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        <title>Louisville Homes Blog</title>
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            <guid>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/do-i-need-a-survey.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/do-i-need-a-survey.html</link>
            <author>office@louisvillehomepros.com (Jonathan Karlen)</author>
            <title>Do I need a Survey?</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 



If you are like most persons, the obvious answer to “Do I need to get a survey?” is:   “I’m buying a house in a Louisville subdivision, I don’t need to get a survey. I’d rather save the $250-400.”


But, what is always obvious, isn’t necessarily correct.


In October 2006, we represented some clients that were purchasing a home in an established and fairly affluent neighborhood that felt similarly.  Upon our insistence, they finally relented and ordered a staked survey for the home they were purchasing.


The surveyor found that even though the home owner had gotten the proper permitting to construct their all brick $30,000 free standing garage, the current owner of the property had never gotten a survey either to mark the utilities.


And they found a big surprise: the garage was built directly over the Louisville Gas &amp; Electric as well as Metropolitan Sewer District easements. And as such, those utility easements granted them the right to demolish the garage if they so desired to service their utilities.


We were then able to renegotiate the purchase price on the contract, as well as get some written assurance from those 2 agencies to amend their easements to not demolish the garage.


John Borders of Borders &amp; Borders real estate closing attorneys was involved in this transaction, and it provided inspiration for an article he wrote for the Greater Louisville Association of Realtors Realtor Direct newsletter that I am publishing with his permission here:


Surveys—What You Need to Know!


One of the most common mistakes made by home buyers today is failing to have a survey performed on the property prior to purchase. Surveys reveal the dimensions of the lot and the placement of easements and building limits. But most importantly, they also disclose whether the improvements (house, garage, pool, drive, etc.) encroach upon the neighboring properties, building limits, or easements.


Prior to 1997, nearly every lender required at least a mortgage inspection (a “shortened” form of a survey) on a property before making a loan. The lenders wanted to make sure that their investment was protected from claims made as a result of encroachments. Then something dramatic (and virtually unknown) happened that allowed lenders to be protected without the performance of a survey: all the major title companies decided to insure over (i.e. grant coverage even with) survey defects for the lender’s title insurance policy. That meant that, when a garage encroached into a M.S.D. easement, for example, the lender would have protection against that type of claim. If M.S.D. forced the removal of the garage, the lender’s interest would be protected. But unfortunately, even if a buyer purchased an owner’s title insurance policy, the buyer would not be protected against that claim. Even though the title insurance policy companies removed the survey exceptions on the lender’s title insurance policies, they did not remove these exception on owners’ policies.


When lenders stopped requiring surveys, buyers stopped ordering them. The GLAR contract was amended to encourage surveys but buyers continued to purchased properties without them. Today, surveys are rarely performed on residential home purchases. Back before 1997, we dealt with 2-3 encroachment issues a week in our office. Now, we see almost no encroachments. Is that because the encroachments have disappeared? Obviously not. It’s because, even though they exist, nobody is discovering them. The only way to know if your buyer is purchasing a property with a deck encroaching onto an easement, a driveway encroaching onto a neighbor’s property, or a house built over a building limit, is by having a survey done. Simply put, if your buyer buys a home without a survey, she may be buying a home with one or more of these problems and never realize it until she attempts to sell it.


Buyers’ agents should recommend that their clients purchase staked surveys or, at least, mortgage inspections. While mortgage inspections aren’t perfect as no stakes are placed into the ground and not all corners are located, they will at least usually reveal whether there are encroachments. If the buyer doesn’t purchase a survey or mortgage inspection, and if an encroachment exists, the buyer may have an unmarketable piece of property. Or, she might have to pay to remove the encroachment. On the other hand, when the survey is performed prior to closing, the buyer can require the seller to address the issue. And if it is an irresolvable issue, the buyer can void the contact. Without a survey, the buyer assumes the risk of these potential survey defects.


When I teach first-time homebuyers, I recommend that they purchase stakes surveys. But I also tell them that, if they can’t afford a staked survey, they should at least purchase a mortgage inspection. And if they can’t afford a mortgage inspection, I recommend that they not purchase a house until they can afford to protect themselves adequately. I recommend the buyers’ agents make the same recommendations to their clients.


Article Contributed By: John D. Borders, Jr. 502-894-9200


Borders &amp; Borders, PLC, 920 Dupont Road, Louisville, KY 40207





Put our team of Louisville Realtors to work for you. We want to provide you with the best in representation. Contact us today!
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            <pubDate>Fri, 02 Sep 2011 22:18:08 -0400</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/louisville-house-prices-decline-5.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/louisville-house-prices-decline-5.html</link>
            <author>office@louisvillehomepros.com (Jonathan Karlen)</author>
            <title>Louisville House Prices Decline 5%</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ The Greater Louisville Association of REALTORs (GLAR) have provided the latest homes prices figures.  Louisville house prices have declined 5% in the past year (from October 2007 through October 2008).  The current average value for a Louisville home now stands at $130,000.  And if you look at it from a multi-county perspective of including Jefferson, Bullitt and Oldham County, there has been a decrease of 22% fewer homes being sold in 2008, relative to the same time frame in 2007.  Still, compared to many other markets nationally, Louisville is still holding steady and fairing the tough economic conditions quite well.  Many markets saw an 11% decrease last month alone.

From an “on the ground” perspective from Louisville Realtors, we’ve begun noticing an increase in activity right now.  There are fewer persons looking, but the ones that are – are generally serious.  [So, if you have someone wanting to schedule a showing to get in to see your home - its probably in your best interest to try to accommodate them to get in to see it.]  Additionally to the homes that are being sold, many Louisville home sellers are tiring of their home being for sale on the market, and pulling their listing.  The sales, combined with the withdrawls (or cancellations), is reducing the overall inventory on the market.  This should give buyers less to pick from and not suffer quite as much from choice overload – all of which should help strengthen the Louisville real estate market.


We anticipate a stronger real estate market here in Louisville in 2009, than we saw in 2008.  Our job market remains relatively strong, and our home prices didn’t grow, generally speaking, at unsustainable rates like it did in the markets that have been hardest hit – as such, we should be among the first in the country to experience a rebound.  We think we are getting close to the “bottoming out” that everyone is always looking for – and if you are wanting to get into a new home, the next month or two are probably your golden opportunity to get in at the lower end of the market.
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            <pubDate>Fri, 02 Sep 2011 21:38:10 -0400</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/august-2008-louisville-real-estate-market-softens.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/august-2008-louisville-real-estate-market-softens.html</link>
            <author>office@louisvillehomepros.com (Jonathan Karlen)</author>
            <title>August 2008: Louisville Real Estate Market Softens</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ While the Louisville real estate  market has been fairly immune to the slowing market nationally, the latest data is now showing that things are starting to soften somewhat in regard to the sale of single family residential homes and condos.

Before we get into the August 2008 numbers, I wanted to recap all of the numbers for this year.  So, lets take a look at the data and see what we can make of it:


January 1 – August 31 2007 


Homes Sold 10513


Average Sales Price $174,428


Median Sales Price $140,000


January 1 – August 31 2008


Homes Sold 8021


Average Sales Price $170,711


Median Sales Price $137,000


So, as you can see – theres been a fairly stiff decrease in the number of the Homes Sold in Louisville this year of nearly 24%.  Interestingly enough though, theres only been a slightly over 2% decrease in the Average Sales Price, and Median Sales Price.


This would indicate that while the total number of homes that are selling has dropped – the prices for which they are selling haven’t been affected too much overall.


So, now lets take a closer look at the August numbers.


August 2007


Homes Sold 1521


Average Selling Price $179,715


Median Selling Price $141,750


Average Days on Market (DOM) 74


August 2008


Homes Sold 965


Average Selling Price $181,472


Median Selling Price $140,000


Average Days on Market (DOM) 90


The total number of sales is down significantly (965 vs. 1521, which equates to an almost 37% decrease in the number of sales) .  And the average days on market has increased from 2.5 months to approximately 3 months.  But, probably more interesting is that the average selling price actually went up.  This would indicate that the higher end properties ($1,000,000+) while being fewer in number for the overall sales, are actually increasing the overall average value for Louisville homes sold.


So, what does this mean for a person looking to buy or sell Louisville real estate?  It means that homes are selling, albeit at a slower rate than in the past – BUT it does not mean they are selling for substantially less than they were previously.  (Sorry to those out there looking for a slam dunk deal in buying a Louisville home for 20 or 30 cents on the dollar.  It just isn’t commonplace here at this point in time.)


For Buyers: Theres lots of inventory to select from.  Currently there are over 10,000 homes for sale in Louisville market.  There are homes that represent a good value out there.  You just have to dig through them and find the one you want.  But – don’t expect to steal it.  Prices are holding fairly firm for those houses that are selling.


For Sellers:  Lots of inventory (read: competition) and longer market times are the norm.  If you want to get your home sold, you need to price it appropriately AND be the nicest within whatever price point you are currently competing.  No matter the price range, you will want to be at the lower end of that price range to get your home sold.
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            <pubDate>Fri, 02 Sep 2011 21:21:28 -0400</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/national-real-estate-market-february-2008.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/national-real-estate-market-february-2008.html</link>
            <author>office@louisvillehomepros.com (Jonathan Karlen)</author>
            <title>National Real Estate Market – February 2008</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ Just wanted to touch on some of the more recent national real estate news. According to the National Association of REALTORS (NAR), homes sales nationally increased by a rate of 2.9% for February 2008 from January of this year. This increase in homes sales marks a break in the past 6 months of continual decline nationally. Later this week, I’ll do a post about the more recent local Louisville real estate market.

Does this mean that the national real estate market has finally reached bottom and is on an upswing? Not likely. Many economists continue to predict months to a couple years before a turn around is expected on a large level.


Why do they say that? Well, first off, if you look at the increase of real estate sales of 2.9% from the previous month that looks pretty darn good. However, it doesn’t look quite as rosy when you realize that compared to the previous year of February 2007, homes sales were down 23.8% from what they had been previously.


And, if you look beyond just the volume of units of homes sales – and look more closely at the median price that was utilized to achieve that increase in gross volume, the median value for single family homes &amp; condos decreased by 8.2% from the same time 1 year earlier.


[Yes, I promised to give a write up about the Louisville real estate market later this week, but I didn’t want you to end on such a sour note that the entire real estate market is terrible, etc and that if you are one of the unlucky owners that has Louisville homes for sale, that you were destined to follow the same trend as the rest of the nation – so here’s a little info to perk your day: Median Louisville homes prices increased by 1.1% for January &amp; February 2008 compared to January &amp; February 2007. Just for reference, the Louisville KY real estate market, the gross volume of homes sold declined by almost 14% for the first couple of months of this year relative to a year prior.


So, the national real estate market continues to be going through a hard time. Locally, for the most part, we didn’t see the big jumps in appreciation that many other parts of the country enjoyed, our job market is strong, and things continue to putter right along.


2008 should prove to be an interesting year. If things go as many persons have projected, Louisville should continue to weather the storm – and actually improve quite a bit better than the rest of the real estate markets in the rest of the country. For persons that may want to search various neighborhoods be sure to check out our Louisville subdivisions home search that allows you to view properties by neighborhood.
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            <pubDate>Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:21:05 -0400</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/louisville-ky-land-trust-gains-97-acres.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/louisville-ky-land-trust-gains-97-acres.html</link>
            <author>office@louisvillehomepros.com (Jonathan Karlen)</author>
            <title>Louisville KY Land Trust Gains 97 acres</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ The Louisville KY newspaper, The Courier-Journal reported a story regarding how a Louisville KY land trust called Louisville and Jefferson County Environmental Trust has gained 97 acres that have been donated through a conservation easement.  Donation to the conversation trust prevents the properties from being developed into subdivisions and the like – while allowing the owners of the property to retain ownership, and pass the real estate on to their heirs, or even sell the property.

The 97 acres is comprised of 3 tracts that are as follows:


40 acres of Prospect KY real estate that are currently owned by Laura Lee Brown (heir to the Brown-Forman fortune) and Steve Wilson’s Dogwood Hill and are located along the 2 branches of Goose Creek.


37 acres of Fisherville KY real estate that is currently owned by Frances Aprile called Littledove Farm.  She was encouraged by her daughter Emma to place the Louisville farm into the conversation easement.  An additional benefit of the act, will most likely include lower property taxes as well as inheritance taxes for Emma.


The remaining real estate that was donated as part of these conservation easments is wetlands located by the Renaissance Zone industrial park near the Louisville International Airport just south of the main proper city limits of Louisville.


These 97 acres bring the total amount of real estate controlled by the trust to approximately 343 acres in the Louisville and Jefferson County KY city limits.


The Trust acts as a quasi-public entity and its administration is overseen by various individuals and agencies which include the Metro Parks, Metropolitan Sewer District, as well as the Louisville planning &amp; design services &amp; public works agencies.


The preservation of green space within the community helps preserve the long term charm and character of the area.  Development pressures continue to mount against persons that own large tracts of property within Louisville.  Property values continue to increase, and by giving the property to a conservation easement, it helps ease some of those pressures that property owners may be feeling about going ahead and selling to real estate developers.
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            <pubDate>Fri, 02 Sep 2011 14:22:45 -0400</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/home-prices-decrease-across-united-states.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/home-prices-decrease-across-united-states.html</link>
            <author>office@louisvillehomepros.com (Jonathan Karlen)</author>
            <title>Home Prices Decrease Across United States</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ Single family home prices decreased across the United States for the first time since 1994 according to a recent report prepared by Global Insight &amp; National City Corp.

The drop came in the 3rd quarter of 2007 when the median value of a home in the United States decreased by approximately 1%.  Approximately half of all metropolitan areas saw a decline.


This is an interesting point to note – because until this most recent study, the stronger real estate markets in the US have helped buoy up the other markets that were bringing the overall numbers down.  This is an indication that the other markets that have been fairing well even in a softer real estate market, may be slowing down and are not able to carry the rest of the other markets across the country.


The big 3 states for the worst real estate markets continues to be California, Michigan, and Florida.  Those 3 states have all but one of the Top 30 WORST performing metropolitan areas for real estate currently.


Analysts and experts say more corrections may be needed to bring home values more in line with what they are reasonably worth – and that the decrease in home values is a good thing long term for the real estate and housing market.


Some additional pressures bearing down on the real estate market include:


Uncertain and unstable financial markets


Mortgage industry become more firm in its lending


Excess real estate on the market continuing to put pressure and increased sales time for a home


Kentucky overall was listed as being fairly valued according to the report.  This includes both the Louisville real estate and Lexington real estate markets in the metropolitan areas.
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            <pubDate>Fri, 02 Sep 2011 11:44:29 -0400</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/foreclosed-real-estate-decreases-by-10-percent-in-the-united-states.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/foreclosed-real-estate-decreases-by-10-percent-in-the-united-states.html</link>
            <author>office@louisvillehomepros.com (Jonathan Karlen)</author>
            <title>Foreclosed Real Estate decreases by 10 percent in the United States</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ Foreclosed real estate decreased by 10 percent across the United States for the month of November 2007.  Kentucky saw a decrease of 6.65%.

This is significant in that this is the first time there has been a double digit percent decrease in foreclosures since April 2006 – some 20 months ago.


But, we aren’t out of the woods yet so to speak.  There are predictions for a very strong foreclosure rate in the 1st quarter of 2008 – a primary cause being the seasonal influx of persons that are filing before various deadlines, as well as those that may file due to an increase of adjustable mortgage rate persons having their mortgages reset and the current home owner not being able to address the debt service of the higher payment for their property.


Still, theres no reason to look a gift horse in the mouth.  There are hopes now that perhaps things are starting to come together for home sales and real estate on a national level – and that the current soft market is starting to become a little more solid – once we get past the 1st quarter 2008 surge that is expected to occur.


Overall, the Kentucky real estate market remains relatively solid.  Kentucky was placed 35th out of the United States for foreclosure filings in November (we had 758 filings which equates to 1 per 2461 homes in the state).  For reference, the state with the lowest foreclosure rate was Vermont which had 1 per 51224 homes, and the state with the highest foreclosure rate was Nevada with 1 per 152 homes being foreclosed upon. A great tool for searching the best Louisville subdivisions can be used to view Louisville homes for sale in the greater metropolitan area.
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            <pubDate>Fri, 02 Sep 2011 11:34:28 -0400</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/louisville-ky-takes-prospect-kentucky-to-supreme-court-over-land-dispute.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/louisville-ky-takes-prospect-kentucky-to-supreme-court-over-land-dispute.html</link>
            <author>office@louisvillehomepros.com (Jonathan Karlen)</author>
            <title>Louisville KY takes Prospect Kentucky to Supreme Court over Land Dispute</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 5 years ago in 2002, when Louisville announced was nearing the change of the city limits to include the metropolitan area of Jefferson County Kentucky, there was a policy rules announcement that included a moratorium on any land acquisitions by government until the year 2015.

Prospect Kentucky then “snuck in under the radar” so to speak, and acquired 50 acres located between Highway 42, and Riber Road in between Ken Carla Drive and Timber Ridge Drive close to Harrods Creek, just before the metro Louisville KY came into existence, and with it, the rules prohibiting such acquisitions.


Louisville KY has since been in litigation with Prospect Kentucky saying that Prospect acted illegally by knowingly grabbing the property into its city just before the law went into effect that would have prohibited this action in the first place – and that Louisville put all smaller cities that they would be sued if they tried to get in under the wire by grabbing additional property before the law went into effect.


Prospect has claimed that it did nothing wrong – as the law wasn’t into effect when the land was acquired and therefore Louisville Kentucky has no claim as you can’t go back retroactively from a legal perspective.  Additionally the property owner asked Prospect KY to annex their property in order to get various Prospect city services.


So far, the courts have sided with Prospect KY.


Additionally, new information has come to light, with one of the property owners stating that it wasn’t their idea to get annexed by Prospect, but rather George Martin, a real estate developer, that had an option to purchase the approximately 50 acres tract.


The land has remained mostly undeveloped due to a lack of sewers for this real estate, but there have been some businesses constructing facilities on the property including a bank and some offices and is being developed by Willard Bryant, another real estate developer.
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            <pubDate>Thu, 01 Sep 2011 17:19:13 -0400</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/united-states-real-estate-market-affects-job-hiring.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/united-states-real-estate-market-affects-job-hiring.html</link>
            <author>office@louisvillehomepros.com (Jonathan Karlen)</author>
            <title>United States Real Estate Market affects Job Hiring</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ According to the most report from Washington D.C., the United States real estate market had a negative impact on job hiring for the past month of November 2007.

Many construction companies fired employees in an effort to reduce costs during this slower real estate market.  Mortgage companies, real estate companies, and banks followed suit.


Still, unemployment overall remains at 4.7%.  Kentucky’s unemployment rate was 5.6%.


There were modest employment gains overall – primarily as a result of the services industry.


These modest job gains will likely stimulate the Federal Reserve to make interest rate cuts to help ensure that the economy remains moving forward.


Some more detailed information is as follows:


Non-farms payroll increased by 94000 for November.


Strong enough to at least calm some nerves about a possible recession – but still weak enough that there are going to be concerns about what may happen.


for any person that may need to search for Louisville real estate this web site offers a lot of easy to use 1 click searches which include Shelbyville Farms for Sale for viewing of horse farms in Shelbyville Kentucky. And for persons desiring to buy a patio home or townhouse, we have Louisville Condos which offers both patiohomes / townshouse as well as condominiums. And for those that want to view homes by neighborhoods we offer our Louisville homes for sale by subdivision which is a great feature of the site. With the Fed likely to be intervening with an interest rate reduction next week, should help some home owners that are in a tough financial situation with adjustable rates mortgages, increases oil/fuel prices, and the holiday shopping season.


It is hard to predict how much of a reduction the Fed may make.  Some believe that 1/4 of a point would be a good place for the Fed to reduce the current rate to - while others feel it may be even stronger than that.
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            <pubDate>Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:51:15 -0400</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/unemployment-rate-increases-for-94-counties-in-kentucky.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.louisvillehomepros.com/blog/unemployment-rate-increases-for-94-counties-in-kentucky.html</link>
            <author>office@louisvillehomepros.com (Jonathan Karlen)</author>
            <title>Unemployment Rate Increases for 94 Counties in Kentucky</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ Within the past year (October 2006 through October 2007), the unemployment rate has increased for 94 Counties in Kentucky.

Only 18 Counties in Kentucky saw the rate decrease – while 8 Counties made no change within the past 12 months.


The dubious highest unemployment rate honor goes to:


Jackson County @ 10.2%


The 2 lowest Counties were:


Fayette County and Warren County @ 3.7%


It is important to note that these numbers represent a trend for employment, rather than noting how many persons may actually be working. Persons that are not currently seeking employment over the course of the past month are not included in these figures.


Various reasons can be attributed to the increase – including a softening economy and real estate industry. It must be noted that Kentucky does not have anywhere the worst of it relative to many other parts of the United States. In some states, our worst figure would be considered fairly decent to them.


Hopefully things will improve soon.


The Louisville real estate search provides easy 1 click searches to view properties for sale including Louisville Condos, Kentucky horse farms for sale, and a metro search at Louisville homes for sale. For anyone that is wanting to view homes within specific subdivisions be sure to try out the Subdivisions Louisville KY search where you can look at specific Louisville neighborhoods and communities. There is talk of a possible interest rate reduction to be discussed at the meeting of the Fed in December 2007. If they cut the interest rate a little, that may help stimulate the economy to see some improvement. At the very least, it would help some families get through winter and the holidays a little easier. It will be interesting to see if they come through with the interest rate reduction.
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            <pubDate>Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:38:49 -0400</pubDate>
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