American homeowners have historically been particularly sanguine about real estate values, making their perceptions far from the reality of late, particularly when asked about their own homes. But the severityof the housing downturn appears to be finally setting in for homeowners nationwide, according to a new report from real estate data provider Zillow.

American homeowners’ confidence in their own homes’ values has fallen to the lowest level on record, Zillow said Thursday. Just one in five homeowners believe their property value increased during 2009, but Zillow says in fact, 28 percent of homes appreciated during the year. It’s the first time in the history of the Seattle-based company’s survey that such a large percentage of homeowners have underestimated their home’s value.

The Zillow Home Value Misperception Index was -2 in the fourth quarter. A Misperception Index of zero would mean homeowners perceptions’ were in line with actual values. The closest it’s ever come to that until now, was in the second quarter of 2008, when the index was at 32.

Zillow says a negative Misperception Index indicates that homeowners are “overly cynical” about their own homes’ values when compared with reality. This is the first time the national index was negative.

Based on Zillow’s survey, half of homeowners believe their own homes lost value during 2009, while 30 percent believed their homes’ values stayed the same. In reality, the company said, 65 percent of homes lost value during the year, and values remained the same for 7 percent.
The results demonstrate the “not my home” sentiment that was once prominent among American homeowners has faded. Zillow says one year ago, nearly half (47 percent) of homeowners believed values in their local market would decrease in the next six months. However, when asked about their own home, fewer than one in three (30 percent) believed their own home’s value would decrease.

Now that gap has shrunk, with 22 percent of homeowners believing their local market will lose value over the next six months and 14 percent believing their own home will lose value.

“Homeowners are finally succumbing to the notion that, in most areas, declining home values over the past year are no longer the exception, they are the rule,” said Dr. Stan Humphries, Zillow chief economist.

However, Humphries noted that almost three times as many people currently believe their home’s value will increase over the next six months as believe it will decrease in value – a level of optimism he says is likely to outpace actual performance in the near-term.

Humphries says given recent news about the stabilization of home values in some markets, it’s easy to understand why some homeowners are optimistic. “However, home values in many markets are still under substantial downward pressure from high levels of foreclosures and we don’t believe we’ll see a definitive bottom nationally until the second quarter of this year. We’re not out of the woods yet,” he warned.

According to Zillow’s quarterly survey, homeowners in the northeastern and westerners parts of the country are the most cynical about their own homes’ values.

Three-quarters (78 percent) of Northeastern homeowners said their home lost value or stayed the same in the past year when just over half (58 percent) of the homes actually did.

Western homeowners, who last quarter were the most optimistic and the least aligned with reality, did an about-face in the fourth quarter. They now are slightly cynical with a Misperception Index of -5, Zillow said.
By: Carrie Bay

BREAKING NEWS:
Local news media recently reported that our own Mr. Las Vegas was like so many homeowners by being behind in his payments on his huge Vegas Estate know as Casa de Shenandoah. Newton’s 38-acre residence in Las Vegas at Pecos and Sunset roads is just down the road from where I call home.

Reports state that Mr. Newton is delinquent on a $3.35 million loan. The loan, which initially was for $3.75 million in 2006 but was modified in 2007 to $3.35 million and was secured by Newton’s residence and associated Las Vegas land, as well as an aircraft described as a Fokker F.28 MK 1000.

The loan was to be repaid by May 30, 2009, but the Newtons failed to pay back all that was due and the loan has been delinquent since then.

UPDATE:
This morning the Marshall’s office arrived at Casa de Shenandoah along with three moving vans. It seems that Wayne Newton is walking away (or being carried away) from this beloved home and our Vegas landmark which has also seen the value drop to $2 million.

Wayne Newton is currently under contract with The Tropicana Hotel. His show entitled, “Once Before I Go” is scheduled to end in April. Does this mean that Mr. Las Vegas will be unemployed AND homeless?
That is sooooo Las Vegas.
~Cynthia Weber

CBS Morning Show video of when they toured Wayne Newton’s Home:

When I work with people in my business productivity practice, the first question I ask them is, “What’s stopping you from being more productive?” The answers that keep coming up are pretty much the same from everyone.

In this article, we’ll take a look at these beliefs one by one, and see how you can turn them around.

1. There’s too much information coming at me too fast
Belief: My e-mail is overwhelming me. I can’t keep up with it.

Reality: The volume of e-mail isn’t the issue. How you process and organize the volume is the issue. Learning how to better manage your e-mail by using McGhee Productivity Solutions’ “Four D’s for Decision Making” will transform this belief.

Each year we receive more and more data from a growing array of devices, which can be accessed from an increasing number of locations. If you’re not careful, the quantity of data starts to drive you instead of the other way around. Learn 4 ways you can take control of your e-mail Inbox. And when you do, you can reduce the number of messages in your inbox by as much as 80 percent.

2. I have to keep everything
Belief: I have to keep everything. You just never know when you might need it!

Reality: Okay, prepare yourself. On average, the clients we work with throw away 50 percent of their stored information, with no ramifications. They feel lighter, happier, and have more time. So if you’re a “keeper,” and you know who you are, hold on to your hats! You “keepers” are a proud and experienced breed! There’s nothing quite like laying your hands on a file that no one else can find. It justifies all of your filing and keeping efforts. If you’re a keeper, you might recognize yourself in one of these statements:

•I got badly burned when I couldn’t lay my hands on an important document. Now, I’m afraid to let go of information.

•I want to be able to justify the decisions I make, so I keep everything.

•If my system crashes, I want backup information.

•I felt so good when no one else could find “that document.” As a result, I decided to keep everything so I could continue being useful.

At some point you made a decision about keeping all your information. That decision has been driving you ever since, but it may not be appropriate in your current situation.

The truth is, most people use only 15 percent of what they file, and this makes the other 85 percent ineffective. You can read about one way to develop a functional filing system in my Create an Effective Reference System article. By clarifying what is useful and letting go of the rest, you can reduce your filing, make it easier to find what you do keep, and save valuable time and energy that you can direct to more meaningful tasks. Also, learn 7 tips to help you manage your files better.

3. Organization cramps my freedom and creativity
Belief: Being organized blocks my creativity, and there’s nothing spontaneous about it.

Reality: Organization actually fosters and supports creativity and spontaneity. You may find your creativity being disrupted by the non-stop flood of reminders spinning around your head, such as:

•Call Kevin for his birthday

•Review the P&L spreadsheet

•Review PowerPoint slide deck

•Decide on a Valentine’s Day present

Imagine if you could clear your mind of all these lists and transfer them to Microsoft Office Outlook. You can do this by putting them in the TaskPad. This will create space for new ideas and creative thinking. Being disorganized can also stifle your creativity. Imagine you’re an artist and decide to paint the Colorado autumn colors in Aspen. You drive for three and a half hours from Denver to Aspen to find the perfect spot. When you arrive, you realize you’ve forgotten to pack your paint brushes. That can make being creative really hard! Preparation does support your creativity.

When your calendar is booked and leaves no time to be spontaneous, this can be frustrating. However, if you pre-plan, you can block out large chunks of time with no organized events, giving you more freedom to do something on the spur of the moment.

To get control of all the “stuff” in your life, I recommend you set up an Integrated Management System (IMS). An IMS gives you a methodology for storing reference information, turning action information into tasks, and scheduling tasks on your calendar. After you’ve set up your IMS, you’ll find that it will support your creativity and spontaneity. The best result is being able to close your system, knowing that everything is taken care of so you can relax and let go!

4. There’s not enough time in the day!
Belief: I just don’t have the time to do all the things I want.

Reality: Time is not the issue. The issue is deciding what you can do given the time you have.

As you know, managing your time with Olympian skill doesn’t create more hours in the day. We all have the same 24 hours, so the issue isn’t managing time—it’s managing what you can do with the time you have. You can’t do everything, but you can do anything, as long as it fits into your calendar.

If you keep your to-do lists in multiple locations—in e-mail, on a calendar, on paper, in an Excel spreadsheet, a list in your head, and notepad paper—you might want to consider centralizing this list in the Outlook TaskPad. This will make it easier to centralize and prioritize this list. Then, you need to schedule your tasks on your Outlook Calendar so you will know what you can and can not do. To start, put your to-do items on your Outlook Task list. Learn how to create a Task.

Create a task list to see all the commitments you have.
.Then, drag your tasks onto your Outlook Calendar.

If you click on a task and drag it to the Calendar, you can choose to move or copy it to your Calendar as an attachment, with all of the details intact.

View all your tasks on your calendar.
.As you drop tasks into the available time on your Calendar you will immediately see if you are overcommitted and if you need to re-prioritize your tasks and, in some cases, reschedule your commitments.

5. It takes too much time to get productive
Belief: I don’t have the time to set up a system. I’ve got too much to do.

Reality: You can save one to two hours a day using an Integrated Management System, so the return on the investment is significant.

Here are some interesting statistics. On average, people we work with spend two to three hours a day working in e-mail and 60 minutes a day finding and filing information. After setting up an Integrated Management System, they spend one to two hours a day working in e-mail and 10 minutes a day finding and filing information. That’s a savings of nearly two hours a day, or almost 12 weeks a year! The bottom line is: You can’t afford not to create an effective Integrated Management System.

Take a moment and consider the time you spend:

•Finding and filing information;

•Writing a to-do list, and then rewriting it a week later on another list, and then another;

•Opening e-mail, reading the message, closing the e-mail and then coming back to the same e-mail to read it again tomorrow; and

•Going to the store and realizing you don’t know the model of the hardware you need to pick up.

These are just a few examples of how we waste time by not having an Integrated Management System to help us remember what, where, and when. Take the time to set up your system. You’re worth it, and you can’t afford not to.

Author Bio: Sally McGhee
A recognized thought leader and innovator in the field of productivity management, Sally McGhee has trained thousands of people in the corporate environment. She has more than 25 years’ experience as a consultant and an executive coach, and is the founder and CEO of McGhee Productivity Solutions. Her book Take Back Your Life!: Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 to Get Organized and Stay Organized is available online.

Las Vegas has the highest foreclosure rate of any metro in the country, but lenders there have become more willing to accept short sales as an alternative toforeclosure. The Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors (GLVAR) reports that 21.1 percent of all existing-home sales in the area last month were short sales.

The association’s short sale figures represent a 2 percent increase from the previous month. Rick Shelton, GLVAR president and a local Realtor, called the increase in short sales “one of the more promising trends” for the month, particularly because it was coupled with a decline in sales involving foreclosed homes.

Shelton said bank-owned homes accounted for a decreasing percentage of all local home sales, dropping from 60.1 percent in December to 57.4 percent of all sales in January.

Overall, GLVAR’s local housing statistics showed that 2010 started looking very much like the end of 2009, with local home prices staying about the same and home sales increasing from the previous year.
During January, GLVAR reported the median price of single-family homes sold in Southern Nevada was $134,925, down 0.8 percent from $136,000 in December. The median price for condos and townhomes increased 5.7 percent, from $65,300 in December to $69,000 in January.

According to the GLVAR, the total number of local homes, condominiums, and townhomes sold in January was 3,266, down from 4,196 total sales in December 2009, but up from 2,664 in January 2009. Shelton said this decline in total sales from December to January was expected since it occurs nearly every year in Southern Nevada during these months.

The percentage of local homes purchased with cash during January was 45.5 percent, up from 40.4 percent the previous month and the highest such percentage ever tracked by GLVAR.

While the indicators point to improvements in Las Vegas’ market conditions, it still carries the label of the country’s most foreclosure-ravaged city, and has for some time now. But with short sales gaining ground in the area as a viable alternative for both lenders and distressed homeowners, perhaps that stat too will soon improve.

The Five Star Institute (FSI) will be hosting a Short Sale Summit in Las Vegas on March 12 as part of its West Coast 2010 Spring Training. The day’s full agenda will be dedicated to the ins and outs of short sales, and upon successfully passing a course exam, attendees will receive The Five Star Short Sale Certification.

In addition to the full-day summit on short sales, FSI’s 2010 Spring Training will be held on March 10, 11, and 13, and covers such areas as building an REO business, mastering broker price opinions (BPOs), and working with the distressed borrower – all taught by instructors who are recognized leaders in their respective fields
By: Carrie Bay