As Mitt Romney officially claimed the Republican Party nomination for president this week in Tampa, police there warned protesters against squatting in vacant houses that dot the area. Foreclosures recently spiked again in the Tampa region, where homes have shed half their value since the housing market crashed.

But hard-hit Tampa seems unlikely to be a backdrop for Romney to outline ways his administration would fix the ailing housing market. To date, he has said little to illuminate his views on the topic, except to say that when it comes to foreclosures, the government should butt out.

“Let it run its course and hit the bottom,” Romney told the Las Vegas Review-Journal last October.

Experts chime in

Since then, the former Massachusetts governor has largely avoided references to housing policy, except when criticizing President Barack Obama’s. Romney’s 59-point economic growth plan contains no housing initiatives. Among two dozen issues addressed on his campaign website — from taxes to trade policy — foreclosures are not mentioned. His running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, was scheduled to discuss housing during a Las Vegas campaign stop in August, but he barely mentioned the word.

“Romney’s running as Mr. Fix-it on the economy, but he has nothing to say about one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle,” said Jason Gold, a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington D.C. think tank affiliated with the Democratic Party.

Gold, who specializes in housing policy, questioned whether Romney’s selection of Ryan as a running mate indicates he supports privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as Ryan called for in a budget blueprint last year. Romney hasn’t said.

Many conservatives argue such a move would finally untangle government — and taxpayers — from the mortgage business. Gold calls it an impractical step that would almost certainly end the days of 30-year fixed mortgages. “It would take a sledgehammer to the housing market and throw us right back into recession,” he said.

Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries said Romney is correct in suggesting the housing market must be left to resolve its troubles.

“We have to let prices find their equilibrium, and then people will buy homes again,” he said. “That’s largely what’s happening now.”

Although her boyfriend Justin Bieber has an enormous place out in Calabasas, Selena Gomez wanted a place of her own.

According to several reports, the singer and actress picked up actor Jonah Hill’s former home in Tarzana. Hill bought the home in the suburban enclave in July 2011 for $2.175 million.

The classic, single-story house sits on just under an acre on a gated, corner lot. Described as an “entertainer’s estate,” the home has party-friendly amenities such as a pool and spa, endless patios, tennis and bocce ball court.

Inside, the home measures 4,500 square feet with 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms and and an over-sized office. Built in 1956, details like mahogany hardwood floors, intricate crown moldings and plantation shutters add to the Connecticut-style home’s appeal.

Gomez previously called Encino home, living in a sprawling, 5,291-square-foot home. The actress first made her debut on the Disney channel and has since made her foray into film with a role in “Springbreakers” due in theaters in 2013.

Maybe he can get one of his “Friends” as a tenant.

Matt LeBlanc has listed his Pacific Palisades home for lease. Best known for playing lovable Joey Tribbiani on the sitcom “Friends,” LeBlanc has the Pacific Palisades home listed for $12,995 a month. He currently stars as a fictional version of himself on Showtime’s “Episodes.”

LeBlanc bought the property in 2006 after his divorce from Missy McKnight. He also owns an estate in Encino made up of two parcels, as well as another home in Los Alamos, CA.

LeBlanc’s Pacific Palisades home is a classic 1930s Spanish-style house with stucco walls and red tile roof. Measuring 3,930 square feet, the 4-bed, 5-bath home sits on half an acre just south of Will Rogers State Park. Dark wood paneling, built-ins and a renovated kitchen are appealing details.

Pacific Palisades is a pricey, mainly residential neighborhood nestled between the Santa Monica Bay and Santa Monica Mountains. With home values currently hitting at $1,707,800, LeBlanc will likely find it easy to find a tenant for his Pacific Palisades rental.

2011 and 2012 may well go down in history as “the years of the short sale.” Through the first six months of 2012, Fannie Mae had completed 38,717 short sales, and in 2011 it completed 70,025 total.

If you are in a situation where you owe more on your mortgage than your home is currently worth, chances are you have at least thought about short selling your house.

Recently the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced that both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are issuing new guidelines for mortgage servicers that will essentially consolidate all short sale programs into one streamlined program.

These updated short sale program rules will allow lenders to qualify someone for a short sale, and homeowners will more easily be able to tell if they are eligible for a short sale.

New short sale guideline highlights

Under the new guidelines going into effect Nov. 1:

• Homeowners with a mortgage backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac will be able to do a short sale even if they are current on their mortgage if they have an eligible hardship such as
  the death of a borrower or co-borrower, divorce or legal separation, illness or disability, or a distant employment transfer.
• Homeowners will be able to make a financial contribution at closing in exchange for the lender not pursuing them for a deficiency judgment later (assuming the homeowner has sufficient income and/or assets).
• Military personnel who are being relocated will be automatically eligible for a short sale and will be under no obligation to contribute funds to cover the shortfall between the outstanding loan balance and the sales price on their homes.
• Subordinate-lien payments will be limited to $6,000. Previously lenders would often attempt to negotiate a higher payment from the homeowner.
• In certain circumstances, homeowners will be eligible to receive up to $3,000 in relocation assistance.

Would you — or do you — have your children share a room?

Sometimes room-sharing is a choice, and other times, it’s a necessity. After all, not every home has one bedroom per kid.

But whether by choice or necessity, similar issues may arise when you set up roommates of the non-rent-paying variety. How can kids get alone time? What if they have different bedtimes? What if they fight over toys or space?

We spoke to two parenting experts (who also happen to be parents themselves) to figure out what having a sibling as a roommate means for your child, and how you can make sharing a bedroom a great experience for everyone.

Why sharing a room can be a good thing

Jessica McMaken, founder of parenting consulting site Razbelly and mom of three, has found that her two older children, ages 4 and 7, like sharing a room. “When the baby gets older, they’ll probably all three share a room,” she predicts.

Dr. Susan Bartell, child psychologist, mom of three and author of “The Top 50 Questions Kids Ask,” explains that the reason most kids like to share rooms is because, for many kids, sharing is about inclusion rather than space. Parents expect that kids want space  — and when they reach a certain age, they probably do — but many children just want to be together.

That doesn’t mean it’s always smooth sailing. The below issues are common with children who share rooms. Find out why, and how you can solve them.

Issue No. 1: Bedtime

If your children are different ages, you shouldn’t force the older child to go to bed at the same time as her younger sibling, says Bartell. She adds that children should be allowed to go to bed when it’s developmentally appropriate. “Otherwise, older children will become resentful.”

The Solution: McMaken explains that when her children first shared a room, the problem with a shared bedtime was that they were constantly talking and playing instead of sleeping. She got around this barrier by giving the children different bedtimes: While she and her husband put one of the younger children to sleep, her son has “by himself” time until his own bedtime, when he reads a story with his dad in the living room and then heads to bed across the room from his sleeping sister.

For children of the same age, or who should have the same bedtime, Big City Moms recommends sleep aids such as a truly dark room (using blackout shades) and a white noise machine to minimize distractions.

Issue No. 2: Personal space

While many kids like to share space, they don’t always want to share all their stuff. Bartell points out that when there aren’t doors to define a child’s own space and possessions, things can get tricky.

The Solution: “Each child should have a little space of his or her own within the larger room,” Bartell recommends. This can be as small as a shelf or drawer, or as big as separate dressers and night tables. She adds that one of the biggest private areas is a child’s bed. “I would recommend having children ask permission to sit on each other’s beds to give them control over their own space. It’s just like asking before entering a room.”

But what if one of the sharers is too young to understand about asking for permission? In that case, Bartell says it’s the parents’ job to help the older child figure out a solution: Build shelves up high where the baby can’t reach, or offer the child space in another room to store his precious things. If it’s really a problem, help the older child pack away his breakables to be unpacked when the baby is old enough to understand boundaries. “He’ll understand that he’s being respected, and that you’re doing what you can to help him,” she explains.

Every Tuesday, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., is “caravan” in Los Angeles, during which about 500 to 600 houses open their doors for real estate agents to come preview and determine whether any would be right to show their clients. During this three-hour window, an incredible mix of estates, condos, fixers, specs, rentals, income properties and raw land — from Malibu to Santa Monica, from Brentwood to Beverly Hills, in and above the Sunset Strip, down by the Grove and over to Los Feliz and downtown LA — can be visited.

The most important three-hour window of the week

To me, caravan is the most important three hours of the week. Unfortunately, too many agents look at it as just an opportunity to see the few things that might be of interest to their buyer client(s). I look at caravan differently; it’s a chance to get to know the market. Very often, properties I see on caravan serve as  “comps” for a future listing or a buy. From time to time, I come across an inspired design idea. Homes for which I have no buyer can often inspire me to reach out to my “sphere of influence” and find a buyer. And it’s always helpful to see the house that goes into escrow in the first week with 14 offers.

As they say, “knowledge is power.” Caravan is crammed full of information; information that agents need to absorb, process and utilize. I’m always amazed when an agent tells me that they are doing something not time-sensitive during caravan, instead of going out, seeing the product and getting their fingers on the pulse of the market.

Plan ahead

To make my three-hour window as productive as possible, I take a fair amount of time to plan my attack. The night before caravan, I go on to our MLS and search what’s open the following day. I also read through the paper edition of what’s open and see if something was advertised as open in the paper edition, but not online. I then plot the properties linearly across town (usually, I will start in Malibu or the Palisades and make my way toward downtown). By plotting this way, I save time figuring out which house I’m going to next or the most expedient way to do so.

I nearly always have more properties on my list than I can possibly make. This can serve two purposes: it inspires me to keep going and, when I’m nearing the final hour or so, I can determine if I want to push for that jewel across town or, instead, pick up the four that are clustered together closer by.

I always try to be at my first house 15 minutes before the start of caravan; I am often helping the listing agent turn on lights and plant flags, and, in return, I get one house under my belt before the three-hour window even starts! On a good day, I see 17-18 properties during caravan. My personal best is 23 (twice). If caravan were an Olympic sport, I think I might be the world (or at least LA) record holder.

Book Review
Title: “Flip the Script: How to Turn the Tables and Win in Business and in Life“
Author: Bill Wackermann
Publisher: Free Press, 2012; 240 pages; $20.80

Since time eternal, there has been a polarization between the haves and the have-nots, the rich and the poor, the 99 percent and the 1 percent. Knowing, as I do, many folks on both sides, it’s clear that at least some of the antipathy between the groups is rooted in perceived oppression from one side against the other.

But I also believe that a big chunk of the bad blood is due to a widespread belief on the part of the 99 percent that most members of the 1 percent were born with unfair advantage — that things come easier to the wealthy, and that they simply don’t have to overcome the same challenges and obstacles as everyone else.

Our entrepreneurial heroes — and the coverage they get in the press — don’t help correct this belief. While our cultural heroes of old always came complete with a rags-to-riches story, these days, it’s easy to believe that most business winners came out of the womb with a vision and had to scale nary an obstacle before achieving it by their 25th birthday.

If a six-month supply of homes for sale represents a good balance between demand from buyers and sellers, homes in balanced markets will typically be listed for about six weeks before they sell, the National Association of Realtors said today in announcing a new metric, median days on market.

As it turns out, NAR statistics show median days on market is down 29.6 percent from a year ago, from 98 days in July 2011 to 69 days in July 2012.

While days on market can be pulled from statistics maintained by local multiple listing services, the task is complicated because sellers sometimes take their homes off the market and relist them.

NAR is tapping monthly member surveys the trade group uses to generate its “Realtors Confidence Index” to calculate the new median days-on-market figures, which will be included in future existing-home sales news releases.

Median time on market includes all listings, which can be misleading if an influx of fresh listings skews the calculation downward, NAR noted.

From 1987 through 2011, time on market was typically 6.9 weeks, NAR said. During that time, NAR’s data on existing-home sales showed the supply of inventory averaging 7.0 months, indicating slightly less demand from sellers than in a balanced market.

There are quite a few new things you can do to enhance your Facebook page that many real estate agents or brokers are not taking advantage of. These little things can make a huge difference in maximizing your Facebook efforts on your business page.

1. Schedule your posts

You now have the ability to schedule posts in the future (or to backdate to add to your timeline). I find this particularly useful. At Inman, we try to stick to posting to our Facebook pages no more than three or four times a day for maximum engagement, so if there is something important to post, we post it for the next morning — many times early like between 6 and 8 a.m. or in the evening around 9 p.m. By being able to schedule posts, it allows you to still get your update out, but during a time in which you may not be right in front of your computer.

2. Set up push notifications to your phone via the Facebook pages app

This is a super-easy way to have Facebook page notifications pushed right to your phone so you can easily respond to comments or questions. If you haven’t downloaded the Facebook Pages app yet, I highly recommend it. It is very simple, lightning fast, and is the most useful for quickly responding to comments.

3. Reposition photos

You now have the ability to reposition a photo on your business page Timeline to make it look better and not be cut off! Also, you can click the star button to highlight the photo, and then it will stretch the width of your Timeline.

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4. Adjust the title and/or description of a link

This feature has been around for sometime but I hardly see anyone using it. This is a great way to adjust the title of an article or description if it isn’t compelling!

5. Quickly view how effective each post is

Underneath each status update, you can click to see how many organic clicks (fans) you had, and viral clicks (friends of fans). This will really help you gauge which content is most effective on your pages