The PIN Magazine May 2020

MAY 2020 Vol. 07 | Issue 5

COVID-19 REAL ESTATE

IMPACT

THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT

Cinco de Mayo Gary Acosta

NAHREP® PRESIDENT

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magazine THE POWER IS NOW MEDIA INC. Vol. 07 | Issue 4

Eric Lawrence Frazier, MBA President and CEO Office: (800) 401-8994 Ext. 703 eric.frazier@thepowerisnow.com www.thepowerisnow.com www.blogtalkradio.com/thepowerisnow EDITORIAL TEAM Eric Lawrence Frazier MBA Editor in Chief (800) 401-8994 Ext. 703 Sheila Gilmore Editorial Director Daniels George Managing Editor (800) 401-8994 ext. 712 daniels.george@thepowerisnow.com Goldy Ponce Arratia Graphic Artist and Design Manager (800) 401-8994 ext. 711 goldy.ponce@thepowerisnow.com

CONTRIBUTORS The Power Is Now Research Team

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FROMtHEEDITOR

Unprecedented! That’s a word

that we’ve all heard quite a lot in the past few months as COVID-19 continues its ravaging campaign. Right now, the United States is leading the death toll with more than 50, 000 deaths. And yes, unprecedented is a word that will certainly apply to the publication of our May Issue during my over five years publishing this magazine. With that, what I am experiencing wanes in comparison to what the Occupational Safety and health professionals are going through, as such, I want to sincerely urge you to take a moment of silence for our unsung heroes in the line of defence against this invisible virus. My heartfelt prayer of strength goes to all medics, and police force helping keep the situation at hand.

Right now, so much has been said about this Coronavirus and I am not going to tell you what you already know. Unfortunately, some people have already lost their jobs; in fact, about 26.5 million people have filed jobless claims. It’s not easy, and what’s worse is that we do not 4l

know how long this will go on. It is hard to plan for a future under these circumstances. I mean, how do you begin to plan to bring things back to normal when it’s so uncertain what the ”new normal” means?

Before we get to the good stuff in this issue, I feel this is important; for about 126 months, the United States has recorded the longest economic expansion in history, breaking the record of 120 months of economic expansion from march 1991 to march 2001. With the excitement coming along with this growth in the economy, the job growth has been relatively slower than during other postwar recoveries. Now, there is a high possibility that this economic expansion will come to a speedy end amid the unprecedented effects of the COVID-19 according to the latest commentary from the Fannie Mae Economic and Strategic Research (ESR) Group.

All these are signs of a recession, and while it was predicted a few years back, no one was expecting a health crisis to be the cause. Even when the situation normalizes, I believe it will take some time for the economy to recover fully. Remember, the country had not yet fully healed from the past recession, and now this. It feels like we are going one step ahead and two backwards.

Enough with the sad news. As we leave April showers behind, let us look forward with a smile.

I like this quote by Aristotle that says, ”Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but greatness of mind.” Think about that for a moment.

It all depends on how you choose to look at the situation, I encourage you to be steadfast and look forward with a smile, and you know what, THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

everything we’ll be back to normal even before you know it, and The Power Is Now Media is here to make sure of that. As you all know it, this month is dedicated to our beautiful mothers.

We cannot help but remember our moms, for doing the little things that made a big difference in our lives, and we cannot let anything interfere with that, not even COVID-19.

Also, we cannot forget about our veterans this Memorial Day: the brave men and women who put their lives on the line for all of us. It is because of them we can live in this country and enjoy the freedom every day.

On the cover this month we feature an industry veteran. One man who has made a remarkable impact on the world of real estate. Am talking about Gary Acosta. Gary is the co-founder and CEO of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP®). NAHREP is the nation’s largest Hispanic business organization with over 30,000 members and 75 local chapters. In his capacity as CEO of NAHREP, he created the Hispanic Wealth Project, a 501c3 non-profit organization with a strategic plan to triple Hispanic household wealth by 2024. Mr Acosta has also founded or co-founded several mortgages, real estate, and technology companies, including New Vista Asset Management, CounselorMax, and RealEstateEspanol.com. In 2013 he co-founded The Mortgage Collaborative, a cooperative of mortgage companies that work together to increase profitability and market share. Get the full story inside this issue as well as the NAHREP story.

Additionally, this month is very special to the Hispanic community. It is the Cinco de Mayo month. This is a celebration marking the date when Mexico overthrew French rule at the WWW.THEPINMAGAZINE.COM

Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War in 1867. In this issue, you can read all about the modern beginnings of the celebrations of Cinco de Mayo, beginning in California in 1860 when resistance to French rules increased. We will also cover subjects relating to Coronavirus and its impact on real estate, as well as the statistics of several housing markets such as Phoenix, Corona, CA, Riverside, and Richmond.

Learn more about the NPHS campaign for homeownership and so much more.

Unfortunately, most of this year’s national events have been cancelled, but I am super confident that this issue of The Power Is Now Media will bring you exciting and useful information to help you on your real estate journey. I am always ready to help you and assist you. We invite you to join us online for interesting blog posts, and new radio shows with our special guests and all past issues of our magazine to make yourself successful in the real estate world.

At this moment, I would like to thank our power team for their continuous hard work and dedication to the company. We would be nothing without you. And to our readers, thank you for your continued support. Our team is dedicated to you. We want the best for you, so we are committed to bringing the best of us.

Please take a moment and share this magazine.

Knowledge is power, and The Power Is Now. Have an awesome and prosperous month.

Eric Lawrence Frazier, MBA CEO The Power Is Now Media Inc.

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THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

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Your loan officer should be as invested in your home as you are.

Let’s feather your nest.

First Bank Mortgage offers three tips to help you on the path to homeownership!

1. Start by checking your credit score.

Your credit history is an important factor when you decide to apply for a loan. The score reflects how well you manage your debt. It’s important to discuss this, and other factors, with your First Bank home loan consultant.

If you find that your credit score is too low, there are a number of steps you can take to improve your credit score.

2. Get organized.

Getting a loan requires a few different documentations including, but not limited to, pay stubs, tax returns, and financial statements. You’ll also need to provide copies of additional monthly payments such as car loans, credit cards, and student loans. Keep all of this in mind, when you begin organizing. If you have this information readily available when you decide to apply for a home loan, it will make the process much more efficient.

3. Start Saving!

Set up a designated savings account and start saving as much as you can each pay period to use as a down payment on the purchase of your new home. Although we offer first-time homebuyer programs with little to no down payment, it is still a good idea to have some available funds in reserve to use for a potential down payment, utilities, moving expenses, new home furnishings, or unforeseen emergencies.

With some preparation now, you’ll be even closer to rolling out the welcome mat on your own, new home later.

We’re here to help answer any questions to help make that dream a reality.

104 E Ontario Ave Corona, CA 92879 FirstBanks.com/Mortgage

Eric Lawrence Frazier MBA Vice President & Mortgage Advisor Office: Incomplete Fax: (314) 264-0211 NMLS: # 461807 eric.frazier@fbol.com https://www.firstbanks.com/hlc/EricFrazier/Eric-Frazier

NEW MARKETING SESSIONS

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Increase lead generation, and give you the POWER to close more deals!

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

Promote Your Listings Online

• Streamed live on Facebook, and are • These sessions provide real estate agents rebroadcast on BlogTalkRadio which is and brokers a powerful marketing syndicated to iTunes, TuneIn and many opportunity to access The Power Is Now other online radio platforms. During the Network of Agents nationwide and our show each agent and their listings are audience of prospective buyers and sellers featured for approximately five minutes that is 1 million strong and growing. to discuss why buyers should consider buying their listing(s). In addition, each agent will be given a post-show opportunity to launch a customized marketing campaign to get additional exposure.

ERIC LAWRENCE FRAZIER MBA

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TABLE OF

the power is now

CONTENTS

magazine

14. Governors orders Impact the Economy 17. About Gary Acosta, NAHREP President 24. Possible recession for Texas housing market 26. Helping hand from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae 29. What Phoenix can expect from the 2020/21 housing market 31. Arizona market statistics 34. How AI is moving loan officers forward 36. Investing property market in Corona, CA 39. Responding to the virus attack in Corona 42. NPHS campaign for homeownership 44. Important morgage payment options

66. Market info and trends in Solano County 69. SF takes a dive during the Corona virus emergency.

72. Richmond housing market statistics 75. Should you buy in Richmond?

78. Flexible office space during Covid-19 82. About Senate Bill 50 85. Life in Corona, California 88. The Supreme Court hears arguments on CFPB’s constitutionalty 90. CFPB clarifies credit reporting during

clarification

Coronavirus

47. Riverside housing market indicators

94. Biggest wave of delinquency in history

50. Buy in Irvine, find out why

97. Plight of undocumented Californians

53. Housing market in the Bay Area

100. Corona Virus affect on Historically

56. Housing crash 61. Looking to buy in Oakland talk to

Black Colleges.

102. Cinco de Mayo

Dunbar Real Estate 63. Affordable homes in Sacramento 10 l

THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

SEE IMPORTANT UPCOMING EVENTS

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2020 NATIONAL CONVENTION October 8 - October 10 JW Marriot Los Angeles LA Live, 900 West Olympic Boulevard

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National Events: NAREB 73RD ANNUAL CONVENTION – DETROIT August 9th – Aug 16th, 2020 DETROIT MARRIOTT at the Renaissance Center 400 Renaissance Dr W, Detroit, MI 48243

Los Angeles, CA 90015 United States

REOMAC REOMAC 2020 ANNUAL SUMMIT & EXPO Sunday, July 19 - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center LEGAL LEAGUE 100 SPRING SERVICER SUMMIT

Fair Housing Council of Riverside County: 2020 HOUSING CONFERENCE April 29th, 2020 Riverside Convention Center 3637 5th Street Riverside, CA 92501

NAHREP NAHREP AT L’ATTITUDE GRAND HYATT SAN DIEGO, CA September 24–27, 2020

May 2020 | The Adolphus Hotel | Dallas, Texas THE FIVE STAR CONFERENCE AND EXPO September 13-15, 2020 Hyatt Regency | Dallas, Texas

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REALTORS® CONFERENCE & EXPO Nov 13-16 New Orleans, LA l

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[POWER GREEN]

THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA GREEN BUILDINGS:

Greening the state Building for a

Better Future.

The state of California became the first state to have a solid green building strategy, largely based on the standards established by the U.S Green Building Council’s Leadership in Efficiency and Environmental Design (LEED) into its statewide building codes. Today, the state departments all across the county are adopting a more radical green way of thinking about the facility operations, and California is taking the lead. The state is continuously reducing its carbon footprint through sustainable processes and practices. These include energyefficient state buildings and constructions, renewable energy generation at the state facilities, sustainable stateowned vehicles, and environmentally friendly preferable state purchasing under the leadership of Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. California started a more ambitious plan to ensure that all the buildings in the state go green, thus saving the taxpayers money.

California Green Strategy Buildings represent the 2nd largest source of California’s carbon footprint. To reduce the output in Green House Gases, conscience measures can be taken or achieved through construction, operations, and renovation on the new and existing building. Since 1978, California Energy Code was initially adopted, and ever since, California has saved more than $56 billion in electricity and natural gas. There is no significant difference in the average costs for green buildings as compared to the non-green buildings, so why not go green? Green buildings help reduce the operating costs, save money over time, and are an effective way to contribute to overall California’s GHG goals.

ways through which the California government could use to reduce the carbon footprint from both new and existing buildings. According to the action plan, original estimates were 26 MMT of emission reductions from the green building sector.

Additionally, to achieve GHG reductions targets set by AB 32, the California green building strategy provides a significant contribution towards meeting the 2050 climate goals. The Executive Order S-3-05 sets a standard upon which the state is supposed to reduce its carbon footprint for 2020 to 1990 levels and 2050 to at least 80 percent below 1990 levels.

The Assembly Bill (32) Scoping Plan raised several 12 l

THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

How to Go Green at Home?

While the state is making more efforts to go green and ensure environmental sustainability. You can also join in the effort and help save the planet. An eco-friendly lifestyle doesn’t need to be hard. Last month, we marked the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day, started to help raise awareness about the environment, and to also ensure that the pro-planet would be recognized for their efforts. As such, here are some of the efforts you can do at home to make a difference; • At all costs, avoid “excessive.” We’ve all heard the popular phrase, “reduce, reuse, recycle,” but try to make sure that you reduce the chance of going excessive with the things that you do not necessarily need. Do you tend to accept stuff you don’t normally use, such as flyers, pens, or plastic utensils? Try to mold yourself into developing behavior of not accepting and getting things you don’t use constantly.

Read more about California’s Green Building Executive Order B-18-12, Green Building Action Plan, and the State Administrative Manual (SAM) Chapter 1800 regarding Energy and Sustainability.

Read more about the Executive Order S-3-05 http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/state/executive_ orders.html

Sources & Works Cited

https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/greenbuildings/ greenbuildings.htm https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/a18573/ ways-to-go-green/ https://balticcompass.org/10-simple-ways-to-gogreen-at-home/

• What light bulbs are you using? There are energysaving bulbs that could seriously impact your energy consumption. Remember, the goal is to conserve as much energy as possible. Make sure that the lights are turned off at home when they are not being used. Additionally, electronics such as TVs, computers, laptops need to be turned off at night when not in use.

• Commit to reusables. Try to commit yourself to only using reusable containers at home. Do not go for a bottled water container; instead, use another bottle maybe you’ve previously bought. This behavior will help you have very few things you need to use constantly.

• Compost if you can. If you can invest in a backyard compost, do it. A compost allows food wastes to be turned into usable energy. If you cannot, donate the food waste may be to a local compost program if there is any.

One small step can mean a lot. Your actions towards environmental sustainability can contribute a lot towards making the world a better, safer place. While small at first, each action you take towards the green can mean safer living standards for generations to come.

Work Cited Read more about California’s Scoping Plan https://ww3.arb. ca.gov/cc/scopingplan/document/adopted_scoping_plan. pdf#page=76

WWW.THEPINMAGAZINE.COM

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[POWER ECONOMICS]

The Governor’s Order in Effect.

HOW WILL IT IMPACT THE ECONOMY? The California Governor in March issued a stay at home order for all the residents in California county amid the coronavirus outbreak. “We need to bend the curve in the state of California,” Newsom said, as he announced a statewide order for Californians to stay home. “There’s a social contract here, people I think recognize the need to do more ... They will begin to adjust and adapt as they have been quite significantly.

We will have social pressure, and that will encourage people to do the right thing,” he said, in addressing how this order will be enforced.

BUSINESSES ALLOWED TO OPEN

This order by the governor is the strongest statewide restriction in the fight against the pandemic. It came just a few days after similar restrictions were made by the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles County officials. As the number of the infected continue to rise globally, the number of confirmed cases in the United States doubled. So, this order is in effect, how does it impact the economy of California?

WHAT BUSINESSES ARE CLOSED

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Essential services in California will remain open, these are; Gas stations Pharmacies Food: Grocery stores, farmers markets, food banks, convenience stores, take-out and delivery restaurants Banks Laundromats/laundry services Essential state and local government functions will also remain open, including law enforcement and offices that provide government programs and services.

Dine-in restaurants Bars and nightclubs Entertainment venues Gyms and fitness studios Public events and gatherings Convention Centers

THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE ECONOMY?

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iving the order, the governor said “This is a moment we need to make tough decisions. We need to recognize reality.” The rule is in effect till further notice; however, he noted that the order was not “not a permanent state, this is a moment in time”.

“We will look back at these decisions as pivotal.”

The state is among the first in the country to enact blanket restrictions. In early March, Nevada issued an order that all non-essential businesses should be closed for at least 30 days. The order by California Governor allows residents to leave their homes to buy groceries and some other essential supplies, or walk a dog or take exercise, but seek to limit public interactions. The governor said that parts of the state saw the rate of infection spread double every four days. He added that the virus “will impact about 56% of us - you do the math in the state of California, that’s a particularly large number… We believe with a 20% hospitalization rate, that’s about 19,543 people that would need to be hospitalized – above the existing capacity of our system.”

In a letter to the U.S. Senate and House leaders, the governor said that financial aid is vital to the state’s ability to procure PPE and ventilators among other medical supplies, activate the state-run hospitals, deploy mobile hospitals and meet different healthcare needs.

“The economic disruption caused by this public health crisis will have immediate and devastating effects on our entire country, including too many families in California,” Newsome wrote. “The magnitude of the crisis is extraordinary, and the federalstate-local government will be more critical than ever before.”

More states are pleading for the rapidly diminishing stocks of their emergency supplies, and more experts are predicting more devastating economic effects of the pandemic which could cross into next year. The problem is that the pandemic is not something the federal government had anticipated and it has nearly emptied its emergency stockpiles of protective medical gear, stuff like masks, gowns, and gloves, and some states are in dire need of ventilators.

The Department of Labor in March reported that more than three million people filed for unemployment from march 15 to march 21, which is the largest singleweek increase in American history. The figure is expected to increase according to one analysis of Google search data by economists Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham of Yale and Aaron Sojourner of the University of Minnesota.

Remember, late last year there were fears of a downturn, if these forecasts are accurate, there will be as many claims of unemployment as in the first six months of the Great Recession. If an economic downturn happens, it will be far much more punishing and long-lasting than initially feared.

“This is already shaping up as the deepest dive on record for the global economy for over 100 years,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a Harvard economist. “Everything depends on how long it lasts, but if this goes on for a long time, it’s certainly going to be the mother of all financial crises.”

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GETTING A STIMULUS CHECK Right now, it may be harder than initially thought for the many millions of Americans to get the stimulus payments they had been promised. The low-income residents and others who were initially not required to file a tax return will have to do so if they want a stimulus check according to the guidance issued by the Internal Revenue Service.

The guidance had been a surprise to most policy advocates for the seniors because the legislation signed by the president gave the Treasury explicit permission to use the Social Security databases.

The payment information on the databases will be used to push payments to people automatically without the need to do anything else. The treasury department has so far backtracked and gave a directive that Social Security beneficiaries who do not typically file for their returns will receive payments automatically after all. They will get the cash as a direct deposit or paper check depending on how they usually get the benefits.

Even as the government imposes stringent

measures to intensify restrictions on business to stop the spread of the virus, the fear of the virus impedes consumer-led economic expansion.

“This is already shaping up as the deepest dive on record for the global economy for over 100 years,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a Harvard economist and co-author of “This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly,” a history of financial crises.

“Everything depends on how long it lasts, but if this goes on for a long time, it’s certainly going to be the mother of all financial crises.”

The stocks on the Wall street plummeted, with the S&P 500 closing down more than 4 per cent bringing its decline in over two days down to 6 per cent, as investors braced for a more worsened economic condition.

Sources & Work Cited Resource: Yes We Received the Ventilators, One Glitch Though: Thousands Do Not Work!

Resource: Predicting Initial Unemployment Insurance Claims Using Google Trends

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/world/ coronavirus-live-news-updates.html https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51970815 https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/19/californiagovernor-issues-statewide-order-to-stay-at-homeeffective-thursday-evening.html

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THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

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ho is Gary Acosta?

Literally speaking, Gary is not an ordinary man.

He is tall, six-foot-three-inches tall.

Figuratively speaking, Gary is a man who sees perspective, and thus, enjoys a lot the company of like-minded people. “I’ve always been attracted to people who have the capacity to unabashedly think big,” Acosta says.

Gary is the co-founder and CEO of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals(NAHREP®). NAHREP is the nation’s largest Hispanic business organization with over 30,000 members and 75 local chapters. In his capacity as CEO of NAHREP, he created the Hispanic Wealth Project, a 501c3 non-profit organization with a strategic plan to triple Hispanic household wealth by 2024.

Gary Acosta President, National Association Hispanic Real Estate Professionals

Mr. Acosta has also founded or co-founded several mortgages, real estate, and technology companies, including New Vista Asset Management, CounselorMax, and RealEstateEspanol.com. In 2013 he co-founded The Mortgage Collaborative, a cooperative of mortgage companies that work together to increase profitability and market share.

Mr. Acosta is a former appointee of the consumer advisory board (CAB) of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the federal agency responsible for regulating consumer protection in the financial services industry. He served as the 2014 chairman of the CAB mortgage committee.

In 2012, the Mortgage Bankers Association of America awarded him with their prestigious “Investing in Communities” annual award. REALTOR® Magazine named him one of the 25 Most Influential People in real estate, and Hispanic Business WWW.THEPINMAGAZINE.COM

Magazine named him one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics in America.

He is a current member of the board of trustees for the Home Builders Institute and is a former member of the board of directors of the Mortgage Bankers Association of America. He has also served on advisory boards for several Fortune 500 companies, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Mr. Acosta grew up in Montebello, California, and received his education from Pomona College and the University of California at San Diego. He lives with his family in San Diego, California.

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Early Life and Inspiration Finding

Growing up, Gary was a basketball fan, and so, he got himself into the pitch, and this is where he met his first giant. At Pomona College in Claremont, California, Acosta played for Gregg Popovich, who at the time very new to the role of the head coach, but who has since risen to become the longest-tenured head coach in the NBA, leading the San Antonio Spurs since 1996.

“The one thing that I remember most about Gregg Popovich was there was never a moment where he was willing to settle,” Acosta says. “Pomona College is a Division III school . . . a very small basketball program. But not to him. To Gregg Popovich, we were Duke. Every game we played was just as important as if we were playing in the Final Four.

“That sort of intensity and consistent commitment to excellence has stuck with me to this day,” Acosta continues. “No matter how small the playing field that you’re currently in, you play as if you are on a world-class stage.”

The Start of a Long Career in Real Estate

This lesson would remain with Acosta, permeating into his career. Acosta was the grandson of a pastor who co-founded a church and later became the “community godfather,” and from a very tender age, Acosta developed a passion for entrepreneurship.

At the age of 26, Acosta founded his mortgage brokerage.

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This was his starting point in a long career in real estate. Through his brokerage firm, he crossed paths with Ernie J. Reyes, who at the time was a real estate broker. “He was about twenty years older than I was, so he was introduced to me as somebody that would be a good guide,” Acosta recalls.

“Somebody who could help me navigate the San Diego real estate community.”

Acosta and Reyes grew more like partners, and often, Reyes would refer business to Acosta, and they began frequently meeting to celebrate closing a deal together. “But when we got together, we rarely talked about business,” Acosta says.

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Interestingly, Reyes had a background in politics as he had worked for the Northern California Congressman Leon Panetta. With his position, Reyes had helped organize and manage several campaigns in San Diego. “He loved to philosophize about life, his passions, and politics,” Acosta recalls.

“I knew nothing about those things at the time, so he was terrific in that regard.”

The Making of NAHREP

Ten years down the line, the relationship between Acosta and Reyes and their philosophic discussions turned into actionable ideas. Acosta approached Reyes with the NAHREP idea. “We structured the organization as a professional trade association because we wanted it to be a business organization,” Acosta says. “But we decided that the mission statement should reflect more of a community focus . . . we believed in the virtues of homeownership, and that [those virtues] would resonate with people.

We ended up saying our mission is to help advance Hispanic homeownership in this country. It was one of the best decisions we made—that inspired people.”

However, to launch NAHREP, the two partners needed another partner. “There’s a funny anecdote,” Acosta offers. “We filed the paperwork, set up the corporation, and about three months before we were going to have our launch event in Los Angeles, Ernie said, ‘You know, you and I don’t have the credentials to start an organization like this.’ And I’m like, ‘Ernie, I don’t know why you’re telling me this now.’ But what he was getting at was—remember, he’s a

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political guy—he said, ‘What we need is somebody who does have those credentials to endorse us.’”

As a result, they sat down and wrote a list of names, and a name they both wrote was Henry Cisneros. He was not just an ordinary guy; he had just completed his tenure in Bill Clinton’s cabinet as the HUD Secretary. And this was the man they needed to propel their dream forward. They wrote to Cisneros, thinking it was a long shot to expect a reply. However, much their surprise, Cisneros writes

THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

back offering to help launch NAHREP. They wanted him to keynote their launch event, therefore Acosta called with an ask, “His assistant said, ‘When is the event?’ and I said, ‘It’s whenever Henry can make it.’”

They secured a date wrote a press release announcing that Cisneros was the keynote speaker.

“That’s where the buzz for the organization really started to build,” Acosta says.

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Remember, all this is happening in the 2000s. The 2000 census data was released and showed that for the first time in history, the Hispanics were going to be the largest minority group in the US. To add to that, the Information Age was dawning, leading to NAHREP launching its website. Back then, it had a domain, realestateespanol.com.

“It really took people aback,” Acosta says. “They were like, ‘We haven’t seen anything like this before.’ Most Latino organizations were in the civil rights genre, and this was focused on business, forward-thinking in terms of technology, and yet had a very compelling, community-focused mission statement.”

And then, the 2008 crisis happened

When the 2008 recession hit, the housing industry was particularly walloped. And NAHREP was also hit. “We went from a $2.5 million budget down to an $800,000 budget, and our staff went from twelve to one,” Acosta says. Over the course of four years, from 2008-2012, Acosta and Reyes took that opportunity to reinvent the organization, with that, came major structural changes and their

WWW.THEPINMAGAZINE.COM

annual event went from the national convention to a cultural celebration.

“It was right around 2012 that we started to call it the NAHREP National Convention and Latin Music Festival,” Acosta says. “We realized a couple of years into the event . . . I mean, people would come to the event, and they would cry because they

were so moved by their experience. They were just so inspired by being around people like themselves who had similar aspirations and backgrounds.

People have as much an emotional connection to this organization as they do an intellectual or a business connection... We made sure that the event itself had that sort of cultural and emotional piece interwoven into the program.” Today, NAHREP annual budget is more than $14 million and with a full-time staff of thirty-four people.

The NAHREP cultural convention concept was a unique one and, better yet, a successful one, and with that, Acosta began to develop an idea for an event with a larger scope. “Once I really felt like we were good at [putting on the event], I thought, ‘Why do we have to just stay in our own lane?’” Acosta says. “Maybe we should start taking some of this secret sauce to other segments of the economy.”

In 2014, another disaster struck, Reyes passed away, but by luck, in 2015, Acosta crossed paths with another giant who had a think-big, world-class mentality, first introduced by Popovich; Sol Trujillo.

Later, Acosta was invited to do a presentation from the NAHREP’s State of Hispanic Homeownership Report at a Latino Donor Collaborative event in Beverly Hills. “There was a big focus on the entertainment industry at this particular event,” he remembers. “The session before me had a panel

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with the chairman of Warner Brothers, the CEO of Fox Network, and the CEO of Starz.

And while they’re up there, Sol asked them all a question. He said, ‘You know, we released a study today. We determined through various sources that Hispanics purchase about 28 percent of all movie tickets in the United States. Twenty-eight percent, even though we’re only 18 percent of the population.

Yet only 3 percent of the product’s you guys put out have Latinos in any lead or substantial role. Explain that to me. Is this our problem or are you guys just not very good at what you do?’”

“It is a celebration of what we describe as the ‘new mainstream economy’ and attracts the best and brightest within our culture and community,” Acosta says. “But it is also an effort to change the narrative around the Latino community. It’s about bringing together decision-makers, resource allocators, those people who have the capacity to move money and to green-light projects. That’s what’s different about L’ATTITUDE than any other event that’s out there.”

Acosta approached Trujillo after he saw his candor and ability to gather the heads of these significant corporations. “What I just saw on stage was amazing,” he told Trujillo. “The only problem is that there are a hundred people in the audience when there should have been five thousand people hearing that. I have an idea I think you might be interested in.” “And that,” Acosta says, “was the genesis of our relationship.”

L’ATTITUDE Event

In 2018, Gary co-founded L’ATTITUDE, a mega event that celebrates the achievements of the Latino community in business, entertainment, technology, and politics.

This is a four-day event that has been running for two years now. The game has welcomed giants from entertainment, business, politics, technology, and the media.

Sources & Works Cited

https://nahrep.org/about/staff/gary-acosta/ https://hispanicexecutive.com/gary-acosta-lattitude/ https://hispanicexecutive.com/2017-best-of-the-boardroomhenry-cisneros/ https://nahrep.org/que-pasa-nahrep/2017/10/16/ernie-j-

reyes-memorial-scholarship-program-funds-providedby-the-felix-deherrera-living-trust/ https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/person/6533874

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THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

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TEXAS HOUSING MARKET

HEADED FOR A RECESSION,

BUT FOR HOW LONG? Johnnie Morine With the stay at home orders still in effect, thousands of Texans are doing well to adjust to life. Nonetheless, a good number are the people still scrambling to cover expenses with incomes that were cut off. Housing and real estate experts now say that it is hard to predict what the parallel public health and economic crises will do to the home values and sales.

The economy is hard pressing on brakes, and the home builders are potentially facing the greatest fallout in business in a decade. This is a huge concern for North Texas, which has been at the forefront in single-family construction and sales. ”As you would expect, there has been a slowdown in the traffic counts of prospective buyers,” said Ted Wilson, a principal with Dallasbased housing analyst Residential Strategies. ”While there have been some sales cancellations due to job loss and economic and stock market concerns, they have been minimal thus far.”

A lot could, however, happen, between now and when the twin trouble lasts.

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”We definitely will have a slowdown, but the question is how much and how long,” said Scott Norman, executive director of the Texas Association of Builders.

This is a sudden twist of events, especially in one of the most dynamic real estate markets in the country. Data from the Texas Realtors show that the state of Texas had so far had five consecutive years breaking the record in terms of the number of houses sold and the median prices. To add, the Texas homebuilding industry had been very solid too, and no other state had more building permits in 2019, according to the Census Data records.

So far, the pandemic has not so much interfered with the demand for moderate-priced homes, which, according to Wilson, is still good. ”Many have pushed the pause button with regard to new acquisition due to the uncertainty of the entitlement process within the municipalities [permitting and zoning] as well as the uncertainty of the duration of this disruption,” Wilson said. ”While Wall Street has THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

punished the stock prices of many of the public builders, the industry is much healthier from debt to equity standpoint than it was going into the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009. ”Many of the large builders I have spoken to are being careful with their cash and want to be opportunistic if there is future fallout.”

Nonetheless, many of the metro areas, including Dallas County, have exempted homebuilders from business shutdowns. In most markets, residential construction is deemed a necessity in many markets, which is very important as repairs and new buildings need to continue.

Slowdowns in the Housing Market

Like many other areas, experts see slowdowns in home showings, which are done virtually. They also expect that the permits for new buildings to drop. And the situation may get worse from region to region with the region whose residents rely heavily on the energy and industrial works, like Houston or the Permian Basin or on the cross-border trade, like the Rion Grande Valley expected to see a significant dip in home values and sales.

For places like Houston, there are already fewer people putting homes on the market, but the home values among the houses sold have improved. The Houston Association of Realtors says that the new home listings of the singlefamily homes decreased 4.8% last month when compared with March 2019. At the same time, however, home prices have increased by 3.6%. ”Housing markets will be hit differently depending on the region. Yes, Houston would be hit harder, but Midland-Odessa would be hit even more,” said Luis Torres, an economist with the Texas A&M Real Estate Center. ”Smaller economies are more volatile because they are less diversified.”

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Other areas that might experience a downturn include the border because of a slow down in commercial trade with Mexico. ”[Regions] like El Paso, McAllen, Laredo and Brownsville will also be hit hard because they weren’t doing that well before the COVID-19 sudden stop, and their economies will also be affected by the recession in the Mexican economy,” Torres said.

Meanwhile, on a statewide level, physical home showings are down 44%, according to Texas Realtors Chairman Cindi Bulla. ”We don’t yet know what percentage of that downturn is a reflection of our members’ commitment to narrowing down selections through virtual showings, sellers declining to allow their homes to be shown, or buyers unwilling or unable to move forward at this time,” Bulla said.

On a positive note, perhaps for the sellers is that the home prices are yet to change. The prices can’t take a dramatic decline. What we should be expecting is a U-Shaped recession and recovery.

This is the situation in Texas. Texas is one beautiful state, with a very stable economy, and in fact, thousands of Californians are shifting to Texas for the incredibly low and affordable housing. If you would like a taste of this beautiful state, talk to one of our VIP Agents in Texas, Johnnie Morine. Learn more about Johnnie here.

Sources & Work Cited

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/07/ coronavirus-texas-cools-real-estate-marketexperts-dont-know-how-long/ https://www.dallasnews.com/business/ real-estate/2020/03/24/dont-blamehousing-this-time-the-home-market-hopesto-escape-the-worst-of-the-economicdownturn/

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[POWER LENDING]

D

ue to the spread of the Novel Coronavirus, Freddie Mac in March announced that it was taking the necessary actions to protect the people affected, directly or indirectly by the virus. Specifically, Freddie Mac targeted the singlefamily business, where it announced a nationwide suspension for all the foreclosures sales and evictions of the borrowers living in homes owned by the company. Freddie Mac also announced that to include a variety of additional mortgage relief options, which includes an expansion of its forbearance program, to incorporate additionally impacted borrowers. This comes at a very great time when homeowners and the renters who are reeling under financial effects will have fears of losing their homes to foreclosures or being evicted during the public health crisis.

The president announced that the Department of Housing and Urban Development is suspending all the foreclosures and evictions until the end of April. HUD later stated its official stand, stating that the Federal Housing Administration was enacting an “immediate foreclosure and eviction moratorium for single-family homeowners with FHA-insured mortgages” which would hold for the next 6o days.

EXTENDING A HELPING HAND. This is How Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are Doing It.

“This foreclosure and eviction suspension allow homeowners with an Enterprise-backed mortgage to stay in their homes during this national emergency,” FHFA Director Mark Calabria said in a statement.

Given that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are the largest mortgage financiers in the country, the move is a significant one and bears a huge impact.

“As a reminder, borrowers affected by the coronavirus who are having difficulty paying their mortgage should reach out to their mortgage servicers as soon as possible,” Calabria added. “The Enterprises are working with mortgage servicers to ensure that borrowers facing hardship because of the coronavirus can get assistance.”

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THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

This moratorium applies only to the homeowners that have an FHA-insured Title II Single Family forward and Home Equity Conversion Mortgage.

“Today’s actions will allow households who have an FHA-insured mortgage to meet the challenges of COVID-19 without fear of losing their homes, and help steady market concerns,” HUD Secretary Ben Carson said. “The health and safety of the American people are of the utmost importance to the Department, and the halting of all foreclosure actions and evictions for the next 60 days will provide homeowners with some peace of mind during these trying times.”

According to the directive

by HUD, all the mortgage servicers are required to “halt all new foreclosure actions and suspend all foreclosure actions currently in process; and cease all evictions of persons from FHA-insured single-family properties.”

In 2018 alone, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac accounted for an upward of about 46% of all the mortgages originated, while the Federal Housing Administration and the Veteran Affairs backed loans accounted for almost 23% of all the new mortgages. This means that the majority of homeowners with a mortgage will be safe from the foreclosures or the evictions as a result of the policy by the HUD and the FHFA. In the announcement, Calabria also noted that the “borrowers affected by the coronavirus who are having difficulty paying their mortgage should reach out to their mortgage servicers as soon as possible.”

“The Department of Housing and Urban Development is providing immediate relief to renters and homeowners by suspending all foreclosures and evictions until the end of April,” Trump said during the press conference. “We’re working very closely with [HUD Secretary] Dr Ben Carson and everyone at HUD.” The directive on the evictions and the foreclosures that the president announced will WWW.THEPINMAGAZINE.COM

apply to homeowners who have FHA loans and all the homeowners with the loans backed by FHA will be eligible. The HUD secretary announced that HUD was already working with Congress to acquire authority to prevent the evictions for the people in public housing.

“HUD has been in contact with every Public Housing Agency in the country to ensure the millions of lowincome Americans we serve continue to have a roof over their head,” Carson wrote on Twitter.

The Department also recommended that the owners of the public-housing projects should “work with impacted residents and families to adjust rent payments, enter into forbearance agreements, and lessen the impact on affected residents,” however, the department noted that no additional support in terms of finances had been made available to assist in that effort.

Advocates have come out arguing that this is a good move by the federal government as more Americans had their incomes and finances disrupted as a result of the outbreak. If we can avoid evictions in such a time. It would great outcomes even in term of health for the people.

“This pandemic is a stark reminder that housing is health care,” said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “Policy makers at all levels should immediately implement moratoriums on foreclosures and evictions.”

Even before these announcements, many cities all across the country, including the New York and San Jose had begun to issue a temporal moratorium on evictions during the pandemic. The moves were largely supported by large industry groups including the Real Estate Board of New York and the National Apartment Association and the National Multifamily Housing Council.

Sources & Work Cited https://freddiemac.gcs-web.com/news-releases/newsrelease-details/freddie-mac-announces-enhancedrelief-borrowers-impacted-covid https://www.marketwatch.com/story/somehomeowners-and-renters-will-get-a-break-from-thecoronavirus-financial-fallout-2020-03-18 https://www.housingwire.com/articles/fannie-maefreddie-mac-hud-suspending-all-foreclosures-andevictions/ l

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PHOENIX HOUSING MARKET 2020/21 W H AT TO E X P E C T M A R K E T O U T L O O K The January and February housing statistics took everyone by surprise, especially the people with a big leap in sales and price. This was particularly evident in Boston, New York, Atlanta, Dallas, and so many other major centers.

Most markets across the country have suffered severely due to the Coronavirus and the shutdown orders. Still, there has been activity in prices, and evidence indicated a declining

trend in March and could hit rock bottom in the spring.

In January, nothing could touch the redhot Arizona market, not even the rise in the interest rates.

“The modest uptick in mortgage rates over the last several months reflects declining recession fears and a more sanguine outlook for the global economy,” says Sam Khater, chief economist for Freddie Mac. “Due to

The renewed confidence in the Arizona housing market has most of the experts in the industry bullish on Arizona’s residential housing market.

Right, it seems that not even the Coronavirus can slow down the Greater Phoenix housing market. Housing statistics show that for every 100 active listings in Arizona Regional MLS, there are about 111 more that are already under contract. From these statistics, it shows that the Greater Phoenix housing market is a frenzy, and we are just in March. Going forward, we should expect a rather hot market. Nevertheless, that only goes as far as May without relief as buyers are always in demand for housing during the spring season.

Going further down to the southeast, the situation changes dramatically, and the same can be said of the West Valley and the North Phoenix and all the areas where prices land between $175-$300K, and there is a reason for this. The average cost for a 1,500-2,000 SF home now sits at $331K, and the price continues to rise, and that can be quite alarming, considering that it was $324K at a peak in 2006. Still, contrary to popular belief, today’s housing is much more affordable thanks to the interest rates. For instance, going by what was there in the spring of 2006, with an average of 6.51%, the monthly principal and interest payment on a 30-year fixed loan with a 10% down was $1,854. However, today, with an average of 3.45%, the same home is $1,331, which means a person will be able to save about $523 a more.

Over the last 16 months, despite the prices have risen 9.4% for a median-sized home, the monthly payment dropped about $112 a month.

Unlike the buyers, there is not so much we can say about the sellers under 500k. The demand is so high that their homes could be going even before we finish saying it. For buyers and sellers under the 500k margin, there is a stark gap in the supply-demand economics, and it does not ease up until you go up to the 600k bracket.

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the improved economic outlook, purchase mortgage applications rose 15 percent over the same period a year ago, the second-highest weekly increase in the last two years.

Given the important role residential real estate plays in the economy, the steady improvement of the housing market is a reassuring sign that the economy is on the solid ground heading into 2020.”

And if you think that this is a safe have for buyers or sellers, you’re wrong. How do you compete with wellpriced, updated, move-in ready homes? Well, that is the situation for most sellers in places like North Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, the Camelback Corridor, and Downtown Phoenix In light of the pandemic, you will be amazed that the luxury market is still doing very well. However, that is not to say that sellers should expect anything abruptly, as seen in the rest of the markets. There are about 522 properties under contract over $1M, up a whopping 60% over the last year around this same time.

So, what do you think the future holds for the Phoenix housing market? Well, let us know. To get more up to date information about the phoenix market or to see some properties for sale in the area, or if you want to invest in the property market in Phoenix, talk to Yvonne McFadden today. Yvonne is a veteran in the real estate industry. Her business has been extensive over 30 plus years, with clients ranging from all walks of life.

Interestingly, she recently added a foreign presence by becoming licensed in Dubai. Therefore, you can trust the quality of work relationships you will get from Yvonne. Look no further. Yvonne is your agent; give her a call today or go to https://thepowerisnow.com/ vipagentsservices/yvonne-mcfadden/ to learn more about Yvonne.

Sources & Work Cited

https://www.mountainparkranchrealestate.com/phoenixreal-estate-market-report-march-2020/ https://azbigmedia.com/real-estate/residential-realestate/housing-market-in-2020-heres-what-to-expect-inarizona/ https://gordcollins.com/real-estate/us-housing-marketforecast/

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ARIZONA M A R K E T S TA T I S T I C S

“At the very least, the coronavirus could cause some people to put home sales on hold.�

Most housing markets all over the country are a mess. Furthermore, that is the least we can say,

The good news is that the active inventory in the Phoenix housing market in April was a significant improvement for the Valley from March by about 1,500 homes. The inventory stats as of March 1 were down by nearly 33%. However, it is not all rosy, and we should not get comfortable, according to analysts and industry experts polled by Business Journal, who says that it is likely that the Phoenix housing market will slip but not for long though, as it will start to recover later in the year.

According to the most recent data by Zilliow Group Inc, it is very clear that the pandemic is responsible for the reversal of what was shaping up to be a banner year for the real estate sector. As of April 5, daily new listings continued to drop, reaching 27% nationally from where they were around this time last year. It gets worse in some of the nation’s strongest and largest housing markets, such as San Francisco and New York, which have seen drops of 36.4% and 56.6%, respectively.

What is happening all around the country has immediate implications for thousands of real estate professionals all around the country who very much depend on the spring season for their annual compensations. The Business Journal estimates that nationally, there will be a drop in home listings which could equate to as much as $81 million in lost sale commissions per day for the real estate brokers, with some of the major metro areas such as New York ($14 million per day) Los Angeles ($4.8 million) and Chicago($3.8 million) topping the list with the most stake.

thanks to the Corona pandemic. This is the time when real estate activities are usually heightened.

Around this time, I would be doing an open house in our beautiful state, but am forced to stay at home.

The pandemic has brought the housing market back to the levels of the Great Recession and is wiping billions in potential sales and commissions for the real estate professionals.

While the country is in a mess, Phoenix seems to be rising above the pandemic, only being affected slightly. New listing as of April 5 showed a lesser than 1% drop compared to the same period last year. However, where the Phoenix market seemed comparable with what was happening around the country was in the total active listings, which were down 26.7% compared with a year earlier.

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Nonetheless, the agents in Phoenix are likely to far better than agents in other parts of the country.

Their projected loss per day in commission as n industry is $53,572.

Some cities are reported to experience delays in home closings, and problems with real estate

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appraisers where most of them are starting to down appraisal appointments, this is yet to be reported in Arizona, in fact, here business is as usual. Most of the home loans and purchase contracts are contingent on the home appraising. This could potentially put a stiff backlog on the refinancing and purchasing a home with a loan in the states that are hit harder with the virus. The National Associational of Realtors anticipated ; “At the very least, the coronavirus could cause some people to put home sales on hold.”

The National Association of Home Builders also reported; “The Fed’s action was expected but perhaps not to this degree and timing.

And the policy change was consistent with recent declines for interest rates in the bond market. These declines should push mortgage interest rates closer to a low 3% average for the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage.”

The spring season is important, not just for the real estate professionals but also for the economy. The spring can account for as much as half of the annual compensation doled out to the brokers, listing agents, and the various real estate stakeholders according to data by Zillow and US Census Bureau. More heartbreaking is the fact that the prognosis for a near-term recovery does not look so great. According to Moody’s Investors Service, the housing outlook home sales were projected to fall about 25% below the year’s target.

just fine, but the question is, for how long? How long will it take for the pandemic to catch up with the phoenix housing market? Well, honestly, I do not want to find out, but even if it does, the effects will not be long-lasting as projected in most other states. This means that you have a very rare opportunity to get yourself a home in Phoenix or sell. Who knows what the next couple of months will be like? When buying or selling, you would want to work with an expert who knows their area well, and when it comes to the Arizona housing market, I am your go-to person.

M

y name is Peggie Simmons. I have 34 years’ experience as a real estate agent and broker in Tempe, Arizona, and currently serves as the Founder and CEO of Realty Marketing Group specializing in relocation, new homes sales, traditional homes, marketing & sales, short sale negotiations, foreclosures, luxury rentals, investments among many others. Despite doing my business in Arizona, I have been a resident of the state since 1983 which makes me an ideal choice and your go-to real estate agent. Go ahead and take advantage of the situation right now while it still lasts. Give me a call today and let me get you in your dream home, or go to https:// thepowerisnow.com/vipagentsservices/peggiesimmons-arizona/ to find out more.

Sources & Work Cited https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2020/04/10/ phoenix-housing-market-more-stable-for-now-as.html https://www.scottschulte.com/blog/2020-coronavirusaffects-real-estate-arizona/ https://www.mountainparkranchrealestate.com/phoenixreal-estate-market-report-march-2020/

“The spring home-buying season will be marked with few open houses and risks are rising that the early portion of the summer home-buying season will be uncharacteristically poor,” wrote Moody’s economist Brent Campbell.

While the real estate markets in most parts of the country are doing so much to survive this pandemic, the Phoenix market seems to be doing

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[POWER TECHNOLOGY]

THE UNTAPPED POTENTIAL OF AI IN LENDING ACTIVITIES. HOW AI IS MOVING LOAN OFFICERS FORWARD.

The lending and banking industry over the last several decades has experienced an unprecedented change.

Lending is such a vast industry, and it impacts directly and indirectly almost every part of the economy.

The days when people used to complete their transactions in person at a bank or maintaining all personal finance records as paper documents are far much behind us. Today, we see an upward trajectory of electronic document management systems.

Third-party credit reporting and rating systems rise each day, allowing banks to quickly process the loan applications and other consumer inquiries without the need of much human effort and interaction.

Tens of millions of Americans hold loans that are worth trillions of dollars, as such, any technological move that can make even a small improvement in the company’s returns on the investments they hold, or that can improve their share of the market, would be worth a lot. While it is true that the banking industry has grown so much over the years, there are still leaps and bounds of improvements that need to be adopted and maintained across the 34 l

board. New technologies today are looking at the ways through which to reduce the human effort required in the analysis of different algorithms to establish a pattern in the consumer behaviors and also to extract data from documents to answer questions that are required to complete a range of banking transactions.

Rather than focusing on form completion and transferring data, the mortgage underwriters will be available to spend more time examining the loan applications and credit assessment at a higher level.

To achieve this, it would mean that decisions to extend credit will involve fewer risks and will be made available to more worthy borrowers.

This is why both the established banks in America and throughout the world and startups in the lending industry feel the need to look for new ways to innovate constantly. To fill that gap is artificial intelligence. According to the AI, Opportunity Landscape research

by Emerj shows that approximately 15% of the venture funding raised for the AI vendors in the banking industry is for lending solutions. At its most basic, the lending industry is a big data problem. This means, to fill the gaps therein in the industry, it has to adopt big data and machine learning.

To process the value of the loan, the creditworthiness of a person is vital.

The more data you have about a person, the better chances you have to assess their creditworthiness.

Also, machine learning and AI allows mortgage underwriters to focus more on examining the loan applications and credit assessment at a higher

level. Ultimately, this means that the decisions to extend credit will be less risky and available to more worthy borrowers.

The high producing loan officers understand this simple logic that AI is the next phase in lending. It is an opportunity that offers multiple potential benefits for the industry.

However, that potential is yet to materialize fully. According to National Mortgage News’ 2020 Top Producers, which answered how Artificial Intelligence affects the way they do or have been doing business right now. In last years’ survey, AI stood among the most listed responses on the initiatives bound to make waves. With the COVID-19 crisis expected to worsen into the spring, the urgency may intensify around mortgage companies’ intent to become digitalized, automated, and more informed on the opportunity AI represents. AI represents a risk for most jobs, but most advocates argue that tech is the most likely and should be used as an adjunct to workers. The longer it is used in the industry, the more systems learn, the higher the chances of the technology absorbing more mundane tasks, circumventing human error, yielding a faster and easier lending process over time.

While AI adoption and utilization in the lending industry sits in the nascent stage of use, sentiments towards the technology split into two, according to the Survey by National Mortgage News. About 59% of the loan officers in both the Midwest and South said they don’t use AI technology, and they don’t believe

THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

it positively impacts their day to day roles.

“I have not been impacted very much by the AI movement. My referrals and customers do business with me because of the service I provide them,” said Joel Van Asch, loan originator at Homebridge in Lawrenceville, Ga. “At the end of the day, this is the biggest purchase a person is going to make. I strongly believe that due to this being such a big decision in someone’s life that they want to deal with a live person and have the assurance that the loan officer is going to get the deal closed. This is the way I operate my business.”

Still, it can be particularly useful in determining the creditworthiness of people without a traditional credit history.

Credit insights

Holding as many human touch points as possible is relevant and understandable. Some of the loan originators even reach out to people using their phones to keep in touch with their clients. Some believe that software can’t replace their skills, and the prospective borrowers do not fit into the computer approved

Missed Opportunities from Relying on Credit Scores.

The banks have created a system where people have been forced to rely only on credit scores to determine the applicant’s creditworthiness. For instance, you will find that applicants will be denied loans by financial institutions simply because they do not have a lengthy credit history. However, a number of these applicants are less likely to default on their loans given the alternative which means, sectors of the economy such as real estate, automotive, sales, and constructions are likewise unable to capitalize on new businesses. Even with perfect information, it might be challenging to determine the likelihood of a person defaulting on a loan. Individuals and companies will sometimes lie which presents an excellent time for AI to step in and do a risk assessment.

Awhile back, companies used to look at the credit scores to determine the creditworthiness of an applicant, today, companies are looking at an individual’s entire life and even their vast digital footprint in the determination of their likelihood to default on loan. This is what is referred to as “Alternative Data.”

The logic behind it is that extra data provides not just more insights into people with established credit scores.

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boxes for decision making. This is where most go wrong. The algorithms used in machine learning are used to help in the assessment of the nonnumerical factors in the applicant’s creditworthiness evaluation, for instance, consumer behavior and other industries and social media activity. AI offers an excellent opportunity to learn more insights into an applicant’s willingness to pay their debt. This results in the extension of credit to deserving applicants who might otherwise have been denied a loan.

“We are in the people business. In this business, AI may supplement operations by streamlining processes to improve efficiency. Still, it will never replace the human element of the mortgage process,” said Tammy Saul, owner and loan originator at Federal Hill Mortgage in Baltimore. “As a retired attorney, my approach to every client and mortgage consultation is unique and customized. AI, automation, technology, or the like cannot replace that.”

AI and Risk Reduction

According to the Survey by NMN, the majority of the LOs in the Northeast and West showed a more progressive AI stance. They see technology as a benefit to their businesses. Which translates and embodies the mantra “work smarter, not harder.” If AI is used correctly in the system, it can start a chain reaction of benefits, enhancing the interactions chances with their clients.

The integration of AI into the loan origination process helps in the reduction of human errors in the processing of a loan application or even overlooking critical factors in the assessment of whether a borrower will default a loan or not. AI plays a central role in the lenders’ loan management system, helping in the determination and identification of the patterns of behavior that will indicate a consumer may be close to default. Having such a system that can be able to track and reduce those risks will stem costly losses hence preserving credit availability for the worthy borrowers.

“I believe that technology is extremely important to the efficiency of the loan process. By being more efficient, a lender can save time and drive down the cost to produce a loan, therefore being able to offer a good pay to employees and low rates/costs to customers,” said Michelle Bruto da Costa, loan originator and branch manager at Homebridge in Everett, Wash.

Sources & Work Cited

https://www.nationalmortgagenews. com/news/how-ai-pushes-loanofficers-forward https://emerj.com/ai-sectoroverviews/artificial-intelligenceapplications-lending-loanmanagement/ https://www.bobsguide.com/guide/ news/2019/Aug/23/how-artificialintelligence-is-disrupting-the-lendingindustry/ l 35

INVESTING IN PROPERTY MARKET

IN CORONA, CA. Kamesha Keesee

Globally, one of the most common questions that people are asking is; how will the coronavirus affect the property market?

On March 11, the World Health Organization officially designated the COVID-19 as a pandemic, about 114 countries have been hit by the virus, which has resulted in over 120, 000 infected people and more than 100,000 deaths. Furthermore, while the statistics and the way that the virus is affecting people’s lives are rapidly changing by the day, simply examining the way the outbreak is impacting the real estate industry in the united states will show you some varied outcomes. More markets have been left more vulnerable than others.

Ever since the virus was declared a pandemic, major stock indices around the world have dropped an average of more than 9percent. The

Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered the most substantial single-day dip in history on February 27, 2020.

Despite what the situation looks like, there is no direct connection between the stock market performance and the real estate value. The connection only exists between them as both industries are affected by economic performance.

For as long as consumers feel confident about their job security, they will continue to spend, and that

includes the real estate investment. Among an array of other things, the real estate market is affected by the treasury bond prices, which in turn correlates with the mortgage rates. What happens is that, when investors see much volatility with the stock market, they move their cash investments into more stable assets such as bonds. As the demand for the treasury bonds increases, the bond prices go up, and their yields fall, which pulls the mortgage rates down.

With that simple understanding, it is safe to say that investment in the real estate market is quite safe.

Also, note that the catalyst for today’s economic situation is very different from what was happening in the 2008 financial crisis. Remember, the last crisis was being fueled by the sub-prime lending market, which is very different from today’s crisis. In the financial crisis, sub-prime mortgages were bundled up and sold at a relatively higher price than they were worth. Ultimately, the real estate speculators let the home financed by these loans go into default, and these bundles of mortgages lost their value, which bankrupted large investors, starting a domino effect that could be felt in all aspects of the economy.

The volatility in the stock market today is not a result of the real estate market doing. It is as a result of uncertainty caused by the corona pandemic. Right now, it is unclear what all this means, especially for the real estate industry, and while it remains to be seen, the real estate industry is somewhat insulated mainly because of the tight residential inventory, higher buyer demand, low mortgage rates and lower prices for lumber and oil. Nonetheless, investors in the real estate market might be worried seeing that big companies like Zillow have temporarily suspended buying homes through its Zillow Offers arm in a bid to comply with the public health orders intended to prevent the spread of the virus. While that is so, it may also be coming from the

desire to preserve cash, which by the way the company has admitted to.

Zillow Offers has been buying homes directly from sellers in over 20 US markets, including from the Bay Area, Inland Empire, Orange County, and San Diego. During the last quarter of 2019, Zillow Offers had sold about 1,902 homes all across the nation

and purchased 1,787 more. The year closed with an inventory of 2,707 homes across the nation.

Therefore, this means if you get a chance to, this might be the ideal time for investors to get a piece of the real estate market finally.

It is safe to invest in the real estate, and if there is a place you should be turning your eyes towards is Corona, CA. with a strong population and so much to do, undoubtedly, the Corona market is the place to put all your bets on. There are a lot of comfortable properties, which means that it all up to you to provide your buyers and renters with available properties.

When looking to invest in a particular area, not just in Corona, CA, you should look for experts to work with. People with actual connections when it comes to commercial real estate for investment and what a better place to stop by than The Power Is Now Media. With agents scattered all across the country, you can be sure to be connected with the right agent every time. Speaking of agents, in Corona, speak to Kamesha Keesee, one of the most talented VIP agents we have in Corona County. If you want to find out more about property values in Corona County, CA, this is the person to speak to.

Find out more about Kamesha Keesee at https:// thepowerisnow.com/vipagentsservices/kameshakeesee/. Additionally, learn more about the Power Is Now Media VIP Agents program here; https:// thepowerisnow.com/real-estate-professionaladvertising-program/. Also, find out the agents near you for professional guidance at https:// thepowerisnow.com/vipagentsservices/

Sources & Work Cited

https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/ impact-coronavirus-real-estate-markets https://theconversation.com/how-will-coronavirus-affectproperty-prices-133761

RESPONDING TO THE VIRUS ATTACK IN CORONA

David C. Trubey

“

To those who continue to work who are non-essential, who gather at churches, at home, at parks – please stop, we beg you,” said Dr. Mike Mesisca, medical director for the county hospital’s emergency medicine department.

“Small decisions, though they seem, will lead to deaths by the hundreds and thousands – perhaps 2,000 or more in this county alone.”

While the cases of the COVID-19 being reported in California are dropping, the same cannot be said of counties in the Inland Empire

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Some of the inland empire counties are reported to be running out time to change the projected spread of the coronavirus that could end up infecting more than 65,000 people and hospitalize 11,000 and kill more than 1,000 by early to mid-may. This is a warning that the public health officials in the Riverside county gave on April 3, as they urged people to stay at home to help curb the spread of the virus. Even though there has been progress in fighting the virus, doctors say that it is not enough to change the frightening projections that could end up overpowering the county’s 17 acute care hospitals.

such as Riverside county. The number of infected people in the county continues to rise exponentially even though the doctors in the county have very little time to turn the situation around and prevent an impending surge.

being facilitated by digital tools and systems. Nevertheless, during this years’ spring season, fewer homes will emerge unscathed, but even fewer homes in the county are not in a position to weather the crisis.

Impact on Real Estate

This is according to a report by Attom Data Solutions that analyzed the country’s 50 most vulnerable housing market as a result of the coronavirus. Unfortunately, counties in the Inland empire ranked among the first most unstable markets nationwide. Riversi-

As of March 2020, 2,596 homes closed sale, and although the market is flux as a result of the virus, buyers and sellers in Counties of Corona and Riverside are still successfully closing real estate deals. These transactions are

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de came in third in the list.

The Attom Data Rankings are based on affordability, the number of foreclosure letters sent before the coronavirus, and the number of people owning homes worth less than their mortgage. Ridiculously, for a resident in a place like Riverside and Corona, CA buying a home and maintaining a mortgage would cost him about 61% of the annual income. Nearly 10 percent of the homes are worth less than their mortgages, and the foreclosure notices were sent for around 1 percent of the homes.

The situation with the coronavirus is likely to continue, and the worst thing is that it is uncertain when things will cool. Investors all over the country are worried, but even more, are the stakeholders in the real estate industry. Remember,

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this is the season where we have the most real estate transactions in the year, but with the pandemic, most activities in the real estate industry are disrupted.

While that may be true, real estate agents in multiple places are doing business as usual, thanks to the power of technology.

a licensed realtor in the Inland Empire operating mainly in Corona. If you are looking for an agent to help you buy or sell, you can stop looking now and call David.

He is a professional and very honest with his clients and everyone he works with. Find out more about David here.

Buyers are still buying, and sellers are still selling. Supposing that you are looking to buy in Corona county, CA, you have come to the right place. The Power Is Now has a network of VIP Agents all over the country, find out more about the VIP Agents here. Given the nature of the pandemic, buying a home today is not the same as before, you want an agent you can trust to help you navigate the industry. We know what you are looking for. Talk to David Trubey,

Sources & Work Cited https://therealdeal.com/ la/2020/04/07/inland-empire-housing-market-is-socals-worst-positioned-to-weather-pandemic-falloutreport/ https://www.firstteam.com/riversidecounty-real-estate-market-update/ https://www.kvcrnews.org/post/sbcounty-face-covering-clarification?fbc lid=IwAR1TOR9UxDH30X8doHGDYu1kP qyeQldB4LDsJ1nee7SqdnlPIFAp79tMd YE#stream/0

THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

NPHS LAUNCHES 2020 CAMPAIGN FOR HOMEOWNERSHIP

Ameer Elahee

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art of the American dream is homeownership, and because of that, most Americans have accepted that owning a home is the right thing and even an obligatory thing to do. A home is an attractive long term investment in that, while the real estate prices are cyclical, and homeowners should not expect the property value to increase overnight, staying in that home for a while there is a good chance that you will sell your home for a profit because of the appreciation in the future.

Despite the few dramatic recession, the country has faced in the past, with the most recognizable one being the financial crisis of 2008, residential real estate tends to rise in value. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, the average price of the sold houses in the U.S. rose from $340,400 in Q3 2014 to $380,300 in Q3 2019, which is a 10 percent increase in just five years. If we go back further, in Q3 2009, homes fetched about $274,100, which means a 28 percent increase in value.

Additionally, owning a home is a quick way of building equity. Home equity is the difference between how much you still owe on your mortgage and the market price of your home. This is true because, over time, your home value will grow, which also means that the equity of your home will also grow. As you pay your mortgage, the equity of your home will also grow, with less of the payments going towards the interest and more towards lowering the

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balance on your loan.

Understanding some of these benefits will help you make sense of why we encourage people to buy homes. That is why in January this year, the Neighborhood Partnership Housing Services launched the “Just Click HOME� campaign that aims to connect households from diverse backgrounds to services that help build awareness that homeownership is possible. Given the current economic times, it is so much easy to think getting into a home is impossible, than accepting that it is.

The Just Click HOME campaign is dedicated to increasing homeownership rates and addressing related barriers, especially for the minority and vulnerable communities across the region. NHPS serves the counties of San Bernardino, Riverside, and Eastern Los Angeles, helping these areas build resilient and healthier communities. The campaign

THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

by NHPS also aims to inform the broader home buying community that starting the homeownership process just got a lot easier within the NHPS’ online resources.

To achieve this goal, NHPS has dedicated much of its resources advertising through the online space, across all its social media outlets, through its “Just Click HOME” campaign. With just a couple of clicks, a homebuyer can find out how much they can afford to purchase, prequalifying for a home loan, and even request a Realtor. A dedicated home buying advisor will guide them every step of the way.

“We want people to know there are resources out there to help them become successful homeowners. We want to show them how to start their journey to homeownership,” says Carlos Tena, Vice President of Programs and Services. “Signing-up takes under 5 minutes. It’s that easy,” says Tena.

Through your mobile phone, you can start your home buying journey by first creating a personal profile. The homebuyers will then work with their home buying Advisor to get prequalified, secure a home loan, inquire about the down payment assistance resources, sign-up for homebuying workshop, and finally select a realtor.

The NHPS and its partners have combined their resources and outreach efforts to raise awareness and also to reach more potential homebuyers, many of whom have self-selected themselves out of ownership.

dispel myths about homeownership, and information and resources are available to them,” said Tena.

Indeed, these are not ordinary times in case you are wondering whether to buy your home now.

Essentially the best time to buy a home is in the late summer or early fall, but with the pandemic, most buyers are worried. The NHPS has provided you with a unique opportunity, but you are being held back by fears. Also note that the FED has slashed down the interest rates to counter the economy-crippling effects of the pandemic, which makes much sense to buy right now. Still nervous? Talk to one of the masterminds behind this campaign, Ameer Elahee, who also is a member of the VIP Agents, a program run by The Power Is Now Media. Find out more about the program here.

Mr. Ameer Elahee is a very successful realtor, consultant, international speaker, and motivational life coach. One of Ameer’s true passion is real estate sales, first-time homebuyers, and homeownership education. Currently, Ameer is fulfilling his lifelong passion in real estate at Keller William’s, where he has achieved every milestone he could as a market leader in the organization where he is very involved. Talk to Ameer today and learn more about the Just Click HOME campaign. To find out more about Ameer, go to https://thepowerisnow.com/ vipagentsservices/test/. Or find an agent near you here.

Sources & Work Cited

https://nphsinc.org/just-click-home/ https://nphsinc.org/2020/02/14/nphs-community-landtrust-jpm/

“The most important thing is not to get caught up in that ‘We can’t be a homeowner’ myth. NPHS is here

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IMPORTANT MESSAGE: MORTGAGE PAYMENT OPTIONS CLARIFICATION

Forbearance

Repayment Plan

The changing environment is impacting many people due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Almost every aspect of our lives has been changed. Countless lives have been lost.

Our economy has taken a huge blow due to the financial pressures brought by this Pandemic. Our hearts and prayers go out to the families of the countless lives lost and those battling for their lives. Our prayers also go out to the many men and women who have been classified as ‘Essential’ workers.

Hats off to these brave souls who are making the ultimate sacrifice on the frontlines of our communities.

One of the industries that have been impacted tremendously is the Mortgage and Banking Industry. As a 25+ year veteran of the Mortgage, Banking, and Community Development Industry, this is personal for me. Having lived through several market shifts, the mortgage industry is reeling at the moment. As a result, Congress passed the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security). This act is designed to help individuals, families, and businesses sustain our economy during the Pandemic and lay the groundwork for economic sustainability, recovery, and growth after it ends.

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Loan Modification

A substantial part of the CARES Act revolves around Mortgage payments. For current mortgage holders, several options are available. I will detail three of them in subsequent paragraphs, but I want to make it very clear that wherever possible, please make your payments and keep them up to date. There are three options; 1. Forbearance 2. Repayment Plan 3. Loan Modification.

2.

Repayment Plan - this will allow the mortgage holder to temporarily forgo payments and then take any missed payments and divide them up and make them over an extended period (usually 6-9 months) by adding them to the existing mortgage payment. This means that after a specified period, a mortgage holder may be asked to make the regular mortgage payment plus a portion of the missed payment (i.e., one full payment plus an additional 1/3 payment for three consecutive months). This is often a significant increase in the monthly mortgage obligation.

Loan Modification – This is the option that was made very popular during the last mortgage crisis and is one where the missed payments, penalties, and fees are added to the end of the mortgage. This could be compiled as a separate and silent mortgage that must be paid when

3.

1.

Forbearance – the CARES Act outlines the following: Mortgage holders can forgo making payments for up to 180 days (6 months) and then apply for an additional 180-day extension. This must all be done with the permission of the loan servicer. At the end of the agreed Forbearance period, the mortgage holder will be required to make all past due payments that have been accrued during the said Forbearance period. Additionally, Mortgage Servicers may need the mortgage holder to provide documentable proof that there was direct or indirect financial impact due to the Coronavirus before additional any steps are taken.

The loan is paid off via sale or refinance, or the mortgage could be re-amortized (recalculated) over the remainder of the loan terms or an extended period (i.e., from 20 remaining years to 30 years).

The individual mortgage servicer must approve all of the options, and the mortgage holder should get any such agreement in writing. Many services are offering assistance, but conventional wisdom is to encourage all homeowners to make their mortgage payments as long as possible. Another option is to get help to seek the advice of your local HUD Approved Counseling Agency (www.hud.gov) and agencies in the state of California can be found at https:// apps.hud.gov/offices/hsg/sfh/hcc/hcs. cfm?&webListAction=search&searchstate=CA Please be safe and keep your families and loved ones safe. And we will get through this together.

Ameer J. Elahee CA DRE #01313504

Cell 626-625-0099 www.AmeerElaheeHomes.com ameer@nphsinc.org or ameer@Icoachyouup.com

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RIVERSIDE HOUSING MARKET INDICATORS SHOULD I BE WORRIED? Ruby Frazier

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ousing is one of the most significant contributors to the GDP of the US economy.

Being that the GDP is considered as the preeminent measure of the economic performance and health in a country by most economic analysts, it wouldn’t be unfair to say that as the housing markets go, so does the economy of the country. Right now, the table is turned, and the narrative has changed in that, while the housing markets have had nothing to do with the current turmoil, its effect on the economy has been felt and continues to be felt in the housing market.

On a more practical level, if you are looking to buy a home, you would want to know how the market is and how it is performing, relative to other markets, just to get an idea of what you should be expecting.

Right now, acting in your favor are low-interest rates and low mortgage rates, which means it is time to get yourself in your dream house. If you are a seller, on the other hand, you might also be excited by the fact that the inventory is generally very low, which is the primary reason why prices over the last few years have been skyrocketing.

If you are in the market housing hunting, the pandemic that has almost crippled the global economy might have you worried about buying or even selling your home. One of the questions that you might have come across is will the COVID-19 WWW.THEPINMAGAZINE.COM

causes housing collapse. We were expecting a competitive housing season this year in light of the historically low mortgage rates and the near rockbottom inventory. While economic recessions do not touch the housing markets severely, the coronavirus pandemic is making markets all over the country anything but ordinary.

Zillow conducted a study to analyze the effects of pandemics on housing markets and concluded that while home sales suffered a dramatic decrease, prices remained relatively the same, which makes much sense because it is relatively hard for prices to change when there are fewer transactions. What the previous pandemic did was to pause the market, with no major changes.

That brings the question, what happens next. When all this is over, what will happen? Will the mortgage rate or interest rates remain low? And what about the prices? The best course of action is to act now because it is uncertain what the pandemic means for the future of the economy or the housing market. In this issue of the TPIN magazine, I will help you make sense of the Riverside housing market so that you can make an informed decision.

While the low-interest rates might be encouraging you to take the big leap, there are several factors

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you need to consider. And given that we are literally in the brink of a recession, who knows what kind of social, political, and economic fallout this pandemic might bring.

“Assuming you can afford a mortgage and the other costs involved and your job is not in danger of being cut, then yes,” says Amanda Abella, millennial business coach and author of Make Money Your Honey. “Smart investors and people who are financially savvy know these times are ridden with opportunity because the general public is going to contract. But every individual situation is different.

Unless you’re sitting on pretty hefty savings and know your industry won’t be impacted by what’s going on, then you should err on the side of caution.”

While she sounds so optimistic, there is a good reason to be cautious. One thing you have to understand is that, while we are saying that you should take advantage of the low-interest rates, you should also know that interest rates have very little to do with all the costs associated with purchasing a home like property taxes, insurance and the closing costs that can range from one to five percent of the closing price.

Also, it is worth noting that while people are excited about the “historically low mortgage rates,” they are not zero percent. “Lower interest rates mean lower monthly mortgage payments on your home loan; therefore, you technically can pay more since your monthly costs are lower,” says Drew DeWitt, senior vice president of investments for Ivy Equities.

“However, it also means that there is a greater risk in the economy in general. The FED drops rates to spur growth when there is a risk of unemployment and people not being able to make their monthly mortgage payments. As a result, banks will tighten their lending standards, and it may be harder actually to secure a mortgage despite the lower rates. This is where people get confused.”

While the rates play a significant role in how the situation for buyers and sellers might play out, there are still logistical issues at play. Assuming that you could buy a home right now, most buyers prefer visiting the home, carrying along a home inspector to inspect the house. Even if your offer is accepted, you still need to close, hire movers to help you move into the property. All these things are affected by the 48 l

virus, and depending on the amount of time it will take to contain the virus, doing all these activities might be impossible.

However, one mans’ meat is another mans’ poison.

“Because of the instability in the world, sellers may be forced to sell at a huge discount that could even exceed 10 to 20 percent below what their fair market asking price is,” says Danielle Lurie, a licensed real estate salesperson with Compass. “It’s a shame for the sellers, but if a buyer buying a home at a discount today is helping to relieve a seller’s financial worries during this unstable time in the world, even if the property sells for less than the seller may have initially hoped, then this can still be a win-win.”

However, note that more sellers are willing to take their home off the market due to the virus, which means it might be hard to make your decision, especially a life-altering decision knowing that you do not see everything the market has to offer.

So, should you buy a home right now? It depends on you. If you want more industry insights, especially for real estate in Riverside County, talk to Ruby Frazier. Ruby is one of the most talented realtors in Riverside, and she is part of the VIP Agents program.

A program run and powered by the Power Is Now Media. Find out more about VIP Agents program here.

Ruby is the President and CEO of Frazier Group Realty Inc., a full-service real estate company with a dynamic team. The company’s approach is tailored to each of our clients. Frazier Group Realty is located in the heart of Downtown Riverside, California, servicing the Inland Empire, Orange, and Los Angeles counties. Focusing on residential and commercial real estate as well as property management.

Ruby’s objective is to assist buyers and sellers reach their real estate goals. To find out more about ruby, follow this link; https://thepowerisnow.com/ vipagentsservices/ruby-frazier/.

Sources & Work Cited

https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifestyle/a31897953/ buying-house-coronavirus/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/business/buyinga-home-coronavirus.html https://www.realtor.com/research/march-2020-data/ THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

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LOOKING TO BUY? Start with Irvine and Here’s why...

Cornelius L. Jackson Imagine a sunny community, with everything you need, the best neighborhoods and the funniest people in Southern California- Irvine, that is what you get!

Irvine is a city located in the sunny orange county. It is one of the wealthiest and safest cities in America. With a fairly stable economy sustained by technology, highereducation institutions and a host of semiconductor companies, certainly, Irvine is the best place to settle and raise a family. There are so many reasons to move in Irvine including

a steady job market, warm weather, beautiful scenery, safety and many others.

Irvine is a few miles away from the flashy coastal town of Newport Beach and a cruise around the UC Irvine Campus. But allow me to introduce Irvine, California.

LOW COST OF LIVING

• Irvine is one of the most affordable cities in California Rent: the average cost of a a1-bedroom apartment in Irvine is around$1,690 and for a 2-bedroom apartment is $2,080. These prices make Irvine and Santa Ana area the 12th priciest place to live in the United States.

• Transportation: for the monthly transit passes, that will cost you roughly $75 on average.

• Food costs: for the residents in the Greater LA area, they usually spend 12.4% of their household budget on food.

• Taxes: sales tax in Irvine is 6.5%.

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THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

WEATHER

This is probably one of the best things about Irvine. It has some of the mildest weather in the country. The year-round highs are in the 70s while the lows barely go below 50s and less than 15 inches of rainfall in a year. All these factors make Irvine one of the best and easy place to live. Around July to August, temperatures here are blazing reaching highs of 80, which gives you a fresh perspective of the beaches in Irvine.

The hot dry winds occasionally cause wildfires, as such you should be very ready to move out if told do so.

TRANSPORTATION

Of course, one of the best things about Southern California is MetroLink, a train system throughout southern California and connects Irvine to a number of Orange Los Angeles Counties cities.

If you don’t like the train system, no worries, take a bus with iShuttle which operates in Irvine.

However, if you like efficiency, it is probably best you use your own car. You will find that Irvine is quite car dependent. It is located in between both the 5 and the 405 freeways. Therefore, having a car will definitely come in handy.

BEST EDUCATION

It is no secret that Irvine is a destination for education. This is especially true if you’re talking about college education. Irvine is the home to the University of California, Irvine Valley College, Concordia University, Satellite Campuses of Pepperdine University, University of Southern California and Webster University. Apart from world class universities, the public schools in Irvine rank among the first and best in California.

Students in Irvine lead the Orange County in WWW.THEPINMAGAZINE.COM

SAT scores and nearly 97 percent of high school graduates attend college.

IRVINE IS ONE OF THE SAFEST CITIES

According to the FBI statistics, Irvine has for 11 years been consistently ranked as one of the cities with the lowest violent crime rate in America, for the cities with more than 100,000 residents.

If you are looking for the best place to move to, Irvine is the answer. If you are convinced, give Cornelius L. Jackson a call today and let him give you a tour around the best properties in Irvine. Mr. Jackson is an industry veteran and is part of the Power Is Now VIP Agents program.

To learn more about the program and how it is helping realtors, click here.

As a highly successful realtor, broker, credit repair expert and former law enforcement officer, Cornelius Jackson uses his wealth of skills and experience to run his company, CLJ Realty Group. Cornelius considers himself a true “marketing broker” because he does not just list a property and forget about it – he expertly markets the listing to get the best sale possible.

Cornelius has worked in real estate for fourteen years and started his company, CLJ Realty Group in Orange County, California, just over four years ago. To learn more about Cornelius click here.

As such, in a market that can quite confuse you, you need a person to help you navigate it cleverly and that person is Cornelius. With more than 14 years in the industry, you can be sure to get valuable help and resources from Cornelius.

Sources & Work Cited https://livability.com/ca/irvine/things-to-do/8reasons-to-move-to-irvine-ca https://www.zumper.com/blog/moving-guide-toirvine/

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THE NEW REALITY OF THE HOUSING MARKET IN THE BAY AREA

Lewis Sanders III

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n March, the governor for California gave the stay at home order. And while the order is meant for good, to save American lives at a time when the US is leading the death toll, the order brought to light a series pandemic that lawmakers have been struggling with for a long time. The terms “housing crisis” provoke serious questions that previously were ignored. How do you shelter in place without a home? How do you isolate yourself in an overcrowded apartment?

With the coronavirus pandemic pushing the global economy to the brink of collapse, California is yet again struggling with finding a solution for the more than 150,000 Californians without a home. State legislators were introducing controversial bills to help ease the situation by making it easier for the builders to develop more buildings, with the hope to counter the crippling shortage, which was responsible for the skyrocketing prices and rents in the country. The Newsom and the local administration were about to square off over how to spend the $1 billion in proposed help for the homeless.

While that may seem like decades ago, the coronavirus pandemic has brought to light a serious issue, and the housing crisis means something different for the state.

First of all, the state’s housing crisis makes it very difficult to deal with the pressing COVID-19 crisis.

How will California be able to protect more than 150,000 homeless Californians from the virus that’s spreading like wildfire? The governor gave orders to stay at home, where do these people go. The state is reporting that 108,000 people are sleeping outside; 43,000 people are in shelters, which both are major underestimates. These figures are more than one year old, and not only that, counting the homeless people in such a state is inherently unscientific and imprecise given the time it took. Simply, this means more emergency housing units, money, and supplies WWW.THEPINMAGAZINE.COM

will be needed than what the official statistics might indicate.

Remember that California is the leading state when it comes to the homeless population, which means, as other states advance their fight against the Coronavirus pandemic, California will be stepping back trying to deal with the homelessness crisis. Most of the homeless people are seniors with underlying health conditions and are very susceptible to COVID-19.

While that is one dimension of housing that is making the fight against the coronavirus so hard, there are other dimensions at play. California is ranked at the top of the worst states in the country, mostly because of overcrowding. The issue of overcrowding stems from the high costs of living in California.

That issue presents a whole new set of problems for the millions of Californians who have been ordered to stay at home, especially if the household member is showing signs of COVID-19 infections.

One of the guidelines given by the CDC is that if a person is showing signs and symptoms, they should isolate themselves in a “sick-room” with a separate bathroom.

That, for millions of Americans, maybe a problem.

The coronavirus presents the most pressing issue and needs to be dealt with ASAP, but researchers are worried about the long-term physical and health effects brought about by overcrowding if the schools and jobs remained closed for a long while.

“On a daily basis, people are experiencing the crowdedness of their homes for longer periods of time throughout the day,’ said Claudia Solari, who researches housing overcrowding at the Urban l

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Institute. “That kind of longer exposure could be a problem.”

Supposing that the state can come up with an ingenious solution to house the unhoused. It would take extraordinary effort to accomplish this in totality. The state gave the local governments $100 million for emergency shelters with more money on the way. It went ahead to purchase about 1,300 trailers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to isolate homeless people who are symptomatic and also offered to negotiate leases with more than 950 hotels on behalf of the counties to get more people off the streets. Luckily, two hotels have bought the idea in Oakland, providing 393 rooms.

Los Angeles is the county with the most homeless count, and it has recently announced that efforts are underway to convert 42 city recreational centers to emergency shelters to create 6,000 new beds. The efforts both by the local governments and the state are so much encouraging, but as swift, as they are, the task ahead is quite demanding, and it won’t be easy. This leaves one question for the public health experts and providers of services for the homeless.

For instance, in the coming weeks, how will health officers discharge someone homeless with a directive to self isolate? Or what do you do with encampments if a person starts coughing or has a running fever?

All these questions pose a problematic situation in the near future. It brings the question of whether large-scale sweeps may be necessary, but public health experts argue that dispersing an encampment would be an even larger public health risk. However, there is also the fear that the contagion could be a pretext for the governments to sweep people off the street, especially for the Trump administration, which has threatened such an action before.

Going by the models provided by the state, it shows that up to 60,000 people could fall sick from the contagion, and about 20 percent of these people will require hospitalization.

For the people already owning a home, the situation could get even worse for the homeowners and renters. Homeowners with a mortgage are a particular risk unless a bolder action is taken by the federal and the state government. For instance, some federal lawmakers are pushing for a $1,000 stimulus check for the American people. That’s encouraging. But a check like that can only cover rent for the average one-bed apartment in Phoenix or Dallas but not is a place like San Francisco, where it could only cover half what a one-bed apartment costs.

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Another issue at play is that rents and probably the home prices may go down. Well, that sounds merry, but it is not. Economists are saying that it is like the county is already in recession. At this point, it is uncertain what the breadth and the depth of recession look like. The worst scenario can play out, leaving 20% unemployment and a massive layoff over a prolonged period, all of which are scary outcomes. In most other recessions, as the jobs and incomes went down, so did the home prices and rents. Supposing that the coronavirus induces a downturn in the economy, which is brief and the economy rebounded, the rents and home prices might only dip temporarily. However, the possibility of a prolonged drop in housing costs is quite real.

If the pricing for houses drops, is that not a good thing? Well, not really. A rapid decline in home prices and rents could be beneficial to the Californians who can keep their jobs and incomes steady, but for the low-income earners, especially those in the service sectors, the rent will not drop as fast as the incomes, thars the reality, making Bay Area a whole new level of unaffordable.

If you are looking for market insights about the Bay Area, talk to Lewis Sanders. He is an industry expert operating in the Bay Area. Lewis is part of the Power Is Now VIP Agents program. Find out more about the program here.

Lewis is a licensed real estate expert for many years.

He started working in the communications business learning to establish myself with the public and local communities by serving as a barbershop business owner in the Bay Area. There he discovered his hidden talent and skills through helping my clients as he entered the mortgage industry, which led to his career as a licensed real estate agent.

To find out more about the Bay Area, contact Lewis.

If you would like to purchase a property in the Bay Area, Lewis has the best houses at a very affordable rate. The good news is that you do not have to worry about down payments, Lewis will show you an easy way to get into a home with zero money down. Find out more about Lewis and his work here.

Sources & Work Cited

https://calmatters.org/housing/2020/03/californiacoronavirus-housing-crisis-renters-homelessness-covid19gavin-newsom/ https://www.fancypantshomes.com/market-reports/realestate-developers-solution-for-bay-area-housing-market https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/01/04/pessimismseeping-into-bay-area-home-market-for-new-year/

I THINK IT’S TIME

WE START WORRYING ABOUT THE HOUSING MARKET AGAIN.

Kenneth Session A while back, Louis Hansen with the Mercury News wrote, “Housing economists and real estate professionals are pessimistic about the Bay Area in 2020 — but don’t expect a crash to bring saner prices or slower sales.” Little did he, or the experts knew what was in a store not just for the Bay Area, but for the whole country. Right now, I am not so sure about what the pandemic means for the entire country, but what I do know is, it might bring saner prices… or not.

The sales of existing homes in February jumped 6.5% month-tomonth to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 5.77 million units, according to recent data by the National Association of Realtors. This is the highest jump in 13 years. While this year’s spring was looking way better, for all real estate stakeholders, it took a sharp turn as the economy shut down.

The Northeast perhaps was the only region to see a decline, with the sales going down 4.1%, but the situation in the west was a different one. Despite prices being high, sales were up nearly 19%.

“I would attribute that to the 56 l

incredibly low mortgage rates and the steady release of a sizable pent-up housing demand that was built over recent years,” wrote Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the NAR in a release.

HOUSING CRASH

crashes have been caused by asset bursts. And one of the signs of a potential bubble is the rapidly rising home prices. Prices for homes all over the country have been growing in the last decade, reaching an all-time high in Q1,2020 of $212,433. This was a 15% increase than the July 2006 record high of $184,613, according to the Case Shiller HPI. In a similar account, the S&P Homebuilder Select Industry Index has risen dramatically, rising by 250% from 1,372 on October 5, 2011, to 4,867 on February 12, 2020. Since then, it has been falling, reaching 2,486 in March 2020.

So, the big question is, should we be expecting a housing crash?

If we go back in history, you will notice that most of the housing

The Housing Bellwether Barometer, which is an index for the homebuilders and mortgage companies, in 2017, it skyrocketed like it did back in 2004-05.

Another factor that we should be concerned about is the increase in unregulated mortgage brokers.

In 2018, these brokers originated 53.6% of the U.S. Mortgages.

Additionally, 5 of the nation’s top 10 largest mortgage lenders are not banks and are not regulated by banks, which means, in the event

At the beginning of the crisis, real estate experts were quite optimistic about the housing markets.

American too, while there were fears about a real estate market crash, the stock market crash worsened those fears, and now the question most people are asking, is housing next?

The survey by NAR shows that about 90% of experts agree that the coronavirus pandemic has reduced the interest buyers had.

Of those, about 60% are merely delaying buying a home just to see how the next few months will turn out to be, with also most 63% of the hopeful buyers expecting that the prices will go down.

THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

of a collapse, they would be much more vulnerable to collapse if the housing market softens again.

Even though right now, the FED cut the interest rates, they had been rising. Higher interest rates make the loan much more expensive resulting in slow homebuilding and a decrease in housing supply. A high-interest rate will slow lending, ultimately reducing the demand.

However, interest rates have very little to do with the other costs associated with housing, and a slow and steady interest rate won’t create a catastrophe, but when you have a rapidly rising interest rate, you should be worried.

AFFORDING PAYMENTS

Back in 2006, high-interest rates preceded the crash. Most borrowers at the time had taken out interest-only loans and

adjustable-rate mortgages. Many also at the time had introductory teaser rates that could reset after three years. When the FEDs raised the scales at the same time they reset, borrowers found themselves in a position they could no longer afford the payments. And while the home prices had fallen, most of these borrowers could not make payments or sell the home, which resulted in massive defaults.

But if you can analyze the behavior of the federal funds rate, you will see that between the years 2004 and 2006, the FED raised the rates too fast.

An inverted yield curve is another sign that things are not going on well. When the yield curve on U.S. Treasury notes inverts, it should tell you that something is not right. This is when the interest rates for the

short-term Treasurys become higher than the long-term. When the yield curve inverts, it shows that investors think that short-term gains are much more beneficial than the long-term benefits. This wreaks havoc with the mortgage market and often a sign of recession.

Another factor we should be concerned about is the stock market crash. In the last quarter of 2018, there was a violent 20% sell-down in the S&P 500. The S&P 500 is a reflection of the economy, and this 20% sell down ought to be taken seriously. It merely means that the future is not looking so bright.

We should agree that the FED continuously make policy errors, and to add to that, the Trump trade wars, to a slowing global economy, to a potential conflict with Iran, companies will be much more cautious about spending. What do you think? Are we headed for a crash? Let me know.

If you are dying to buy your primary residence today, make sure that you know what is going on in the market right now. Talk to Don Dunbar, a real estate guru with the Dunbar Real Estate group today to find out more about the Oakland and Bay Area housing market. Dunbar is also part of the VIP Agents program powered by The Power Is Now Media. To learn more about the program, and Don Dunbar click here.

Sources; https://www.financialsamurai.com/ time-to-start-worrying-about-thehousing-market-again/ https://www.nytimes. com/2020/03/21/realestate/ coronavirus-pandemic-is-it-agood-or-terrible-time-to-buy-ahome.html https://www.thebalance.com/isthe-real-estate-market-going-tocrash-4153139 l

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Eric Lawrence Frazier MBA Vice President & Mortgage Advisor

(714) 475-8629

eric.frazier@fbol.com 104 E Ontario Ave Corona, CA 92879 NMLS: 461807

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Oakland?

TO BUY IN LOOKING

Talk to Dunbar Real Estate Group first

R

Don Dunbar

ealtors aren’t just agents. These are people who are professionally trained and understand their areas better than nobody. They will tell you when’s the right time to buy, and when to sell. When it gets tough, these are the people to go to. You have to remember that, buyers and sellers are on separate side of the table when it comes to real estate transactions. What you are trying to achieve as a buyer is diametrically opposed to what the seller is looking to get. While one wants to steal property, the other is looking for a top dollar, yet, they share one common goal, they want a sale.

It is possible to close a transaction without a real estate agent. However, in most cases and in my

Industry experts

Selling or buying a home is a complex process. You need to consult with experts who know what they are doing. For instance, selling a home usually requires a dozen forms, reports, disclosures and a bunch of other technical documents. If you do not have guidance on how to go about these documents, the whole process will be overwhelming, which might confuse you in the end. An expert like Don will help you prepare the best deals, and work to avoid delays and some other costly mistakes. Additionally, real estate transactions involve much complex jargon, something you might not understand. As such, it is best to leave it to experts.

experience, most of these transactions often miss something. It is so easy to get something wrong.

Additionally, you don’t go for a real estate for transactional purposes only. Given that agents are experts in their area, they will help you navigate the complex real estate waves. If you are looking to buy in Oakland, Dunbar Real Estate Group is the company you should be looking for. Dunbar is an industry expert who understands his market area better than anybody. Let me introduce you to Dunbar Real Estate Group and tell you why you should work with this company.

Objective opinions

If you are new to an area, you want to know everything about it before moving in. It is understandable, after all, this is the place you probably will spend the rest of your life. Don has been a resident of Oakland for a very long time which means, he will provide you with information on the utilities, zoning, schools and more. Given that most realtors are residents of their areas, they will give you a fresh perspective and objective information about each property.

When you come to Dunbar Real Estate Group, you will be guided using accurate data to help you determine if the property is what you need.

Marketing Gurus

As a seller, you aim to work with a person who is knowledgeable not just in matters real estate, but has the marketing power. Most of the properties do not sell due to advertising alone. A large share of an agent’s sales come from previous contacts. Dunbar Real Estate Group has connections not just in California but across the country. Don will personally prescreen and accompany qualified prospects through your property.

In as much as professionalism is essential in real estate when you come to Dunbar Real Estate Group, you not only get a trustworthy realtor but friends too. To learn more about Dunbar Real Estate, go to; https://thepowerisnow.com/vipagentsservices/don-dunbar/

Unbelievable!

Robert Langston

o t n e m a r c a S

THERE ARE STILL AFFORDABLE HOMES IN

F

or six straight years, Sacramento had been one of the areas where you could not find an affordable home, but in the summer of 2019, thousands of Sacramento residents could afford a home there, reversing a trend of decreasing home affordability in the county. About 40 percent of the local

households could afford a median-priced home of about $385,000, which was a figure up from 41 percent in 2018. One of the main reasons for this was the lower interest rates and reduced house price competition. Right now, it’s even better. With $356,830, you can find a home in Sacramento.

WHY MOVE TO SACRAMENTO California is indeed packed with desirable places to live. While other destinations may be popular, moving to Sacramento is ideal for the people who are looking for a haven in the west. The city of Sacramento is home to approximately 500,000 residents, and although the city limits may be on the smaller side, Sacramento has over 1 million residents settling in the suburbs.

Over the last decade, there has been a notable population shift within the California county.

Most people cannot afford the cost of living in the coastal regions, and moving inwards to areas like Sacramento seems like a reasonable choice. Despite the city not being the first

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choice for most, Sacramento city has more to offer than the lower cost of living. Sacramento is close to everything. The bay area, the ocean, the Redwoods, Lake Tahoe, the Sierra Mountains, Yosemite, and so much more. When it comes to event, Sacramento has won it all. We now have the Golden One Center for the Sacramento Kings and many other outstanding events and concerts.

Other than that, the economy of Sacramento is very strong. While over the recent past, Sacramento has been through tough economic times, the recession of 2007-08 has attributed to lower housing costs and a lower cost of living. If you have a steady flow of income, you will find that Sacramento is the best affordable place to live in California.

Just like in many other places, housing prices and rents vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. To compare, the total cost of living for Sacramento is 5% above the national average.

Well, you might think this higher, but consider a place like Los Angeles where the cost of living is 21.5% above the national average.

Even though Sacramento has one of the highest unemployment rates, higher than most other parts of California, that is not to say that Sacramento isn’t without a fair job market.

Because it is the state capital, state jobs here are more abundant than in any other parts of California. The economy is still recovering from the effects of the 2007-08 recession and people have been feeling more secure in their jobs. The housing prices have gone up, some house prices have climbed higher than before the recession.

Are you looking to buy your dream home in Sacramento County, California?

If you are a home buyer, talk to Bobby Langston.

His foremost goal is to provide you with exceptional customer service. His goals are to help you purchase the right home, make sure you don’t miss out on any homes that meet your needs and make sure you don’t pay too much for your next home. Go ahead and utilize his Sacramento County real estate expertise to make your home search and buying experience as stress-free and rewarding as possible.

Bobby is also one of the VIP Agents. This is a program run and powered by The Power Is Now Media. To learn more about this program, click here.

With a strong desire to help buyers and sellers in all types of situations, Robert E. Langston lends his expertise as a real estate broker in and around the surrounding areas of Fairfield and Sacramento, California. For the best results, you want to work with an agent who understands his market well, and Bobby is your agent. Learn more about Bobby and how he can help you buy your dream home here.

Sources & Work Cited https://www.lifestorage.com/blog/moving/moving-tosacramento-ca/ https://www.sacbee.com/article233617312.html

SOLANO COUNTY

Market Info AND Trends

Charles Reynolds

Everything you need to know from an Investor Perspective

S

olano County is one of the best places to live and work in California. The county is unique in that it has an inviting mix of rural and suburban lifestyles and easy access to all of the urban amenities associated with two of the nation’s most dynamic metropolitan areas.

Solano county is situated midway between San Francisco and Sacramento- the state capitol.

ACCESS

The county can be accessed by Oakland, Sacramento and the San Francisco International Airports. The general aviation can utilize Vacaville, Rio Vista, Napa and Concord airports. The county is linked to San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento by the Interstate 80.

MARKET TRENDS

The median home value in Solano County is $452,504, according to Zillow. Data also shows that home values in the county have gone up 2.6% over the past year and it is predicted that they will rise 4.2% within the next year. The median list price per square foot in Solano county 66 l

Solano County is the home to rolling hillsides, waterfronts and fertile farmlands. While some parts of the county are located on the beautiful San Pablo Bay, Suisun Bay and the Sacramento River delta, the inland areas of the county offer large pieces of agricultural lands. The county has varied geographic location which allows access to diverse areas. is $269, which is the same as the Vallejo-Fairfield Metro.

The median home price of homes currently listed in Solano County is $449,049, while the median price of homes sold is $442,000. The median rent price in Solano County is $2,275, which is the same as the Vallejo-Fairfield Metro median of $2,275.

FORECLOSURE STATISTICS

In 2018, Solano county was reported to be the county not just in California but in the country with the highest foreclosure rate among the larger metro areas. The foreclosure rate stood at 3.48 per cent in the Vallejo-Fairfield area. The first step of THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

foreclosure is mortgage delinquency. This usually happens when a homeowner is unable to pay for their mortgage payment. In 2018, the mortgage delinquency rate in Vallejo-Fairfield Market dropped nearly 3 per cent from where it was in 2017. Today, data shows Solano county mortgage delinquencies stand at 0.7% which is lower than the national average of 1.1%. The percentage of Solano County homeowner’s underwear on their mortgage is 5.6% which is the same as the Vallejo-Fairfield Metro at 5.6%.

VALLEJO-FAIRFIELD HOUSING MARKET FORECAST

According to Littlebighomes.com, with an accuracy rate of 74%, the forecast for the trend in the Vallejo-Fairfield housing market for three years ending with the 3rd quarter of 2021 is up. This means that when tested against historical data, the forecasting methodology used by the company was correct 74% of the time. Accordingly, the company also estimates that the probability of rising house prices in the market area is 74% during this period.

If the forecast is correct, it means that home values in the market will be higher in the 3rd quarter of 2021 than they were in the 3rd quarter of 2018.

SHOULD I INVEST IN SOLANO COUNTY?

Yes. The real estate sales, especially in the Northern Solano county, are quite steady. However, the shrinking inventory continues to be a challenge for the buyers and real estate agents in the county. The upper end of the market is quite healthy, and if a property is priced right, you will get multiple offers. If you want to learn more about the Vallejo-Fairfield housing market, talk to Charles Reynolds.

Charles is an expert in all things real estate. If you are looking to buy or sell, Charles is your guy. He knows first-hand the overwhelming and stress of selling and buying a home. For the past 19 years, he has help clients understand the process of buying and selling a home, also has help clients understand the process of obtaining a mortgage for purchase or refinancing in the areas of Northern California, Solano County, Vacaville, Fairfield, and Vallejo. To learn more about Charles, click here.

Charles is also part of the VIP Agents program. This is a program powered and run by the Power Is Now Media. To learn more about the program, click here.

Sources & Work Cited

https://www.foreclosurelistings.com/list/CA/SOLANO/ FORECLOSURE/ https://www.thereporter.com/2012/03/15/solano-county-hashighest-foreclosure-rate-in-us/ https://www.zillow.com/solano-county-ca/home-values/ https://www.zillow.com/vallejo-ca/home-values/

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HOUSING INVENTORY IN SF TAKES A DIVE DURING THE CORONA VIRUS EMERGENCY

But for How Long?

C

alifornia is in serious need of housing. And during the coronavirus pandemic, more housing units are needed to shelter about 150,000 homeless people. At a time where we need good news, San Francisco’s home sales inventory have nearly vanished. In the weeks following the Stay-at-home orders by the governor, the number of new houses appearing on the MLS began falling with a great number of once-listed properties disappearing around the same time. The market has so far melted away.

Erick Hooks

Compass Real Estate reports that the rate of new listings in SF fell in midMarch, dropping to less than 20 per week by the end of the month. By the start of March, the number of active listings was roughly 1,000, and three weeks later, they had nosedived to just 550. At the same time, the number of listings pulled off the market increased in just a week between March 9 and March 16.

Following the Stay-at-home orders, the number of people visiting real estate sites dropped by one-third, but since then, they have risen slightly. But still, they were down 20 percent year-overyear. This is not just happening in SF, and a similar trend has been seen on the other side of the Bay. The East Bay saw only 55 new listings in the last week of March, meaning a 70 percent decline compared to the mid-March. The East Bay (including Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda) showed 374 homes listed last week, down 37 percent year over year.

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T

he lending markets are doing just fine, ironically. However, the biggest movers are not the mortgages, but the refinance requests.

According to the lending Tree, refinances were up 417 percent year over year in San Francisco, which was the highest rate in the country. This was followed closely by San Jose coming in third with 394 percent.

What we do not know right now are the effects of the pandemic over the long term. But what we do know for sure is that the longer-term benchmarks such as median prices won’t be affected for months.

Even with the unfortunate circumstances, San Francisco is in right now, and some real estate agents are continuing their work, as usual, placing their hopes in the strength of the SF home market, even with all signs pointing to a contracting market.

Despite the downturn, these agents persist that the appeal of the SF home market remains to be a top motivator. The notion is, if a home is pulled down from the MLS, there is a high chance that it is trading hands privately. Most of these agents believe that the time to act is now.

People do want to sell, but they are afraid. When this is all over, there will be a spike in inventory. Most of the missing inventory is from people who are so scared of having their properties lingering on the market without buyers, ultimately hurting their longterm prospects.

Questions of how long this will stay on like this might be moot. Right now, it is unclear the role realtors will play, given that they are even not allowed to perform basic tasks such as selling homes.

If you want to know more about the Bay Area housing market, talk to Eric Hooks. Eric brings a mix of experience and knowledge in real estate as an investigator for the state of California. Before his current job as an investigator and realtor, Eric served as a Consumer Affairs Representative for the California Public Utilities Commission, positions that require high levels of honesty and integrity— looking to buy? No problem, talk to Eric, looking to sell? Even better. There’s nothing better than working with someone who understands his market well. Eric is your realtor. To learn more about Eric Hooks, click here.

Sources

https://sf.curbed.com/2020/4/2/21201592/sf-housinghomes-inventory-coronavirus-covid-19 https://www.pulselive.co.ke/bi/tech/san-francisco-is-in-astate-of-emergency-as-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-hit18-heres/22sfklp

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RICHMOND HOUSING MARKET

Statistics April

Andre Jackson Not so long ago, Richmond Virginia was heralded as one of the hottest markets in the united states. Subsequently, housing prices in the area have persisted to increase, only growing at a very steady rate for nearly four years, up approximately 3 percent annually since 2010. This trend could be attributed to the regions’ steady job growth.

OVERVIEW OF THE RICHMOND MARKET

Richmond is one of the largest

and oldest cities in Virginia. The city has a population of about 228,783 people and 107 constituent neighborhoods. Richmond is the fifth largest community in Virginia.

The city has neither predominantly blue-collar nor white collar, but instead, it has a mix workforce of both. But generally, Richmond city is a city of professionals, service providers and sales and office workers. Most of the people who live in Richmond work in administrative support, sales job and management occupations.

You will also note that there is a good-sized population of young, 72 l

single, educated and upwardlymobile career starters in Richmond.

Most people consider Richmond as the place to live without being in a really big city, with so many opportunities for friendship and fun.

For transportation, a lot of people take the bus for their daily commute. Given the size of the city and the population, the number of people using public transportation is quite high. For many people in Richmond, this fills their need for low-cost transportation.

People in Richmond are fairly educated, relative to the national average among all the cities (21.84%): 38.49% of adults in Richmond have a bachelor’s

degree or even an advanced degree.

When it comes to the economy, the per capita income for Richmond residents in 2010 was $31,635 which is upper middle income relative to Virginia and the nation. This equates to an annual income $126,540 for a family of four.

Nonetheless, Richmond contains a mix of very wealthy and poor people.

Richmond is also known for its ethnic diversity. The residents of Richmond describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Richmond residents report their race to be Black,

followed by White.

HOUSING MARKET

In total, the number of houses in Richmond is estimated to be 89,846 with a median cost of $266,000.

Richmond real estate prices are well above the average cost compared to the national average.

The most common type of housing in Richmond are the single-family detached homes, which accounts for 48.68% of the city’s housing units. Other types of housing that are common in Richmond are large apartment complexes or the high-rise apartments accounting for about 32.07%, duplexes, homes converted to apartments or other small apartment buildings

According to the MLS, by mid-April 2020, the total available number of properties listed were 1,319. This was an increase from last month, up 3.13%.

Note that the appreciation rates give are the annual appreciation rates for Richmond city. Individual neighborhoods within Richmond differ in their investment potential.

If you would like to explore the Richmond real estate market, get in touch with one of our VIP Agents, Andre Jackson. The VIP Agents program is a program powered

accounting for 10.99% and a few row houses and other attached homes accounting for 7.75%.

The people living in Richmond city primarily live in small (one, two or no bedroom) single-family detached homes. The city has a mix of owner-occupied and renteroccupied housing.

APPRECIATION RATES

Appreciation rates for the homes in Richmond have been tracking above average for the last 10 years. The cumulative appreciation rate over the 10 years has been 35.82%, which puts Richmond in the top 30% nationwide. This equates to an annual average appreciation rate of 3.11%.

and run by the Power Is Now Media. To learn more about the Program, click here.

Bishop Andre W. Jackson is a native of Richmond, California where he still resides and for over 21 years has owned Jackson Medical Supplies and Equipment.

He owns a record label, Ground Up Record & Production Co., and is the Vice-President of BASA Publishing and The American Clergy Leadership Conference of Northern California and National Co-Chair. Bishop graduated from

According to NeighborhoodScout, during the latest 12 months, Richmond appreciation rate of 4.55% has been slightly above the national average. In the latest quarter, Richmond appreciation rate has been 0.18% which annualizes to a rate of 0.73%.

Compared with Virginia, the latest annual appreciation rate is higher than 80% of the other cities and towns in Virginia.

Below, you will find the statistics on residential listings in Richmond which we have updated from the MLS. This includes the average price, average days on the market, and average price reduction.

Sacramento Theological Seminary with a master’s degree in Christian Counseling and Theology and a doctorate degree in Christian Education and Theology. To learn more about Andre, click here.

Sources & Work Cited

https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ va/richmond/real-estate http://www.mls.com/search/virginia/ metro/richmond-area.mvc https://www.fortunebuilders.com/ richmond-real-estate-market-trends/

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EXPERT ADVICE:

SHOULD I BUY MY PROPERTY IN RICHMOND? Joe L. Fisher

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f you are thinking about investing in the Virginia property market, Richmond is one area that should come to your mind. This is a promising region in Southern Virginia that will be worth every penny. When investing in the property market, there are several things that you need to keep in mind; are you entering the market for an investment property, or are you thinking of expanding your investment portfolio?

There’s the importance of making that distinction because investment property can take many forms. However, generally speaking, any property that is purchased to bring the owner some type of return is considered an ABOUT RICHMOND

Now that you have a clear idea of what property investment is all about, it is time to learn more about Richmond city. Richmond was founded in 1742 and has grown to be known as the state capital rich in history and culture thanks to the many years of its making. The metro region of Richmond is home to more than a million residents, and the neighborhoods surrounding the city range from historic to hip to emerging hotspots.

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ECONOMY

investment property. On the other hand, while a single-family home may bring its owners a return, it is not considered an investment property, since it is used as a primary residence.

The return on investment that the owner should be expecting should come either from recurring income from the lease payments or the terminal sale, in some cases both. If the property will generate to the owner a recurring stream of revenue, it is considered as an income producing property. Raw land or speculative ‘for sale’ properties offer value to their owners only when sold and are thus considered ‘non-income producing’ properties.

As a city, Richmond is one of Virginia’s economic powerhouse.

Numerous work opportunities are ranging from cornerstone sectors like law and finance to emerging industries like biotech and medical research. Richmond is home to the US Courts of Appeal for the Fourth Circuit and the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond which means, law and finance are very well rooted industries that have, over the years, contributed to the city’s

growth for centuries.

The greater metropolitan area is home to the headquarters of eight fortune 500 companies, with several others having satellite offices in the region.

Some of the other notable and well-developing industries in the area include advertising, food and hospitality, film and television, and craft beer and liquor.

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CULTURE

Richmond city is rich in culture.

It has a rich history that has continued to evolve with each generation of modern influence, which makes it a perfect convergence of the new and the old. Richmond city is home to hundreds of museums, monuments, battlegrounds, and memorials commemorating moments of historical significance over the last 300+ years. That is not to say that the city is without modern charms. Richmond is endowed with microbreweries and distilleries spread amongst the area’s many and upcoming neighborhoods. Over the recent past, Richmond has become an emerging hotspot for foodies interested in experiencing its modern adaptations of traditional southern classics.

Investing in Richmond Real Estate Market

Now you have an idea of the Richmond city, let’s delve deeper into the real estate market and how Richmond is positioned to deliver profits to investors.

When it comes to finding a perfect property for you to buy or invest in Richmond, you have to go beyond the property itself.

This means that you have not just to consider the property, but the whole neighborhood.

The first and the easiest way to learn more about a neighborhood is to explore the local school system many families will be thinking about their children, and thus, they will be looking for educational options that will set them up for success later in life.

What you need to be looking for is a neighborhood with good schools and not necessarily the best schools. Usually, neighborhoods with best schools typically do not have properties with as much upside potentials which won’t fit the investment profile.

will ensure that there is a steady flow of investment from other flippers, buyers, or development companies.

When this is all sorted, next, you have to consider the commuter.

You’ll need to make sure that the neighborhood is at least close to the metropolitan area where buyers may work and that there are some viable options for their commute.

Sources & Work Cited

Rich as Richmond, surprisingly, the city doesn’t have a subway system, which means finding the perfect commute might be a challenge. Finally, you have to look for a neighborhood with a mix of new and older homes. This

It is just as simple and understandable as that. As a rule of thumb, remember, when it comes to real estate, location is everything. The location will determine the quality of schools, the length of commute the property value, among other things. To get the perfect place for your investment property, reach out to one of our VIP agents, Joel L Fisher. Joel is an industry guru and knows his way around the real estate in Richmond. To get in touch with him today, click here.

https://rarealtors.com/ housingreports/ http://marketminute.longandfoster. com/market-minute/va/richmondcity.htm https://www.redfin.com/city/17149/VA/ Richmond/housing-market https://www.fortunebuilders.com/ richmond-real-estate-market-trends/ https://www.missionrealty.com/ market-statistics/ https://blog.walnutstreetfinance.com/ your-guide-to-real-estate-investing-inrichmond-va

EVEN COVID-19 CAN’T STOP THE APPETITE

FOR A MORE flexible OFFICE SPACE

Jerel Washington Let’s face it;

what coronavirus pandemic has brought to the nation is nothing but scary thoughts, calling to mind the 9/11 or the 2008 financial crisis.

And it’s even worse because we don’t know when the situation will change, for as long as there is no cure, the situation will continue to get worse. It is a catastrophe that has reshaped everything, crippled the economy, but what’s worse is the uncertainty surrounding the virus. Governments all over the world have scrambled to slow the spread of the virus with measures such as mandatory quarantine requiring people to work from home.

Industries across the country have been affected adversely, but while the virus has not gone easy on flexible office providers, it seems that not even it can stop the demand for flexibility when it comes to office space. Even with the customers today working from home, and their leases coming to a rapid lapse, companies offering short-term office spaces are on the ropes compared to the traditional office operators who lease for longer periods. In the face of flagging revenue, the flexible office companies are taking drastic measures to cut the costs, with some providers laying as much as half of their staff.

This has been a major setback for these companies, but despite the hiccup, some of the industry professionals believe that in the long run, the pandemic will not do any real damage to the “real78 l

estate-as-a-service” models. They believe that the post corona pandemic could see elevated demand for flexible office space.

“This is no doubt a severe stress test to the business model,” said Michael Kloppenburg, senior consultant for flexible office solutions at Avison Young. “But the strong operators and owners positioned to survive the effects of this crisis will be rewarded with even greater focus by enterprise occupiers looking to apply flexibility to their real estate portfolios.”

For the past ten years, Kloppenburg has been tracking the rise and use of the real-estate-as-aservice concept watching their spread from shared officers to sprawling on-demand suites rented by the nation’s largest companies. The momentum of their use should not only survive, but thrive on the other side of this pandemic.

New as it might seem to be, real estate as a service is not that new. The concept has been around for almost 30 years, well portrayed by companies like Regus and other traditional executive suite providers turn to managed office spaces on flexible terms for business seeking an alternative to traditional long-term office leases.

However, this concept would become much more popular in the last five years, evolving so much to focus more on the tenant experience with creative, THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

efficient, office design, high-touch hospitality service, and shared community, giving space for growth for what we now call, coworking.

“These concepts are now bleeding into the traditional office sector,” Kloppenburg said. “Even among the world’s largest firms, there is an undeniable market demand for flexibility and enhanced tenant experience, which we expect to continue beyond the near-term negative economic impact of COVID-19.”

Coming out of this crisis, there is a greater likelihood that businesses might turn to flexible office solutions even more. It is expected, especially if the recovery is slow and halting pushing companies to shorter-term, flexible leases that they can easily exit if they are forced to send employees home.

While the pandemic means bad news for industries and enterprises all over the country, it might open them up to a different office solution. With most of the employees working from home, Kloppenburg said that companies might lean more to a consistent remote working environment, shifting from the traditional offices, or even placing their employees in a more geographically dispersed flexible office.

If the pandemic pushes business to their breaking points, some landlords will have a vacant space in their buildings. This means they will have to consider the possibility of turning those areas into a flexible

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working space. And while it may not be under the happiest of circumstances, Kloppenburg said that the Coronavirus may provide business owners with a staging ground for the biggest experiment in coworking we will ever experience.”

The rise of the flexible office spaces has spawned dozens of different models for how to create a managed office space, and the model that the landlords choose could be the difference between bringing in crucial revenue in a time of crisis or opening up a money pit inside their buildings.

Current flexible office providers should not underestimate the difficulties of the current economy.

According to Kloppenburg, the coming office crunch will create both winners and losers, leading to consolidation among the coworking providers before we see proliferation as institutional owners participate more actively.

Sources & Work Cited

https://www.bisnow.com/washington-dc/news/coworking/ even-coronavirus-may-not-quell-appetite-for-flexibleoffice-space-103680 https://www.zdnet.com/article/could-covid-19-change-thelook-of-the-office-as-we-know-it/ https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/19/ coronavirus-effect-economy-life-society-analysiscovid-135579

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LET’S TALK

ABOUT SENATE BILL 50 Briana Frazier

F

or a moment, we all thought that California had a chance to turn the tables around and make housing in the state work. The controversial bill requires cities and the county governments to alter the local zoning laws to allow for more modern, denser housing near the job centres and public transportations. Right now, the state is required to come up with means to house about 150,000 homeless people, this bill could have provided the answer, but unfortunately, it died in the state senate.

Developers, landlords, Facebook, construction unions, the state Chamber of Commerce, Realtors, environmental groups and even the AARP wanted to see the bill pass. And so, did the big city mayors including San Francisco’s London Breed and San Jose’s Sam Liccardo. The list goes on to include Senator Toni Atkins, Democratic leader of the State Senate who is very vocal in matters deciding which bills make it out of the Chamber.

Nonetheless, even with the support of the “big fish” the bill failed to get enough votes in the California senate. The bill was particularly crucial for the Governor, and now the question floating around is; how will he meet the plan to build millions of new homes? And if cities and anti-gentrification activists and suburban homeowners could stymie the assortment of powerful interests backing the bill, what pro-development policy options are left?

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While California is facing the wrath of Coronavirus, added to the list is the housing crisis. It has been blamed for all sorts of maladies, from homelessness to emigration y businesses and business seeking a more affordable environment. The blame for the shortage of housing in the state has been attributed to all sort of things; conservatives tend to complain about environmental and building regulations while progressives blast about the greedy landlords and developers and the state tax code that is typically to freeze the property ownership. However, everyone agrees on one thing; NIMBYism is the problem.

And the Governor could not hold himself. In a recent State of the State address, he blasted stating that almost every Californian is a NIMBY. The speech went ahead to detail a roster of forces that are responsible for the housing crunch, including blaming the not-in-my-backyard.

Well, the Governor is 100% right in tying the inaction to self-interest. This is a natural defence mechanism against change in almost all situations, especially when an issue like housing put trillions of dollars of wealth at stake.

“Time and time again, bigger, bolder reform hasn’t happened — in part because of some legitimate concerns,” his prepared text reads.

“Many of our lowest-income residents understandably worry about being pushed out THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

“

These real concerns should not be brushed aside.

At the same time, we also know the status quo is simply unacceptable — we aren’t building enough housing.”

of their communities because of gentrification.

Middle-class homeowners fear that their single-family home could lose its value — a scary prospect given a house is often a family’s biggest asset.

The Governor is quite tactical, and shaming in action is such a laudable act. However, one unspoken challenge is that the status quo is precisely what a chunk of the real estate industry wants. On his part, the Governor says that sacrifices are needed from the homeowner who’s bet their life savings on the California home. He suggests the same feat for the renters in the state who instead accept dumpy rentals because there’s no better option and they live a layoff away from becoming homeless.

requirements in favour of more housing, and enable more buildings in high-income areas. Smaller cities, those with less than 50,000 people would have to add up to 15 extra feet of height to their permits, essentially adding flor of housing, in areas within halfmile from the transit.

Critics of the bill were equally also diverse as advocates, but a little more vociferous. Some critics said that the loss of control for the city and county planners, who say they know the needs of their communities best. The board of Supervisors across the state were against the measure, along with dozens of city governments and the League of California Cities, an association of city officials.

Suburban dwellers were also actively engaged in opposing the bill argued the need to preserve their single-family homes.

Even after a campaign trail to appease the critics of the bill, Weiner still couldn’t get them on board, despite the amendments. New amendments were introduced at the beginning of the year, allowing more time for the communities to make changes and offer plans as long as the plans would boost the density to the same level as SB 50.

The Governor promised to build some 3.5 million new homes by 2025 and analysts say that roughly, to actualize that goal, about half a million new units will be needed to be built per year to reach that goal.

Just last year alone, about 111,000 new permits were approved by the local governments, 6,000 less than in 2018.

The bill has some of the most robust anti-demolition protections under state law, making it an additive bill and not what it has been thought to be, replacing the existing communities. This legislation will allow for local design standards, defers to the local height limits, and has an affordability provision to encourage low-income housing development.

While the Governor had not endorsed the bill, reporters say that he was working closely with the lawmakers to see that the bill made it through.

“We are not all the way there yet on this bill, but we will get there,” Weiner said. “Voters want us to act.

They want us to take bold action. They want us to stop the pain.”

“We are not giving up, we are going to continue to work aggressively to address production in this state,” he said on Wednesday before the vote.

The bill proposed a more vibrant denser environment, requiring that the local governments approve a four-story building within half a mile of transit and five-story building within a quarter-mile. The bill also gave the state more control over the local parking WWW.THEPINMAGAZINE.COM

Sources & Work Cited https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/ politics/2020/01/30/californias-controversial-housing-billsb-50-fails/4614387002/ https://www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/stategovernment/sb-50-failed-now-what/ https://www.ocregister.com/2020/02/21/newsom-callsout-all-californians-for-being-nimbys/

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Life in Corona CA,

WHAT’S IT LIKE? Jenny Gonzalez

Corona

county is part of the Riverside-San BernardinoOntario Metro Area. Corona is one of the places filled with the southern California life all over the 38 square mile town in Riverside county. It boasts of excellent education, bountiful business and notable neighborhoods, which makes it one of the best places to live in California.

About the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario Metro Area This area borders riverside County and San Bernardino County to the north which forms this metro area. It extends far into the uninhabited desert areas, in this case, east through the Mojave Desert to the Nevada/Arizona border.

The metro area is larger than nine US States, it is often referred to as the inland empire.

The cities that lie in the western portion of this metro like Riverside, San Bernardino, Ontario and a patchwork of other communities and neighborhoods are developed suburbs of the LA area with a rapidly growing and stable economy.

Of the more commercial areas within this metro area include Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana and Colton and most are on the 1-10 corridor. Others off the main roads and against the area’s many mountain ranges like the Loma, Linda, Chino Hills and many other parts of the Riverside area tend to be more residential.

Today, the main economic activities include a host of diversified light manufacturing, international trade and offices of overseas companies. And although rapidly rising, the cost WWW.THEPINMAGAZINE.COM

of living and housing remain relatively affordable as compared to areas like the LA and southern California.

These areas today face many challenges LA is currently confronting, like overcrowding, sprawl, poor air quality and long freeway commutes.

But, much as these areas are offering many of the Southern California advantages, they are also bringing the negatives in somewhat smaller doses.

COST OF LIVING IN CORONA CA

Compared to most other areas, the cost of living is low at 8.1 percent less than the state average. However, compared to the national average, Corona cost of living is 20.6 percent higher. Yet, the median family income of roughly $77,021 seemingly averages out the high price of livelihood. However, most families in town seem to be making more money than the average American households. The median home prices come in at $506,347 and the average onebedroom apartment costs around $1,765 a month and up depending on location and luxury. Also depending on the family size and usage, utility costs may vary, obviously costing less for a family of few.

EMPLOYMENT IN CORONA

Mainly, education is the lead employer in Corona and in the region with the Corona-Norco Unified School District has the highest number of employees- almost 5,000 staff members. Coming in second and close is the Corona Regional Medical Center with almost 1,200 workers.

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Additionally, Corona County is home to several leading companies in the aeronautics and food processing and staff more than 1,000 employees in the pharmaceutical industry at Watson.

Corona is also endowed with many diverse manufacturers who help keep the unemployment rate low at 3.10% percent. The Corona employment rate grew by 3.37% between years 2016 to 2017. The Corona Chamber of Commerce can be credit for some of that growth as it is always offering education and incentives to the local merchants in the are that help keep their business strong.

MOVING IN LIGHT OF PANDEMIC

At this point, movers haven’t been disrupted as much. That being said, the decisions about closures may be left to the individual franchise owners. If you had previously scheduled a move and haven’t heard anything, assume that your moving company is still operational, unless told otherwise. If you are worried about moving during the pandemic, for a move that is still schedule to happen, it is still hard to say what will and will not be available in the months to come. As such, continue doing some research on companies and ask directly the steps being taken when you reach out.

Suppose you want to see some great properties in Corona, be it for residential or commercial purposes, get in touch with one of out VIP agents, Jenny Gonzalez in Corona CA. to learn more about the program, click here.

Jenny has ben in the real estate business since 1998, climbing the ranks to become one of the most respected, and renown real estate agents in Corona. To learn more about Jenny, click here.

Sources & Work Cited https://www.movers.com/moving-guides/moving-tocorona-ca.html https://www.bestplaces.net/jobs/city/california/corona https://datausa.io/profile/geo/corona-ca/#economy https://www.zillow.com/corona-ca/home-values/ https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/ ca/corona/

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T

he CFPB is the brainchild of Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, created the post-2008 financial crisis. In October of 2019, the Supreme court granted certiorari in the Seila Law v. CFPB which would whether the leadership structure of the Agency was constitutional. The court ordered that the parties to prepare statements and argue a second question: “If the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [“CFPB”] is found unconstitutional on the basis of the separation of powers, can 12 U.S.C. § 5491(c)(3) [which permits the President to remove the Director of the CFPB only for cause] be severed from the Dodd-Frank Act?”

BUT WHERE DID THIS ALL BEGIN?

The 2008 financial crisis almost crippled the American economy. In fact, today, we feel a ripple effect of what it caused and so many businesses and minority and vulnerable groups in the country have never yet recovered. In response to this, Congress passed a Dodd-Frank Act, which included the Consumer Financial Protection Act, (CFPA). This resulted in the creation of perhaps one of the most powerful federal agencies to have ever existed in the Americas’ history.

The powers of CFPB stems from the fact that it has a single director, it is the structure it has been following ever since its creation. But that’s not the problem, CFPB’s broad rulemaking and enforcement authority and the fact that the director is well covered from removal except with a reasonable cause make it very powerful. This means that the director of CFPB cannot be removed from office. As a matter of fact, the director can only be removed by the president during his or her five-year term “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office” which is a position difficult to prove and which the CFPB has contested so much.

ns e p p a h What eme r p u S e if th ides c e d t r u Co wn o d e k i r to st fors ’ A P F the C al v o m e r cause n? provisio

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Ever since its inception, CFPB’s constitutionality has been challenged time and again.

What has been in question is the “for-cause” removal provision of the CFPA, which gives the president the authority to remove the

CFPB director only when he or she is inefficient, or when they neglect their duties or malfeasance in office. So far, challenges to this ordinance have been brought forward in courts to the Second, Third, Fifth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh and D.C. Circuits.

THE BATTLE SO FAR

It has been tough. One of the most significant challenges in this battle occurred before an en banc D.C. Circuit in PHH Corp. v. CFPB. In this case, a majority of the D.C Circuit held that the leadership structure of the agency eas constitutional, a rule that reversed the three-judge panel decision written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh would then dissent from the en banc opinión that reversed the original decision. In his dissenting opinion, Kavanaugh held that CFPB’s structure of governance was unconstitutional because the Director’s power and authority were “massive in scope, concentrated in a single person, and unaccountable to the President.”

THE SUPRE

HEARS ARG CFPB’S CONS What is unclear is whether Kavanaugh will recuse himself in Seila Law, especially when he has already given his stand on the matter. However, he is not required to do so.

The most recent challenge and the one to be reviewed by the Supreme Court was raised by Seila Law. Seila Law involves Seila Law’s refusal to comply with the CFPB civil investigative demand (CID). When CFPB moved to enforce the CID in federal district court, Seila Law argued that CFPB’s structure was unconstitutional, resulting in an unenforceable CID. The legality of CFPB was held before the district court and on appeal to the Ninth Circuit, with the argument that the CFPB’s leadership was constitutional, it has since asserted the new position that the for-cause removal provision is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has now taken up Seila Law’s petition for Certiorari.

SEVERABILITY QUESTIONS

THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

Seila Law’s petition for certiorari is on the issue of whether CFPB’s leadership structure is unconstitutional.

What follows next is the question of what happens as the remedy if CFPB is ruled unconstitutional. What happens if the Supreme Court decides to strike-down the CFPA’s for-cause removal provision?

When the supreme court issued certiorari in Seila Law, it sua sponte also ordered that the parties brief and also argue the additional question of whether the for-cause removal provision is severable from the remainder of the CFPA, if the CFPB governance structure is found unconstitutional on the basis of separation.

This is important because if the court holds that the provision is not severable, the decision could strike down CFPA which leads in any number of drastic consequences. For instance, the court could strip the CFPB of the powers it has to enforce or hold that all of the CFPB’s actions to date were ultra vires.

EME COURT

GUMENTS ON STITUTIONALITY If the provision is found severable, it is likely that the CFPB would proceed with business as usual. Even if the structure is found unconstitutional because the remedy would be to make the CFPB’s Director removable at the will of the president.

This, in fact, is a position that the Agency itself has agreed to cite that its leadership is unconstitutional. For a long time now CFPB has largely relied on the fact that the Dodd-Frank Act contains a severability clause, stating; “if any provision of this Act . . . is held to be unconstitutional, the remainder of this Act . . . shall not be affected thereby.” As such, the CFPB has stated that “a Supreme Court decision holding that the for-cause removal provision is unconstitutional should not affect the Bureau’s ability to carry out its important mission [of consumer protection],” because “if the Court holds the for-cause removal provision unconstitutional, the CFPA should remain ‘fully operative’ and the Bureau would

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‘continue to function as before, just with a Director who ‘may be removed at will by the President.’”

While it is still unclear the position justices will take on this issue, notably, Justice Kavanaugh in his dissent in the en banc review touched on the severability finding that, “[a] s to remedy . . . [t]he Supreme Court’s Free Enterprise Fund decision and the Court’s other severability precedents require that we sever the CFPB’s for-cause provision so that the Director of the CFPB is supervised, directed, and removable at will by the President.”

REALTOR ORGANIZATIONS AND THEIR STANCE

The National Association of Realtors, the Mortgage Bankers Association and the National Home Builders Association also filed an amicus brief last year which urged the Supreme Court to consider possible disruptions to the economy and the housing market when making its decision.

The groups noted that while it is true that CFPB’s structure might be questionable, invalidating the Agency as a whole may cause turmoil and instability.

“Drastic action to invalidate the CFPB could have a broad impact on U.S. consumers extending far beyond the question of bureau leadership,” NAR President Vince Malta said.

This case isn’t an easy one, it is also being watched for the implications it might have on other federal agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Trade Commission. If the court will overturn the for-cause provision, it would reverse its 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. the U.S. that upheld a similar standard for the members of the FTC. “It did not seem after arguments that a majority of the court was eager to do so,” CNBC said.

Sources & Work Cited

https://www.paulweiss.com/practices/litigation/ supreme-court-appellate-litigation/news/supremecourt-hears-arguments-on-constitutionality-of-cfpbstructure?id=31520 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail. aspx?g=7461e624-4249-41ad-ba7b-bd0667617a41 https://www.housingwire.com/articles/supreme-courthears-arguments-on-cfpb-constitutionality/ https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/supreme-court-todecide-cfpb-s-38035/

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CFPB CLARIFIES CREDIT REPORTING PROCEDURES IN LIGHT OF CORONAVIRUS

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he Consumer Federal Protection Bureau in light of the Coronavirus has come out warn lenders against reporting delinquent payments to credit bureaus for the consumers who have sought mortgage relief. The Agency has provided several ways and recommendations in new guidance on the credit reporting process in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Adding 15 days of investigation, lenders now have 45 days to investigate credit disputes.

In a policy statement, the Agency has said that it supports the lenders’ “voluntary efforts” to provide payment relief to customers.

However, the CFPB came out clearly to say that for any company providing information to credit reporting agencies that is accurate and reflects payment relief measures, it will not take any enforcement actions or cite in examination against the company.

“During this time of uncertainty, we are providing clarity to ensure the consumer 90 l

reporting industry can continue to function,” CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger said in a press release. “Consumers rely on their credit report to purchase a new car, their new home, or to finance their college education. An effective consumer reporting system is critical in promoting fair and efficient access to credit in the consumer financial services market.”

In late March, the President signed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) which marked the THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

largest economic recovery package in US history.

The $2.2 Trillion rescue legislation will provide $150 billion for the hospitals and other health care providers, direct payments and expanded unemployment compensation provision to the US workers and families, and approximately $850 billion in loans and grants to significant industries and small business. On this not, lenders are required to report to the credit bureaus that consumers are current on their loans if the payments are adjusted through a loan modification.

PROTECTING YOURSELF

CFPB has also provided a guideline through which you can be able to protect yourself in case you are having troubles paying your bills, loans or paying on time. There are several options that are available to you, especially if you can be able to reach out to your lenders and creditors early enough.

The CFPB and other financial regulators have encouraged financial institutions to work with their customers to meet their community needs.

If you find that you cannot be able to make There is a Section of the CARES Act that amends a payment, and need more time to organize the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which is an act that yourself, or you want to discuss payment options, generally requires that the credit bureaus you should contact your lenders and servicers and furnishers of investigations to to let them know about your financial investigate disputes within 30 days situation. It is not something to take of being notified by a consumer. lightly, being behind on your If you find that While the CFPB said that it payment can have a lasting you cannot be able would be extending that impact on your credit. to make a payment, and period to 45 days, there is a caveat that “the consumer need more time to organize The credit companies and the provides additional lenders may be able to offer yourself, or you want to information that is relevant you options to help you. This discuss payment options, to the investigation during could include anything from you should contact your the 30 days.” waiving specific fees like the ATM, overdrafts and late fees, lenders and servicers...

“The Bureau is aware that as well as allowing you to delay, some consumer reporting adjust, or skip some payments. agencies and furnishers may face significant operational disruptions Remember, this is the opportune time that pose challenges for them in investigating for scammers to take advantage of you and consumer disputes,” the policy statement said. will be looking for every opportunity to scam “For example, some consumer reporting agencies you. Be very cautious of emails, texts, or social and furnishers may experience significant media posts that may be selling fake products or reductions in staff, difficulty in taking disputes, information about emerging coronavirus cases. or lack of access to necessary information, rendering them unable to investigate consumer Sources & Work Cited https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/protectreporting disputes within the timeframes the yourself-financially-from-impact-of-coronavirus/ FCRA requires.”

https://www.americanbanker.com/news/cfpb-clarifiescredit-reporting-procedures-in-light-of-coronavirus https://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/news/cfpbclarifies-credit-reporting-procedures-in-light-of-coronavirus

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HOW ARE MORTGAGE LENDERS PREPARING FOR THE BIGGEST WAVE OF DELINQUENCY IN HISTORY? With the corona pandemic, lenders are preparing themselves for the biggest wave of delinquencies in the history of America. If the plan to buy time works for them, they may avert an even worse crisis: mass foreclosures and mortgage market mayhem. The impact of the Coronavirus on the housing market continues to deepen and while it is not widespread just year, stakeholders in the real estate market are all preparing for the worst.

Currently, there are about 10 million new jobless claims and the biggest number of these are the borrowers who lost their income due to the virus. Good news is that they can skip payments for as many as 180 days at a time on federally backed mortgages.

Ultimately, this will help them avoid penalties and a blow to their credit scores. However, it should be noted that this extension is not a payment holiday, eventually, they will have to cover it all up.

About 15 million households all across the country could stop paying their mortgage payments if the United States economy remains closed all through the summer and maybe beyond, according to Mark Zandi, the Chief Economist for Moody’s Analytics.

“This is an unprecedented event,” said Susan Wachter, professor of real estate and finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “The great financial crisis happened over a number of years. This is happening in a matter of months -- a matter of weeks.”

Right now, most lenders feel like they are operating in the dark and it is difficult to predict what direction the Coronavirus will take, but whichever way it goes, there will be significant damage to the economy regardless. Supposing that the cure to the virus is found and the effects of the virus recede soon and the economy roars back to life, then the plan will be to help borrowers get right back on track.

But, the greater the fallout, the more expensive it will be to prevent repossessions.

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Meanwhile, across the board, Attom Data Solutions examined the market temperatures of different counties at local levels all across the country and as expected, some markets are more vulnerable than others. Attom judged the markets’ risk based on several factors; the percentage of homes that had a foreclosure notice, the percentage of properties where the owner owned more on their mortgage than the home was worth and what the share of the local wages was needed to cover for housing expenses.

On the overall, the new jersey had the most vulnerable counties, a total of 14 of 50 most vulnerable counties in the country. Florida had a total of 10 counties that had a high risk of a downturn as a result of Coronavirus. Most of the vulnerable counties in New Jersey were located very close to the New York metropolitan area, which is the epicenter of the virus in the country.

In California, Shasta was the only market that Attom stressed to be in the list of 50 most vulnerable markets in the country. No other county in California was named in the list, in spite of the fact that places like LA and Seattle have been hit hard by the virus. Attom named cities like Denver and Houston to be among the least vulnerable.

“It’s too early to tell how much effect the coronavirus fallout will have on different housing markets around the country,” said Todd Teta, chief product officer with Attom Data Solutions. “It looks like the Northeast is more at risk than other areas. As we head into the spring homebuying season, the next few months will reveal how severe the impact will be.”

BUYERS ON THE RISE… OR IS IT?

While the virus has kept most people indoors, it hasn’t done so much to prevent people from buying. There is a good reason for this which is low mortgage rates. As of March 2020, the rates reached an all-time low with the average 30-year fixed-rate loan dropping to 3.29%. This has encouraged a buying spree, which is understandable, you can expect anyone in the market looking for a home to consider taking advantage of the low rates, even with the pandemic.

Moving forward though, it will be interesting to watch if the low mortgage rates will be enough to keep the buyers still interested.

Chances are most will shy away due to economic fears and market instability as a whole.

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BUT WITH HOPES

In most parts of the country, it is a buyer’s market, which means sellers have their backs against the wall. They dont have an upper hand when it comes to negotiations. However, with the declining rates, there is a good chance that the seller’s market is on the way. Going forward, there will be a price war which is already heating up as long as the prospective buyers continue with their search. When this happens, expect the cost of each transaction to skyrocket.

The main concern with sellers is the fear brought forth by the virus. This means that most buyers will be locked in their houses and are worried about making a huge financial decision during economic uncertainty.

LET’S TAKE A BREAK

“Nobody has any sense of how long this might last,” said Andrew Jakabovics, a former Department of Housing and Urban Development senior policy adviser who is now at Enterprise Community Partners, a nonprofit affordable housing group. “The forbearance program allows everybody to press pause on their current circumstances and take a deep breath. Then we can look at what the world might look like in six or 12 months from now and plan for that.”

Let’s go with the worst-case scenario, supposing that the pandemic is long-lasting, this means that the government will have no choice but to find a way to prevent foreclosures, which simply means forgiving some debts, said Tendayi Kapfidze, Chief Economist at LendingTree.

As it stands, the risk of allowing foreclosures are too great as it would mean damage to the financial markets and that could reinfect the economy.

“I expect policymakers to do whatever they can to hold the line on a financial crisis,” Kapfidze said. “And that means preventing foreclosures by any means necessary.”

...BECAUSE THE WORST IS YET TO COME

For most Americans, while most lenders have been giving them a reprieve, they still need time to catch up. The virus took away their incomes

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and replaced it with an unduly uncertainty. The situation for most is that they have no idea when they’ll get their jobs back.

Borrowers must make a decision to first contact their lenders to get the incentives and help to avoid an impact on their credit scores. The Bank of America has said that so far it has allowed 50,000 mortgage consumers to defer payments, this includes the loans that are not federally backed.

What follows, of course, are the concerns of a potential liquidity shortfall faced by the mortgage servicers. In response, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin convened a task force to deal with this issue.

“If a large percentage of the servicing book -- let’s say 20-30% of clients you take care of -don’t have the ability to make a payment for six months, most servicers will not have the capital needed to cover those payments,” Quicken Chief Executive Officer Jay Farner said in an interview.

Mortgage servicers are asking the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department to use the money from the $2.2 trillion stimulus plan and use the money to help them avoid a liquidity crisis as fewer borrower ake payment, and the firms are obligated to continue paying the bondholders.

Sources & Work Cited

https://www.attomdata.com/news/market-trends/attomdata-solutions-special-report/?mod=article_inline https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-26/ mnuchin-wants-u-s-markets-open-with-shorter-hours-ifnecessary

Read more https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-are-theus-housing-markets-that-are-most-vulnerable-to-acoronavirus-downturn-2020-04-07 https://www.newswire.com/news/coronavirus-and-theforeclosure-market-what-to-expect-21111464 https://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/articles/homelenders-brace-for-up-to-15-million-mortgage-defaults https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-02/ home-lenders-brace-for-up-to-15-million-u-s-mortgagedefaults

THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

The Corona Pandemic Underscores the Plight of Undocumented Californians Recently, the president signed a $2 trillion relief fund that promises to mitigate the impact the Virus has on the workers, but where we cannot see the immigrants in the picture. It’s even worse, remember the stay at home orders? Well, immigrants are immune to these orders, but not by choice, they have been instructed to keep on working, despite the danger they face. They have given letters attesting to their critical role in maintaining a stable food chain in the country.

The CARES Act, signed into law in March 2020, delivers direct payments to the taxpayers, vastly expanding the unemployment benefits. It also makes the testing for the COVID-19 free, among many other provisions. While the immigrants are not immune to the Virus and its effect economically, this stimulus bill conspicuously leaves them out. This potentially puts them at a higher risk economically and health-wise.

You’re allowed to Stay, only if you Continue Working WWW.THEPINMAGAZINE.COM

These are the same people who have continuously done grueling working of picking fresh fruits from the farms that millions of American savors, all while still afraid that one day, she might lose her livelihood because she is in the country illegally.

However, due to the coronavirus pandemic ironically, the government is applauding their efforts, deeming them as essential to the country.

Most of the immigrants spent almost all their lives evading law enforcement. Still, in the wake of the COVID-19, most of them now walk with a letter from their employers declaring that the Department of Homeland Security considers them “critical to the food supply chain.”

“It’s like suddenly they realized we are here contributing,” said Ms. Silva, a 43-year-old immigrant from Mexico who has been working in the clementine groves south of Bakersfield, Calif.

It is no secret that most people working in American farms are undocumented immigrants from across the Mexican border. Most of these people are decades-long residents of the United States and often the parents of American-born children. They have lived all their lives in America worried that at any moment, they might be deported.

Let’s get the thing straight here, while the stimulus bill failed to recognize them, only for them to get “essential work” letters, and these letters are not a free pass from the immigration authorities. They could still be deported at any time. The local law enforcement authorities said that the letters given to the immigrants give them a sense of security that they will not be arrested for violating the stay-athome orders. l

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“If you have people who perceive that they may be stopped and questioned or deported because of their status, under these circumstances, having that letter makes them feel comfortable,” said Eric Buschow, a captain with the sheriff’s office in Ventura County, where thousands of farmworkers labor in strawberry, lemon and avocado operations. “They can go to work. And their work is essential now.”

The pandemic has put operations at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s operations on hold. On March 18, the Agency said that it would “temporarily adjust its enforcement posture” to put more focus not on ordinary undocumented immigrants, but on the people who pose a public safety or criminal threat.

The Agency also said that it would only intervene in most extraordinary circumstances, especially near the health care facilities. Also, it would focus its efforts on human trafficking, gangs, and drug enforcement.

“Those of us without papers live in fear that immigration will pick us up,” Ms. Silva said.

“Now, we are feeling more relaxed.”

I think what the Agency is saying is that “okay here’s the deal, we’ll allow you to continue working for as long as the pandemic holds, hey we can’t let Americans starve, you’ve been riding on a free ride for years, this is how you pay us back. Consider it mercy. Otherwise, we can deport you anytime we want!”

Across the country, the situation for the farmworkers is literally, as they have been struggling to figure out what the pandemic

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means for their safety and livelihoods.

Even if right now they face a significantly lower risk of deportation, many worries that close working conditions in the fields and packing facilities put them at risk for contracting the Virus. Some of the workers are seeing their hours cut as employers adjust to the shifting market.

“Sadly, it takes a health crisis like this to highlight the farmworkers’ importance,” said Hector Lujan, chief executive of Reiter Brothers, a large family-owned berry

grower based in Oxnard, Calif., that also has operations in Florida and the Pacific Northwest.

IMMIGRANTS ARE MORE VULNERABLE TO THE VIRUS

If there is a group that is more vulnerable to the effect of the Virus is the Immigrant population all across the country. This is true because they do not have access to health care. The immigrants are significantly more likely to be uninsured compare to the citizens, which dissuades them from seeking medical care if they contract the Virus. While the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s said that it would not carry out the enforcement actions near the THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

health care facilities, it is still not reassuring.

Compounding matters are the Trump administration’s stringent immigration policies-including the wide-scale immigration raids and a rule that could penalize the green card applicants for using Medicaid-which have made the immigrants afraid to access.

“We’re operating in an environment where we constantly have to reassure patients that they can access services,” Jim Mangia, CEO and president of St. John’s Well Child and Family Center— a network of community health centers in the Los Angeles area that serve about 32,000 undocumented immigrants annually — said in a press call. “It’s a constant struggle, and in the midst of a pandemic, it’s even more difficult and more dangerous.”

And if you think immigrants will not loose their incomes like the rest of Americans, you’re so long. They may take the largest blow. The absent financial relief for the immigrants means that many may try to continue going to work despite the public health warnings to stay at home, which could spread the Virus even further among this population.

Speaking to Vox Theresa Cardinal Brown, director of immigration and cross border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Institute, said, “Those who cannot obtain relief are likely to continue going out and trying to earn a living, at the risk of themselves and spreading the Virus to others…“The cost of providing this benefit to them has to be weighed against the need to keep up the restrictions to stop the virus spread.”

some community health centers have reported shortages of tests. Additionally, there is also a larger, state-level testing program funded through Medicaid, but that would be available for only the Medicaid-eligible immigrants-green cardholders who have lived in the US for at least five years. These immigrants come to the US on humanitarian grounds such as asylum, members of the military and their families, and, in certain states, children and pregnant women with lawful immigration status.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services has said that it won’t consider the use of free testing when evaluating whether the immigrants will end up relying on the benefits provided under the public charge rule. This is a rule that went into effect in February and gives the immigration officials much leeway to turn away the people applying to enter the US, extend their VISA, or even convert their temporary immigration status into a green card if deemed they would likely use public services now or in the future.

The Agency also came out clearly to state that it will not weigh the treatment of the Virus or preventive care, such as a vaccine, if eventually developed under the public rule. This means loosening the standards for a Trump administration rule that has aimed the legal immigration.

Sources & Work Cited

https://www.vox.com/2020/4/1/21197017/ immigrants-coronavirus-stimulus-relief-bill https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/ coronavirus-undocumented-immigrant-farmworkersagriculture.html

BUT YOU CAN COME FOR TESTING

One thing that the stimulus bill does is that it offers the immigrants a pass to get free testing for the Coronavirus at governmentfunded community health centers through a $1 billion federal program. Nonetheless, WWW.THEPINMAGAZINE.COM

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Corona Virus Might Affect

HISTORICALLY

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e’ve all seen the effects that the coronavirus has on people. It wouldn’t take a genius to tell the severe impact it is having on the educational institutions all across the country. Like any other institution, America’s colleges and universities are particularly hit hard by the coronavirus. Most classes, if not all have been canceled, public lecturers scrubbed, and athletic contests severely compromised. Nonetheless, and despite these obvious effects, there are several effects still underlying. One thing you have to understand is that for their survival, most universities largely depend on the outsiderstaxpayers and private donors for their financial sustenance.

Suppose the economic turmoil as a result of the virus grows bigger, certainly highly plausible, tax receipts will fall, leading after some lag, to reduce state subsidies for the public universities. Right now, the stock market is in chaos and this will affect schools in three main ways. First, the endowments will lose value, necessitating some reductions in the institutional financial support in the long run. Secondly, the pandemic will affect wealthy donors’ pockets which means, private universities will also take a hit. The third way this could affect how the universities operate, a deterioration in the financial condition of the pension funds to support present and future retirees.

Even suffering the most are the Historically Black Colleges and Universities that are strongly advocating for the additional federal funding for their institutions.

They have come out to say that the cost of operating during a pandemic and managing an array of related challenges threatens the future of their institutions and their survivability in the future. The United Negro College Fund provides general scholarship funds for 37 private black colleges and universities. The Thurgood Marshall College Fund representing and supporting the public HBCUs and other predominantly black institutions, known as PBIs are efforts to help the

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colleges lobby members of the congress to provide an additional, one-time allocation of $1.5 billion to help financially strapped HBCUs, PBIs and Minority serving institutions (MSIs).

On March 16, U.S. House Member, Representative Alma Adams convened a call where the two organizations along with presidents of some of the 105 HBCUs took part to discuss the financial logistics and technical problems they are now facing due to the virus. Rep Alma is also the founder and co-chair of the Bi-partisan HBCU Caucus. Rep Karen Bass – the Chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus also took part as did the staff member for representative Bobby Scott, Chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor.

“HBCUs graduate an outsized proportion of AfricanAmerican college graduates and an outsized proportion of low-income, first-generation college students. To ensure HBCUs continue their mission, they need assistance in emergencies such as this,” Adams said in written responses to questions.

“We are currently working toward a package that will include many, if not all, of those recommendations,” she wrote. “Our offices and House leadership are currently engaged in working on another stimulus package to address some of the worst impacts of the pandemic. We are confident that HBCUs will find additional support in that package.”

The congress last December passed bipartisan legislation that made permanent $255 million in annual STEM funding for the minority-serving colleges, including about $85 million specifically meant for the HBCUs. The legislation, called the FUTURE Act, has received a lot of praise from the leaders and supporters of colleges. Still, now, advocates for more funding are more worried about the immediate future.

THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | MAY 2020

Lodriguez V. Murray, the senior Vice President for public policy and government affairs at the United Negro College Fund, said that the HBCU leaders and supporters of their institutions were encouraged by the response of Adams and other lawmakers.

“It is clear to our community -- especially HBCUs, but MSIs overall -- that there is significant interest on the Hill concerning our effort,” he said. “Representative Adams, Representative Bass, and Representative Scott all seem interested in the unique needs and abilities of HBCUs and how this pandemic impacts them.”

Murray also added that a large group of college presidents are taking part in the conference and offered first-hand accounts of what is taking place on the ground at their institutions as college and university administrators across the country race to turn campuses into online or remote institutions to help prevent the spread of the virus.

Like many other institutions, most HBCUs rely heavily on student enrollment and have a modest endowment. Unfortunately, they do not get the same level of philanthropic support from the rich donors, predominantly white institutions get. Because of the costs involved, it might be difficult for them to have a smooth transition from an in-person learning experience to remote or online teaching. More so, students that attend these institutions are also largely affected by the virus as they are largely reliant on financial aids. Some are finding it hard to travel and access classes while at home. It is sad for some, as they have nowhere to go as they rely on on-campus housing and meal plans. It’s chaotic for some who do not have access to internet connections. The sad thing is that some might not be able to return to campus should the whole situation normalize.

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“HBCUs are unique institutions. They operate closer to the margins.” Murray said. “Situations outside of our control -- natural disasters, hurricanes and now the coronavirus pandemic -- tend to hurt us more than other institutions.

“Add to that the fact that students on some of these campuses will not be able to come back and that these institutions may have to forfeit funds from room and board. That will be disastrous for HBCUs,” he said.

“One institution that reached out to us said it could be impacted by $2 to $4 million, and this is an institution that does not have $2 to $4 million to spare.”

Murray also noted that a long-distance learning option is a nice option, though not prioritized in the past.

“Many HBCUs and a lot of MSIs did not have this distance learning technology,” he said. “For that reason, we knew that when students come back from spring break, it was going to be important for the institutions to have the resources to get them their education.”

Sources & Work Cited https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/03/18/blackcolleges-lobby-stimulus-funds https://newsone.com/3910133/coronavirus-hbcu-blackcolleges-covid-19/ https://theundefeated.com/features/hbcus-announceplans-to-combat-the-coronavirus/ https://thegrio.com/2020/03/13/hbcus-coronaviruspandemic/

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HAT IS

Cinco de Mayo

Many people have been led to believe that “Cinco De Mayo” is Mexican Independence Day. That is far from the truth. Cinco de Mayo (Spanish: “Fifth of May”) is a celebration held to commemorate the Battle of Puebla and is celebrates in parts of Mexico and the United States in honor of a military victory in 1862 over the French forces of Napoleon III.

The History of Cinco de Mayo

The year was 1861. The Mexican President Benito Juarez had stopped making interest payments to Mexico’s creditors. While England and Mexico worked diplomatically to resolve the situation, France would not be compelled to do the same. As a result, the emperor at the time, Napoleon III decided to invade Mexico and force the country to pay its debts.

At the time, the invasion was a clear violation of a long-standing doctrine- the United States’ Monroe Doctrine. The doctrine stated that any attempts by the European Nations to colonize or interfere with states in the Americas would be viewed as an act of aggression. At the time, the United States was dealing with civil war, which meant that Mexico would have to deal with its issues.

The first invasion into Mexico by France was a success, and the French forces began making plans to move steadily towards the Mexico capital, Mexico City defeating any

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resistance that stood in their way. That was until early May 1862. This was when the French forces reached the city of Puebla.

The battle of Puebla

The French force was very confident of success. Thus, 6,000 French troops under the command of General Charles Latrille de Lorencez set out to attack Puebla de Los Angeles. This was a small town in eastcentral Mexico. Determined to defend his territory, from his new headquarters in the North, Juarez rounded up about 2,000 loyal men, most of them indigenous Mexicans or of mixed ancestry, and sent them to battle at Puebla.

Even though the French forces outnumbered the Mexican armies at Puebla 2-to-1, the Mexican troops under the command of a Texas-born General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguin, managed to defeat the French army on May 5. This victory against the French military is what is celebrated today as Cinco de Mayo.

While the Mexican army defeated the French army at Puebla, the victory didn’t stop France’s progress towards Mexico City.

In 1864, with the support of Mexico Roman Catholic clergy and the conservative upper Class, France overtook Mexico City, setting Emperor Maximilian I on the throne.

When the United States civil war ended, the US began pressuring France to pull out of Mexico. This pressure from the US and

THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020

Mexicans built up, forcing France to withdraw.

By the middle of May 1867, Maximilian I had been executed, and Benito Juarez once again taking over control.

Cinco de Mayo in Mexico

Within Mexico borders, the Fifth of May is observed in the state of Puebla. This is where the battle happened, and even though it wasn’t a major strategic win, it represented a great symbolic victory for the Mexican government. That is not to say that the anniversary is only celebrated in Puebla; other parts of the country also take part in the celebration.

identified with the victory of the indigenous Mexicans over European invaders during the Battle of Puebla.

Today, to mark such a remarkable feat in history, you will see parades, parties, mariachi music, Mexican folk dancing and traditional foods such as tacos and mole poblano on May 5. Some of the largest festivals are held in LA, Chicago, and Houston.

Cinco de Mayo should, however, not be confused with Mexican Independence Day, which falls on September 16. The latter holiday was established in 1810, 50 years before the Battle of Puebla occurred.

Sources & Work Cited

ME

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cinco-de-Mayo https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/cincode-mayo https://www.dummies.com/education/holidays/ what-cinco-de-mayo-really-celebrates/ https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc. php?flash=false&doc=23

XIC O Mainly, the Traditions include military parades, recreations of the battle of Puebla, and other festivities. However, for most Mexicans, the day is like any other; it is not a federal holiday which means, offices, banks, stores, and other businesses remain open.

Celebrations in the United States In the United States, festivities and celebrations during this day are widely interpreted as a celebration of the rich Mexican heritage and culture. The Chicano activists led an awareness campaign of the holiday in the 1960s partly because they

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