Part One started yesterday in the Daily Progress . The difficulty in balancing growth pressures and a decline in transportation infrastructure spending is growing more acute, but there is little movement toward solutions. How would you solve the transit/traffic/transportation issues the Charlottesville/Albemarle region is facing?
Date Archives November 2009
Charlottesville Real Estate – Twitter Week in Review – 29 November 2009
Negotiating real estate contracts is *nothing* compared to negotiating w/ a 5yo re: spinach #fb # This could turn out to be a very fulfilling week – on three levels. # @bjt contact @DaniloB –…
“Everything’s on the Table” – Albemarle County Schools Budget
Brandon Shulletta writes in today’s Daily Progress : School division leaders drafting budget requests are also wondering whether next year’s supervisors are more likely to maintain the current real-estate tax rate of 74.2 cents per $100 of assessed value or increase the rate to 77.2 cents — two options officials have keyed on. At the 77.2-cent rate, county heads project that the average homeowner would pay the same real-estate taxes next year as under this year’s rate because assessed home values are declining. … Rather than complain about or note how ridiculous it is for local governments to decide how much they are going to spend before they know what their actual income is going to be , I’d rather come up with possible solutions . … Have all the kids meet at the front of the subdivision. – What impact would year-round schooling have on the budget? – How much money would be saved by turning off lights methodically and religiously?
October Home Sales Up. Meh.
From the Wall Street Journal : About one in seven American households with mortgages is behind on payments or in foreclosure, according to new data from the Mortgage Bankers Association. … The trade group reported Thursday that 14.4% of first-lien mortgages on one- to four-family homes in the third quarter were 30 days or more overdue or in the foreclosure process. … Another Wall Street Journal : The proportion of U.S. homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than the properties are worth has swelled to about 23%, threatening prospects for a sustained housing recovery. … … The National Association of Realtors reported Monday that sales of previously occupied homes in October jumped 10.1% from September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.1 million, the highest since February 2007.
Nest Welcomes Two Realtors
And we couldn’t be happier by their addition .
CharlAlbemarle Transit Authority – What’s Next?
The fate of a proposed Regional Transit Authority (RTA) could depend on who is selected in January to represent the City Council and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors on two regional transportation bodies.
…Earlier this year, the General Assembly passed a bill authorizing Charlottesville and Albemarle to create a transit authority , but a companion bill that may have provided a funding source for enhanced service did not make it out of committee. That legislation would have authorized a referendum in which city and country residents would have voted on a sales tax increase to pay the RTA’s operating and capital costs.
… The Charlottesville/Albemarle region needs some form of transit that helps alleviate the traffic and congestion that, while not as bad as other areas (Northern Virginia/LA/etc) – is bad by Charlottesville standards – and frankly, those are the standards that matter to me.
Electronic Signatures – Not Groundbreaking but Great all the Same
Here’s what happened: Rather than drive around Charlottesville meeting one buyer at work on the south side of town, the other buyer on the north side of town or both of them together after work at another location, I simply emailed them the contract, they clicked the places they needed to sign and initial and they were done.
…Legal recognition of electronic records, electronic signatures, and electronic contracts. (a) A record or signature may not be denied legal effect or enforceability solely because it is in electronic form. (b) A contract may not be denied legal effect or enforceability solely because an electronic record was used in its formation. (c) If a law requires a record to be in writing, an electronic record satisfies the law. (d) If a law requires a signature, or provides for certain consequences in the absence of a signature, an electronic signature satisfies the law. (2000, c.
…FHA does accept DocuSign today As the real estate industry’s leading provider of electronic contract execution, DocuSign has also sought to establish a clear distinction between an electronic mortgage – with process requirements and controls that must be in place at closing – and an electronically signed real estate contract, seeking appropriate treatment of electronically signed real estate contracts by lenders, the FHA, and other “downstream†recipients of these 100% valid and enforceable agreements. … Over the past five years, hundreds of thousands of real estate documents have been electronically signed by buyers and sellers using the DocuSign electronic contract execution platform, and not one of these transactions has failed for fraud or unenforceability arising from use of the electronic signature.