Friends often ask me when to plant what. It is springtime in the Ozarks and there are a lot of things that can be started. This is sometimes a tricky thing, and it is good to be aware of plants that can take a frost, and plants that cannot. The last frost date in your area is important to consider. I see an amazing difference between where we live and just 50 miles south into Arkansas. In the spring I notice that their Bradford Pears bloom a week earlier than ours! So, observe how perennials and trees are coming out, and don’t plant tomatoes just because they are selling them at the nursery!

Generally if you want a spring garden it is good to focus on plants that can take a chill. Some spring veggies do not tolerate heat, so it is good to get them out as soon as you can. The earliest things that can be planted as seeds is peas, lettuce, radish and spinach. The old rule is to plant lettuce on Valentine’s Day. Sometimes there is snow on the ground then, but anytime after that is worth a shot. It is also good to start cabbage family plants in a cold frame from mid February thru March. Parsnips, brussel sprouts and leeks need to be started now as well; they have to have the entire growing season to do well.

Onions and potatoes can be planted together. The traditional plant date for potatoes is St. Patrick’s Day, but it seems like the ground is usually still very cold then. We just put out about 700 onion plants last week, and are going to be getting potatoes out this week as well. My mom and I market garden, so our garden is large. Rows of spinach, lettuce and beets will be going in soon as well, and I cannot wait to have a fresh spinach salad!

There are so many variables this time of year that can affect germination. The ground being too cold, hard rain packing the ground or washing the seeds away, and not having enough moisture. In the spring it is very common for us to replant beets, spinach or other seeds that did not come up with a good stand. It is frustrating, but a common gardening complaint. I believe even if you have a small garden it is good to have a variety of produce because each year some things will grow good, and others will not. Something I have learned from being a farmer is to be tolerant of things you cannot control and if you have variety success will be greater.

I usually play it safe and do not get out frost-tender plants too early. Some people take risks with early tomatoes or peppers and some years that will pay off, and other years it will not. Here our last frost date is April 20, but it can frost until May 10. One year we had a bout of beautiful 80 degree weather in March that got everything up and going early. Unfortunately in mid April we had two nights of low 20 degree freezes. This kind of freeze not only affected fruit crops for that year, but actually killed young trees and shrubs. I lost every one of my roses, and many flowers did not bloom that year at all! It has been a cool March for us here this year, so the freezes we are getting now aren’t causing so much damage. My peach trees are starting to bloom, though – please cross your fingers that they won’t all get nipped and that we may enjoy some tree-ripened heaven this summer. Enjoy the birds and blooms that are all around and have fun in the dirt! 

 

Home prices in 20 major metropolitan areas fell 3.1 percent year-over-year in January, prompting Standard & Poor’s to declare “home prices off to a dismal start in 2011” in its latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices report released today.

The 20-city composite index fell 1 percent in January compared to December, to 140.86. The indices have a base value of 100; a value above 100 indicates the appreciation rate of a typical home in the tracked markets since January 2000. Average home prices are back to the levels they were in the summer of 2003, the report said.

Out of the 20 markets tracked, 19 saw their index levels fall month-to-month in January, and the index in the remaining market, Washington, D.C., stayed essentially flat, with a 0.1 percent increase —  those numbers are not seasonally adjusted. The 20-city composite index has posted monthly declines for the past six months straight.

Only two of 20 cities showed year-over-year index gains in January: San Diego with a 0.1 percent increase, and Washington, D.C., with a 3.6 percent increase. Phoenix and Detroit saw the biggest year-over-year declines: 9.1 percent and 8.1 percent, respectively.

The same 11 cities that “double-dipped” in the previous month’s report hit new lows in January: Atlanta; Charlotte; Chicago; Detroit; Las Vegas; Miami; New York; Phoenix; Portland, Ore.; Seattle and Tampa. Four cities — Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, and Las Vegas — have index levels below 100, indicating that average home prices there are below January 2000 levels.

“Keeping with the trends set in late 2010, January brings us weakening home prices with no real hope in sight for the near future,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s, in a statement.

“The housing market recession is not yet over, and none of the statistics are indicating any form of sustained recovery. At most, we have seen all statistics bounce along their troughs; at worst, the feared double-dip recession may be materializing.”

When the 10-city and 20-city composite indices set new post-peak lows, home prices will have double-dipped, Blitzer added.

“The 10-city composite is still 2.8 percent above and the 20-city is 1.1 percent above their respective April 2009 lows, but both series have moved closer to a confirmed double-dip for six consecutive months. At this point we are not too far off, and that is what many analysts are seeing with sales, starts and inventory data too,” he said.

The 20-city composite index has fallen 31.8 percent from its peak in June and July 2006. 

   

  

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House-price growth across the globe slowed in the last quarter of 2010, according to new figures from global property agency and consultancy Knight Frank, which has a headquarters in London and about 207 offices worldwide including U.S.-based Newmark Knight Frank.

Twenty of the 49 countries analyzed by the company showed quarterly declines, with Dubai (-6.1 percent), Ireland (-3.5 percent), Cyprus (-2.1 percent) and the U.S. (-2.1 percent) recording some of the biggest falls.

Prices are now falling in 41 percent of countries tracked, compared with 31 percent in Q2 2010.

The fastest risers were Hong Kong (up 20.1 percent annually) and Latvia (up 16.9 percent) with the latter bouncing back from a 70 percent fall in prices during the credit crunch. 

The strongest regions were Asia-Pacific (7.5 percent annual growth), the Middle East (5.3 percent) and South America (3.8 percent). The weakest continents were Europe and North America.

The last legs of the global stimulus

Liam Bailey, head of residential research at Knight Frank, believes the slowdown is a result of the unwinding of the quantitative easing measures which came into effect in 2009. 

“The key trend at play in the global market is the unwinding of the stimulus packages put forward in 2009 in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific,” Bailey said.

“The impact of  ‘hot money’ created by quantitative easing may be dissipating, especially in Asia — where the 30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent and even higher annual rates of growth, which were common in some Chinese and Indian cities a year ago, have now cooled considerably. 

“In Europe and the U.S., by contrast, the last vestige of the stimulus, namely ultra-low interest rates are regarded as critical to the ongoing security of the market. As an example, discussions surrounding an impending rise in the United Kingdom rate from 0.5 percent to 0.75 percent are enough to cause panic among housing market commentators.”

Country	Annual % change	6-month % change	Quarter % change
				Hong Kong	20.10%	10.10%	3.70%
Latvia	16.90%	1.20%	-0.80%
Israel	16.20%	8.40%	3.50%
China (based on Beijing and Shanghai)	15.30%	6.10%	6.40%
Singapore	14.00%	3.40%	1.80%
Austria	9.90%	4.90%	3.70%
France	9.50%	5.60%	1.40%
India	8.90%	5.60%	-1.70%
Poland	8.10%	8.30%	1.10%
Denmark	7.80%	4.30%	1.50%
Taiwan	7.40%	2.00%	-1.00%
Belgium	6.80%	1.70%	2.60%
Norway	6.60%	-0.60%	-0.10%
Malaysia	6.20%	3.40%	0.90%
Australia	5.80%	0.50%	0.70%
Finland	5.40%	0.70%	0.30%
Sweden	5.20%	0.90%	0.40%
Switzerland	5.20%	2.60%	2.00%
Canada	4.10%	-0.60%	-0.30%
Slovenia	3.90%	0.70%	1.80%
Colombia	3.80%	3.10%	3.80%
Germany	3.00%	2.10%	0.20%
Indonesia	2.90%	1.10%	0.70%
Turkey	2.60%	1.50%	1.00%
Luxembourg	2.60%	0.10%	0.00%
Hungary	1.80%	2.00%	1.90%
Malta	1.60%	0.90%	1.60%
Jersey	1.30%	6.00%	0.80%
South Africa	0.90%	-2.40%	0.40%
Russia	0.90%	0.20%	0.20%
United Kingdom	0.70%	-3.20%	-2.50%
Bulgaria	0.50%	-0.70%	-0.30%
Netherlands	0.50%	-2.10%	-1.70%
Iceland	-1.40%	0.30%	1.30%
Italy	-1.40%	-0.60%	-0.30%
New Zealand	-1.60%	-0.90%	0.30%
Slovak Republic	-2.10%	-1.80%	-2.60%
Czech Republic	-3.00%	-1.40%	-0.90%
Spain	-3.50%	-1.30%	-0.40%
Japan	-3.60%	-1.60%	-0.80%
Portugal	-4.00%	-3.10%	-1.20%
United States	-4.10%	-5.30%	-2.10%
Greece	-6.00%	-2.90%	-0.70%
Dubai, United Arab Emirates	-6.10%	-10.10%	-6.10%
Croatia	-7.20%	-3.70%	-0.90%
Ukraine	-7.80%	-1.60%	0.00%
Lithuania	-10.10%	-5.80%	-3.90%
Ireland	-10.80%	-4.80%	-3.50%
Cyprus	—	-6.50%	-2.10%

Dear Editor:

I am not a lawyer but have been in real estate for over 30 years. I believe that forced donations to a political action committee are illegal. I have attended many political functions where the best and most expensive food and drink items are freely given to try to persuade a particular group to see things their way.

Lobbyists make more money than the politicians or most real estate professionals. So far as the money spent to save Fannie and Freddie, it appears that their future is questionable. Plus, these powerful entities that all this money gets thrown at are a large part of why real estate is in the bottom of the barrel and brought the rest of the economy with it.

I don’t want to be forced to pay additional dues to fund politicians or causes that in most cases I don’t have input on. Many of those same politicians voted on “Obamacare,” Wall Street bailouts and many other things I won’t elaborate on. Let agents and brokers pick who they want, invest in what they believe, and not waste more millions on politics. Our whole system is wrong when the candidate with the most money has the best chance.

Wake up, America and the real estate industry. We need to get our country and our industry off the auction block. Give us the real issues and real answers proposed. Get your hands out of our pockets and let the slipping but sincere people still in the real estate business have real input to the answers! Thanks.

David J. Moose, associate broker
Smithfield, Va.
Long & Foster Cos.

   

By Amy Zimmer

DNAinfo News Editor

MANHATTAN — The swath of the Upper East Side along Central Park has the most expensive real estate in the entire city. But it also has the highest percentage of vacant housing units, according to the 2010 Census.

More than 13 percent of the 36,700 units in the “Upper East Side – Carnegie Hill” neighborhood were vacant.

The vacancies, which increased 26 percent over 10 years, are an enigma in an area that saw a 3.8 percent decrease in the total number of housing units during that same span, though there is speculation that the total number of apartments dropped because many residents knocked down walls in multiple units to create mega-homes.

The area also saw a 3.9 percent decline in population, from 63,700 to 61,2007.

As census data continues to trickle in, it’s too soon to know exactly what happened with this elite corner of the Upper East Side.

But it raises various questions: Were people at their homes in the Hamptons when census takers were in town? Did the financial crisis force people out of town, or at least into cheaper zip codes?

“We will be analyzing it,” a spokesperson for the Department of City Planning said.

“It doesn’t mean these houses are empty,” said Jonathan Miller, a well-known real estate appraiser from Miller Samuel Inc., who is not a demographer but follows vacancy rates closely. He suggested that the numbers of high vacancies were because many of the residents own other homes elsewhere.

“In some strange way, the high vacancy rate suggests more affluence,” Miller said.

The census does not account for pied-à-terres.

According to the census’ website, a housing unit is vacant “if no one is living in it at the time [of the count] unless its occupants are only temporarily absent.” It also states, “Units temporarily occupied at the time of enumeration entirely by people who have a usual residence elsewhere are also classified as vacant.”

The Upper East Side’s scenario differed from another exclusive Manhattan neighborhood with a 13 percent vacancy rate — Battery Park City. In that neighborhood, the vacancies could be accounted for because the total number of housing units increased to more than 24,000 from under 12,000, a 106 percent increase over 10 years. Other areas that had high vacancy rates — Harlem and Midtown South — also saw an increase in housing units.

The Upper East Side’s neighbor, Yorkville, which has seen a flurry of construction over the past several years and had a 1.3 percent increase in the total number of units, only had a 5.4 percent vacancy rate.

But the area to its south, Turtle Bay – East Midtown, also had a nearly 13 percent vacancy rate.

Perhaps owners of townhouses off of Fifth Avenue — Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s neighbors – didn’t want to be bothered with answering census questions.

That’s apparently what happened in the 14 square block census tract between Fifth and Park avenues from East 49th to 56th streets last April, when the city was entering its final census push.

That area — which is part of Turtle Bay and East Midtown — has a large number of foreign and other part-time residents in such buildings as the Olympic Tower, Park Avenue Place and Trump Tower and had the city’s lowest response rate at 17 percent at the time, according to the New York Times.

“The big question is what about the vacancies,” said Andrew Beveridge, Queens College sociology professor and demographic expert, who believes that the financial crisis had an effect on capping growth citywide, though he didn’t know what was responsible for the vacancies on the Upper East Side.

“New York was growing, but after Lehman [brothers collapsed] it just stopped,” Beveridge said of the bigger citywide picture. He had predicted a smaller population increase than projected by the city, which is contesting the results.

“I think the census might have counted properly,” Beveridge said.