In his State of the Union address, President Obama laid out a plan to help responsible borrowers and support a housing market recovery.

Key aspects of the president’s plan include:

• Broad-based refinancing: The president’s plan will provide borrowers who are current on their payments with an opportunity to refinance and take advantage of historically low interest rates
• Homeowner Bill of Rights: The president is putting forward a single set of standards to make sure borrowers and lenders play by the same rules, including: Access to a simple mortgage disclosure form, so borrowers understand the loans they are taking out; full disclosure of fees and penalties; guidelines to prevent conflicts of interest that end up hurting homeowners; support to keep responsible families in their homes and out of foreclosure; and protection for families against inappropriate foreclosure, including right of appeal.
• First pilot sale to transition foreclosed property into rental housing: The FHFA, in conjunction with Treasury and HUD, is announcing a pilot sale of foreclosed properties to be transitioned into rental housing.  C.A.R. is opposed to bulk sales of REO properties in California. 
• Providing a full year of forbearance for borrowers looking for work: Following the administration’s lead, major banks and the GSEs are now providing up to 12 months of forbearance to unemployed borrowers.
• Pursuing a joint investigation into mortgage origination and servicing abuses: This effort marshals new resources to investigate misconduct that contributed to the financial crisis under the leadership of federal and state co-chairs.
• Rehabilitating neighborhoods and reducing foreclosures: In addition to the steps outlined above, the administration is expanding eligibility for HAMP to reduce additional foreclosures, increasing incentives for modifications that help borrowers rebuild equity, and is proposing to put people back to work rehabilitating neighborhoods through Project Rebuild.

C.A.R. and NAR support the Obama Administration’s efforts to help homeowners and the struggling housing market, because restoring the health of the housing market is critical for the nation’s economic recovery.

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Policy makers, including Mayor Ed Lee, are proposing an increase in the rate of the real property transfer tax. Details concerning the proposed increase are not known at this time.

It is critically important for REALTORS® to contact the mayor to express their opposition to any increase in the rate of the real property transfer tax AND urge the mayor to cut the fat out of the city budget.

Go to http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-transfer-tax-rate-increase to sign the “Stop the Transfer Tax Rate Increase” petition. Share the petition with your friends on Facebook, your e-mail contacts and Twitter followers, and invite them to join the campaign. Mobilize your social network!

On Jan. 5, 2012, Gov. Brown delivered to the legislature a proposed budget that included sweeping changes in regulatory agencies, including the DRE, and dramatic cuts to various state programs in order to respond to California’s on-going budget deficit.

The proposed “consolidation” of state agencies, if passed in its current form, would result in the Department of Real Estate becoming a bureau within the existing Department of Consumer Affairs. Similar treatment is proposed for the Office of Real Estate Appraisers (OREA). The governor’s rationale is that the Department of Consumer Affairs licenses and regulates most professions, ranging from doctors, architects and accountants to auto repair and contractors through more than 30 boards and commissions. The Governor suggests that it is the appropriate place to house regulatory functions for real estate licensees.

In addition, mortgage loan originators not affiliated with banks would be regulated within a new Department of Business Oversight, which will oversee all financial and corporate entities. It appears that mortgage loan originators now licensed by the DRE will be transferred there, along with the attendant costs of their regulation, the DRE’s largest single enforcement cost area.

C.A.R. has in the past had to defend the budget reserves of the DRE against “raids” proposed in previous administration budgets, and will be equally vigorous in resisting any transfer of financial reserves from the DRE under this proposed budget. It remains to be seen if the new budget would have the effect of transferring the reserves from license fees paid by real estate licensees out of the DRE “Special Fund” and into the General Fund of the state. The proposal is not yet specific as to its effect on the enforcement staff and capabilities of the DRE, however, concern has been raised that a “bureau” may not have the enforcement capabilities of a full “department.”

Again, the proposed budget is just that – a proposal, and has not yet been enacted by the Legislature.

C.A.R. Directors will consider the proposal at their winter meeting in Indian Wells this week.

Orange County Register – Beginning with the 2012 tax bill (the one due in April 2013), the state Franchise Tax Board will require property owners to break down their property taxes into deductible and non-deductible portions.

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C.A.R.’s Legal Dept. has created a new chart summarizing new laws passed by the California Legislature and the U.S. Congress that may affect REALTORS® in 2012.  For the full text of a law, click onto the legislative number or go to www.leginfo.ca.gov for California laws or http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ for federal laws. A legislative bill may be referenced in more than one section.

View the chart at http://www.car.org/legal/2012-new-laws/.

Mayor Ed Lee has appointed Planning Commissioner Christina Olague to Ross Mirkarimi’s former seat on the Board of Supervisors. Mirkarimi was sworn in last Sunday as San Francisco’s new Sherriff. 

SFGate described Olague as follow: “The long-time community activist with roots in San Francisco’s left-of-center political ground co-chaired the ‘Run, Ed, Run’ campaign orchestrated by Chinatown power broker Rose Pak last year that lobbied the interim mayor to run for a full four-year term.”

District Five includes the Haight-Ashbury, the Panhandle, Lower Haight and parts of the Hayes Valley and Inner Sunset, and Japantown.

Click here to read the rest of the article from SFGate for more information.

Sacramento Bee – California landlords who have long had the right to restrict pets, noise, and even water beds in their units, can now prohibit smoking under a new law that took effect Sunday.

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Editor: More government intervention in the housing market.

NAR recently reported on legislation signed into law by President Obama that taxes housing to pay for the extension of the payroll tax, and maintain Medicare payments and unemployment benefits.

Despite NAR’s strong opposition to the diversion of housing resources to pay for non-housing uses, increases in Guarantee Fees on Fannie/Freddie mortgages and premium charges for FHA loans are being used to pay for the extensions. These increases will translate into additional costs for housing consumer and will divert fees needed to minimize the loss exposure of the government-sponsored enterprises, investors, and ultimately, the taxpayer.

C.A.R. recently sent comments letters to the California Congressional Delegation expression opposition to this new law.

Read the letter

The California Supreme Court last week upheld AB 26×1, the bill abolishing all of California’s redevelopment agencies, and smote with a mighty fury AB 27×1, the bill that would have permitted the agencies to ransom themselves back into existence. Taking a “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away” approach, the court decreed unanimously that the legislature could undo what they hath created sixty years previously. Of course, the… read more…

More than half of respondents to a recent survey by HouseLogic.com, the consumer website from NAR, said that jobs and unemployment will have the greatest impact on their vote in 2012.  Housing came in second at 27 percent.

Respondents were asked “What issue area will have the greatest impact on your vote in 2012?” National security, healthcare, and energy/environment trailed housing and unemployment by wide margins:

• Jobs/unemployment – 54 percent
• Housing – 27 percent
• National security – 8 percent
• Healthcare – 4 percent
• Energy/Environment – 2 percent
• Other – 4 percent

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