Habitat Breaks Ground! & November CORT Report

Today, Habitat for Humanity had their ceremonial groundbreaking for the upcoming San Pascual Housing Project. It was a wonderful event where everyone was invited to meet the community members involved, as well as meet the 4 families who will live in the housing project. At this time, Habitat has reached 44% of the campaign goal, and recently closed escrow at the housing project site, located at 618 San Pascual Street. During today's program, Mayor Marty Blum and First District Supervisor Salud Carbajal, expressed their enthusiasm for the project, and for the organizations impact in our community. Mayor Blum encouraged everyone to visit the ReStore, and to join her with a hammer when construction begins.

The November CORT report is outlined below.

November Sales-South County by area.

1. Carpinteria 7 sales: Average sales price $1,711,426.57

Range ($250K-$6.5M)

2. Goleta 21 sales: Average sales price $668,523.81

Range ($285K-$2.3M)

3. Hope Ranch 1 sale: price $2.7M

4. Montecito 11 sales: Average sales price: $2,266,772.73

Range ($1.2M-4.2M)

5. Santa Barbara 34 sales: Average sales price $931,235.29

Range ($331,500-$3.6M)

6. Summerland 3 sales: Average sales price $1,107,166.67

Range ($454,500-$1.795M)

Sotheby's Contributes to Conservation International, $800 Billion Dollar Buy Out, Foreclosures Suspended

Sotheby's International Realty has announced a comprehensive program to protect tropical forest land worldwide through a company-wide support of Conservation International (CI), a global conservation leader operating in 40 countries.

Sotheby's International Realty is encouraging its agents, staff and customers to take action by participating in the program, which supports CI's "Lost There Felt Here" campaign to protect tropical forests. Already the company has given an up-front donation to protect over 4,500 acrse of endangered rainforest. In 2009 the will match each acreage donation made, until a combined total of at least 8,500 acres is reached. To learn more about CI visit: www.conservation.org

***This will be an organization that I will be contributing to, as well as our local Habitat for Humanity at the close of every escrow.

An article from MSNBC.com, "U.S. moves to thaw credit for consumers" (quick synopsis)

The government unveiled two new programs Tuesday that will provide $800 billion to try to help unfreeze the market for consumer debt from home mortgages and credit cards.

The announcements by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department represented the latest modifications to the largest government bailout in history. The program on consumer debt will lend up to $200 billion to the holders of securities backed by various types of consumer loans. It will be supported by a $20 billion of credit protection from the $700 billion bailout package that was enacted last month. In a promising sign that homeowner's rates could tumble, rates on Fannie Mae and Fredie Mac debt fell Tuesday after Paulson announced the new plan.

Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac to suspend foreclosure sales until January 2009 (NAR Newsline)

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recently announced that they will postpone foreclosure sales and evictions on occupied single-family residences scheduled to occur between Nov. 26, 2008-Jan. 9, 2009.

During this time, the two mortgage companies will streamline their modification programs, scheduled to launch Dec. 15th. Foreclosure attorneys and loan servicers will continue to contact borrowers who have defaulted on their mortgage loans owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and continue to pursue workout options.