In Cooling Market, Sellers Turn To Patron Saint


Thursday, September 21, 2006 - By Sara K. Clarke, The Orlando Sentinel

ORLANDO, FL (MCT) - As the real-estate market softens, some people are turning to faith - and a shovel - to sell their stagnant properties.

According to tradition, burying a statue of St. Joseph in the lawn - and praying to the patron saint of house sellers - will help a real-estate deal.

And with sales of existing single-family homes falling significantly in Central Florida and much of the country, it's a tradition that appeals to sellers such as Tricia Caldiero.

Caldiero's three-bedroom Deltona home, priced at $219,000, has been on the market for more than nine months.

"Nothing is happening. And I am desperate," Caldiero said. "I thought it would sell, piece of cake."

Caldiero, who recently adopted a baby and moved back to New York, is juggling two mortgages.

So she begged her real-estate agent to submerge the tiny St. Joseph statue in the lawn. Another is buried at Caldiero's New York home.

"Whichever (house) sells first, I'm just going to live in the other one," she said. "It's in God's hands now."

While home sales are slow, the sale of St. Joseph statues is anything but sluggish.

"It's gone absolutely bananas," said Ann DeMartino, owner of TWOS Sales, Inc., a St. Joseph statue wholesale company in Illinois. "It's hard to keep up with the amount of orders."

In a regular year, she usually sells 80,000 to 90,000 statue kits.

But this year, she already has sold more than 100,000.

"People just turn to faith and prayer," she said. "It shouldn't be your last resort, but a lot of times, that's what it is."

The key to the tradition, according to one Roman Catholic group, is devotion. Without prayer and faith, the burial is just plain superstition.

"The distinction is what the disposition of the individual is," said Mike Sullivan, vice president of Catholics United for the Faith.

The church itself has neither condoned nor condemned the practice, Sullivan said.

"It's never been encouraged or discouraged," he said. "But the practice of asking intercession from the saints is certainly encouraged."

Web sites that sell the statues said the tradition dates back hundreds of years, to European nuns looking for land for their convents. They buried medals of St. Joseph and asked for his blessing.

Phil Cates, owner of the Web site stjosephstatue.com, sells thousands of statues each month. Florida is his biggest market. Originally a skeptic, Cates latched onto the idea for its marketing value. But the thousands of testimonials he has heard have convinced him.

"When I started this thing back in 1990, I thought this thing was kind of a fluke, a novelty," he said. "With this much evidence in front of me, I'd be a fool not to be a believer."

Another St. Joseph entrepreneur, Ron Weissman, started an Internet business in June. The Delray Beach, Fla., man said he has been "flabbergasted" by the sales at goodfortuneonline.net.

"We expected hundreds, and we're selling thousands," Weissman said. "It's just amazing to me, and I guess you have to attribute it to the downturn."

The Internet isn't the only place to find the statues. The Abbey Catholic Book and Gift Store in Orlando has stocked the statues since before the new owners took over in 1989. It sells an average of one or two a day.

"They've always sold really well," owner Sandy Wilkinson said. "We have a lot of people who come back and tell us, yes, it did work."

According to Realtor Don Kiolbasa, the statues should be buried upside down, facing the road, in the front of the house. Once the house sells, the statue should be dug up.

"I can't tell you how many St. Josephs I've put in the ground," said Kiolbasa, of Watson Realty in Oviedo, Fla. "In this market, I've been putting them in all the listings."

His partner, Erika Szabo, has taken to the trend as well.

"I actually started doing it six months ago, when the market changed," she said. "The overabundance of inventory has made it (selling houses) more challenging."

Szabo said the tradition boosts the morale of sellers.

"I think it makes it a little more enjoyable for the customers, and families and the children," she said. But it's just a small part of the equation. "You have to put in 120 percent still."

Though the tradition may be familiar to some, homeowner Bob Konen hadn't heard of it. A lifelong Catholic, he was wary of putting a sacred figure headfirst in the dirt.

"I had to look it up myself to believe it," said Konen, whose home in Celebration, Fla., is listed for $979,000.

He hopes the statue will add a bit of faith - and some fun - to the home sale.

"We're just going to hope St. Joseph might bring us a blessing," Konen said.

And, as one of his friends put it, St. Joseph doesn't ask for a commission.

(c) 2006, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.). Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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Home prices fall in August, stocks flat


Prices come down as home inventories grow to largest levels since 1993. More price declines may be ahead. Crude oil falls under, then rallies back above $60. Altria's 5% decline drags Dow lower as class-action suit over 'light' cigarettes is certified.

Home prices are starting to fall, something not seen in more than 11 years, the National Association of Realtors said today.

The median price of a home in August was $225,000, down 2.2% from $230,000 in July and down 1.7% from $229,000 a year ago. This was the first month-to-month price decline since April 1995.

Home sales continued to weaken from overheated levels of a year ago, the association said. Existing home sales were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.3 million units, down slightly from 6.33 million units in July and down 12.6% from a year ago.

Inventories, meanwhile, grew 1.5% to 3.92 million units, a 7.5-month supply and the biggest supply since April 1993.

While 2006 will be third-best year ever in terms of the number of homes sold, prices will continue to fall over the next few months as the inventory build-up is worked off, said David Lereah, the chief economist of the organization.

The biggest price decline was in the South, where the median price fell 4.5% to $184,800 in August from July. Over the last year, the price decline was steepest in the Northeast, down 5.5% to $277,100.

The sales decline from July to August was limited to Western states -- basically all states from Colorado to the West Coast. Statistics from that region are dominated by sales in California. On a year-to-year basis, sales are down across all of the country. In the West, the decline is more than 22%.

After the home sales report was released, stocks gave up gains seen right after the opening. At 11:20 a.m., the Dow Jones industrials were unchanged at 11,508. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was barely higher at 1,315, and the Nasdaq Composite was up four points to 2,223.

But only seven Dow stocks were lower. The blue-chip index, in fact, was dragged lower primarily by cigarette maker Altria (MO, news, msgs). The stock was down 5% after a federal judge in New York granted class-action status to tens of millions of smokers of "light" cigarettes for a potential $200 billion lawsuit against tobacco companies.

The lawsuit alleges that cigarette makers, including Altria's Phillip Morris, duped smokers with light cigarettes and responded to consumers' mounting health concerns with a campaign of deception designed to preserve revenue. Altria said it would appeal the certification by Judge Jack Weinstein.

An early market rally was fueled by a drop in energy prices. Oil prices fell under $60 a barrel in overnight trading with crude in New York bur rallied above $60 to $60.40, down just 15 cents at 11:20 a.m. ET.

The decline comes as prices at the pump continue to fall. The Lundberg Survey said the national average price for self-serve regular unleaded gas was $2.4245 a gallon as of September 22, down 23.53 cents per gallon in the past two weeks, according to the survey of about 7,000 gas stations

Morgan Stanley buys chunk of Duke Energy real estate holdings

(Charlotte, NC-AP) September 8, 2006 - Duke Energy continues to pare down its holdings and operations.

The Charlotte-based company Friday announced it created a joint venture for its real estate holdings with a Morgan Stanley unit in return for nearly $1.5 billion in cash after taxes.

Duke Energy's real estate subsidiary, Crescent Resources, develops country clubs, apartment and condominium communities, office buildings, and other projects.

It's holdings are in North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona and Washington, DC.

Morgan Stanley bought 49 percent of the new joint venture. Duke Energy will hold on to another 49 percent, and the remaining two percent is owned by Crescent's chief executive officer, Art Fields.

The new company will keep the name Crescent Resources, stay headquartered in Charlotte and keep its current managers.

Posted 5:45pm by Chantelle Janelle

Weird stuff that hurts your credit
Cards that don't report credit limits are just one of the hidden threats to your credit score. Here are some of the potential hits you might be taking, and how you can fight back.

By Liz Pulliam Weston
Accountant John Johnson of Springdale, Ark., painstakingly rebuilt his credit after some business reversals several years ago. But the credit-card issuer that initially helped him is now standing in his way.

Capital One refuses to report its customers' credit limits to the three major credit bureaus. Instead, the bureaus use the highest balance a customer has charged as a proxy for the limit.

As a result, the customers' all-important "debt utilization ratios" -- the portion of their available credit these borrowers are actually using -- can appear artificially high. That can depress borrowers' credit scores, the three-digit numbers lenders use to help determine creditworthiness.

Lower credit scores can mean higher interest rates on mortgages, car loans and other borrowing, as well as potentially higher insurance premiums, since many insurers also use credit-scoring systems to help gauge risk.

Hidden threats
Making on-time payments to Capital One cards over the years has helped Johnson rebuild his credit scores, but he says its policy on credit limits is hurting him now. Capital One's practice makes Johnson appear to be using more than 60% of his credit limit, when in fact he's using less than 40%. He tried disputing the issue with the credit bureaus, to no avail.

"I got pretty hostile after awhile," Johnson admits. "I just don't understand why they (Capital One) would do that."

Cards that don't report credit limits are just one of the hidden threats to your credit. Here's what you need to know about some of the potential hits you might be taking, and how you can fight back:

Missing limits
Two basic types of issuers tend not to report limits: Companies that offer cards with no preset spending limit, like American Express, and companies, including Capital One, that have a corporate policy to keep the information secret. Not reporting the limits can prevent competitors from spotting a company's more creditworthy customers, since those tend to be the ones with higher limits. (A South Carolina consumer, by the way, has filed lawsuits against the three credit bureaus alleging this practice violates federal fair credit reporting laws.)

As a proxy for the credit limit, card issuers may report the highest recent balance, the highest balance ever or some other number of its choosing. You're most likely to be hurt by a missing or inaccurate credit limit if you haven't had credit for very long, you have a troubled credit history or the cards with missing limits are the only ones you have.

You can check which number your lenders are using by viewing copies of your credit reports. By federal law, you can get one copy free annually from each bureau; the site to use is www.annualcreditreport.com.

If your limits aren't being reported accurately, you have a few options:

Fight. Ask your issuer to report your correct limit, or to at least use a more favorable number. You're not likely to get Capital One to change its policy, but another lender may be willing to substitute your actual limit or your highest balance charged for the lower number it's been reporting.

Reset. If your lender reports the highest balance charged, you can reset the number reported to the bureaus by running up a big balance one month. Just make sure you can pay this hefty number off in full when the bill comes to avoid unnecessary finance charges. And don't do this when you're in the market for a loan, since you could sustain some short-term damage to your credit scores.

Switch. Use cards that properly report your limits to the credit bureaus.

Switching scorecards
The FICO scoring system groups people with similar histories together when rating them. These groups are called "scorecards." If you have a bankruptcy on your report, for example, you'll be grouped on a scorecard with other bankrupts. Your credit habits may look pretty good compared with theirs, but if the bankruptcy were to disappear from your record you'd be lumped in with people who have stronger histories. Your credit behavior might not look so good compared with this new group.

That's apparently what happened to Carmen Georgescu, who had $51,000 of credit-card debt and a 710 FICO score. After paying off $17,000 of debt in a few months, her score rose to 726. A few weeks later, though, her score suddenly plunged to 686.

Such abrupt drops can often be traced to a negative item, like a delinquency or a bankruptcy, disappearing from a borrower's credit report. In this case, though, the change was even more subtle. Let's let a Fair Isaac expert explain it:

"Carmen had opened a new account last year which, at that time, put her in a different scoring group consisting of consumers who had newly opened accounts on their credit files," explained Barry Paperno, manager of customer service for Fair Isaac. "Then when this recently opened account had aged enough to take her out of this scoring group and put her into one with consumers who had not opened any accounts recently, her score dropped."

Carmen's still-heavy debt load hurt her worse with this new group than it had with her previous scorecard group.

There's not much you can do about this weird quirk in the scoring formula, other than brace for the potential effect. The good news: If Carmen keeps paying down her debt, she should see a pretty quick resuscitation of her score, Paperno said, "as long as she holds off on opening anything new for awhile."

Balance transfers
Lower interest rates are generally better when you're trying to pay off debt, but taking advantage of a balance-transfer offer can wallop your credit scores in a number of ways.

Just opening a new credit card to take advantage of the offer can ding your scores by 5 points or so. If you're transferring your balance to a card with a lower limit, that also can hurt your scores, as can consolidating debt. The FICO formula typically would rather see $1,000 balances on five cards than a $5,000 balance on one card.

You can compound the damage by closing the old card, since shutting down the account trims the amount of available credit that's used in the credit-scoring formula.

Typically, lenders won't tell you the credit limit on a new card until after you've applied and agreed to transfer the balance. If you're planning to take advantage of a balance transfer offer, read all the fine print and consider the following:

Limit the number of new accounts you open. If you want to improve your credit scores, don't keep bouncing your balances from card to card.

Pay down your debt. Use the lower rate as an opportunity to reduce your debt load. Paying off debt is good for your wallet and good for your credit scores.

Settling debts
In the latest versions of the FICO formula, score creator Fair Isaac Corp. fixed a glitch that often penalized folks for paying old debts that had been charged off and sent to collection agencies. (See "When paying old bills can hurt your credit.")

But you can still do substantial damage to your scores if you settle a current debt for less than you owe. If an account hasn't been charged off and you're dealing with the original creditor, Fair Isaac officials say, a settlement can be worse than leaving the account open and unpaid. Of course, leaving an account unpaid will eventually result in a charge-off and a referral to a collection agency, which isn't good for your scores, either.

There's no easy solution if you haven't got the money to pay your bills. Filing bankruptcy is an option, although it's likely to have a far more devastating effect on your credit than a settled account or two. You also might investigate a debt repayment plan through a legitimate credit-counseling agency (read "The consumers' guide to credit counseling" first).

Traffic tickets and library fines
I wrote about this issue in "New threats to your credit score," and the trend has gained momentum since then. Local governments are determined to recoup some of the $40 billion in unpaid debts consumers owe, including unpaid library fines, parking tickets and traffic penalties. So these governments increasingly turn to private collection agencies, which typically report the unpaid amounts to the credit bureaus as part of their efforts to pressure consumers into paying the fines. The collectors may add late fees or other charges that increase the balance.

The bottom line:

Pay your fines promptly. Don't wait for follow-up notices, since they can easily go astray. Many libraries allow you to review your library record, including unpaid fines, online, while municipalities typically have a Web site or a phone number allowing you to check for traffic or parking fines.

Don't let a dispute fall through the cracks. If you're disputing a traffic or parking ticket, note the applicable deadlines on your calendar and make sure the issue has been resolved.

Don't move away from a problem. If you plan to move and believe you may have unpaid fines, contact the relevant municipality or library and make sure you've squared your account with them. Don't expect a government agency to spend much energy tracking you down; it's much easier to turn a delinquent account over to a collection agency, and once that's happened, your credit is at risk.

Liz Pulliam Weston's column appears every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. She also answers reader questions in the Your Money message board.