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City Of Chicago To Modernize Outdated Graft Programs - - -

30-year fixed-rate mortgage highest in 8 months

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hit its highest weekly level in eight months this week, averaging 5.21%, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey of conforming mortgage rates, released on Thursday.

The mortgage averaged 5.08% last week and 4.87% a year ago. It hasn't been higher since the week ending Aug. 13, when it averaged 5.29%.

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Middle East Small Talks To Focus On Getting Israel, Palestine To Discuss Weather - - -

National Office Vacancy Rate Report

The U.S. office vacancy rate rose to 17.2 percent in the first quarter, its highest level in 16 years, as the market lost about 11.6 million net square feet of occupied space during the first quarter. The U.S. vacancy rate was 2 percent higher than a year ago.

Asking rent fell 4.2 percent from a year earlier. Factoring months of free rent and landlord contributions to space improvements for each tenant, effective rent was down 7.4 percent from a year earlier. Expect less of a bloodbath in fundamentals in 2010 versus 2009, but rents will still decline and vacancies will still continue to rise. Positive rent growth is not expected to resume until next year at the earliest. Tight credit markets have curbed office construction with only 3.6 million square feet of office space coming online.

Washington DC's 10.4 percent is the nation's lowest vacancy rate.

Detroit's 26.2 percent vacancy rate is the highest in the nation.

Key West Vagrants - A Problem

Simply put, “If you have to be homeless, Key West is the best place to live” says one of several vagrants gathered at Higgs Beach in Key West.  Or at least it used to be. Over the past three months, the city police have given homeless residents more than twice as many warnings for trespassing as they did last year. Between Jan. 1 and March 23, they made 90 arrests, and the federal stimulus will ensure that the trend continues: the Key West police recently received $813,000 to add four officers to its 89-member department. Their sole mission will be quality-of-life policing.

“It’s for vagrants,” said the police chief, Donald J. Lee Jr. “People who are out on the streets, disrupting the quality of life or experience for visitors, residents and businesses.” What some call vagrants, of course, others call simply down-and-out. The police say their targets are people like the homeless man arrested last week after he told two teenage girls they were sexy and offered them a swig of his Jack Daniel’s. Yet in a city of 25,000 that claims to have more bars per capita than anywhere else in the country, enforcement can sometimes look selective.

The police now regularly question the homeless but ignore visitors like the man at a table near Ms. Skinner’s Jeep last week. He was passed out before sunset, snoring, with a 16-ounce beer in front of him and two chickens pecking near his feet. Only his pressed shorts, lack of strong body odor, and a half-eaten Godiva chocolate bar suggested that he had a home.

Vagrants say the police are “profiling” them with arrests for small infractions, like drinking outside in violation of open-container laws.  At a picnic table with a half-dozen homeless friends. With raspy voices and slurred words — some actually sounded like pirates — they all said they deserved to be left alone.

“God gave us this, not the government,” they said of the island. “This is what he’s given to us. Why can’t we enjoy it?” Some residents and tourists reply that it's often the Vagrants who want to be "given" money for booze, describing the methods used by the homeless to request cash as more man-handling than pan-handling.

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U.S. Government Finds $20 Trillion Buried By Absentminded Reagan In 1987 - - -

Latest Foreclosure Prevention Program

Unemployed homeowners will get a few months of relief on their mortgages.


Banks participating in the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, now will be required to consider writing down the principal for borrowers who are eligible for that program and whose mortgage debt is more than 115% of the current value of their homes. The principal would be reduced in stages over three years if the borrowers kept up on their payments.

Lenders are to receive 10 to 21 cents of federal subsidies per dollar of loan principal reduced, depending on the degree to which the borrower is underwater. Holders of second-lien mortgages that are more than six months delinquent are to receive six cents on the dollar for writing off those loans. 

At the same time, the FHA will offer a new way for some borrowers to refinance into a smaller loan. Lenders would write down the principal of a first mortgage at least 10%. The loans would then be refinanced into FHA-insured mortgages for no more than 97.75% of the home's current estimated value. To participate, homeowners must be current on their loan, occupy the home as a primary residence, fully document their income and have a credit score strong enough to meet FHA guidelines.