first half of the year, the sector has also added a good amount of jobs, announcing plans to add 26,000 workers in the first six months of 2011 (“which represents just a small portion of actual hiring, since most employers do not formally announcing hiring plans,” according to John Challenger, CEO of the firm that wrote the report).   Employment in computer systems design and related industries has grown by 42,000 since the year started, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Read Jobs Report Sucked, But S&P 500 Will Finish year Up 8% To 10%).
“The Cisco cuts notwithstanding, the overall health of the technology sector remains very strong. In fact, it is one of the best performing industries in the economy at the moment. It is highly unlikely that planned layoffs in the second half of the year will be heavy enough for the year-end total to surpass last year’s record low 46,825 job cuts,” said Challenger.
Before the Cisco announcement, the largest reported layoff of the year was Qwest Communications announced 1,800 job-cuts back in March.  Cisco’s cuts more than triple Qwest’s layoffs.
While it may be healthy for the company in the medium-run (the layoffs are part of a plan to cut costs by $1 billion), the size of Cisco’s announced job-cuts is indicative of the company’s fragile health and weak condition.  Cisco’s stock is down more than 21% year-to-date.
Source http://blogs.forbes.com/

Dewhurst butchers bringing home the bacon again for new owners

by Clinton Manning

DEWHURST butchers could return as a force on UK high streets for the first time in 20 years.
Its products could also be launched in supermarkets following a £3million fundraising by The Brand Cellar.
The company, backed by a dozen heavyweight investors including former Wembley boss Sir Rodney Walker, has snapped up 10 “heritage brands” it plans to revitalise.

Go Camping for 95p! Vouchers collectable in the Daily and Sunday Mirror until 11th August .Dewhurst, which had 1,000 high street stores in its heyday, is one of the first it believes will be bringing home the bacon.
Another of the backers Jonathan Hick, who starred in an episode of Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire, said a deal had already been done to make Dewhurst cooking foil.
He said: “I don’t see why it can’t be on the high street and in supermarkets and on tea towels and roasting tins as well as pies and sausages.”
Former Kwik Save boss David Birchall, The Brand Cellar’s chief executive, told Your Money he believed three of the first four brands being relaunched would each have sales of £100m within three years. One of the others, Glen Rossie Whisky, is nearly 200 years old.
The group has signed a deal with Status Quo front-man Francis Rossi to set it apart from Scotch rivals and hopes to launch the spirit in India and China as well as the UK.
“There are eight million whisky drinkers in the UK but about 300 million in India,” said Birchall.
The third £100m-a-year business, they believe, is Conway Stewart, a luxury pen maker founded in 1905, and a brand favoured by wartime leader Winston Churchill.
The pens, handmade in Plymouth, sell for £500 to £10,000 but Birchall says they are negotiating with manufacturers in China to make cheaper versions to sell to customers in department stores and airports.
The final business they are hoping to kick-start immediately is Zorbit, creator of the original towelling nappy brand in 1926.
The Brand Cellar plans to move Zorbit into baby care products such as lotions and shampoo.
Hick says for now, the other six businesses will be “preserved and left to mature” in its vaults.

Go Camping for 95p! Vouchers collectable in the Daily and Sunday Mirror until 11th August.

Millionairess loses fight to snatch £3m Chelsea home from daughter

By Tamara Cohen
A millionairess has lost the battle to strip her daughter of her £3million home.
Diana Lindsay, 85, feared the property would be lost if 53-year-old Beverley split up with her husband, who is twice divorced.
She had loaned her daughter the money to buy the Chelsea house and claimed this – along with the fact it was her own ‘bolthole’ – entitled her to a 93 per cent stake in it.

But Judge Patrick McCahill rejected her arguments, saying it was clear Miss Lindsay was the sole and rightful owner.
He said Mrs Lindsay visited London only occasionally and was trying to ‘rewrite history’ by calling Crawford Lodge her second home.
The retired property developer was, he added, a shrewd and astute businesswoman but her evidence was full of ‘exaggeration and selective recall of events’.

Bristol County Court heard that mother and daughter had enjoyed an excellent relationship until the latter married Michael Palmer, a     64-year-old tax inspector.
One major source of contention was said to be the guest list for their wedding in April 2008. Mr Palmer claimed his mother-in-law offered to pay for the reception – and invite everyone in her address book.

Mrs Lindsay, who has a £1.5million home in Sussex and property in Spain, was quick to suspect her son-in-law’s motives.
The court heard she and her late husband Kenneth, a chartered surveyor, had built up a property portfolio and loaned their daughter £256,000 to buy the lodge in 1991. 
The loan – and others for earlier property purchases – were recorded by the family solicitor and showed Mrs Lindsay’s meticulous eye for financial affairs, the court heard.
Mrs Lindsay first mentioned her claim to the property in 2008, in a letter urging her daughter to get a pre-nup. She said she would ‘fight to the death ... like a lioness with her cubs’ to make sure her daughter ‘got something when I’m dead’.
‘Please my love have a pre-nup, don’t be too gullible,’ she wrote. ‘I simply wish to protect you from anything going wrong, which I hope it will not.’
The judge said the relationship had previously been loving and mutually supportive, with Miss Lindsay wanting for nothing from her generous parents.
‘This was a case of comparatively wealthy parents seeking to help their only child on to the property ladder, not by giving her the money, but by allowing her to borrow the purchase price,’ he said.
 But it was ‘perfectly obvious’ Miss Lindsay always believed the property belonged to her and was ‘astonished’ to hear her mother assert she owned Crawford Lodge.
The judge rejected Mrs Lindsay’s claim on the property but ordered her daughter to repay the £101,000 outstanding on the loan.
He said the loan did not mean Mrs Lindsay had a ‘beneficial interest’ unless she expressly said so at the time. The three-bedroom property was purchased – for £275,000 – in Miss Lindsay’s name.
The recruitment consultant remains the beneficiary of her mother’s will, even though the pair have not spoken in 18 months.Mr Palmer said yesterday: ‘It’s not over yet but we are pleased with the judgment.’ 
He has previously said his mother-in-law ‘had it in for him’ because she wanted her daughter to remain single and under her control.
Mrs Lindsay had also asked him ‘inappropriate questions’ about his previous marriages, he said in court.
His daughter Sarah, 39, said: ‘When I was introduced to Beverley’s mother she just looked down her nose at me.
‘She said to me quite matter of factly that she didn’t like Michael and I got the impression she just didn’t want her to get married to anyone.
‘My father told me then that she was a battleaxe and all she is doing with this court case is confirming that view of her.
‘My father is an upright man who sold a house he owned in Manchester before his marriage to Beverley.
‘He has a top job with the Inland Revenue and is very well paid. He has five grandchildren and looks after them very well.’