For more than a year, North Scranton resident Anne Smith, 61, has been trying to sell her William Street home.

She has not received a single offer and fears selling will be next to impossible if a proposed 81 percent rise in property taxes over three years passes.

“It doesn’t bode well if taxes go up that high,” Smith said. “Our incomes aren’t going up, so how are we going to pay for it all? People just won’t want to live in Scranton.”

The middle to late part of the summer is typically slow for the real estate market, said Wayne Evans, owner and broker of Wayne Evans Realty. Lately, there have been more calls coming in that end in “thank you but never mind,” he said.

Evans believes that it is not the proposed tax increase itself that has stymied an already stunted market, but rather the uncertainty of what the increases would mean.

“Every day, it seems like there is a new number coming out of city council,” Evans said. “That uncertainty prevents people from feeling confident in their personal budgets and that keeps them away.”

Cynthia Evans-Herr, president of AGI Real Estate Services in Harrisburg and founder and president of the Lancaster-based Ascensions Group, Inc., said the real estate situation in Scranton is similar to what she has seen in Harrisburg. Sagging real estate markets weigh on struggling cities, she said.

“If real estate stops, then everything stops,” Evans-Herr said.

Over the past two years, crime and poverty have soared as Harrisburg’s finances fell, Evans-Herr said, adding that “declaring martial law” and having the National Guard occupy the city might be Harrisburg’s best bet.

“Scranton is headed down the same path,” she said. “When you have taxes that run rampant and services that are crap, you have a recipe for that kind of meltdown.”

John Torpa, a real estate agent at Nasser Real Estate, said uncertainty in the Scranton market is nothing new. Homes in Scranton are reasonably priced compared to Dunmore or Clarks Summit, he said.

“It all depends on the price,” Torpa said. “If the house is priced accordingly, it sells. Scranton isn’t different than any other municipality.”

Chris O’Boyle, broker and owner of O’Boyle Real Estate LLC, said that he has noticed some anxiety in his clients over the proposed taxes but he’s “cautiously optimistic.”

Once city council passes a finalized budget, buyers will feel more confident investing in the city, he said.

“They’re not going to jump ship,” O’Boyle said. “You have to wait and see what happens. You have to remember that as far as real estate goes, nationally, things are still not that rosy. It’s coming back, but it’s got a ways to go to get back to where it was.”

For Smith, time is of the essence. She is living on Social Security and depends on that income to support herself. She lost her husband, Thomas, eight years ago.

Should she sell the house, her plan would be to move in with her family in South Plainfield, N.J. If she can’t sell the house, she said she needs to consider going back to work, especially if the proposed hikes pass.

“I’ve been in Pennsylvania all of my life,” Smith said. “I was born here, I went to school here, but I’m also a widow on Social Security and it’s difficult to maintain. I really hope I can sell it.”

If you’ve been pushed out of your home because of a foreclosure, you’ve got an extended opportunity to have the process reviewed for any errors that may have occurred.

After widespread complaints by consumer advocates and borrowers about deceitful and improper practices, federal regulators required 14 large residential mortgage servicers to retain independent consultants to provide an unbiased review of their foreclosure actions. Initially, people had until the end of July to request this review.

But now the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve have pushed the deadline back to Dec. 31. If your primary residence was involved in a foreclosure process between Jan. 1, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2010, you may qualify for action.

This really is your chance for a no-lose situation. If consultants find fault during the review, then borrowers who suffered financial injury because of errors, misrepresentations or other problems may get money or some other remedy.

The remediation could be significant. If reviewers discover that you were financially injured, you might be entitled to a lump-sum payment, a suspension or rescission of a foreclosure, a loan modification, a correction to your credit reports, or a correction of deficiency amounts. The servicers are providing the compensation as a result of the enforcement actions taken last year.

If you homed in on the money part, which I certainly would if I had gone through a foreclosure, here’s what could be on the table. Lump-sum payments can range from $500 to $125,000 in the worst cases involving the lost of a home, said Bryan Hubbard, a spokesman for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The cash payments are not subtracted from any debt you might have owed on the home.

I depend on Attorney Richard Vetstein for the news about foreclosure and the law. Today, he discusses House Bill 4323.

On August 3, 2012, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick signed into law what’s been called the new Foreclosure Prevention Law. The text of the law can be found at House Bill No. 4323. The new law makes significant changes to existing foreclosure practices, and also attempts to clean up the recent turmoil surrounding defective foreclosure titles after the U.S. Bank v. Ibanez and Eaton v. FNMA rulings, an issue for which I’ve been advocating for years. It goes into effect on Nov. 1, 2012. A quick summary is as follows with details below:

• New requirement that mortgage assignments be recorded
• New mandatory requirement to offer loan modifications and mediation to qualified borrowers
• New Eaton foreclosure affidavit confirming ownership of note/mortgage loan
• Protection for third party buyers of foreclosed properties

Mortgage assignments must be recorded
Going forward, a foreclosure may not proceed unless the entire chain of mortgage assignments from the original mortgagee to the foreclosing entity is recorded. This is a statutory codification of the recommendation of the SJC in U.S. Bank v. Ibanez case, and should provide some well-needed clarity for titles. Under the new law, no foreclosure notice will be valid unless “(i) at the time such notice is mailed, an assignment, or chain of assignments, evidencing the assignment of the mortgage to the foreclosing mortgagee has been duly recorded in the registry of deeds . . . and (ii) the recording information for all recorded assignments is referenced in the notice of sale required in this section.”

Unfortunately, the new law does not address defective foreclosure titles created before the Ibanez decision, as we were hoping. Accordingly, folks who are still waiting for legislative help to cure their defective foreclosure titles may be left without a remedy.

Mandatory loan modification efforts In a provision pushed hard by housing advocates, the new law will require mortgage lenders to attempt to offer loan modifications instead of foreclosing. The qualification standards are rather complex and beyond the scope of this post. In sum, if the net present value of a modified mortgage exceeds the anticipated net recovery at foreclosure, the lender has to offer the borrower a modification. Importantly, the new law provides immunity in favor of bona fide purchasers of foreclosed properties from claims by disgruntled borrowers that the lenders did not follow the loan modification rules.

New Eaton Affidavit
The new law also incorporates the SJC’s recent holding in Eaton v. Fannie Mae, where the SJC held that a foreclosing lender must be both the assignee of the mortgage and be either note holder or acting on behalf of the note holder. New Section 35C prohibits a creditor from publishing a foreclosure notice if the creditor “knows or should know that the mortgagee is neither the holder of the mortgage note nor the authorized agent of the note holder.” It also requires the creditor to record an affidavit swearing to its compliance with the new section. The affidavit will shield third-party buyers from title claims, but will not shield creditors from potential liability to the borrowers. Eaton suggested the use of affidavits, but now the statute requires it. Creditors cannot pass the cost of any corrective documentation upon borrowers or third parties.

Impact?
As with any major reform legislation, there will be a learning curve for foreclosing lenders and foreclosure attorneys to get documentation and systems in place to comply with the new requirements. We could potentially see additional litigation coming out of this new law brought by borrowers who feel they were not given a “fair shake” at a loan modification. From a real estate title perspective, the new law is a step in the right direction, but I was very disappointed that nothing was done to help folks who are still saddled with Ibanez title defects. This was the perfect opportunity to address that issue, and I’m afraid it won’t come up again.

On Tuesday, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced new guidelines that are supposed to make it easier for home owners to sell their properties in a short sale — when a home sells for less than the borrower owes on the mortgage.

In addition, the new guidelines, which kick in on Nov. 1, allow owners with a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac mortgage to pursue a short sale even if they haven’t fallen behind on their mortgage payments but have a hardship, such as a job loss or divorce.

Consumer advocates say the changes will help some of the borrowers who’ve been unable to sell the estimated 11 million U.S. homes worth less than the value of their mortgage, according to CoreLogic. However, not all homes would qualify in this new program.

And while the changes provide new hope to distressed home owners, experts say they could negatively affect prices in neighborhoods that get an influx of new short sales. A rise in short sales will result in “downward pressure on home prices until we clear out the majority of these distressed properties,” said Jack McCabe, an independent housing analyst in Deerfield Beach, Fla.

Home prices had been rising in recent months, a trend experts say is due to the limited inventory and the smaller number of distressed properties on the market.

In June, median home prices were up 8% from a year prior, according to the National Association of Realtors. That marked the fourth back-to-back monthly increase in home prices — the longest streak since 2006. Inventory was down 24% from the prior year. And distressed sales — including short sales and foreclosures — accounted for 25% of all sales, down from 30% in June 2011.

For its part, the Washington-based NAR says it’s called for an expedited short-sales process to help boost inventory. The Federal Housing Finance Agency says that it expects short sales to settle at market prices and that they’ll help avoid foreclosures and long vacancy periods that result in declines in home values.

Still, data suggest that the impact on home owners who aren’t in distress could be lower values for their properties in the near term. Even if short sales fly off the market, they’ll likely go at a discounted price. According to the NAR, short sales sell at prices that are 15% lower than regular home listings, on average.

Instead, the benefits for homeowners could be bigger in the long term. “It’s a better idea to clear out the backlog of distressed homes rather than delay the process in the name of supporting [home] values,” said Brad Hunter, chief economist at Metrostudy, a market research and consulting firm.

Federal authorities are investigating a near-miss between two small planes at the Westchester County Airport.

The Federal Aviation Administration says the incident occurred around 7 p.m. Sunday.

It says the air traffic control cleared one plane for takeoff and the other for landing on an intersecting runway.

The agency said the landing aircraft made a shorter approach than expected and landed just before the other plane cleared the intersection for takeoff.

FAA procedures require that the departing plane clear the intersection before an arriving plane reaches the runway.

A state Supreme Court justice ruled Wednesday that a payroll tax paid for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority by residents in New York City’s surrounding counties, including Westchester and Putnam, is unconstitutional.

The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by Nassau County officials in 2010. Westchester and Putnam counties, as well as other municipalities in the Lower Hudson Valley, later joined the lawsuit, which aimed to have the MTA tax overturned.

In a statement after the ruling, Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino called the decision “good news.”

“The MTA payroll tax is essentially an unfunded mandate from Albany,” Astorino said. “In this case, we were allowed to challenge it. We did. And now we’ve won an important victory with the court’s decision that this unfair burden on taxpayers was unconstitutional.”

More Americans purchased previously-owned homes in July, suggesting improvement in the beleaguered housing market over the summer.

Existing home sales rose 2.3 percent last month, with sales rising to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of to 4.47 million units, up from 4.37 million units in June, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday. That was just below analysts’ expectations of a 4.52 million-unit rate. Sales were 10.4 percent above the 4.05 million-unit pace in July 2011.

Low interest rates and a modest improvement in the labor market helped home buying conditions, the NAR said.

Advertise | AdChoices

“Mortgage interest rates have been at record lows this year,” said the NAR’s chief economist Lawrence Yun, adding that the labor market was also showing signs of improvement.

“Combined, these factors are helping to unleash pent up demand,” he said. “However, the market is constrained by unnecessarily tight lending standards and shrinking inventory supplies, so housing could easily be much stronger without these abnormal frictions.”

The NAR said it is asking the government to expeditiously release the foreclosed properties it owns in inventory-constrained markets.

Nationwide, the median price for a home resale was $187,300 in July, 9.4 percent higher than in the same month a year earlier.

In June, sales declined 5.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.37 million.

Wednesday’s housing number could be a sign of strength for the housing market, which is beginning to recover from the after-effects of the financial crisis.

Rising home prices are often welcomed as a sign of a country’s economic health and vigor. But in New Zealand, there is growing concern that prices have risen so high they are acting instead as an economic anchor, sucking resources from those who can afford a home and prompting those who can’t to consider moving overseas.

While much of the world remains mired in a housing slump, median home prices in the South Pacific nation in June rose to an all-time high of 372,000 New Zealand dollars ($303,000). That’s 6 percent above the peak reached before the global financial crisis and more than double the level of a decade ago, according to figures from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand.

Median prices have now risen to about five times the median household income, well above the historic multiple of three. In the largest city of Auckland, which is driving the market, home prices have hit a median $500,000 New Zealand dollars ($407,500). Average annual wages, meanwhile, are languishing at $53,000 New Zealand dollars ($43,000).

High home prices represent an anomaly for a developed country of 4.4 million that, Auckland aside, is sparsely populated and where the quality of the housing stock remains marginal, often lacking adequate insulation or central heating. Part of the explanation lies in tradition – owning a home with a yard holds enormous social and economic significance in New Zealand and has long been the investment of choice for the middle class, who have shied away from stocks and other financial assets. But high prices are forcing more people to rent – home ownership levels have dropped from 75 percent in the early 1990s to 65 percent now.

The Economist magazine this month rated New Zealand’s home prices as 66 percent overvalued when compared to rents, second only to Canada in the 21 markets measured. By comparison, the magazine concluded homes in China were 7 percent overvalued compared to rents, homes in the United States were 15 percent undervalued, and those in Japan were 37 percent undervalued. Using income as a measure, the magazine concluded New Zealand homes were 22 percent overvalued.

The Bank of New Zealand recently came to a similar conclusion, finding that homes were 25 percent overvalued when compared to long-term trends.

Record-low interest rates are helping fuel ever-larger mortgages, money that ultimately comes from offshore. New Zealand’s household debt levels are now considered high by international standards, and are a big part of the reason why two major credit agencies last year downgraded the country’s sovereign credit rating.

Americans likely bought more new homes in July, adding to evidence that the housing market is slowly recovering.

Economists forecast that sales of new homes rose 3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 360,000, according to a survey by FactSet. The Commerce Department will release the report at 10 a.m. Eastern time Thursday.

Sales of new homes fell sharply in June to an annual pace of 350,000 after reaching a two-year high of 382,000 in May. A sharp drop in the Northeast drove sales in that region to the lowest level since November.

Sales in June were 15.1 percent higher than 12 months ago. But new home sales remain well below the 700,000 annual pace that economists say is consistent with a healthy market.

The housing market’s recovery is getting steadier and more sustainable. One reason is that houses are much more affordable.

Mortgage rates have fallen to near-record lows. Housing prices are about one-third lower than they were at the peak of the housing bubble in 2006. Those trends have helped lift sales of new and previously occupied homes.

Sales of previously occupied homes rose in July from June, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday. Sales have jumped 10 percent in the past year.

Other recent reports also point to a recovery in housing. Home prices are rising nationwide. They increased 2.2 percent in May from April, according to one leading index. That was the second straight increase after seven months of flat or declining prices.

Builders, meanwhile, are growing more confident because they’re seeing more traffic from potential buyers. An index of builder confidence rose to its highest level in five years in August.

Builders responded by applying for the largest number of building permits in nearly four years last month. They broke ground on slightly fewer new homes in July than in June. But that was after the number of housing starts had reached a 3½-year high in June.

Though new homes represent less than 20 percent of the housing market, they have a disproportionate impact on the economy. Each home built creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in tax revenue, according to statistics compiled by the National Association of Home Builders.

The housing market has a long way to go to reach a full recovery. Some economists forecast that sales of previously occupied homes will rise 8 percent this year to about 4.6 million. That’s still well below the 5.5 million annual sales pace that is considered healthy.