Kool Movers

The housing industry is of vital importance to our country’s future. It is a key sector of our economy, supporting millions of jobs in construction, manufacturing, real estate, finance, and other industries. Moreover, for many Americans, their home is their largest financial investment.

That is why the Obama Administration is strongly committed to responsibly reforming our nation’s broken system of housing finance, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And that is why it is so important that we get the reforms right.

Work on this issue is well under way, as the Obama Administration continues to develop a comprehensive reform proposal for delivery to Congress by January 2011. Earlier this year, Secretaries Geithner and Donovan testified before Congress, outlining the principles that will guide the Administration’s housing finance reform efforts. In April, the Treasury Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development issued related questions for public comment, which have received over 300 responses from a broad cross-section of stakeholders. (To view these responses, please visit: here and here.)  

That commitment to public engagement will continue. Today, the Administration is announcing that it will hold on August 17 a Conference on the Future of Housing Finance at the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington, D.C. This event will bring together leading academic experts, consumer and community organizations, industry groups, market participants, and other stakeholders for an open discussion about housing finance reform.

As we continue moving forward, it is critical to maintain an open, productive public dialogue about how best to address a housing finance system that everyone – across both sides of the aisle – agrees is in clear need of reform.  To help inform this debate, it is useful to offer some context about the Administration’s efforts to date in this area and the current state of our nation’s housing finance system.

Stabilizing the Housing Market

In September 2008, the Bush Administration put Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship and began injecting taxpayer funds into those firms in order to keep them afloat. When President Obama took office in January 2009, he inherited not only this conservatorship arrangement, but also a mortgage market and economy in free-fall.

From the beginning, the Obama Administration has made clear that the current structure of the government’s role in the housing finance market is unsustainable and unacceptable. Fundamental reform was clearly needed. But abrupt change or an uncertain reform process in the midst of the financial crisis could have destabilized an already fragile housing industry and made it even more difficult for Americans to buy a home or refinance a mortgage. Continuing to provide financial support to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was the right decision then for the mortgage market and for our economic recovery – and it has played a critical role in stabilizing the housing industry during a period of crisis. Even today, private capital has not yet fully returned to this market. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other government entities guarantee more than 90 percent of newly originated mortgages. They are practically the only game in town.

Fannie and Freddie under Conservatorship

During their two years in conservatorship, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been tightly supervised and regulated. Fannie and Freddie have made significant progress in improving the credit quality of their new obligations. Since 2008, FICO scores and loan-to-value ratios – both of which are key measures of how likely a borrower is to default – are meaningfully better on new mortgages. Fannie and Freddie have also increased their guarantee fees and risk-adjusted their pricing.

The losses that the federal government has had to backstop are virtually all attributable to bad loans that Fannie and Freddie took on between 2005 and 2007 – during the height of the housing bubble. Unfortunately, we still need to manage the continuing consequences of those poor credit choices.

Of course, none of these facts eliminate the need to take a hard and comprehensive look at long-term solutions for our nation’s system of housing finance. But they do offer important context about the numbers behind the headlines on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Responsible Reform

The size, importance, and complexity of the housing finance market all compel us to craft its reform with great care:

• The U.S. mortgage market is the second largest securities market in the world, after U.S. Treasuries.
• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac currently guarantee more than $5 trillion in mortgages and hold a total of $1.6 trillion in agency loans and other securities in their portfolios.
• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are only one part of a broader housing finance system that includes the Federal Housing Administration, Ginnie Mae, the FHLBanks, other government programs, and a significant private sector role in originating, funding, and servicing mortgage loans.
• For decades, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac privatized their profits while ultimately putting taxpayers at risk for losses. This type of “heads private shareholders win, tails taxpayers lose” system of misaligned incentives makes no sense for the nation.

Housing finance reform needs to address these and other complex issues responsibly. That is why the Obama Administration is committed to an open and inclusive public dialogue about the future of U.S. housing finance. Given the importance of this task, we want to hear the best ideas from all sides of the debate. Working together with our colleagues in Congress, we believe that this is the right path forward to achieve responsible reform.

Moving or settling into a new residence is not an easy task when you have to consider the psychological effect of leaving a familiar place. The family members who are detached from an initial environment will find it a little unsettling adjusting to their new location for several other reasons. There is also the physical and mental strain that comes with having to pack, monitor, and move a lot of property around within a short time frame. Although, there are moving companies that specialize in taking this burden of you they cannot totally eliminate the trauma that comes with the whole exercise which is psychological in nature. When you have to consider the choice of even sourcing for a competent moving company from the huge data base the city of Los Angeles city has to offer you will know it is quite a task changing residence in that city.

Changes can sometimes be difficult to overcome especially when such an event is enormous but then it should be noted that with the change comes other opportunities that might not even be contemplated. Essentially, the process of trading in properties can be very profitable when learning to sell a home just to acquire another one at an appropriate time. The business objective aside, moving from one residence to another has its advantages and fall backs but when considering the overall impact of making a move for change it is always worthwhile in the long run. Although, property values and needs might vary from one location to another it is always wise to consult an experienced realtor who is schooled in the art of buying and selling across borders.

An integral part of the family which is the most affected by a change of residence is the children. They face the trauma of having to leave all that they have come to know, love and grown fond of for an unknown destination. It is however left to the parents to try and rehabilitate them on arrival at their new home. Kids should be made to absorb cultural change and values in a very subtle and amiable manner if not the resulting shock may affect their sensibilities concerning their immediate environment. The consequence of any cultural shock or dilemma will not be suitable to parents who have invested so much time and resource in relocating because they will now be faced with the challenge of taking care of the kids so that they could adjust to the new environment, this can however be distracting.

Most homeowners in the world tend to take certain salient points for granted when moving from their place of abode to another because the consideration has always being for the business  angle more than the social satisfaction that comes with living elsewhere. It is important to consider the human angle to relocation because quite a lot of factors are involved which if not considered could impact negatively on the physic of the individuals involved be they kids or adults.

Read this article from the IDan Dietz at the International Association of House Movers, which we are a member.

“The IASM ‘s members represent the worlds oldest and largest recycling industry. Since the dawn of time, man has recycled structures.Stone Hedge, The Obelisks and the Pyramids are all recycled structures.Man power, with the aid of rollers and other basics of leverage were utilized to relocate objects and structures of enormous size to remote locations. The earliest record of a house move dates back to 1598 in London England.Little record can be found of other projects until the early nineteenth century. At the start of this century, a gradual change began in moving of buildings.Trucks and tractors began to compete with the horse as the source of tractive power. Man and his muscle, was slowly changed to man as power controller. Armed with an array of machines and power, the structural mover began to move entire cities. The present day structural mover represents an industry which recycles about 50,000 structures annually.

LAND FILL SPACE
These structures would otherwise be demolished and hauled to landfills.With an average structure consuming about 100 cubic yards of landfill space, 5 million cubic yards of landfill space is saved!

TREES
With the average structure using about 5,000 board feet of lumber, and 100 board feet of lumber per tree, about 2,500,000 trees are saved per year through recycling structures.

LOW COST HOUSING & TAX BASE
Rather than being demolished and removed from the tax rolls, the average structure recycled is sold to first time home buyers. Because many recycled houses are available at below normal market costs, many of the buyers are able to build a ‘sweat equity’ by refurbishing these structures themselves.”

The information below has been condensed from its original format for space purposes. Please contact us for a copy of the full brochure.

All the information contained here is straight out of the International Association of Structural Movers’ (IASM) brochure. They are undertaking a nationwide effort to encourage each of the 49 remaining states to enact a program patterned after the Iowa Solid Waste Alternative Program.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, construction and demolition (C&D) debris is a complex waste stream generated during building construction, renovation and demolition projects. While some local waste haulers have made an effort to remove valuable materials for recycling, most waste ends up in landfills. Such materials included concrete, steel, wood and shingles. In addition to these wastes, hazardous materials, such as asbestos, lead and mercury may also be generated.

Some statistics of the growing problem from the Deconstruction Institute of Florida real the magnitude of the problem in four categories: Green House Gas, Energy, Economics, and Land Use:
1. GREEN HOUSE GAS: The United States Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that US companies generate 136 million tons of building related and construction demolition (C&D) waste per year. Of that total, 92 percent comes from renovation and demolition. That’s enough to construct a wall 30 feet high and 30 feet thick around the entire coast of the continental United States. That’s 4,993 miles!

Thirty-three million tons of this debris ends up in landfills. As anaerobic microorganisms decompose the wood, it will release about five millions tons of carbon equivalent in the form of methane gas. This is equivalent to the yearly emissions of 3,736,000 passenger cars.
2. ENERGY: Every building represents a significant investment in energy. For example, energies consumed at each state of its creation; during the original extraction of raw materials, the manufacturing of the raw materials into usable building materials, transportation of the building materials to the site and by the equipment and tools used to assemble the materials into the final form of the building.

The average house contains 892 million Btu’s of embodied energy (the total expenditure of energy involved in the creation of the building and its constituent material), an amount of energy equal to 7,826 gallons of gasoline, or enough to drive an SUV 5 1/2 times around the earth.
3. ECONOMICS: The demolition of a typical 2,000-square-foot home can be expected to produce 127 tons of debris. While disposal fees can vary widely depending upon local conditions, at an average rate of $25 per ton disposal costs for a residential demolition would come to $3,175. Beyond this initial cost are the residual costs related to green house gases and landfill maintenance.

4. LAND USE: On a national level, the timber industry is the single largest user of our county’s land. Timber production exceeds even agriculture in terms of sheer acreage. Reducing the consumption of new lumber reduces the amount of land needed by this industry to meet demand. Relocating a typical 2,000 square foot wood frame structure can yield 6,000 board feet of reusable lumber. This is equivalent to 33 mature trees, or the yearly output of 10 acres of planted pine (7 football fields).
A MODEL PROGRAM: The Energy and Waste Management bureau of the Iowa Department of Natural resources has developed a model Solid Waste Alternatives Program (SWAP). Its mission to educate and assist Iowans to protect, conserve and enhance natural resources and the environment for all generations through the sustainable practices of pollution prevention,energy efficiency, and responsible waste management.

RELOCATION BENEFITS ARE MANY AND VARIED: The benefits of relocating a structure are numerous and varied, according to Barb Budelier of Durant, Iowa. The procedure is better for the environment: trees are saved, landfill space is not used and the structure not burned, therefore not emitting harmful smoke into the atmosphere.

WIN-WIN SCENARIO: Moving houses was a win-win scenario for Louisa/Muscatine counties following the floods of 1993 in Iowa. The Reggie Meyer Housing addition of 120 homes in the flood plan was flooded. After the water receded, FEMA decided to offer a voluntary by-out to the owners. More than 100 of the owners sold out. Louisa county was then contracted to oversee the demolition of the homes.

Mare Patton, Executive Director of Muscatine’s Center for Strategic Action in Iowa City, sought and received permission from the Board of Supervisors to sell and move the homes rather than demolish them. Over a two-year period, 98 of the homes were moved with the following economic benefits: a) Saved FEMA more than $450,000 in demolition and landfill fees, b) Preserved the tax base of rural school district and actually increased taxes due to the improvements on the moved homes, c) Stimulated borrowing of more than $4.8 million in home mortgages at local banks, d) Benefited an estimated 400 individuals with newly renovated homes.
The International association of Structural Movers (IASM), in cooperation with the Iowas House MOvers Association, is seeking a national policy, both private and public, that would establish a “Consider Relocation First” prior to alternative methods of removal of structures. “It is the position of the structural moving industry that the same criteria and conditions that exits in the Solid Waste Alternatives Program (SWAP), developed by the Energy and Waste Management Bureau of the Iowas Department of Natural REsources, exist in all 50 United States,” according to D. Michael Blake, President for IASM. N. Eugene Brymer, Staff Executive for IASM, has been coordinating with officials of the Iowas House Movers Association (IHMA) to enlarge the scope of research originated by IHMA Vice President Rick Goodwin, Goodwin House Moving, Inc,. Washington, Iowa, and a member of IASM, to encourage, IASM member in the other 49 states to bring to the attention of elected officials, executives of financial institutions businessmen in general and local housing authorities to factor “first” relocation benefits of structures.”