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TAX FREEDOM

Tax Freedom Day is a calculation that dates back to a Florida businessman in 1948 that figures out how long Americans work to pay taxes if all of their wages went to taxes first.

The states with the latest Tax Freedom Day are:

1. Connecticut, May 2
2. New Jersey, April 29
3. New York, April 24
4. Maryland, April 17
5. California, Minnesota, Washington, Wisconsin and Washington D.C. tied at April 16

Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge added, “This year, taxes amount to 28% of America’s income… that’s short of the record set in 2000 (when Tax Freedom Day was) May 1.”  Thank you Duane Gomer for the reminder!

Related articles

• ‘Tax Freedom Day’ arrives later in 2011 (thegazette.com)
• Your tax bill: 3 months of work (money.cnn.com)

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This whole “Real Estate Crystal Ball” question is really getting out of hand. When you look strictly at the statistics in our beautiful and prolific Silicon Valley, we presently have 34 more single family homes for sale than this time last year. It would be important to know how many homes are under contract or pending sale- well, there is only a 2.7% difference from this same time last year. These statistics which a few years back would speak volumes of what is going on in the local market, now give mere muddy rear view mirror glimpses!

Due to the fact that these statistics are full of reluctant home sellers that are awaiting a “possible” Short Saleapproval from the lender that holds the mortgage or heaven forbid, the multiple separate lenders that hold the 1st, 2nd and possibly 3rd mortgages; they are slight indicators at best. Short Sales confuse the statistics as so many of them never actually close escrow. A large percentage end up in the lender foreclosing and a very small percentage of sellers end up achieving a “Loan Modification“, a VERY small percentage. 

So how do you figure out what is REALLY going on? I know the answer is going to be way too obvious to those that understand they can’t know everything about everything- ask an active, professional, Realtor®with years of experience reading real estate markets! You would think that was a no-brainer! But time and time again, Buyers and Sellers who only purchase and/or sell a home a maximum of 3 times in their lifetimes, think they know more than reputable real estate agents and brokers.

Who else has more intimate and real time knowledge about the Real Estate market and what is presently happening than an active, professional Realtor? Where else can you take up a professional’s time, energy and pick their brain to your heart’s delight and initially not pay a dime for it? Call, email, text, tweet or face book your professional Realtor and ask them what is happening in your local market, they will be more than happy to answer! If you’d like, you can always contact us if you don’t know a Realtor you can trust- you’d be amazed how much information we can supply you with and all for the cost of a cup of coffee…. that’s what you call a pretty good deal!

Related articles

• Silicon Valley is abuzz with bubble and recovery stories – too soon?(venturebeat.com)

Our main issue is that there is not enough housing for the amount of buyers that want to purchase. Because Real Estate statistics are hyper local, any general statement that has as its basis a global statistic for the United States, has little to zero relevance to our Bay Area RE. In Detroit you can purchase a single family home for $59,0000. In the Bay Area, that will buy you a large, newer vehicle or old trailer- not even a financeable mobile home….

New construction in the Bay Area is not selling like hotcakes due to the difficulty of obtaining financing, not due to lack of demand. We have a MAJOR stumbling block right now in the financing process which is the new appraisal rules & regulations- the amount of war stories are mounting and unfortunately we are all getting wounded by it! These new rules have left us with very few good appraisers that are intelligent, professional & discerning and instead we have a bunch of uneducated, unmotivated, & unknowledgeable  people  that are willing to work for $125 for over 20 plus hours worth of work! These are the folks that are stopping transactions from going through. But then, we’ll talk more about that later….

As a secondary problem for new housing- which is just getting started- is the Chinese Drywall issue www.newsinferno.com/archives/5591 (just an example).

Indicators that ARE important are:

2/21/09     1,375 Properties available for sale in Santa Clara County 28.1% were in escrow

2//10     760      “          “       “   “    “    “     “    “      59.3% are in escrow

But even these stats are not totally correct due to the amount of Short Sales that are under contract/in escrow that will NEVER close escrow and will end up back on the market as Foreclosures…..