Home Staging

When you are ready to sell your home, it becomes a product. Think of a product in your favorite store. You may not need it, but when it is marketed at eye level with eye candy colors, you want to put it in your cart. Home staging is similar. Your home must be presented to attract the maximum number of buyers. When priced correctly, and staged for optimal appeal, your home is as good as sold!

If you were to put your home on the market, do you think staging would be worth the cost if your home sold quicker and for more money?

Have you personally experienced identity theft?

Learn how you can protect yourself from Identity Theft

By PETER J. SAMPSON
STAFF WRITER

A first-ever review of Secret Service files has found that only half of the cases of identity theft involved technological devices, such as computers, scanners and digital cameras, and only 10 percent were done exclusively through the Internet.

In a fifth of the other cases, thieves stole personal data the old-fashioned way.

Low-tech tactics included rerouting mail by sending change of address requests to institutions handling credit card and bank accounts, swiping items right from residents' mailboxes, and "Dumpster diving" -- going through trash for information used to produce counterfeit documents and to open credit accounts.

Researchers from Utica College's Center for Identity Management and Information Protection in New York analyzed 517 closed Secret Service cases of ID theft from 2000 to 2006. It was the first study of such files from the federal agency, which is responsible for investigating identity theft and fraud.

Among their findings:

• A fifth of the time, identity thieves stole personal data at their workplace. Of them, 60 percent were employed in the retail industry -- stores, car dealerships, gas stations, casinos, restaurants, hotels, hospitals and doctors' offices. Another 22 percent worked for financial services, such as banks and credit card companies, and 9 percent were in government.

• People were victimized by a family member or friend 16 percent of the time.

• Personal information was stolen from someone's home, car, wallet or pocketbook 12 percent of the time.

• Most of the thefts occurred in the Northeast and the South.

• The median loss was just over $31,000, although in one case a thief spent millions on luxury vehicles and established shell companies to defraud more victims.

The study follows a recent Consumer Reports poll that found Americans overwhelmingly believe they are more vulnerable to identity theft when a business has their Social Security number. Most respondents said they want companies to stop using the numbers to identify customers.

A Social Security number, coupled with your date of birth and address, is the Holy Grail for identity thieves. You should never give out personal information over the telephone or Internet unless you know whom you're dealing with.

In addition to shredding documents before discarding them, the Secret Service recommends not storing any passwords on your computer's hard drive. Hackers know how to retrieve them, she said.

Consumers have become more savvy to Internet scams meant to trick them into divulging account numbers, passwords and other personal information. They know all about the Nigerian advance-fee scheme.

They may have become less vigilant about other tactics, authorities say.

"What we get a lot are people who work in offices, maybe a doctor's office, or your credit card is getting swiped at the gas station," said Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Brian Lynch. "[Someone at] that doctor's office picks off your Social Security number and the next thing you know you've become the victim of a terrible identity theft," Lynch said.

Lynch urged people not to give their Social Security numbers when filling out any type of medical forms or applications.

"Just decline," he said. "They don't really need [it]."

Postal Inspector Douglas Bem said residents shouldn't use their home mailboxes for outgoing mail. And by no means, should they raise the flag on the box if they do.

"That's as much an indicator to a thief, as it would be to a letter carrier, that there's mail to be had," he said.

Anyone concerned about incoming mail should try to retrieve it as soon as it's delivered, and make sure to place a hold on it when they're away so it doesn't accumulate, Bem said.

Bem said there were few instances in which identity thieves rerouted mail by submitting a change of address card to the postal service. In the overwhelming majority of cases, he said, "the change of address was actually done directly with the bank or financial institution" that held the victim's personal information.

To prevent fraudulent rerouting of mail, Bem said, the postal service uses a dual verification procedure in which confirmation letters are sent to both the old and new addresses to verify the request is legitimate before any mail is forwarded.

In the FTC's 2003 survey of identity theft victims, 4 percent cited stolen mail as the source of their problems, he noted.

Although manufacturers offer a variety of lockable boxes to secure your mail, the postal service doesn't endorse any, Bem said.

Mail is more likely to be stolen at points along the distribution chain, he added.

"Many times we see mail that is stolen by organized groups who may have infiltrated airlines or private delivery companies or private mail rooms," Bem said. "It even occurs when couriers hired by the banks and financial institutions are picking up mail from post offices.

"It's not all residential mailboxes -- not by any stretch."

With the holiday season approaching, consumers need to be more watchful than ever, said J.R. Reagan, managing director of security and identity management for BearingPoint Inc., a McLean, Va.-based consultant.

"Certainly consumers are much more at risk now for having their information compromised than in the past, either by electronic, online or the low-tech means," said Reagan. "Just as in the real world, when you walk out of your house and you have to be watchful, careful and cognizant of your surroundings, that doesn't differ when it comes to your personal information. "It can become ruinous if it's in the wrong hands."

Do you have a clue about CLUE reports?

A "clue" report is a report issued by the Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange, or CLUE. It is a clearinghouse of information relating to underwriting factors for issuing insurance policies on homes or other real property.


CLUE reports help an insurance company to decide if they will insure your home. When purchasing a home, contact an insurance agent either before writing an offer or immediately after negotiating a contract. If waiting till the contract is negotiated make sure that the contract is contingent on your being able to get homeowners insurance at an affordable rate.

An insurance company will run 2 CLUE reports before issuing you a policy, one on the property and one on you individually. The one on the property shows every insurance claim made on that property, the amount of the claim and the reason for the claim. The report on the individual shows all the claims that an individual has made over a given period of time.

Have you had any experiences with CLUE reports that have prevented you from getting insurance or either caused you to get insurance quoted at 2 - 3 times the going rate? What were the reasons?

Stop the NC Home Tax!!

Some state lawmakers want to tax the equity in your home.

Bills are now being considered in the North Carolina General Assembly that would force the sellers of new or existing homes to pay a 1% sales tax.

Go to http://www.itsabadidea.org/ to get all the facts. Make tsure to let your legislator know how you feel.

This tax is every time a property sells begining with a piece of raw land and could be whatever % set by the General Assembly.

What are your thoughts?

Home prices slip in U.S., but not in Charlotte

Charlotte-area home prices keep climbing while values slide in much of the nation, data released Tuesday show.
Charlotte was the only metro area among 20 surveyed in the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index where prices rose between December and January.

The region's home values inched up 0.4 percent in those months, while the composite of 20 cities fell 0.6 percent. The index tracks prices on existing homes.
Year over year, Charlotte had the third-highest price growth. For all 20 cities, annual values dipped 0.2 percent -- the first drop since 2001.

"There's a good chance we'll see bigger drops (nationally)," Robert Shiller, chief economist at MacroMarkets, told Bloomberg News. "The psychology is changing."
Charlotte has fared better than most because the region's home values did not post annual leaps of 25 percent to 50 percent that Washington, Phoenix and Las Vegas reached during 2004 and 2005.

Charlotte's annual price growth has ranged from 2 percent to 5 percent with healthy employment and migration, S&P's Maureen Maitland said. The region's current home-price growth, 7.9 percent, is the biggest in six years.

Some Rise, Some Fall
The latest annual change in home values among 20 metro areas surveyed in the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index:
1. Seattle: 11.1%
2. Portland: 8.7%
3. Charlotte: 7.9%
4. Miami: 4.2%
5. Atlanta: 2.3%
6. Chicago: 2.2%
7. Los Angeles: 1%
8. Dallas: 0.5%
9. Las Vegas: 0%
10. Tampa: -0.1%
11. Phoenix: -0.7%
12. Minneapolis: -0.9%
12. New York: -0.9%
14. Denver: -1.1%
15. San Fran.: -1.4%
16. Cleveland: -2.7%
17. Wash. D.C.: -3.9%
18. San Diego: -4.2%
19. Boston: -5.6%
20. Detroit: -6.9%
Composite: -0.2%