Word: howard
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...housing market has stratified can be clearly seen in Howard County, Maryland. After falling for six months in a row, the number of contracts signed by buyers ticked up in January, and has been rising ever since. The problem, though, is that almost all of the activity is among the lowest-priced homes. In May, sales of houses under $300,000 (for the D.C. suburbs, that's low-priced) jumped 41%, as compared to the same month last year. Sales of houses $300,000 and above, meanwhile, dropped by 26%. The super-high-end is particularly grim. At the rate...
...People are scared, they aren't buying the big stuff," says Pat Hiban, a real estate agent at Keller Williams in Howard County's Ellicott City. "The sweet spot is in the low range." In 2005, Hiban's team sold 10 houses worth more than $1 million dollars. So far this year, they haven't sold any. That's why Hiban, like agents across the country, has retooled his business to target homebuyers of more modest means. "I'd rather have five sales for $200,000 than to sit and wait for $1 million," says Hiban, who now markets...
...competitor, Linens 'n Things, out of business. Linens 'n Things sold similar merchandise in similar markets as Bed Bath & Beyond. So it may just be a lack of competition, rather than a surge in purchasing power, driving Bed Bath & Beyond's positive results. "Consumer spending is wrecked indefinitely," says Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, a retail investment banking and consulting firm based in New York City. "There is no more Linens 'n Things. How can that not have a tremendous impact on Bed Bath & Beyond...
They begin with the 1978 property tax revolt and the victory of Proposition 13. As California experienced a dramatic escalation in home values, property tax assessments skyrocketed. Especially vulnerable were seniors on fixed incomes. When then Gov. Jerry Brown and the legislature dithered, conservative activists led by Howard Jarvis put a seductively simple sounding proposition on the ballot. Under Proposition 13, the annual real estate tax on a parcel of property would be limited to 1% of its assessed value and this assessed value would only increase by a maximum of 2% per year, until a change in ownership. Voters...
Proposition 13 was the brainchild of the late Howard Jarvis. The antitax crusader was a policy genius not unlike Franklin D. Roosevelt. Both shared an affinity for designing deep structural change that, once embedded in the political system, is nearly impossible to alter without a massive change of heart by voters. Social Security is the lasting legacy of the New Deal era because F.D.R. understood that workers who contribute payroll-tax deductions from their paychecks would not want politicians tinkering with their retirement dollars. Conservatives have mounted assaults on Social Security through the years but to no avail...