Now that the seller’s market is officially history and competition is keen, how will you attract a buyer for customer’s home? The trend today is incentives. Builders, who have new homes sitting vacant on which they dare not lower the price for fear of setting off a domino effect, are already raising the bar with real-dollar incentives to attract buyers without reducing prices.

According to the National Association of Home Builders, 56 percent of builders surveyed in June said they were stepping up their amenities, 45 percent were offering to pay closing costs and 26 percent were buying down mortgage points. Overall, 71 percent of builders said they were offering at least one of those incentives.

Consumers today are very savvy. They have lots of points of comparison for neighborhood home value, some by the MLS and some free data. They are not impressed by all the extras. A lot of the people who are leading the charge for incentives have not been in real estate long enough to know you cannot do a lot of incentives anymore.

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As the housing market slows and foreclosures spike, people who have to sell quickly or lenders that need to unload properties they took back at sheriff’s auctions are turning to the fast-talking spectacle for quick sales. Even some homebuilders and condo developers are using auctions to reduce excess inventory.

These auctions differ from sheriff’s sales, trustee’s sales or courthouse sales, which conclude the foreclosure process and are conducted by the county. Often, the lender wins the property at these sales and then tries to resell it by auction. Last year, revenue from housing auctions grew 12.5 percent to $16 billion from $14.22 billion in 2005, according to the National Auctioneers Association.

Auctions represent only a sliver of the overall housing sales market, just less than 1 percent of the $1.74 trillion in existing home sales last year. But those in the real estate auction industry are hoping the current market conditions will continue to boost business. Already, states that never hosted many housing auctions are seeing demand jump as home prices plunge and more borrowers find themselves trapped in unmanageable mortgages.

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Tighter restrictions on pesticides, changing weather patterns, the emergence of treatment-resistant insects and regional epidemics have converged, creating a perfect environment for exterminators in many parts of the country to be fabulously successful.

Two issues in particular seem to be driving growth. First, recent temperature increases allow pests to thrive in an ever-extending geographical area as illustrated by fire ants as far north as Virginia. Second, there are the movements and migration of people—travelers can bring new kinds of pests into the country and population shifts have trended toward the Sun Belt states and other areas where insects thrive.

The pesticide industry has come a long way since Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” led to the 1972 ban on DDT, and the industry is creating new products all the time. Problem is, they aren’t cheap. Thanks to strict regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture, it now costs roughly $100 million to develop a new pesticide. And while most exterminators buy and use the right stuff for the job, some have been known to skimp once a contract’s been signed.

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Mortgage accelerator loans are common in other countries. It uses home equity borrowing and the borrower’s paycheck to shorten the time until a mortgage is paid off, saving tens of thousands in interest expense.

The loan program is based on an approach common in Australia and the United Kingdom, where borrowers deposit their paychecks into an account that, every month, applies every unspent dime against the mortgage loan balance. In Australia, more than one-third of homeowners use a mortgage accelerator program. In the U.K., it’s about 25 percent.

The premise is that borrowers finance a new property or refinance existing property using a home equity line of credit, or HELOC. Borrowers then begin directly depositing their entire paychecks into the HELOC. Monthly expenses, other than mortgage payments, are funded by draws against the line of credit, whether that is by using bill pay, check writing, ATM withdrawals or a credit card tied to the line of credit.

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New-home sales defied expectations and stopped sliding during July, making a modest increase that gave the beleaguered housing market a little good news. Meanwhile, demand surged for expensive goods during July in a broad-based increase that topped expectations by a wide margin and included a strong climb in a key barometer of capital spending by businesses.

Sales of single-family homes increased by 2.8% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 870,000, the Commerce Department said Friday. June new-home sales fell 4% to an annual rate to 846,000; originally, the government said June sales dropped by 6.6% to 834,000. The sickly housing sector has pulled down U.S. economic growth for six straight quarters. Groundbreakings by home builders in July fell to the lowest level in 10 years. Analysts expect the slump to continue. Lenders are tightening standards for borrowers, which sent up mortgage rates during the summer. Inventories of homes are running high.

Friday’s data showed the ratio of new houses for sale to houses sold slipped during July, falling to 7.5 from 7.7 in June. There were an estimated 533,000 homes for sale at the end of July, down from June’s 538,000. The median price of a new home increased by 0.6% to $239,500 in July from $238,100 in July 2006. The average price decreased by 3.4% to $300,800 from $311,300 a year earlier. In June this year, the median price was $230,600 and the average was $304,900.

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For nearly three years, Leandro Javier Obenauer has been sitting in the Osceola County Jail waiting for his day in court. Obenauer, now 38, was charged with racketeering, among other offenses, in 2004 after he was accused of swindling thousands of dollars from mortgage lenders and Central Florida home buyers dating back to 1999.

Obenauer was charged with racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering, organized fraud, grand theft and unlicensed mortgage brokering. Two years before Obenauer’s 2004 arrest, then-Attorney General Charlie Crist’s office began an investigation, which resulted in the arrests of Obenauer, , who was described as the “ringleader,” and his father-in-law, Robert E. Merchant.

Prosecutors charged that Obenauer and Merchant offered houses for little or no money down to people who had bad credit or were first-time home buyers. Lawyers from the state Attorney General’s Office in Tallahassee would not comment on the case, a spokeswoman for the agency said. Scott Hutchinson, 51, of Winter Springs was arrested and charged with organized fraud of more than $50,000, according to court documents. He was a real-estate appraiser who prosecutors said inflated the values of houses in Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia counties. His trial is also scheduled for Monday.

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The Commerce Department reported Friday that new-home sales rose 2.8 percent in July, after falling 4 percent in June, raising hopes that the economy can safely weather financial turmoil that has shaken Wall Street.

The increase in July lifted sales to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 870,000 units. A second report showed that orders to factories for big-ticket goods jumped 5.9 percent in July, the most in 10 months. Both reports were better than analysts expected. They were forecasting home sales to fall and were calling for a much smaller, 1 percent gain in factory orders.

Friday’s reports offered a spot of relief amid recent turbulence on Wall Street, which has darkened investors’ feelings about the nation’s financial prospects.Fears that the worsening housing slump and credit crunch could hurt the economy have gripped Wall Street investors in recent weeks, causing stocks to swing wildly.

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Slumping retail sales. Rising insurance costs and home foreclosure numbers are ominous storm clouds hanging above Florida’s economy. But real estate investors are still at the forefront of developing Florida properties. Calmed by a still-growing state population and close to 100 percent retail occupancy rate, today’s market is the still the best medicine for lagging economic growth.

General managers at most major malls in the Tampa Bay area boast occupancy rates at or above 90 percent, and new strip mall and stand-alone retail stores continue to be developed at a rapid clip in parts of Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties. In particular, high-growth areas in Pasco and eastern Hillsborough counties are the site of massive construction. In Pasco County alone, three major retail projects totaling more than 3 million square feet of retail space, are in different phases of construction.

Statewide, retail rental rates also are expected to increase at or faster than the rate of inflation, Archer said. In the Tampa Bay area, retail rents are expected to rise most in the large retail, neighborhood retail and free-standing retail locations, the study said. Retailers across the United States this year are witnessing slower growth than 2006, according to key sales barometers. An International Council of Shopping Centers survey showed July’s same-store sales were up 2.6 percent, compared with a 3.9 percent gain in the same period in 2006.

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Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) is usually added to mortgage payments when the buyer doesn’t have the traditional 20 percent down payment required by Fannie Mae guidelines. PMI payments are included in mortgage payment until the buyer reaches 20 percent equity of the value of the home. It can add several hundred dollars a month to the mortgage payment and may not be tax deductible.

Until recently, the main way to avoid PMI was to “piggyback” a second mortgage, such as a home equity loan or home equity line of credit, to cover the difference between your down payment and the 20 percent required down payment. In today’s market, a more financially rewarding and appealing option to avoid PMI is to opt for lender-paid mortgage insurance (LPMI).

LPMI is a relatively new approach to avoiding a monthly PMI payment. To keep it simple and explainable, LPMI is prepaid PMI by your mortgage lender. In other words, your lender pays your entire PMI up-front and rolls the payment into your mortgage rate.The way it works is that the lender gives the home buyer a slightly higher mortgage rate for their home loan with LPMI.

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Many parents are buying apartments for their college-age children. The thinking is, parents invest in an apartment to provide housing for their children in college and also, eventually, to use it as a vacation retreat.

University towns, urban centers and rural enclaves alike are drawing buyers seeking homes for their college-bound family members. Developers are also catering to a growing group of alumni who want to return to the campus on weekends for on-campus cultural performances or sporting events.

Part of the market is being driven by parents opting out of paying increasingly expensive on-campus room and board fees, which average $8,149 a year at a four-year private university, according to the College Board. Some parents can qualify for a Federal Housing Administration financing program known as a “kiddie condo” loan, which makes the purchase of an off-campus residence for a child even more attractive.

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