I've hired a number of home contractors since I bought my home in the city several years ago, I didn't follow my own advice at all in three instances. (hey guys, I am human. I make mistakes, too). I was really fortunate that those experiences didn't turn out to be huge disasters.

There's a right way and a wrong way to hire contractors as I wrote about in my Tuesday column (I'll post the Q&A column in the jump to keep it on the blog permanently), and I definitely took some chances when I hired the guy to help renovate my first floor, who then recommended someone to install my central air.   

Continue reading "How to Find a Good Contractor" »

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Planning to use that tax rebate money on a little home improvement, like painting the exterior of your home?

You might be surprised by the price of paint. Add it to the growing list of products affected by the skyrocketing costs of petroleum. 

But don't skimp on the paint you purchase for the exterior of your house, or you might spend more money in the long run, sez Consumer Reports.

Continue reading "Save a few bucks: painting your house" »

Posted by Liz Kay at 2:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Home Depot said today it will close 15 underperforming U.S. stores -- two in Indiana, three in Wisconsin, two in New Jersey, two in Ohio and one each in Kentucky, New York, Minnesota, Louisiana, North Dakota and Vermont.

The chain will continue with plans to open 55 new stores this year, but will scrap plans to open 50 new stores still in the pipeline over the next 10 years.

According to the press release, the closings will affect 1,300 workers. Home Depot says store managers and assistant store managers at these locations will be offered other store management positions within the organization. The company will work to place the rest of the associates in other comparable store positions where available. 

The slowdown in consumer spending isn't just hurting Home Depot, the NYT reports that over the next year, Foot Locker said it would close 140 stores, Ann Taylor will start to shutter 117 and the jeweler Zales will close 100. 

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Come April 1, sellers of homes in Mongtomery County will be required to provide potential buyers with an estimate of what the actual property tax bill will be in the first full year after the home is purchased.

The County Council approved the measure in December to help eliminate the shock that many county home buyers encountered in recent years when they learned that they would have to pay  significantly higher property taxes than did the seller due to swiftly rising residential property values. The bill passed unanimously.

Although the State of Maryland re-assesses residential properties every three years, the taxable assessment on a specific property is capped at a 10 percent maximum increase per year, unless the home changes ownership.

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Philip L. Rossetti, 59, pled guilty in Baltimore City Circuit Court this week for illegally falsifying a lead certificate to the Maryland Department of the Environment. Judge Timothy J. Doory gave him a six month suspended sentence, a fine of $5,000 of which $4,000 was suspended, two years probation and ordered Rosetti to perform 100 hours of community service, according to the AG's Office.

Rosetti, an accredited lead inspector, apparently falsified a Lead Paint Risk Reduction Certificate for a property at 4016 Penhurst Ave. in Baltimore after an inspection on Dec. 9, 2006. The false certificate was discovered by MDE's Lead Accreditation and Oversight Division when one of the documents Rosetti submitted contained a "Supervisor's Statement Work" from an abatement contractor whose accreditation had expired.

An investigation found that the contractor's signature had been photocopied from a pre-signed, but otherwise blank, Statement of Work form.

A joint inspection of the property conducted by MDE and the AG's Environmental Crimes Unit revealed numerous discrepancies between lead risk reduction conditions reported by Rossetti and those observed by the joint inspectors.

Rosetti wasn't the only one nabbed.

Continue reading "Lead inspector falsifies report" »

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My story about a Web site for landlords to post reviews about problem renters online discussed the difficulties property managers face when checking out potential tenants -- and advice for renters who fear they've been blackballed.

Remember when we first alerted you to donotrentto.com? It's a situation rife with thorny issues, especially when you're potentially smearing people's reputations.

But what source can landlords rely upon? Even court records about rentals should be taken with a grain of salt, said John Nethercut, executive director of the Public Justice Center.

"Public records are of course a better source of information than Web sites that may pick and choose which information to display. However, there are particular problems with the eviction records at the Baltimore City District Court," he said.

More than 130,000 eviction cases are filed annually in the city. But Baltimore's rent court is not computerized.

In a small percentage of those cases, landlords take their tenants to small claims court to try to get their back rent. If the renter pays up, the landlord is supposed to file documents to reflect that.

Continue reading "More advice for tenants and landlords" »

Posted by Liz Kay at 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

I read somewhere that moving is in the top ten most stressful things you can experience in your life. Not sure what the other nine are, but I'm thinking that hiring a moving company that extorts money from you before they give you back your belongings has got to be up high on that list somewhere.

The American Moving and Storage Association (AMSA), an Alexandria, Va.-based trade group, said that a federal grand jury recently returned indictments against 14 people for defrauding and extorting fees from hundreds of residential moving customers across the U.S.

The indictment said that the defendants made money by providing extremely low estimates, packing up and removing customers' belongings, and then they increased the price and refused to deliver the property until the customers paid the inflated price.

Six of the defendants worked for AY Transport Inc. of San Jose, Calif., which was also known as Progressive Van Lines and Midwest Relocation Services. The remaining eight defendants worked for National Moving Network, a moving broker in Miami, Fla.

Continue reading "Moving van rip-offs" »

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Here's the answer in Biz Writer Extraordinaire Tricia Bishop's really good story today.

As Tricia says, a wave of consumers wondering that very question rang up mortgage companies everywhere because: "Rates for 30-year fixed mortgages hovered around 5.5 percent Wednesday, with some dipping into the 5.25 percent range early in the day, according to area brokers. That's just a hair above the record lows recorded in June 2003, when the housing market was flourishing."

But before you rush to refinance, be warned that the rules are pretty different now. Let's just say that you better make sure your credit is pretty good. So if you owe more than your house is worth, have little to no equity in your home or can't prove how much you earn every year, this refi-rush will likely pass you by.

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If you haven't already read Eileen's very helpful story on how the Fed's three-quarters of a percentage point cut affects you, check it out here.

If you're too lazy to read it, I'll sum up for you.

Credit Cards: Don't count on seeing a lower interest rate.

Home Equity Lines: Expect to see a decrease as early as next month.

Mortgages: No change for fixed-rate mortgages, but maybe for adjustable rate mortgages.

Continue reading "How the Fed interest rate cut affects you" »

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If you've been putting off making a New Year's Resolution to exercise since you figure it's the first one you'll break, here's something you can do that will be good for you and won't require too much sweat. It will, however, require a little bit of time.

Now that you've received some holiday gifts -- possibly some pricey, some not -- it might not be a bad idea to make an up-to-date home inventory of your personal possessions.

Why in the world would anyone want to do that? For starters, the Insurance Information Institute, an industry tradegroup, says that taking stock of what you own helps you make the most of your insurance dollars. Senior V.P. of III Jeanne M. Salvatore says, "A home inventory lists all your personal possessions and their estimated value. This helps you to purchase the right amount of insurance and will make the claims process faster and easier if there is a fire, hurricane or other tyupe of disaster."

No one expects the worst to happen, of course. But when it does, the last thing you want to do is try to piece together the remnants of your life or remember every single item of value that you've lost.

For those of you who don't know where to start, the III has developed a software program called, Know Your Stuff, that allows you to enter, edit, print and store a home inventory. The newest version of this software can store multiple photographs of rooms and objects, and can handle large inventory files securely.

Continue reading "Inventory your home in the new year" »

Posted by Dan Thanh Dang at 3:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Here's another piece of news I meant to put out earlier. A cluster of consumer advocacy groups in the state are warning Marylanders that even as thousands of homeowners are suffering through the loss of their home through foreclosure, that could just be the beginning your financial troubles.

Here's why: If you, the homeowner, has part of your debt forgiven during the foreclosure process, you're required to include the forgiven amount as income on your tax return. This amount is called a "windfall" and often taxes will be owed on that amount, according to the Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition, Maryland CASH Campaign and Baltimore CASH Campaign.

Forgiven debt in a foreclosure can range from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands, which means the taxes owed can be significant. The groups warned that federal and state tax debt usually cannot be discharged through bankruptcy so consumers should contact their tax preparer immediately if you have canceled debt, known as the "1099 shortfall."

Continue reading "Tax bills on forgiven debt in your future?" »

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Remember the other day when I told you about the Maryland Department of Ag's Weights and Measures Section? Well, many of you probably know about the state's Real Estate Commission, which was started to "protect the health, safety and welfare of the public through its examination, licensing, and regulatory activities in regard to real estate."

If you're curious about who got whacked with disciplinary action between July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006, here's a taste of who got their license revoked, suspended, reprimanded and fined.

Revocations:

2004-RE-293 - D'Nettra D. Mercer (salesperson, Weichert Realtors and Century 21/AAA Realty, Ltd.). License REVOKED and licensee FINED $5,000 for violation of § 17-322(b)(3) and (25), and COMAR 09.11.02.01C for providing false and misleading information in a lease application, for immediately defaulting on the lease, and for providing false information to the Commission investigator.

2002-RE-172 - William J. Peterson (salesperson, W.F. Chesley Real Estate, Inc. and O'Conor, Piper & Flynn). License REVOKED and licensee FINED $40,000 for violation of § 17-322(b)(3), (4), (19), (21), (25), (31), and (33), and § 17-502(a), and COMAR 09.11.02.01C, D, F, and H, and 09.11.02.02A for leading the buyer to believe that he had purchased property while failing to disclose that the property belonged to a third party who was facing foreclosure, for taking deposit money from the buyer and failing to place that money in trust, for failing to give the buyer a written contract memorializing the agreement, and for failing to make payments on the existing mortgage as promised to the owner. A Guaranty Fund award in the amount of $9,900 was made as a result of the conduct of the licensee.

Suspensions:

Continue reading "Naughty businesses Part II -- real estate professionals" »

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