HUD has a blunt message for home buyers, lenders, Realtors and anyone else involved in real estate. Despite what you may have heard to the contrary, on January first the federal government expects everyone to be using the new consumer-friendly Good Faith Estimate mortgage disclosures and the new HUD-1 settlement statements.

If you’re fortunate enough to park your car in your own garage, then this blog post may not apply to you personally. However, if you live in an area where you park your car outdoors, subject to the elements, I ask you to give heed.

I came upon a blog post of a Cadillac owner who was lamenting the unfortunate demise of his car. This is not from a traffic accident.  In fact, his car was parked, as it were, “minding its own business.” Take a look at the owner’s photos and what happened.

I was curious as to what caused the car to catch fire and explode. The problem was he had parked over a pile of leaves - dry, crackling fall leaves. Fire fodder.

The culprit, it seems, is the catalytic converter, which is part of the car’s emission system. Its job is to reduce harmful emissions that pollute the air. It’s been a part of nearly every passenger vehicle for the past 30 years.

In the process of fighting the fight for cleaner air, the catalytic converter tends to run very hot and can ignite anything flammable with which it comes into contact. Poof - the leaf pile was set afire, and with it, the owner’s vintage Caddy.

If you’re a city dweller, primarily parking your vehicle on the street, be aware of what lies beneath. Make sure no debris is directly under your car. The amount may not necessarily be large. It can still be ignitable.

Apparently, accidents such as this one are quite common. Hundreds of vehicle fires are caused by owners parking their cars over leaves. More often than not, the vehicles are a total loss due to extreme fire damage.

This was news to me. I’ve been driving for nearly 40 years and somehow I missed out on what I consider rather important information. You may be aware of the possibility of such a calamity. If so, don’t keep this information to yourself. Pass it on or pay it forward, if you will. I’m glad I didn’t have to learn it the hard way and I bet your friends, family and co-workers would feel the same way. It would sure help to maintain the beauty of fall as we know it.

Posted by Sharon Walker

It can be one of the hardest things to do — save money for your first home. But now, more than ever, there’s incentive to buy. Government housing tax credits have been extended and that’s sparking buyers’ interest.

The single most important skill for a real estate agent is sales ability. No matter where you are in your real estate career, decide right now to master the skills of selling in order to fuel your success.

We’re nowhere near boom-time numbers, but real estate investors are responding to rock-bottom prices and plunging into their local markets at more than double the rate they did barely seven months ago.

[Note: To follow is an excerpt of a radio show interview conducted by Peter L. Mosca, host of Income Property Investment Talk dot com, with Michael Anderson, CCIM, founder and co-owner of RealSource who is filling in for Nate Hanks who is the co-owner at RealSource; Bob Turner, Owner, Southern Properties, LLC, and Mindy Williams, President, RentandRetain.com, will explore proven practical ways to hold on to your valuable customer base, win repeat business and maximize assets. To listen to the show archive or download an MP3, go to www.IncomePropertyInvestmentTalk.com/102809.]

If you bilked Uncle Sam out of a first-time home buyer tax credit, start looking over your shoulder. Just before Congress extended and expanded the home buyer tax credit, a federal audit revealed that nearly 90,000 taxpayers may have fraudulently enjoyed the credit, hoodwinking the government out of more than $600 million.

We all know that condominium developers built more condominiums than the market could absorb from 2006 - 2009. They built from scratch, developing small and large projects from duplexes to hundreds of units, and they bought apartments, renovated and replatted them so they could be sold as condominiums. While the going was good, they sold thousands of them. Then the economy hiccupped and the developers, investors and their bankers were stuck with a huge inventory which they need to unload.