No.  That's GAR.

No prob.  Besides, Brad got to expound on general real estate dynamics which I'm sure was helpful to all.

Again, let me preface my remarks by stating that they are my opinion only.

GCAR does manage the Capital Region Multiple Listing Service (CRMLS).  The CRMLS is a service to which most of the real estate brokers (companies) belong/subscribe.
It supports the marketing of properties to a larger number of prospective buyers through a larger number of real estate salespersons across the region.  The benefit is
reported to be a higher sales price for the seller in a shorter period of time.

As I stated in my previous post, Appraisers and Real Estate salespersons are different in focus, education, credentials, and licensing.  Some Appraisers also hold licenses
in Real Estate Sales.  To be explicit in my assessment, I don't see how there exists a conflict of interest.  I guess that I need to better understand the scenario by which
you perceive the conflict of interest to exist.  If you have such a concern and wish to discuss it, you can contact the New York State Department of State, the state government department that issues real estate sales and Appraiser licenses.

The commission earned by a real estate professional is based on the property sales price.  Thus higher sales prices result in higher commissions.  While the property values
have increased, however, the commission rates charged have decreased since I first started in the profession in 1978.  The costs of marketing homes (e.g., advertising, auto expenses, etc.) have also increased dramatically since that time.

As explained by Possum, property assessments don't increase the tax levy.  It may, however, have the (desired) effect of distributing the load more fairly.  The equation is:

tax levy = tax base * tax rate.

If the base increases as a result of a reassessment, the tax rate must decrease if the tax levy is held constant.  Some property owners will see an increase in
assessment and tax bill, while others should see a tax assessment reduction and decrease in property tax bill.  This is theory.  If, indeed, there is no one whose taxes
decreased under the reval, that would indicate that the tax levy increased.

Don't know if this addresses your question MT.  I can only state my position that I act in the interests of the party who I represent.  That may be why I have been told that,
unlike myself, many in my profession will not work with customers/clients who are interested in vacant land -- there's not much money to be made

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Quoted from Michael:

I too am a NYS Licensed Real Estate Salesperson.

Mobile, it sounds to me that you are confusing GCAR (Greater Capital Association of Realtors) with GAR Associates, ( http://www.garappraisal.com/ ) an Amherst based appraiser firm, that conducted Rotterdam's reval and is currently doing Niskayuna's too.

AHA!

Thanks Michael.  I was unaware of GCAR being involved in property assessments.  You are correct.  It is GAR.

So, MT, disregard my earlier rambling.

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Quoted from Michael:
No prob.  Besides, Brad got to expound on general real estate dynamics which I'm sure was helpful to all.

Michael,

You are too kind in your use of the term "expound" rather than "ramble".

The re-val actually gave those folks who have been in their homes for at least 10years a nice cushion to the problem at hand, by being seasoned and probably in a more monetary secure place in their careers etc.....those folks who bought when the market was hot and heavy and easy(sounds like prostitution by the banks?) have a large load to carry.....

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SCHENECTADY
Business struggles to stay alive amid subprime crisis
BY JASON SUBIK Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter Jason Subik at 395-3198 or jsubik@dailygazette.net. Material from the Associated Press was included in this story.

    Each day Kelly Greco says a little prayer.
    “I say ‘Lord, I gave you this business, it’s been yours since the beginning. I leave it up to you,’ ” Greco said. “It’s been our faith that’s kept us sustained.”
    Greco is the founder of Stands Under the Son, a Schenectady-based countertop manufacturer. He and his wife Sherill started the business as a Bible stand manufacturer but the enterprise quickly evolved into countertops during the 2000-06 housing boom.
    During the boom, Stands Under the Son benefitted from surging new housing construction and rising home values. The couple maintained two full-time employees and operated their business in the black.
    “We had grown progressively every year. This past year was the first we didn’t grow since 2000,” Sherill said.
    Now the two employees are gone. The Grecos and their son Heath, a partner, are working hard to stay alive.
    “We knew how things were going at Christmastime. We’re usually really, really busy, and we weren’t,” Sherill said.
    According to a report released Monday by the Greater Capital Association of Realtors, the sale of single-family homes regionwide in February plunged 29 percent to 431, compared with a year earlier, but during the same period the region’s median sale price jumped 8 percent to $189,900.
    Kelly said homeowners have stopped using the equity in their homes to pay to hire Stands Under the Son to build new countertops for remodeling efforts, even if the paper value of a house has note eroded.
    Earlier this month, the Federal Reserve reported that the amount of debt tied up in American homes now exceeds the equity homeowners have built for the first time since the Fed began tracking that data in 1945.
    Economy.com  estimates 8.8 million homeowners, or about 10 percent of homes, will have zero or negative equity by the end of the month.
    Kelly said Stands Under the Son is surviving now because of the owners’ faith in God and because its business practices ran directly counter to the housing trends that built it up. Stands Under the Son owns the 1,200-square-foot office and shop space it operates out of on O’Dell Street in its entirety. Without rent or mortgage to pay, the business only has to cover utilities and taxes.
    “We’ve operated in the black. If we were to cash out tomorrow, if everybody paid their bills, we wouldn’t owe a nickel to anybody,” Kelly said.
    That’s exactly what he did with his first countertop business, Craft-Tech, which he sold to Homecrest Cabinetry in the early 1990s after the housing bubble of the late 1980s burst. He said he expects the glut of foreclosed properties will stymie new housing starts until they have been repurchased.
    Earlier this month, the Mortgage Bankers Association said foreclosures hit an all-time high in the fi - nal quarter of last year. And pending U.S. home sales — those in the gap between when a buyer signs a contract and when the deal closes — came in below analyst expectations for January and remained at the second-lowest reading on record.
    Kelly said his many years of working in the home building and home improvement industry have taught him that prosperity and lean years come in cycles.
    “I don’t think you’ll see any kind of recovery until the end of next year. And I don’t think you’ll see any growth until the start of the year after that,” he said.
    And new homes may shrink, Kelly predicts.
    “You’re going to see restructuring of the type of houses that are built. [During the housing boom] people had gotten these big eyeballs and thought they could live in the lap of luxury, when they couldn’t afford it, and that’s because the prime lenders had sold them that package,” he said. “I think people are going to have to [contemplate] downsizing the size of their house.”
    Sherill said Stands Under the Son has now sought out less expensive countertop products and put in bids for new apartment complex jobs.
    “We just found another solid surface that we can sell for considerably less,” she said. “I think what’s going to help us is if people have to give up their homes they’re going to go into apartments. They’re going to be building a lot of new apartment complexes that will need work.”
    Kelly said Stands Under the Son is bidding to do work on a new apartment complex going up near the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Malta. He said the building would have 900 units.
    “That would be sustainable work for us for a couple of years,” he said.
ANA N. ZANGRONIZ/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER
Heath Greco, a co-owner of Stands Under the Son, demonstrates how to cut apart laminate countertop with a saw at the Odell Street business Friday.

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IT HURTS Consumers tighten belts as food costs skyrocket
BY ALAN SCHER ZAGIER The Associated Press

    Financial planner Stacy Francis, president of Francis Financial Inc. in New York, says frugal living requires that you minimize your spending, maximize your income and set achievable savings goals. Some strategies:

    Steadily rising food costs aren’t just causing grocery shoppers to do a double-take at the checkout line — they’re also changing the very ways we feed our families.
    The worst case of food inflation in nearly 20 years has more Americans giving up restaurant meals to eat at home. We’re buying fewer luxury food items, eating more leftovers and buying more store brands instead of name-brand items.
    For Peggy and David Valdez of Houston, feeding their family of four means scouring grocer ads for the best prices, taking fewer trips as a way to save gas and simply buying less food, period.
    “We do more selecting, looking around, seeing which prices are cheaper,” said David Valdez. “We are being more selective. We have got to find the cheapest price.”
    Record-high energy, corn and wheat prices in the past year have led to sticker shock in the grocery aisles. At $1.32, the average price of a loaf of bread has increased 32 percent since January 2005. In the last year alone, the average price of carton of eggs has increased almost 50 percent.
    Ground beef, milk, chicken, apples, tomatoes, lettuce, coffee and orange juice are among the staples that cost more these days, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    Overall, food prices rose nearly 5 percent in 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That means a pound of coffee, on average, cost 57 cents more at year’s end than in 2006. A 12-ounce can of frozen, concentrated orange juice now averages $2.53 — a 67-cent increase in just two years.
    And a carton of grade A, large eggs will set you back $2.17. That’s an increase of nearly $1 since February, 2006.
    “The economy is having a defi - nite impact on shopper behavior,” said Tim Hammonds, president and chief executive officer of the Food Marketing Institute, a retail trade group. “People are significantly changing what they do.”
    Soaring prices are causing shoppers to rethink long-held habits such as store loyalty.
    Wal-Mart and other supercenters that sell food now account for 24 percent of the market, according to the most recent annual survey of shopping habits by Hammonds’ organization.
    Gina Pierson, a music teacher in Columbia, Mo., buys her family’s staples at local grocery stores but makes regular trips to Wal-Mart to supplement the weekly shopping list. Like many families struggling to get by, Pierson and her husband, a public school teacher, are adjusting their approach to buying, cooking and eating food. Restaurant meals are now almost a luxury.
    “Between food and gas, it’s just cheaper to stay home,” she said.
    In 2007, the FMI survey showed the average number of weekly shopping trips falling below two per household for the first time.
    Paula Curtis, a mental health worker in Montpelier, Vt., said her grocery bill has been steadily climbing by $10 to $20 a week. She has cut back on meat, fruit, vegetables and snack food, and buys milk at the gas station, where she said it’s cheaper.
    “Every time I go, it’s more and more,” she said. “I make a list, but I don’t necessarily get everything on it because I can’t afford everything.”
    Nationwide, a family of four on a moderate-cost shopping plan now spends an average of $904 each month for groceries, an $80 increase from two years ago, according to the USDA.
    Those who can’t absorb the added expenses are increasingly seeking help from food pantries. America’s Harvest, which distributes nearly two billion pounds of food and grocery products each year to more than 200 food banks across the country, estimates that its overall client load increased by 20 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007.
    The jump has been even higher at the Central Missouri Food Bank’s pantry in Columbia, a college town halfway between Kansas City and St. Louis.
    The food pantry served 7,200 people in 2007, an increase of more than 50 percent over two years, said executive director Peggy Kirkpatrick.
    Columbia used to be considered inflation-proof because of its highpaying university jobs and proximity to the state capital, 30 miles away in Jefferson City.
    “That’s not the case anymore,” she said.
    Shary Auer visits the Columbia food pantry once a month to help extend the family’s $800 monthly food budget. The mother of fi ve children, ages 9 to 19, is buying more canned food instead of fresh produce. Portions are smaller around the Auer dinner table, and salads are added regularly to stretch the servings of meat and poultry.
    Auer, a part-time postal worker and supermarket cashier, said she fastidiously tracks food prices.
    “I watch for sales, save my receipts and highlight what I save,” she said.
    Among retailers, the surge in commodity prices — from corn, now in high demand because of increased ethanol production, to wheat that has tripled in price over the past 10 months — has some industry observers suggesting that higher food prices aren’t a temporary fluctuation but instead may be here to stay.
    “We don’t exactly have a crystal ball,” said Whole Foods’ Perry Abbenante, a senior global grocery buyer. “But I’m not sure [prices] are going back. We’re preparing for a new threshold.”
TOBY TALBOT/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Joe Francavilla talks about grocery prices in Barre, Vt.

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Being frugal means setting priorities, budgeting On the Money
BY EILEEN ALT POWELL The Associated Press

    NEW YORK — When mathematics professor Annalisa Crannell needs new clothes, she doesn’t head for the mall or outlet stores or even discount stores.
    Crannell is an aficionado of Goodwill Industries shops. And she’ll pass by the racks with $7 blue jeans and head for the bins where the jeans sell for $1. She’s also happy to take friends’ castoffs.
    “Am I the biggest tightwad on the planet?” asks Crannell, a resident of Lancaster, Pa. “No. But I’m more frugal than most of the people I know.”
    A lot of people could learn from Crannell, who teaches at Franklin & Marshall College, and others who have adopted thrifty habits that they feel are both ecologically sound and help them cope with the rapidly rising costs of food, fuel and other necessities.
    The word “frugal” might sound a bit old-fashioned, but the concept is as modern as today, says New York financial planner Stacy Francis.
    “Keeping track of where your money goes is the most important financial task you can undertake,” she said. “It really doesn’t matter what you make. It matters what you spend.”
    She said many people didn’t worry much about money when the stock market was rising, home values were soaring and the job market was solid. Those conditions have changed, and “when cash is tight, spending needs to get tighter, too,” Francis said.
    Some people have turned frugality into a lifestyle.
    Annette and Steve Economides of Scottsdale, Ariz., try to live the life they describe in their book, “America’s Cheapest Family Gets you Right on the Money.”
    The Economides, who don’t use credit cards, believe consumers need to avoid debt, spend less than they earn and embrace a thrifty lifestyle.
    “It’s not about sacrifice, it’s about priorities,” Annette Economides says.
    The couple suggests people start on the road to frugality by making a spending plan.
    “Some people think ’budget’ is a four letter word,” Steve Economides said. “It’s not. And it’s not a noun either. It’s a verb. And it’s an action verb.”
    Budgeting requires a family to estimate future spending, based on what has happened in the past, and to set aside money to cover what a family considers important, he said.
    What if it doesn’t look like the money will go far enough? That’s where frugality comes in.
    Take grocery shopping. The average American family of four spends between $800 and $900 a month on food, Steve Economides said. By shopping more carefully, a family can cut that in half, he said.
    The Economides, who have four children, watch the store circulars and ads so they can stock up when items they use frequently are on sale.
    “Around Thanksgiving, when turkey goes on sale for 35 to 40 cents a pound, we buy several,” she said.
    They limit meals out in restaurants, plan menus in advance to take advantage of seasonal — and thus cheaper — produce, and use coupons to hold down food costs even further.
    They shop just once a month, to reduce the time they have to spend in stores — and the gasoline they use to get to and from the supermarket.
    For Crannell, frugal spending in some areas, like clothing, frees up money to be spent on things she cares more about.
    She and her husband, Neil Gussman, invested in energy-efficient windows for their home several years ago. She walks to work, but when she does drive it’s behind the wheel of a Toyota Prius Hybrid car, which runs on gas and electricity.
    Crannell likes yard sales, especially those where an entire neighborhood cooperates because there’s a bigger selection. She shops at a local farmers market and sometimes makes vegetarian meals, partly because she believes they’re healthy and partly to cut down on high-cost meat.
    Crannell also believes in teaching her children the fine art of thrift shopping.
    “Nigel, my 8-year-old, loves to go to yard sales with me,” she said. “He can get toys for a quarter at yard sales. In fact, he’s so cute that he can get things for free.
    “He has more toys than he knows what to do with.”

CAROLYN KASTER/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Annalisa Crannell holds a blanket she made from her husband's old T-shirts and an old sheet at her home in Lancaster, Pa., last week.

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Refinancing is not an American entitlement

Karen Knuth’s April 6 letter about the mortgage crisis, “Homeowners deserve bailout, not mortgage bankers,” touched a nerve.
She bewailed, “Now the homeowners can’t even refinance those homes.” This implies that refinancing is an entitlement. I don’t know where she got that idea.
    There are lots of villains and few innocent victims in the current credit crisis. Mortgage brokers, banks, appraisers, lawyers, financial firms, bond owners and regulators — not to mention the homeowners themselves — are the principal villains. Real estate agents and agencies seem to be only minor villains, but they too deserve a share of the blame.
    A strictly ethical agent should not show a property to prospective buyers who can’t afford it. The estimate of what they can afford must be conservative, including consideration of possible declines in value. Karen Knuth’s letter suggests that she takes the opposite view, that affordability includes entitlement to rising values, refinancing and low interest rates. In my mind, that’s irresponsible.
    Ms. Knuth’s proposed solution, that government finance the loans directly at low interest rates, is self-serving in that it would serve to further enrich real estate agents.
    DICK MILLS
    Vero Beach, Fla. The writer is a former Schenectady resident.

Unfortunately the home owners have to assume some of the blame on this right along with all the greedy lending institutions, Realtors, banks, and regulators. Everyone of us should know what we can afford when it comes to a house and if we let some company convince us that we can afford a house that's far above our means shame on us.

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Economy sending middle-age ‘kids’ back to parents
BY EMILY FREDRIX The Associated Press

    After being laid off from her job as an events planner at an upscale resort, Jo Ann Bauer struggled financially. She worked at several lower-paying jobs, relocated to a new city and even declared bankruptcy.
    Then in December, she finally accepted her parents’ invitation to move into their home — at age 52. “I’m back living in the bedroom that I grew up in,” she said.
    Taking shelter with parents isn’t uncommon for young people in their 20s, especially when the job market is poor. But now the slumping economy and the credit crunch are forcing some children to do so later in life — even in middle age.
    Financial planners report receiving many calls from parents seeking advice about taking in their grown children following divorces and layoffs.
IN NEED OF HELP
    Kim Foss Erickson, a financial planner in Roseville, Calif., north of Sacramento, said she has never seen older children, even those in their 50s, depending so much on their parents as in the last six months.
    “This is not like, ‘OK, my son just graduated from college and needs to move back in’ type of thing,” she said. “These are 40- and 50-year-old children of my clients that they’re helping out.”
    Parents “jeopardize their financial freedom by continuing to subsidize their children,” said Karin Maloney Stifler, a financial planner in Hudson, Ohio, and a board member of the Financial Planning Association. “We have a hard time saying no as a culture to our children, and they keep asking for more.”
    Bauer’s parents won’t take rent money or let her help much with groceries. She’s trying to save several hundred dollars a month for a house while working as a meetings coordinator.
    Bauer would prefer to live on her own, but without her parents’ help would “probably be renting again and trying to stick minimal money in the bank,” she said.
    Shirley Smith, 80, said she and her husband didn’t hesitate when they invited Bauer to return to their home in Eden, Wis. Buying groceries for another person isn’t stretching her budget too much, she said.
    “I’ve got three kids and any of them can come home if they want,” she said.
    But plenty of well-meaning parents must delay retirement or scale back their dreams because they have to help their children, Stifler said.
DRAWING A LINE
    Some of Erickson’s clients are giving as much as $50,000 at a time to their kids, many of whom have overextended themselves with big houses or lavish lifestyles. And the sliding economy might threaten their jobs.
    Parents feel guilty if they don’t offer help, but she warns them to be careful with their savings.
    “I almost have to act like a financial therapist if you will,” she said. “’Here is the line I’m drawing for you. That’s fine. You can do up to this point, but at this point, now you’re starting to erode your own wealth.’”
    Anna Maggiore, 27, lost her job as a publicist in Los Angeles about three years ago and moved into her parents’ house in Los Alamos, N.M.
    She tried to find jobs, but nothing stuck, so she enrolled full-time at the College of Santa Fe to finish her bachelor’s degree in business.
    She figures her parents spend about $1,000 a month on her, including a car payment, car and health insurance, school and other costs. Her father is a retired nuclear physicist and her mother, a guidance counselor, will retire this spring. Now Maggiore is looking for work so she can supplement their income.
    “It’s kind of hitting me finally that I need to get out there and find a job,” she said. “Even if it’s just part-time just to help out however I can.”
    A new survey by the retiree-advocacy group AARP found that one-fourth of Generation Xers, those 28 to 39 years old, receive financial help from family and friends.
    The online survey of nearly 1,800 people ages 19 to 39 also found 57 percent believed they were “financially independent.” But in a separate question, 33 percent said they received financial support from family and friends.
    Bauer was caught by surprise when her job at a resort in Kohler, Wis., was cut four years ago, one year after she got divorced. The single mother bounced around to several lesser-paying jobs, declared bankruptcy and even moved 60 miles south to Milwaukee.
    Her daughter, now 12, moved in with Bauer’s ex-husband near her hometown.
TAKING HUMBLE STEPS
    Bauer decided to move to be closer to her and in December she found a job with the Experimental Aircraft Association in nearby Oshkosh. She tried to buy a house but needed 5 percent down. She only had 2 percent. She’s now saving for a down payment and hopes to have it as early as June.
    Bauer said she gets along well with her parents and knows she’ll never get to spend so much time with them again. But it hurts her ego to live at home.
    “I’ve had people say to me, ‘Oh God, I could never do that,’ ” she said. “But you take humble steps in order to move forward.”

I can't believe the reasons why these people are moving back in with their elderly parents! Have we become that shallow of a society, that middle aged people must mooch off their retired or almost retired parents...TO SAVE FOR A HOME?....TO GET A COLLEGE EDUCATION?

Now don't get me wrong here, these are all admirable ambitions.(although there are some beautiful MFH available ) But did they ever stop to realize that they are mooching off a generation that were not that far removed from the depression? A generation that 'made it on their own'? Sure costs are higher now. No question. But ya know what...ya make do with what you have and plunge forward. There are more than enough grants, government programs, employment services and non-profits out there to mooch off of.

With the ever rising costs, I wonder how many of these 50+er's would be willing to take their retired, elderly folks in their home, and support them. Some? Sure. Most? No.

Anyone remember the long houses of the Iroquois Indians???? or even the MFH of the colonials????  well, let's not go back.....but, I wont have the government/lobbying groups(aarp)/unions or otherwise telling us what we need......even those stats and studies are ridiculous.....we need to learn to do what we need to do----never mind about the Jones next door/the Clintons/the Obamas/the Spitzers/the Bushs/the Feds/the immigrants etc.....this is grass roots time----it doesn't matter what politicians catagorize us in or think we are whatever their sociology/psychology classes tell them/us what we are......generation X, hippies, yuppies etc.......

This is our collective-selves fault......however, there is a monkey on our back......it has multiple names and we have melted it down and built it right back up over and over and over again--------