How to deal with crape myrtle bark scale

JOE HEIM THE WASHINGTON POST

Crape myrtle bark scale has crept into the Washington, D.C. region in recent years. A relatively new pest from Asia, the damage caused by tiny bugs was first noticed by entomologists from Texas A&M University in Texas around 2005 and has moved steadily east and north.

Forestry experts and scientists are working to eliminate it or at least limit the damage it can cause. For the most part, the pest doesn’t kill the trees. But it does cause problems.

Here’s what experts Jacob Hendee, an arborist for the Smithsonian Gardens in D.C., and Yan Chen, professor of medicinal plant physiology at Louisiana State University, have to say about treatment and prevention:

How do I know if my crape myrtle has bark scale?

If you see white cottony masses on the stems or trunk of a tree, and they bleed pink when crushed, that is crape myrtle bark scale, Chen says. Another sign is sooty mold, a black covering of the trunk, branches and leaves caused by the honeydew expelled by the scale.

What do I do if it does?

Don’t panic, Hendee advises. He says homeowner shouldn’t remove crape myrtles preemptively. Focus on keeping them healthy. Scales are known to impact stressed trees much more heavily. Hendee encourages people to consult an expert and be cautious with chemical controls for the pests, because those same

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From Page 7 you would feel if your neighbor with three speeding tickets in the past two years was subsidized by you and you have never had an accident or moving violation in your life?

The idea of helping folks with 640 FICO scores become homeowners is a great idea! Although the Dream for All program sold out in eight business days this month, CALHFA is still offering down payment assistance for those that are willing to attend a homeownership counseling session which promotes financial literacy. My team and lenders like Travis Credit Union coach financial literacy every day.

Great loan originators don’t reject people with low FICO scores and hope to never see the people again. If they are smart businesspeople, they give the 595 FICO score folks a road map and advice on how to become financially successful. Great local lenders think long-term, and for those 595 FICO score homebuyers that are motivated and willing to be coached, work with people for six months to even years to help them become homeowners.

I am closing a loan this month for a 43-year-old firsttime homebuyer couple with two kids that had a 585 FICO score three months ago. After some coaching, they are now sport- ing a 610 FICO score and have been approved to buy their first home from their landlady for $575,000 in Napa using an FHA loan at a rate of 6.25% with an APR 7.23%. FHA and VA are not affected by this new mortgage fee structure.

This couple had been renting the home for 10 years and never missed a rent payment. The generous senior landlady along with her awesome property manager broker gave them notice to move three months ago or buy the home valued at $600,000 for $550,000. The broker and I structured the sale at $575,000 with the landlady crediting $25,000 to cover 100% of the closing costs because cash to close is always the biggest challenge for renters trying to become homeowners, and now this family is on cloud nine.

My team is not only closing a much needed $555,000 loan in one of the slowest markets in real estate mortgage history, but these are the stories that makes this job of selling houses and mortgages a rewarding profession.

The messaging here is the problem. The government doesn’t understand that this kind of policy will not help us with affordability or our huge inventory problem in our market. This PR messaging via the press and social media will actually hurt affordability here in Northern California because people are not moving up from the starter home they purchased six to 12 years ago, and even though people with 740 FICO scores will continue to get better rates than those at 640, the press releases make it sound like it might be a good idea to wait a year or two to move up or out.

We need the 740 FICO score folks to have consumer confidence to list their homes for sale, so we have houses to sell the 640 FICO families and when we only have 385 homes for sale in all of Solano County, we are stuck with a seller’s market and less affordable homes. What the government might want to do is incentivize and motivate Invitation Homes and the other institutional landlords in Northern California to sell some of the 75,000 single-family homes they own here, which will truly create more homeownership affordability.

More to come on this inventory problem and these Wall Street hedge funds that own a bunch of our single-family housing stock next week.

Jim Porter, NMLS No. 276412, is the branch manager and senior loan adviser of Solano Mortgage, NMLS No. 1515497, a division of American Pacific Mortgage Corporation, NMLS No. 1850, licensed in California by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation under the CRMLA / Equal Housing Opportunity. Jim can be reached at 707-449-4777.