Yesterday I walked the kiddos (2 year old twins and 2 month old newborn girl) up to my in-laws house to give mama her first kid-less break since Carla was born on June 23rd.  I was talking to my father-in-law, Jay Gordon – executive vice president at Willamette Valley Multiple Listing, about housing and business in our community.  We were in conversation about the growing business of my uncle Dino’s place downtown (Venti’s Cafe and Basement Bar) and he suggested I watch the below clip from KATU that was aired early evening yesterday.  After getting through bedtime and kitchen chores I sat down on the couch and watched the clip below.

Initially I was a bit frustrated with this clip.  The mind is a powerful tool and if a seed is planted about business being slow in downtown Salem and you don’t work and/or live in downtown Salem then the perception may become a reality in one’s mind.  Downtown is busy and vibrant and is continuing to grow.  My office is close to downtown and I plan all my out of office business meetings in the core of downtown. I’d like to make clear that this video does not portray all business in downtown Salem.

The term “Buy Local” quickly came to mind.  As we begin to hear more news about the inevitable state budget woes and potential furlough and/or layoffs the theory of less money spent in our community will come to fruition.

Buy Local

Buying local has never been so much fun in the Salem area.  Specifically the core of downtown Salem has a very good thing going on right now.  Obviously I am partial to the food, drink and entertainment of Venti’s Cafe and Basement Bar, but there are many other great locally owned restaurants we can support in downtown Salem that are all focused on bringing quality food, service and entertainment to our community through their venue. Not to mention the involvement and focus from each owner to return the favor and buy local and pour love back into our community.

Some great places downtown that I adore, both from as a foodie and as an involved member in our community, include:

La Capitale: Chef/Owner David Rosales (@kidcapitale on Twitter) is an amazing contributor to our community.  Culinary expertise runs through his blood as his dad, Pedro Rosales, has owned/run La Margarita (also downtown), one of Salem’s best Mexican restaurants, for years.  David has done a great job of connecting with our community and obviously makes it a priority to integrate fresh, local ingredients into many of his menu and special items.

Wild Pear: Chefs/Owners/Sisters Jessica and Cecilia Ritter (@wildpear) truly care about our community.  I actually worked the catering side of things with Wild Pear right when I came on board with Landmark  in the summer of 2006 to help generate income for health insurance, etc while taking on a 100% commission career.  It was a great experience to work with Jessica and view how much she truly loves her community and every single one of her customers.

Downtown Waffles: Creator/Owner James Cloyd (@downtownwaffles)is the newest addition to my food entourage with his waffle cart on the corner of Liberty and Chemeketa downtown.  I’ve known James for years and I love his new venture.  James offers fresh waffles touting a variety of toppings including many great additions from the local farmer’s markets.

Venti’s Cafe and Basement Bar: Chef/Owner Dino Venti (@ventiscafe / @leslieventi / @conradventi) has never been more passionate about our community and the core of downtown Salem.  Dino is constantly looking for ways to improve the economics and livelihood of downtown Salem, not to mention his overwhelming passion for bringing good food, drink and atmosphere to his eclectic restaurant and bar.

Salem Saturday Market and the Wednesday Farmer’s Market: The Friends of Salem Saturday Market put a considerable amount of effort into planning and organizing the mid-valley’s most community centered market.  Both the Saturday Market and the Wednesday Farmer’s Market are hosted downtown and provide a connection between the residence and local farmers, artists and craftsmen.  Kari and I enjoy weekly outings with the kids to the market to hunt down produce needs and meet-up with friends.

There are many more community focused businesses, restaurants and organizations in the core of downtown Salem, but these stand at the top of my list as places I love and frequently visit.  The story aired by KATU packs a powerful punch in with the reality of our State’s budget crisis, but we can hedge the storm.  Each one of us can make an impact to avoid a “double dip recession” with a focus on our community and spending our money locally.

President Obama signed the Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009.  The act extended the tax credit for first time homebuyers for contracts written before May 1, 2010.  The sale must fund prior to July 1, 2010.  The act also expanded the tax credit for existing homeowners who have owned and occupied their primary residence for at least 5 of the last 8 years.  Surprisingly this expansion is effective at time of enactment which is today November 6, 2009.  That’s a real nice surprise for anybody who is closing in the month of November and fits into that category!

Below are two helpful resources for further detail of the act:

Tax Credit Changes (NAR Government Affairs)

Detailed of certain provisions of the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009

Check out this 4 minute clip from CNBC today.  Existing home sales were reported to see a downward trend for the month of August.  For today, this helped rates take a dip lower than we’ve seen in a couple of weeks.  The positive housing activity is refreshing, but as mentioned in my post yesterday the government has a major roll in our current upward trend in sales and downward trend in rates.  As the expense to tax payers begins to fade away we are sure to a change in our current trends.

With the constant change in our industry, economy, and culture I have to say I spend plenty of time on the web.  Pretty much every aspect of my job involves some need associated with the good ol’ WWW.  Much of my time is consumed by communicating via email, updating blogs (conradventi.com, blog.ventiscafe.com, and my family blog), and keeping up with friends, family, and business associates on social networks such as Facebook.  The new way of online communication, also known as Web 2.0, allows business or people like myself to communicate with clients in an interactive fashion.  Blogs are good examples of Web 2.0.

A good amount of my time is also consumed with research.  I spend time on lender and bank websites researching product guidelines as change is more prevalent than ever.  The constant flow of information on news websites also makes the WWW a primary resource for up to date stories.  Many recent headlines have been focused on the economy and Obama’s new administration.  After the approval of Obama’s new American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, I quickly turned to Google to help me find details of the new programs for home owners.

With the simple search of “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” on Google I found several great resources.  A couple of the top links lead me to whitehouse.gov and recovery.gov.  I had stumbled upon whitehouse.gov in recent weeks and found it a fairly good resource for Obama’s new plans that I may have missed on the Nightly News on any given day.  As I spend a little more time reading about the new programs it didn’t take me long to thinking about the effectiveness of whitehouse.gov and some of the other new information websites for the recent programs.  I’m definitely not saying that I agree with everything that’s being pushed by Obama’s new administration, but I do think his web presence is absolutely amazing. 

I continued to think about Obama’s web presence when I was updating my blog with a new website makinghomeaffordable.gov.  As I thought about Obama’s new “social network”, if you will, Facebook came to my mind.  I remembered seeing plenty of advertisements on Facebook looking for support of his campaign for who knows how long.  So I quickly tabbed Firefox over to Facebook and searched for Barack Obama.  I was amazed to see that he has nearly 6 million supporters on Facebook.

Education is a primary goal of my business plan.  I love having the opportunity to provide my friends, family, and clients with information regarding home ownership and more.  As we continue to work through this economic downturn as a country I will do my best to provide helpful resources here at conradventi.com.  Although I don’t agree with all that’s being proposed by the new adminstration, I will continue to turn to whitehouse.gov for a reference for anything new coming in the works.

If you have a moment take a look at whitehouse.gov, you’re bound to have some questions about programs that have come up in recent weeks.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included a new program for struggling home owners.  The existing modification program for those who are delinquent is still available, but now there is a program geared towards those who have continued to be responsible with their mortgages, but simply don’t have the equity in their home to take advantage of today’s low interest rates.

The website financialstability.gov has been around since the signing of the new bill, but the Obama Administration has yet again expanded what I’m calling the “Government 2.0″ efforts with the new website makinghomeaffordable.gov.  This website allows home owners to check eligibility for the new program and offers a handful of other helpful tools.

Although the program will only help a select group of Americans with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loans the website will likely be a good resource for those who are struggling.

As with any real estate or mortgage related questions, I am here for you.  If you have any questions regarding any of these new programs or about your current financing scenario please don’t hesitate to contact me.

The “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” updated the first-time homebuyer tax credit.  After rumors processed through the mill about a potential increase to $15,000, the Act came clear with the facts of the increased tax credit.  The tax credit for 2008 was $7,500 and will have to be paid back to the federal government beginning in 2010 or 2011 depending on when the credit was claimed.  The updated tax credit was increased to $8,000 and will not have to be repaid if the home is owned for three years.

This is an exciting opportunity for first-time homebuyers in 2009 and a frustration for those that purchased in 2008.  I hope to see some of my clients take advantage of this “gift” from our government.

For details contact me today and click on the PDF from realtor.org updated-first-time-homebuyer-tax-credit

After running some errands with Kari and M (N went to grandma’s house) I was able to catch President Obama’s speech on the White House’s blog – www.whitehouse.gov.  It was not much of a surprise to hear more the common theme about our plan to “rebuild” from the newly elected president.  In fact, as I was listening, I was wondering (mostly knowing the answer) if the markets would react in a similar fashion the next day.  Without much change to the recent trend, the markets did finished down with the Dow closing -80 points following a speech by President Obama.

The speech to congress and the citizens of the United States laid out much of what his administration has in store for the recovery of our current economy recession.  I can’t help, but be among the millions who are waiting, hopeful, that what he says will actually come to fruition.  The countless billions ($1,000,000,000) pouring out of the Federal Reserve make me very nervous.

President Obama said the first step to recovery in the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” is the focus on our banking system:

1. Pour money into banks – directly correlating with easing credit for Americans via auto loans, business loans and mortgages.
2. Help those families with trouble mortgages who have been responsible and have continued to pay on time.
3. Bank accountability – “stringent” requirements to make strong viable (public) institutions.
   • Will require banks to show how tax dollars are going to create lending liquidity for the American tax payer.
   • Costs will likely exceed what’s currently budgeted.
   • “It’s not about helping banks, it’s about helping people.”

Details about the new plan are available at www.recovery.gov.

So, I say, we should compare President Obama’s 3 step plan to Oscar Roger’s 3 step plan.  My vote is for Oscar.  Watch the video and cast your vote with a comment.

If you missed last night’s address you can click here to view it The President’s Address

Photo courtesy of Jeff Gordon.

A word from the wise (Larry Buhler, my wife’s grandfather):

Dear Bethel Family and Friends: (E-Mail Version)

I’m as confused by the recent “Stimulus Plan” as the next guy. In fact, although I’ve tried, I have yet to find anyone that can explain it in a meaningful, understandable way. The first stumbling block is that it’s hard to imagine how much even one trillion is.

One million seconds are 11 days. One billion seconds are 32 years. One trillion seconds would be 31,546 years. That is 5 times as many years as from Adam and Eve until now. Change seconds to dollars and you wind up with a huge, Texas-sized pile.

America has had recessions before. By injecting unimaginable amounts of money into the system you upset the normal cycle. Governmental bureaucracy always adds layers of difficulty and waste. It looks as if our country is in for a fun, bumpy, and scary ride.

…

Application: Accept God’s salvation while there is time. Would that our own country could see this. Love…Larry Buhler

Below is a Video that I caught on MSNBC.  It’s interesting to hear Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke come out and say that he really doesn’t know why rates are not as low as they said they would be.  The Fed is purchasing up the mortgage backed securities which has definitely helped rates come down, just not to the level was forecasted.  With the constant announcements from the Feds that they will continue to pour money into our system it’s safe to say that we may not see the rates come down any more drastically than they have already.

Fed Chairman Bernanke went on to speak about our national plan to spend more money, but in the long term we need to “repair our balance sheet”.  He did make a call to action to citizens to repair their personal budgets and savings goals.  The lack of savings and increase of spending has such a large affect of our current economic state.  We must all focus on these simple goals of spending less and saving more if we want to see a change from our current state of chaos.

100 Million – 150 Million.  Check out this video I came across.  With the new stimulus package approved and checks currently being written it’s fun to see some of the stuff that’s actually in the Bill.  Stay tuned for President Obama’s announcement of his additional housing recovery plan.  He is in Phoenix today, one of the foreclosure capitals of the country, to announce the highlights of the plan…