Like most government agencies, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which administers the Federal Housing Administration, doesn’t get a lot of credit for doing things right. Which is probably why, when it does get on track and offers the kinds of programs that are useful to the marketplace, the agency often escapes notice. Besides, it’s easier to criticize than it is to commend.

The FHA’s First Look is one those programs that gets overlooked, but it shouldn’t because it successfully helps to restore homeownership to communities badly hurt by the ongoing recession, deep unemployment and rampant foreclosures.

In 2008, HUD established the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) to help communities that had suffered from foreclosures and abandonment. Using NSP funds, states, local governments and nonprofits purchase and redevelop abandoned and foreclosed residential properties that will eventually be put in the hands of new owners.

Good programs, whether government, corporate or individual, aren’t static — they evolve as situations change, and this has been the case with the NSP, which in July 2010 aligned with the FHA’s First Look Sales Methods to provide NSP grantees an exclusive option to buy HUD homes before they are marketed to other purchasers.

“First Look gives communities participating in NSP an opportunity to purchase bank-owned residences in particular neighborhoods so these properties can either be rehabilitated, rented, resold or demolished.”

The alignment was formalized under the appellation, First Look, and the concept was to more hastily confront property abandonment in struggling communities hurt by the foreclosure crisis.

In September 2010, First Look evolved once more to become the National First Look Program as it became a public-private partnership. In collaboration with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, First Look gives communities and nonprofits participating in NSP an opportunity to purchase bank-owned residences in particular neighborhoods so these properties can either be rehabilitated, rented, resold or demolished.

By the end of the 2010, First Look transferred more than 3,000 homes back to private ownership, said Sarah Greenberg, senior manager for community stabilization with The NeighborWorks America (NWA), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit housing group that supports a network of 235 independent nonprofits. NWA, itself, has been an active participant in First Look, having transferred about 1,000 homes through its network.

We all tend to look at the mortgage/housing crisis as acts of individual heartbreak or folly depending on how cynical we are, but individual neighborhoods, many of them in low-income areas, were particularly plagued by the housing crisis. Cities, many working with nonprofits, have been diligently working to restabilize these neighborhoods and do so by gaining ownership, rehabilitating and then selling homes to selected new buyers.

When the NSP was unveiled, problems immediately arose. The most serious being the homes check-marked by nonprofits and cities were also being targeted by investors and flippers, whose ownership, often brief, wasn’t going to bring stabilization to neighborhoods. Hence, the need for communities to get a “first look.”

I know what you’re thinking: another boondoggle by government agencies and do-gooders that keeps potential investments out of the hands of free enterprise investors. That’s not the case. It does no one any good for a foreclosed home to sit around while some bureaucracy decides its fate. NSP grantees have 24 to 48 hours to express an interest in pursing a specific property and five to 12 business days to conduct inspections, establish costs to repair, and make an offer.

This tight time frame has forced even the notoriously slow decision-making nonprofits to act in real-investor time.

“First Look is a good program,” said Lautaro Diaz, vice president for housing and community development at the National Council of La Raza in Washington, D.C. “The problem was for the nonprofits to get their sequencing, to be able to participate quickly enough. You have to act or the property will pass through to someone else ready to buy.

“That orchestration, a nonprofit’s ability to do the analytics and purchase, has been the constraint on this program. The nonprofits didn’t need five days — they needed 25 days. But, real estate has to move — you don’t want to impede, you want to support.”

La Raza has recently established corporate partnerships to acquire and rehab REOs, and is actively going through the First Look lists, seeking opportunities to convert the REOs into affordable housing.

It’s not a complicated system, NWA’s Greenberg said. “Our network uses a simple data system called REOMatch (developed by the National Community Stabilization Trust). All the local groups have to do is log into that system on a daily basis and they will see a listing of properties in their target areas. They’ll know what the properties will cost; they can go out and take a look; and then there’s a short window to let the trust know they are interested.”

Homes are purchased directly from the servicers, and much of NWA’s network uses local brokers to get the transactions accomplished.

The Great Lakes Capital Fund of Lansing, Mich., has been involved low-income housing for the past 18 years, mostly as a nonprofit syndicator involving low-income housing tax credits. In addition, it also has a number of nonprofit subsidiaries that act as pass-through entities for the First Look program.

“As the name implies, we do get a first look,” said Tom Caldwell, an underwriter with GLCF. “The idea behind it is to try and get these properties out to nonprofit organizations that aren’t looking to flip them. The nonprofits are seeking to find a property, get it renovated using NSP funds, and put it back into homeownership so that it will stabilize the community.”

GLFC has been working the First Look program in such medium-sized Michigan cities as Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Muskegon and Ypsilanti.

“The homes are mostly in urban core neighborhoods,” Caldwell said. “A lot of the properties we’ve seen had subprime mortgages. If the homes can be turned around with good, solid homeownership — which is what our buyers/partners want to see happen — it is a big win for the neighborhoods.”

Steve Bergsman is a freelance writer in Arizona and author of several books. His latest book, “After the Fall: Opportunities and Strategies for Real Estate Investing in the Coming Decade,” has been ranked as a top-selling real estate investment book for the Amazon Kindle e-reader.

   

 

This year, because of weekends and holidays, your federal tax return is due on April 18 instead of the usual April 15 deadline. April 18 is also the deadline for several other important tax-related actions. For example, your first estimated tax payment for 2011 is due April 18. But that’s not all. There are several other important steps you should consider taking before the deadline.

File an extension

If, like many people, you don’t want to have to file your completed return by April 18, you can obtain an automatic six-month extension of time to file. This is very easy to do. You simply fill out Internal Revenue Service Form 4868: Application for Automatic Extension of Time to File U.S. Individual Income Tax Return.

You can either email the completed form to the IRS or send it by postal mail. It must be sent by April 18, 2011.

More information:   Apply for a tax-filing extension: Form 4868 Retirement plan contribution calculator

You don’t have to tell the IRS why you want the extension, and you can’t be denied the extension — you get it automatically by filing the form. However, when you file Form 4868 you must estimate your total tax liability for 2010 and list it on the form.

It’s important to understand that obtaining an extension of time to file your return does not relieve you of the duty to pay your taxes in time for the initial deadline (by April 18).

You can send in any balance due, along with the Form 4868, but this is not required. If you don’t pay balance due by April 18, you’ll have to pay interest on the amount and may also be charged late payment penalties by the IRS. The late payment penalty is usually one-half of 1 percent of any tax (other than estimated tax) not paid by April 18, 2011.

Fund your retirement accounts

One of the best ways to reduce your tax liability is to establish and fully fund a tax qualified retirement account. These include traditional and Roth IRAs (individual retirement accounts), SEP-IRAs, SIMPLE IRAs, 401(k) and solo 401(k) plans, Roth 401(k) plans, and Keogh Plans (defined contribution plans and defined benefit plans).

Your contributions — other than those to Roth plans — are tax deductible. Contributions to Roth IRAs and Roth 401(k) plans are not deductible, but withdrawals after age 59 1/2 are tax free.

The maximum 2010 contribution you may make depends on the type of plan you have and the amount of your net self-employment income. Contributions to traditional and Roth IRAs are limited to $5,000; $6,000 if you were at least 50 by the end of 2010.

Contributions to the other plans can be much larger — as much as $49,000 for the most generous plans. There are several online retirement plan contribution calculators you can use to figure out your maximum contribution for 2010; including one at CalcXML.com.

If you already have a retirement account, but have not funded it for 2010, you still have time to make a 2010 contribution. You have until April 18 to make contributions to a traditional or Roth IRA, 401(k) plan, SEP-IRA, SIMPLE-IRA, or Keogh Plan, and have them count for the 2010 tax year.

Make sure to tell your plan administrator that your contribution should be applied to 2010, not 2011.

Filing an extension of time to file your return does not extend the deadline to contribute to an IRA. However, filing an extension does extend the time to fund a 401(k) plan, SEP-IRA, SIMPLE IRA, or Keogh Plan until Oct. 15, 2011 — the extended due date for your return.

So if you have one of these plans and need more time to come up with the money to contribute to them, be sure to file an extension.

What if you don’t have any retirement accounts? You still have until April 18 to establish a traditional or Roth IRA, or SEP-IRA and make contributions for the 2010 tax year. It is too late to set up 401(k) plan, SIMPLE-IRA, or Keogh Plan for the 2010 tax year.

Contribute to a Health Savings Account (HSA)

If you have a Health Savings Account, April 18 is also the last day you may make contributions for the 2010 tax year. As with IRAs, obtaining an extension to file your return does not extend this deadline.

If you have an individual plan, you can contribute a maximum of $3,050 for 2010. If you have a family plan, the maximum 2010 contribution is $6,150. These limits are increased by $1,000 if you were 55 or older at any time in 2010.

Stephen Fishman is a tax expert, attorney and author who has published 18 books, including “Working for Yourself: Law & Taxes for Contractors, Freelancers and Consultants,” “Deduct It,” “Working as an Independent Contractor,” and “Working with Independent Contractors.” He welcomes your questions for this weekly column.

   

Email List Fatigue

A condition producing diminishing returns from a mailing list whose members are sent too many offers, or too many of the same offers, in too short a period of time.

–MarketingSherpa 2011 Email Marketing Benchmark Report

This description likely sounds familiar to most email marketers. When you first send to recently opted-in subscribers, they are actively opening and clicking your emails; however, over time, the engagement levels begin to decrease (or take a severe nose dive in some cases). As MarketingSherpa’s definition notes, when your engagement results begin to drag, it could be due to one or more of the following:

1. Frequency: You are now sending more than they want to receive. Perhaps you have also increased your frequency over time, now delivering way more than subscribers signed up for at the point of initial opt-in.

Suggestion: To prevent this, review the expectations you set up front with your subscribers. If you are exceeding the number of emails they were told they’d receive, it may be time to scale back.

2. Staleness: You are sending the same type of information or offers over and over again and your subscribers have stopped responding.

Suggestion: Take a look at your most recent campaigns. Are they largely similar in content and appearance? If so, it may be  time for you to do a refresh. Revisit your strategy and come up with a whole new concept.

3. Bombarding: You’re not only sending a lot more communication, you are also paying no attention to how dispersed the touch points are. Sure, your executives have the idea for you to roll out 3 new products or service offerings. Does this mean you should announce them all the same week thereby bombarding your subscribers? No.

Suggestion: Keep in mind that your subscribers may get desensitized if they see multiple emails from you within a short period of time.

While these are certainly 3 of the top reasons for a “sleepy” list, other reasons for list fatigue include:

1. Non-engaging subject lines: You’ve gotten into a good routine, but unfortunately your subscribers don’t think so. If you are sending subject lines with the same structure as you were at the start of your email program – and your key metrics are on the decline – it may be time to do some A/B split testing.

You may be surprised which subject lines generate opens now. Things change and subscribers change therefore your subject lines should too. For more information on what to test, read Joanna Lawson-Matthew’s recent blog post, Five Ideas for Email Subject Line Testing.

2. Abandonment of an email account: There is turnover in every aspect of business and your email database is no exception. Think about it: people are bound to change email accounts over time (I switched from Yahoo to Gmail years ago). When this occurs, that initial email address no longer equals dollar signs. Rather, it now represents a black hole on your email list. If you send your campaign to these inactive addresses, they aren’t reaching anyone. Additionally, continuing to send to bad/inactive email addresses can negatively impact your overall deliverability

Suggestion: One way to combat this is to constantly monitor the level of engagement and target those that have not engaged in 6 months or so with a re-engagement campaign (forcing them to take action to stay on your list). For more information about re-engagement campaigns, read Re-Engagement Campaigns: Not Often Timely, Yet They Work! by DJ Waldow.

3. Spam filters blocking your emails from going to the inbox: Your emails are being received but are ending up in your subscribers’ spam folders rather than their inbox. Spam folder placement is often discrete and, as a result, messages in there are certainly less frequently checked, so they may be going unnoticed.

Suggestion: Algorithms designed to keep spammy messages out of the inbox are constantly evolving. Therefore, there is no definite way to stay away from that dreaded folder. However, most ESPs, like Blue Sky Factory, have a spam analyzer tool that can help you diagnose whether your email content may cause your “perfectly crafted” email to land in the spam category. Check these types of reports before sending any message.

4. Disabled images within the email leading to poor email rendering: You have important messaging and calls-to-action embedded in images; therefore, if a subscriber doesn’t download the images, they do not see the meat of your message. Since the default in most email clients is to have images turned OFF, it is highly important that you design with this fact in mind. In other words, make sure the important information is spelled out with text as well. If you’re not sure how your email may be appearing with images off, it may be wise to use a rendering tool (Blue Sky Factory’s system, Publicaster, has an Inbox Preview tool).

If your list is not generating the results it used to or the results you’d like to see, take a close look at your program and determine what may be causing the issue. And, as always, if you’re a Blue Sky Factory client, please contact your client service manager to discuss.

Happy emailing!

Lindsay Clark
Senior Client Services Manager, Blue Sky Factory

Image: Flickr – obo-boblina

Email marketing does not have a lot of value unless you have a list to send to. We've found that many email marketers struggle with ways to grow their list. Good news! We have an eBook that can help: 50 Ways to Build Your Email Marketing List. What are you waiting for? Download the eBook now!

Tags: list fatigue, list managing, list strategy

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 15th, 2010 at 10:39 am and is filed under Best Practice, Frequency, List Management, Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Manhattan residential sales prices continued their fall in the most recent 12-month period, according to three market reports released Friday.

At the end of the first quarter, the median price stood at $782,071, down 9.9% from the same period a year ago, while average sales price was down 6.7% at $1.3 million, according to the report by Prudential Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel Inc. The declines occurred in part because of a difficult comparison. The report noted that sales prices in the first quarter of 2010 had been artificially elevated by a surge in buying driven by the first-time homebuyer tax credit.

Additionally, the price decline was exaggerated by sales activity in the co-op and condo markets moving in opposite directions, said Jonathan Miller, chief executive of appraisal firm Miller Samuel.

The number of co-op apartments sold in the quarter rose 28.7% to 1,430 compared to a year ago, while the number of condos sold dropped 24.3% to 964, according to Prudential Douglas Elliman/Miller Samuel. The median co-op sales price dropped 6.2% to $642,500, while condo sales prices rose 8% to $1.15 million.

“There was a surge in co-op sales, but prices fell. Condo activity was the polar opposite—sales fell sharply but prices edged higher,” said Mr. Miller. “When you put them together, you got prices slipping because you have a lot more co-ops in the city.”

The drop in prices in the most recent quarter follows six consecutive quarters in which prices were heading upward, according to two separate reports by Brown Harris Stevens and Halstead Property.

Ms. Ramirez attributed the declines in her report to unusually high 2010 activity that was driven by pent-up demand. She remains optimistic about the year. “The first quarter was far more normal,” she said. “We are already seeing a wonderful build up to a great spring market.”

There is some disagreement on these trends, however. Reports out Friday from two other brokerages—The Corcoran Group and Streeteasy.com—concluded that average prices actually rose in the first quarter, by 2% and 3.5%, respectively, from the first quarter 2010.

As for the future, most firms see signs that the market is improving, with inventory still low and contract signings rising from the previous quarter ago. They also note first-quarter results are not reflective of current market conditions; contract signings are.

Active listing inventory reached its lowest level in the quarter since 2007, falling 5.3% to 7,605, according to Prudential Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. During the quarter, there were 2,309 listings that went into contract, up 10.1% from last quarter and down a mere 3.4% from the same time this year, according to Streeteasy.

“The market is generally stable, but clearly fragile,” said Mr. Miller, noting that there are major concerns over the fate of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which purchase and guarantee mortgages. In fact, financing remains tight in the city. Both Corcoran and Halstead said many of their transactions during the quarter remained all-cash deals.