Effective April 22, 2010, important new federal regulations went into effect regarding  how remodeling firms and contractors need to handle work done in pre-1978 housing.  Called the Renovation, Repair, and Painting rule (RRP), it requires firms and their employees to be certified by the EPA in order to do any work that disturbs lead-based paint on six or more square feet of interior space or more than 20 square feet of exterior space.

The rule does not apply to homeowners doing work themselves on their own homes, but anyone hiring a contractor needs to be aware of the new requirements.  In addition, property owners doing work on their own pre-1978 rental properties or any pre-1978 space occupied by a child care facility are subject to the new law.

This is an important change to make sure your real estate clients and any contractors you work with are aware of.  Here are some links to more information:

The EPA’s ‘Renovate Right: Important Lead Hazard Information for Families, Child Care Providers, and Schools’ pamphlet (pdf).

The main EPA page about the Renovation, Repair and Painting rule.

Here’s a link to the entire RRP rule, but it’s hefty; you might find the National Association of Home Builder’s summary of the new legislation a more helpful read.  (Note that they state that the regulation applies to pre-1978 homes inhabited or frequented by pregnant women or children under the age of six, but this is because there is currently a waiver that homeowners can sign to opt out of the contractor requirements if neither of those two conditions apply.  Effective July 6, 2010, the opt-out waiver option goes away.)

Well I’m happy to say after my outraged post about Google Street Views that it really IS a joke, as was kindly pointed out to me by Kim Brown on Active Rain.  Phew!

I could just delete the post, but since I’m always making a big deal about double-checking sources to make sure information is correct before you publish it I’ll just leave it up as a reminder to myself and anyone else to actually do that.

Oops – this WAS a joke, fortunately, as graciously pointed out by the nice people on Active Rain.  I left it up as a reminder to always double-check info before you publish!

This morning I ended up on the Diverse Solutions dsListingExpress website and saw something that seriously made me think I was reading a joke – except apparently it’s for real.

Diverse Solutions was explaining how for their new dsListingExpress service they’ve been working with Google on providing Google Street View and Google Interior Views.   Here’s how they describe Google Interior View:

They (Google) have been “cataloging photos of property interior views from various sources and associating them with a particular parcel.”

Fine.  So far I’m assuming that the interior photos come from previous listings of the properties.

“In some locations they have started to employ companies to discreetly take photos of the interiors without disturbing the occupants.”

Say what?  Is it possible that Google, or one of their henchmen, might actually take photos of the interior of my home while I live there, without my knowledge?

Can you see why I thought this was a joke?

Try this:

When you Google “Google Street View” (in quotation marks) you get over 5 million search results.

When you Google “Google Interior View” you currently get 2 (yes, just two) search results.  Same for “Google Interior Views”, although they’re different results.

So either no one knows about this yet, or it’s a joke.  Please tell me it’s a joke.

Your thoughts?  Am I missing something here, or is this as intensely creepy as I think it is?

The Freakonomics blog at the New York Times made an interesting point this morning about why Zillow’s housing price-index numbers show less decline in home prices than do the widely circulated Case-Shiller numbers.

The reason is that Zillow’s numbers don’t include the sales of foreclosed homes, and in some markets those make up a huge proportion of the market.  For example, in December 60% of all transactions in the San Francisco metro area were foreclosures.

This is important because the median price of a home that sells in foreclosure is typically lower than one that is not in foreclosure, as shown by the first graph in this Zillow article. (Clicking on the graph in the article brings up a more clear image.)

Problem?

What strikes me is that they’re assuming that the red line consists of homes that were previously not in foreclosure and then were sold in foreclosure. 

 Here’s what Zillow says:

“By including foreclosure transactions in such a measure (as Case-Shiller does), you’re also looking at the depreciation of homes that were previously in the set of homes making up the black line, but went into foreclosure, thus becoming part of the set of homes making up the red line.”

In other words, the assumption is that they are comparing apples to apples, with the only difference being that the home went into foreclosure, which caused it to sell at a lower price.

They appear to not address the question of whether homes in lower price ranges are more likely in general to go into foreclosure to start out with.  If this is the case, then the foreclosed homes are selling at lower prices ranges not because of the stigma of being in foreclosure (which would skew the implied results of the data) but simply because these are lower priced homes to begin with.

Granted, there is a stigma involved in a foreclosure sale. But is it enough to explain all of the difference in sales price?

Thoughts?  If you think I missed something I’d like to hear about it.