Green Living

What keeps housing from rebounding?                                                    4/29/2008

www.integrityrealty.net

joel@joellawson.com 

As a real estate broker in a poor market, I’ve tried to investigate why builders continue to flood the market with new homes.  I have asserted in the past that supply and demand dictate that the supply needs to be reduced to meet the demand.  My question was, why do homebuilders continue to build?  I received a few replies to my blog suggesting the following.  One suggested that the large builders still had contracts with subcontractors that made it necessary for them to continue to build.  Another suggestion was the large builders had purchased large tracts of land and needed to continue to build for that reason.

Recently I heard the answer that I believe is more close to the true reason and here it is.  Due to excessive government regulation (or what I call big brother influenced by the no growth faction) a builder explained to me that it takes two to four years to get through the costly subdivision and permitting process.  Because once these permits have been obtained, there is a certain deadline to begin construction.  If the builder does not continue and at least start the project before this deadline passes, they will have to begin this nightmare process again, loosing many thousands in the process.

Another interesting development in our area, is the power company making power extensions more expensive. The power company in our area has gone in a years time from first doing away with a free 1000 foot extension, and instead offering a $5,000 allowance toward construction cost.  However, the power company controlled the construction through their in-house contractors.  I’m sure most of us can imagine with the power company controlling the cost of construction, it would not be hard to get this $5,000 allowance back with  a higher estimated construction cost.

It is my understanding that the power company convinced the Corporation commission that they could hold rates down.  Or would not need to raise rates as much if they could do away with these free power extensions.  As I told the Corporation commission staffer, they will get that back in six months, when they come in for the next rate increase.  Which they did.  Not only have they gone back for another increase.  They also have done away with the $5,000 allowance toward construction.

I’ve heard several examples of extensions that would have been free a year ago.  Now being $20-$30000.  And we wonder why the cost of homes have not balanced with the market.

The cost of excessive government regulation, ridiculous permitting requirements and time frames, and the no growth factions working through the government and the semi-governmental utility companies are all passed on to the buyer’s.  Worse than that most people must finance their new home.  So in the end, they finance this additional cost over a 30 year period and pay interest on it inside their loan.

Next time you ask yourself why the housing market has not rebounded you might consider the examples above. What the no growth factions are too shortsighted to see, is their children and grandchildren will suffer the inability to afford housing, because of their ill thought out politics.

Joel Lawson

I am passionate got so many subjects.  Sometimes I forget I’m a real estate broker.  So today at like to showcase a self-sufficient solar home.  In this case, I get to have my cake and eat it too.  Because I am also passionate about promoting solar and wind generated power.

This 2006, 2240 ft.² three bedroom two bath with a bonus office sets on 43 fenced acres.  The home is a triplewide Schultz manufactured home with a permanent foundation and stem wall. The private well is into the Coconino sandstone aquifer, the largest underground aquifer in Arizona. The home features laminate floors from wall-to-wall large bedrooms and a formal dining room.

There is a covered front deck and open rear deck.

With Both Solar and Wind Power plus back up generator. Best of all, although not currently run in to the home the grid power is approx 150′ from the home. But why would you want a power bill? Wind Generator

Juniper Forest and view of Black Mesa  The property is 43 acres that is completely fenced. The property starts in a meadow travels across the large arroyo and then to the top the Hill where the home is located near the boundary of state land. There are rock features near the home. These large bolders have worn indentations that may have been used by the , Native Americans, grind corn. Pottery shards and arrowheads have been found on the property.    

See this listing and more at www.integrityrealty.net

Or call me at 866-844-7053 for more info on this home.

Joel N. Lawson

Owner/Broker

Integrity Realty & Assoc, L.L.C.

Our president has died.                                                          4/9/2008

www.joellawson.com           joel@joellawson.com       www.integrityrealty.net  

With the recent death of our president and by our President, I mean, president of the NRA.  Mr. Charleston Heston.  It seems like a good time to remind all of us at our gun rights or Second Amendment rights are always in jeopardy.  By researching and results of other countries who have banned citizens owning weapons.  You will find a rise in crime and a reduction in freedom soon follows.  Although I devote, a great deal of time on property rights, constitutional rights and civil rights in general are my passion and concern.

Every young parent should be sure they have read the book “Animal Farm” it was part of my school curriculum and should be a part of today’s curriculum.  In my opinion, a good parent and patriot would desire that their children read both.  Animal farm, and George Orwell’s 1984, (where I believe the term “Big Brother” was coined). These are classics whose assumptions have proven true over time.  Nostradamus never made such clear and precise predictions as these two books did.

Click on the link below to see a wonderful speech by Charles Heston. I thank my sister in law for forwarding it to me.

http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/heston_culture_war/2008/04/06/85865.html?s=al

Hang on tight to your rights once lost their lost forever.

Joel Lawson

Real Estate Broker

Integrity Realty & Assoc, L.L.C.

This says it all. It only takes a few minutes to watch this http://www.nraila.org/Multimedia/MMPlayer_Set.aspx?ID=105

They keep trying to take our right to own guns. The anti gun folks tried the front door, then the back door, then the side window and they will keep trying to get their ideas in to law. If we don’t make time to continue to fight them they will some day succeed. HOLD ON TIGHT TO YOUR RIGHTS!

www.integrityrealty.com

www.joellawson.com

Joel Lawson

Politics in the Real Estate market who are we really bailing out.   3/9/2008  

joel@joellawson.com

www.joellawson.com

www.integrityrealty.net

As a real estate broker.  I have watched closely the news and other information about our current real estate market.  Trying as we all are to figure out how did we get here, and how do we get back.

Being in the midst of a presidential campaign, we hear the politicians talk about economic stimulus packages and solving the subprime mortgage crisis.  My question is, who do they really want to bail out the American people, or the large corporations who made obscene profits inflating real estate prices.  So that they could package, nonconforming ill-advised loans and sell them to unsuspecting investors as AAA investments.

Isn’t the reality of the situation that those most responsible for this are now whining and begging the government to restore their ability to continue making the obscene profits, they’ve become accustomed to at the expense of the American citizen.  In other words gee, we have a God-given right to a luxurious lifestyle and even though, we’ve made poor decisions, at best, and quite possibly used corrupt and immoral business practices to finance this lifestyle.  Now that it is at risk.  We expect our political cronies to restore it to us.  Unfortunately, in the corporate world, these CEOs, chairman of the board, etc. can arrange to make huge salaries and profits, while their corrupt ways cost only very shareholders the government and us.

We need to allow these people to take their lumps pay for their own bad decisions.  As the working man does.  The only away to have a true market based correction to our housing market is to allow those who made poor decisions to take their losses.  Only then will the market corrects itself and begin working properly.

Off the subject but something to think about. It’s my understanding that Barack Obama’s mother is white.  Why is it we call him the first “black man” with a chance to become president.  Is it possible he calls himself black instead of white for a reason.

Joel Lawson

Real Estate and the presidential election. 2/29/2008         www.integrityrealty.net joel@joellawson.com

In my opinion, a good deal of our current real estate market and economy woes, are precipitated by unscrupulous politicians.

The Democrats and the liberal press are more than happy to destroy the housing market and our economy in general.  So that they can claim a bad economy needs to be fixed by the Democrats.  The worse they can make things look during a presidential election with an incumbent Republican.  The more likely, the sheep of this world will buy into their strategy.

The reality is the general public is being harmed, egregiously by those who would intentionally cause mass hysteria in order to achieve political gain.

I personally would be so offended by this course of action as not to vote for anyone using these tactics.  Regardless of other redeeming attributes.

However, being a Republican in all fairness, I must say that Republicans had caved in for the sake of votes.  They have begun to act like left-wing Democrats accepting bailout proposals, knowing full well they must go this direction, to counter the Democrat strategy.  For instance if they had not agreed to 466 billion in the earmarks/pork to fix the alternative minimum tax.  For one lousy year!  The Democrats would have been able to blame Republicans for it not having been fixed.  Again, in fairness, we have a few selfish vote seeking Republicans, who go along with the bring the pork home agenda.

The problem becomes, the overall political system and cronyism in our country.  Because we as a public buying into soundbites refuse to think for ourselves.  And truly analyze what’s been told to us.  Any good politician cannot remain in office to do the right thing without compromising their beliefs, to appease those who believe in the line of tripe promoted by the dishonest and unscrupulous. 

Again, in my opinion, if it were not a political season Republicans would not co-operate with Democrats involving government in the free market.  The only way our housing crisis will correct itself is through market forces.  Each time the government tries to manipulate the economy.  It only prolongs the inevitable.

So, the Democrats are willing to sacrifice our economy so that people will believe, they are needed to rescue us.  Republicans are willing to sacrifice our economy in order to have an appearance of a good economy going into elections.  If the general public, did more thinking for themselves and could see the forest for the trees.  It would not be necessary for Republicans to do this in order to garner votes.

However, you can take advantage of their political shenanigans by investing in real estate.  Especially land, while the market is artificially deflated by these yahoos.  We believe at Integrity Realty we have some opportunities for those interested in investing in a down market.  Of course, there are no guarantees, as with any investment but we feel like this is a great time, because as soon as we have a new administration they will begin to tell you how good the economy is, thus improving the market.  See our listings and a tour of Snowflake, Arizona at www.integrityrealty.net Snowflake has become an escape destinations from large cities in California, Nevada and the Phoenix and Tucson metropolitan areas. Having only been discovered (due to new and improved transportation corridors) recently and with our reasonable prices, large parcels, mild four season climate and our very large water aquifer we are a great investment opportunity.  Better yet, we are an even better place to relocate your family or retire to escape the rat race.

2/08/2008 Sand through the hour glass              www.integrityrealty.net joel@joellawson.com  

As a real estate broker experiencing the fallout of our subprime market, I have a few thoughts to share on what appears to me to be a draconian experiment.

I listened to the political pundits talk about our consumer driven economy.  They talk about getting people back to spending to solve our economic problems.  This morning I heard them talking about raising the limits for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  So people could borrow more to buy expensive homes.

Isn’t the problem really that people have borrowed too much, and consumes too much on credit.  This consumer-based economy.  In my opinion is all part of the big experiment.

The experiment, covers a lot of aspects of our lives.  Do you remember, when television commercials, and even government public service announcements were urging us to stay away from butter and eat margarine, because it was so much better for you.  The definition of margarine is lard, cooking oil, grease.  This of course is much better for you then butter.  Or could it be.  It was an experiment to see how well they could acclimate our bodies to eating things other than real food.  Remember the soft chocolate chip cookies made from plastic? Do you not find it interesting that you can be on camera,   dozens of times a day, but we can’t find an Al Qaeda leader.  Our government knows more about where we are and what we are doing than the Chinese government knows about their citizens. 

 I believe similar experiments are being conducted on the American citizen today.  Can the average citizen be baited with goodies, widgets, toys etc.  Can they make us so dependent and addicted to consumption that we will gladly take on the mentality of aunt farm residents.  The analogy that comes to mind is an hourglass.  The grains of sand in this hourglass represent the energy a human can produce over his lifetime.  Each time some sand falls into the bottom chamber it is energy, you no longer have.  I define energy as your ability to produce something of value.

Remember when the press and the powers that be preached saving.  That was because in our American dream.  We could use our grains of sand to produce a future for ourselves.  We could buy a home, save for retirement and have a place to die.  Hopefully by the time, all of our sand had run through the hourglass.  We had worked saved and accumulated enough to get us through the part of our life remaining after our sand had run out.

However, those who would perpetrate economic slavery upon us, have decided our sand is not being converted to their use quickly enough.  How can they speed up this process,  they ask themselves.  Answer: why don’t we convince them to use their sand before, it would normally make its way through the glass?  This way, our consumer-based economy can prosper and we can get even more of their sand quicker by charging interest to boot.

The part of this concept, they have not perfected, was what to do when everyone or most everyone had used up their sand. One way is to do what they’re doing now.  Get away from a marketing driven economy, put more money or liquidity into the system so their economic slaves can prematurely spend more of their sand.  Anyone with any capacity for reason can see, this cannot go on forever.

Instead of raising Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s Limit.  Why not let the market adjust and expect people to come to the realization that they can only buy as much home as their income will allow.  I’ve said before convincing people to take on more debt to drive the economy is further driving the American citizen into economic slavery, for the benefit of those collecting interest.

I know it’s a radical concept to expect people to do without all their goodies.  God forbid, our children should have to entertain themselves by taking a walk, reading a book or using their imagination.  It would certainly be the end of the world if one teenager could not text another.

In closing, don’t let them steal your sand.  You only have so much.  Don’t forget to teach your children that they only have so much sand.  And each of us should insist that our children are taught about compound interest in school.  This should probably be done right before P.E. class. That’s physical education in case some of your children are unfamiliar with that term.

Can you time the bottom                           1/25/2008         

www.integrityrealty.net Equal Housing Opportunity

Prices are down supplies are up and have been for over a year.  Is this the time to buy?  If you’re buying a home to live in,  I think it’s a great time to buy.  If you’re investing over the long term, I also think it’s a great time to buy.

A quick example or case study of real estate over time, specifically raw land.  In 1958, a piece of raw land was purchased at $500 this year it is in escrow for $20,000.  If my math is right that is 4000% increase divided over 50 years thats 80% per year.  This property was purchased at the top of the market and it’s being sold, in what is undoubtedly a slow market.

Snowflake, Arizona is a fast-growing rural area with a huge underground aquifer.  We are known as a place to escape the overbearing city life.  Over the last few years, escaping folks from California, Phoenix and other large metropolitan areas have relocated here.  Many people have purchased land that is typically less expensive than other parts of the state.  Why?  Because we have only recently been discovered.  Prices are down supplies are up.  If you’re ready to get back into the real estate market, or just want to buy a place to retire and beat future inflation, this could be your opportunity!

Check out our inventory and a tour of Snowflake at www.integrityrealty.net or call me Joel Lawson a 866-844-7053

What is a conservative today.                       1/12/2008           www.integrityrealty.net

 Today, while watching Fox news once again than I was disappointed in the so-called conservative. 

When George Bush ran for office.  I believed in him.  I thought he was a conservative.  But my definition of conservative is someone who conserves the Constitution of the United States.  I never believed that President Bush would have eroded our right to privacy in the way that he has.

Back to Fox news I heard Jack Welch and multimillionaire businessman, and I thought a conservative say why do people complain about wiretaps?  If you’re not done anything wrong, what does it matter.  As I said in previous blogs those are some of the scariest words I can hear.  The problem with that is what if the government decides free speech is wrong.  Then does it matter?  What if the government decides the Second Amendment will no longer be enforced then will it matter?  In the next segment on Fox.  There was a pie faced kid, who apparently has more money then this old man, arguing with another pundit about legalizing marijuana.  The thing that struck me in this argument was a specific exchange.  The gentleman on the side of legalizing marijuana, said he believed in personal freedom.  He further stated that a legal adult should have the personal freedom to smoke marijuana in his own home if they liked.  The other wealthy conservative, said sometimes, the government needs to decide how much freedom a person can have (in so many words).  When a conservative makes the previous statement, and someone like Jack Welch makes the statement that he did I have to doubt whether or not.  I still believe conservatism.

Conservative also used to mean moral values.  If that’s the case how did the Republican Congress and President allow God to be so maligned in schools and government buildings, etc. I really fear that being a conservative no longer means confining the government’s power and high moral values.  It seems, a conservative now means let the rich get richer.  Jack Welch also made a comment about how many jobs are created by corporations.  However, during the same period of time, the host ask another guest if his company was getting ready to go public.  They referred to going public as an exit strategy.  An exit strategy for the investors.  This means to me that corporate investors invest in building a company then go public and take a lot of cash out of the company.  Leaving the average investor holding stock in a company where corporate wages are obscene.  Especially those of the CEOs.  So who ends up holding the bag? The average investor. And I know we all believe that working for large corporations and making these investors and CEOs rich is a sweet deal for all the people they hire with no concern for loyalty or healthcare etc..  When was the last time you heard of a secure 20 year retirement and a gold watch.

So now I don’t know who to believe in.  I know it’s not Obama who in my opinion is an inroad for radical  Islamist.  And if what I’ve seen on the Internet is true.  His father, and possibly stepfather could be involved in radical Islam.  Hillary Clinton in my opinion, i will s part of the same Ivy League educated elitist group that Bush belongs to.  So far, John McCain or Mike Huckabee.  The only presidential candidates, I could consider.  John McCain for his principles and Mike Huckabee, for his stand on taxes and with any luck.  True Christian morals.

Elections Presidential  2008 and the gotcha factor. Opinion 1/9/08.

www.integrityrealty.net  joel@joellawson.com

Few people seem to recognize what the past 16 years of politics have been.  It is been a series of tit-for-tat.  The Republicans sick and Star on Bill Clinton.  Then Bush is elected, and they go after Newt Gingrich.  The American public needs to hold our elected officials to a higher standard than gotcha.  While they are playing gotcha, we’re getting got.

This is never going to stop until voters stop reacting to charges and counter charges about people’s personal lives.  I personally don’t care what Bill Clinton did with a cigar, or who had an affair on his wife.  I care about how the individual is going to run our country.  Al Sharpton.  So far has not had anything bad come out in the press about his personal life.  But I did hear you say on Fox news that he didn’t see anything wrong with porkbarrel earmarks ( in so many words ).  I would prefer that he goes out and does something kinky and leave our money alone.

When you look at all the pork barrel money that was spent by every senator or congressman who could get their fingers in the pot, in return for their vote to patch  the alternative minimum tax fiasco. A little infidelity seems more moral than sodomizing the country as a whole to bring home the bacon.  The next time they get ready to fix the alternative minimum tax, since it was only a patch, they’ll all have their fingers in the pot again.

I’ve heard all of the candidates on your new frenzy for change.  I’ve heard it said they will change their message, because talking about change seemed to resonate with voters.  These candidates forget to tell you, they can have all the great ideas in the world but if they’re not willing to pay enough of our tax payer money to grease these people they can’t change anything.

When will we remember what people are doing and make them pay with our vote.

The only way we will ever stop the gotcha politics and pork barrel spending is to stop voting for anyone who participates in these activities.

I personally have been favorably impressed with Mike Huckabee because he seems committed to changing the tax code.  I would hope that if he is elected he will be equally committed to reducing spending and especially pork barrel spending.  I also very much like to hear John McCain say that if he were president he will make the authors of these spending bills famous.  You see currently, we don’t have anyone with the guts or fortitude to make these people famous.  The reason for this is they are afraid they will need their vote to get something else accomplished and having outed them as frivolous spenders, they won’t be able to get their cooperation. Well we should make them famous again, for refusing to vote in favor of something favorable to our citizens out of gotcha politics.