- MV Realty files for bankruptcy amid investigation of accusations of deceptive practices, tricking homeowners WTVD-TV
- Controversial real estate company files for bankruptcy following series of Channel 2 investigations WSB Atlanta
- Florida-based realty company with hundreds of Mass. customers files for bankruptcy Boston 25 News
- MV Realty files for bankruptcy amid investigation, accusations of deceptive practices ABC11
- Controversial real estate company files for bankruptcy following series of Channel 11 investigations WPXI Pittsburgh
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Tag Archives: homeowners
Homeowners looking to move are eyeing cities in this state
(NEXSTAR) – Homebuyers looking to offset soaring home prices and near-7% mortgage rates and are more willing than ever to shop outside of their city, according to a new study.
Real estate brokerage Redfin found that a near-record number of prospective buyers, 24.1%, looked to relocate from August through October.
When it came to the most sought-after cities, the Sunshine State dominated the top 10, despite the devastation wrought by Hurricane Ian in late September. Miami landed in the third spot overall, followed by Tampa in fifth place, Cape Coral in seventh, North Port-Sarasota in eighth and Orlando in 10th.
Redfin calculated the ranking based on net inflow, or the number of people looking to move into a city minus the number trying to move out.
Remote work, born of necessity during the pandemic and now a valued job criteria for many, continues to ease workers’ moves between cities and even states. An October report from the National Association of Realtors found that the two qualities remote workers overwhelmingly valued above all others were year-round warm weather and, of course, high-speed internet.
California city takes top spot
The top city in the nation was not in Florida, however, but in California. Sacramento saw the highest net out-of-state searches among Redfin’s roughly 2 million users.
Filling out the top 10 are Las Vegas in second place, San Diego in fourth, Phoenix in sixth and Dallas in ninth.
The top five cities when it came to net outflow were, in order, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C., and Boston.
Good news for homebuyers?
While the number of Redfin users looking to relocate is at near-record levels, home sales across the country are under pressure.
Amid high inflation and soaring mortgage rates, pending home sales dipped 4.6% in October, according to the National Association of Realtors, making it the fifth straight month of decline.
“October was a difficult month for home buyers as they faced 20-year-high mortgage rates,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “The West region, in particular, suffered from the combination of high-interest rates and expensive home prices. Only the Midwest squeaked out a gain.”
The overwhelming trend identified by Redfin was a move away from the high sticker prices of San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago to cities with lower asking prices, effectively increasing affordability and offsetting some hefty mortgage payments.
There may be some good news for homebuyers, however, according to Yun: “The upcoming months should see a return of buyers, as mortgage rates appear to have already peaked and have been coming down since mid-November.”
Homeowners lost $1.5T in equity since May: research
American homeowners lost more than $1 trillion in equity gained during the pandemic since May, according to a new report.
The report from the mortgage software and analytics company Black Knight shows mortgage holders collectively lost $1.3 trillion in the second quarter of 2022 and $1.5 trillion since May.
“In the span of just three months, U.S. mortgage holders saw a total of $1.3T in newly acquired equity evaporate,” Black Knight Data & Analytics President Ben Graboske said in statement.
“That is — by far — the largest quarterly decline on record by dollar value and the largest since 2009 on a percentage basis,” Graboske added.
During the pandemic, the housing market boomed and home prices skyrocketed.
The average mortgage holder has lost about $30,000 since the May peak, but Black Knight’s analysis showed the average mortgage holder has more than $92,000 more equity than before the pandemic.
Further, the number of homes underwater — meaning, the house is worth less than the amount owed on the loan to purchase the home — rose by 275,000 in the past four months.
Currently, 500,000 are underwater nationwide.
“The vast majority of homes at risk of falling underwater are those that were purchased in 2022 and late 2021, at or near pandemic-era peak prices. While these loans clearly deserve careful, ongoing monitoring, to put that into context, just 3.6% of nearly 53M U.S. mortgage holders are either underwater or have less than 10% equity in their homes — roughly half the share coming into the pandemic.
The Federal Reserve’s fight with inflation, which led to a series of jumbo interest rate hikes, has substantially cooled the housing market after a more than two-year boom.
Home price growth slowed to record levels in September, falling by 2.6 percent from the previous month. Yet Black Knight’s data shows that prices across the country are still high.
Black Knight’s analysis revealed that home values in the nation’s 50 largest markets remain elevated by anywhere from 19 percent to 66 percent since the start of the pandemic.
First-time homebuyers are being shut out of the market like never before
If you bought your first home during the past year, consider yourself one of the fortunate few.
Skyrocketing home prices and climbing interest rates pushed the share of first-time homebuyers to an all-time low, according to a new report from the National Association of Realtors. And those first-time buyers were the oldest they have ever been, as the growing lack of affordability forced people to wait longer to reach life milestones like buying a home.
First-time buyers made up just 26% of all homebuyers in the year ending June 2022, down from 34% the year before, according to NAR’s 2022 report on homebuyers and sellers. That was the lowest in the survey’s 41-year history. The share of buyers purchasing a first home has sat between 30% and 40% over the past decade and reached as high as 50% in 2009.
The age of a first-time homebuyer also rose, with the typical age reaching 36 years old, up from 33 last year. The typical repeat buyer’s age also climbed, reaching 59 years old, up from 56. Both are all-time highs.
As home prices soared and mortgage rates rose, buyers’ income dropped, the report found.
The median household income for first-time buyers slipped to $71,000 during the year ended in June, down from $86,500 in the previous 12-month period. Meanwhile, repeat buyers had a median income of $96,000, down from $112,500 the previous year.
Buyers typically purchased their homes for 100% of the asking price, the research showed, with 28% paying more than the asking price.
“For first-time homebuyers, the lack of affordability is playing a key role in holding them back from homeownership,” said Jessica Lautz, NAR’s vice president of demographics and behavioral insights. “They don’t have the equity that repeat buyers have for a down payment or to buy in cash. They have to save while paying more for rent, as well as student debt, child care and other expenses, and this year were facing increasing home prices while mortgage rates are also climbing.”
The time period covered by the research, from July 2021 to June 2022, included some of the steepest home price increases, reaching a peak median home price of $413,800 this past June. Inventory, hampered by decades of underbuilding, was at record low levels, which kept the competition to buy a home frenzied and pushed prices higher. By April of this year, mortgage rates began to surge past the 5% mark. But, after the Fed embarked on a series of interest rate hikes in order to tame inflation, they climbed to as high as 7% by late October. On Thursday, mortgage rates dipped slightly to 6.95%.
Together these factors have made for one of the most challenging and least affordable housing markets in decades.
Economists and housing advocates have cautioned that the increasingly unaffordable housing market is locking many potential buyers, especially buyers of color, out of homeownership.
The research showed there were fewer Black and Asian homebuyers during the year studied, while the share of White and Hispanic buyers grew.
During the year ending in June, the overwhelming majority of buyers, 88%, were White, up from 82% the previous year. Of all home buyers, 8% were Hispanic, up from 7%. Meanwhile, 3% were Black and 2% were Asian, both dropping from 6% a year ago.
This is likely to exacerbate the racial homeownership gap, in which 72% of White Americans are homeowners while only 43% of Black Americans own a home, according to NAR.
“We have been talking about the impacts, but this year we are seeing it realized in the data,” said Lautz. “Unless we have substantial homebuilding at affordable prices, we will continue to see first-time homebuyers held back.”
Lautz said that prior NAR research has shown that would-be Black homebuyers have lower incomes, higher debt and less likelihood of family support for a down payment than other groups. The data also showed that Black renters are also more squeezed, with a larger share paying more than 30% of their income to their landlord.
“With the rise of rents and how that is hitting first-time homebuyers, it impacts Black buyers more than it would any other group,” said Lautz.
Because of the affordability crunch, homebuyers seemed less able or interested in buying in the area where they currently live. The median distance between a buyer’s current home and their newly purchased home was typically 15 miles between 2018 and 2021. The typical distance during the year ending in June 2022 was 50 miles.
Lautz said the research showed buyers faced hard decisions to close the deal on a home they could afford.
The typical home purchased was 1,800 square feet, had three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and was built in 1986, the NAR report found. That is a smaller and older home than in previous years.
“For a lot of people something had to give in the equation: their location, the condition of the home or its size,” said Lautz.
Lack of flood insurance in hard-hit Central Florida leaves families struggling after Hurricane Ian
CNN
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When Amanda Trompeta was woken up by her dog barking early last Thursday morning, she assumed he was just frightened by Hurricane Ian. But then she got out of bed – and found herself standing ankle-deep in floodwater.
By the time the storm passed, three and a half feet of murky, dark water had swept into Trompeta’s house in the Orlando suburb of Winter Springs. “It went everywhere, every single room,” she said. “All the floors, all the walls have to be redone – everything is ruined.”
Despite the devastation, when Trompeta called her insurance company, she came to an unpleasant realization: “They are not planning on covering anything.”
Homeowners insurance policies typically don’t cover flood damage, and most people living in Ian’s path across Florida didn’t have a separate flood insurance policy. Inland areas that experienced historic rainfall and catastrophic floodwaters were especially unprepared, according to a CNN analysis of FEMA flood insurance data.
About a fourth of single-family homes in coastal Lee County, where Ian came onshore, are covered by federal flood insurance. The coverage rates are higher in some of the hardest-hit areas of the county, like Sanibel Island, where about half of homes are covered.
But further inland, only about 4% of single-family homes in Seminole County, 3% of homes in Orange County and 2% of homes in Polk County are covered by flood insurance. All of those counties have reported significant flooding during Ian.
“The most concerning factor coming out of the storm and all the losses is the lack of flood insurance, particularly in the Central Florida area,” said Mark Friedlander, the corporate communications director of the Insurance Information Institute, an industry group.
While people without flood insurance will still be eligible for assistance payments from FEMA and potentially other aid approved by Congress, many homeowners will likely only receive a tiny fraction of the cost of the damage they suffered.
“People are going to be really disappointed when they see what funds they get and how short they are in helping them recover,” Friedlander said.
Ian cut a swathe of disaster across Florida’s mid-section, inundating communities with historic levels of rain from Fort Myers on the southwest coast, through the Orlando region and up into the northeastern corner of the state. The floodwaters turned towns into rivers, and forced some residents to kayak through their living rooms to assess the damage.
In inland Central Florida – which marked its wettest month on record in September – officials reported considerable damage and high flood levels that persisted even days after the storm passed.
In Seminole County, northeast of Orlando, more than 5,200 residential buildings have been damaged by the storm, primarily due to flooding, according to a county spokesperson. “We’ve never had anything to this nature,” said Jay Zembower, a Seminole County commissioner, calling the flooding “a 500-plus-year event of quick rainfall in a short window of time.”
Polk County has counted about 3,000 buildings damaged in the storm, Orange County has tallied about 1,200, and Volusia County on the state’s eastern coast has at least 4,000 damaged, county officials said. All of the counties said their numbers are preliminary – in some cases because damage assessment teams still haven’t been able to reach some flooded areas.
Previous hurricanes like Irma in 2017 also caused significant damage in the region. But much of that damage in Seminole County, at least, was from wind and debris, which is covered by typical homeowners insurance policies, and not flooding, the county spokesperson said.
Now, the lack of flood insurance is a major hurdle for families trying to get back on their feet. Homeowners are generally required to purchase flood insurance if they live in a FEMA-designated flood zone and have a federally-backed mortgage. But the flooding from Ian stretched beyond that floodplain in Central Florida and elsewhere, according to an analysis by the satellite mapping company ICEYE.
That means that many of those affected by the floods, especially away from the coasts, likely didn’t have flood insurance and can’t count on any insurance payments to help them.
In Winter Springs, for example, at least 2,000 buildings have been affected, according to county officials, but there are only about 525 federal flood insurance policies active in the city, FEMA records show.
Trompeta, whose neighborhood is littered with debris and waterlogged furniture piled on front lawns, said the lack of flood insurance on the home that she and her fiancé bought a few years ago threw her carefully planned finances out of whack.
“It’s obviously a big setback,” she said. “We both have student debt,” and with the federal forgiveness program, she added, “I was on track to be debt-free in a year.”
“Now we have to focus on rebuilding the house so that we have some place to live,” Trompeta said.
Without flood insurance, people like Trompeta will be forced to apply for other government aid like FEMA’s individual assistance programs. Those payments are capped at about $38,000, and after past hurricanes, many people ended up receiving roughly $5,000 to $10,000, said Roy Wright, the former chief executive of FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program.
“The US disaster programs presume that homeowners are insured,” Wright said. The individual assistance programs “are there not even as a safety net but simply as a helping hand to those who were left in a bad spot,” he said.
Congress could also pass additional disaster aid – like lawmakers did in the wake of previous major hurricanes, like Katrina, Sandy and Harvey. But it could take months or longer for the funding to be approved and for affected communities to receive it, Wright said.
Experts like Wright said that the widespread damage from Ian should be a wake-up call that far more homeowners around the US need to purchase flood insurance – even if they don’t own a waterfront property. That’s especially the case as climate change leads to stronger and more frequent storms.
While some people have purchased private flood insurance that’s not captured in the FEMA data, the federal flood insurance program still accounts for about 80% of the policies in Florida, Friedlander said.
Research has also found that FEMA’s flood maps underestimate the danger in some areas as climate change advances, leaving some homeowners unaware of their level of risk.
Bash presses FEMA Admin on need to update flood maps
Meanwhile, even some of the families affected by Ian who do have flood insurance are finding that it’s not enough to account for all of their damage. Federal flood insurance caps payouts for single-family home damage at $250,000 and contents of the home at $100,000.
Pamela Sanders said her family’s home in Geneva, Florida has had flood insurance for years, but she expects the damage the home suffered during Ian’s onslaught to exceed her maximum coverage. Floodwaters that swept through her neighborhood left the lower story of her house under water and mold is already growing on the second floor.
“It’s unbelievable,” Sanders said. “I always had a job, paid my bills, paid off my house, was all set for retirement – and now I’m 75 and homeless.”
In Poland, where coal is king, homeowners queue for days to buy fuel
WARSAW/BOGDANKA, Aug 27 (Reuters) – In Poland’s late summer heat, dozens of cars and trucks line up at the Lubelski Wegiel Bogdanka coal mine, as householders fearful of winter shortages wait for days and nights to stock up on heating fuel in queues reminiscent of communist times.
Artur, 57, a pensioner, drove up from Swidnik, some 30 km (18 miles) from the mine in eastern Poland on Tuesday, hoping to buy several tonnes of coal for himself and his family.
“Toilets were put up today, but there’s no running water,” he said, after three nights of sleeping in his small red hatchback in a crawling queue of trucks, tractors towing trailers and private cars.
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“This is beyond imagination, people are sleeping in their cars. I remember the communist times but it didn’t cross my mind that we could return to something even worse.”
Artur’s household is one of the 3.8 million in Poland that rely on coal for heating and now face shortages and price hikes, after Poland and the European Union imposed an embargo on Russian coal following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
Poland banned purchases with an immediate effect in April, while the bloc mandated fading them out by August.
While Poland produces over 50 million tonnes from its own mines every year, imported coal, much of it from Russia, is a household staple because of competitive prices and the fact that Russian coal is sold in lumps more suitable for home use.
Soaring demand has forced Bogdanka and other state-controlled mines to ration sales or offer the fuel to individual buyers via online platforms, in limited amounts. Artur, who did not want to give his full name, said he had collected paperwork from his extended family in the hope of picking up all their fuel allocations at once.
The mine planned to sell fuel for some 250 households on Friday and would continue sales over the weekend to cut waiting times, Dorota Choma, a spokeswoman for the Bogdanka mine told Reuters.
The limits are in place to prevent hoarding and profiteering, or even selling spots in the queue, Choma said.
Aerial view of a coal mine in Bogdanka, Poland August 26, 2022. REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Like all Polish coal mines, Bogdanka typically sells most of the coal it produces to power plants. Last year, it sold less than 1% of its output to individual clients so lacks the logistics to sell fuel directly to retail buyers.
Lukasz Horbacz, head of the Polish Coal Merchant Chamber of Commerce, said the decline in Russian imports began in January when Moscow started using rail tracks for military transport.
“But the main reason for the shortages is the embargo that went into immediate effect. It turned the market upside down,” he told Reuters.
A spokesman for the Weglokoks, a state-owned coal trader tasked by the government to boost imports from other countries declined to comment, while the climate ministry was not available for comment. Government officials have repeatedly said Poland would have enough fuel to meet demand.
In recent years, Poland has been the most vocal critic of EU climate policy and a staunch defender of coal that generates as much as 80% of its electricity. But coal output has steadily declined as the cost of mining at deeper levels increases.
Coal consumption has held mostly steady, prompting a gradual rise in imports. In 2021, Poland imported 12 million tonnes of coal, of which 8 million tonnes came from Russia and used by households and small heating plants.
In July, Poland ordered two state-controlled companies to import several million tons of the fuel from other sources including Indonesia, Colombia and Africa, and introduced subsidies for homeowners facing a doubling or tripling of coal prices from last winter.
“As much as 60% of those that use coal for heating may be affected by energy poverty,” Horbacz said.
Back at Bogdanka, Piotr Maciejewski, 61, a local farmer who joined the queue on Tuesday, said he was prepared for a long wait.
“My tractor stays in line, I’m going home to get some sleep,” he said.
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Reporting by Marek Strzelecki and Kuba Stezycki, Editing by Ros Russell
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Florida homeowners scramble as another major insurer exits
MIAMI – One of Florida’s largest home insurers is exiting the market, leaving thousands of homeowners scrambling to find new coverage as options continue to dwindle in the Sunshine State.
United Property & Casualty Insurance Company, based in St. Petersburg, announced Thursday that it filed a plan of withdrawal in Florida and also plans to exit three other states.
It comes right in the middle of hurricane season and amid an exodus of companies from the market.
“The situation we’re seeing today with UPC is another chapter in the downfall of Florida’s private insurance market,” Mark Friedlander, the Florida spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute, said.
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Friedlander calls Florida’s property insurance market the “most volatile in the U.S.” and says virtually every homeowner in Florida will be impacted, either scrambling to find coverage, or those who have coverage paying more for what they have.
Coconut Creek insurance agent Dustyn Shroff said the insurance market in Florida has “collapsed.”
“Citizens Insurance, the company of last resort, was not designed to take on this many policies,” Shroff said. “As a local insurance agent, we find out about these cancellations at the same time the homeowner does.”
Dr. Allen Lavina and his wife purchased a home in Sunrise back in 2019. The first-time homeowners were able to secure insurance and made their mortgage payments on time. But, recently, the couple was given a notice from their insurance company: “we’re reducing exposure in the area.”
“We had a good amount of time to find other insurance, however, they won’t insure us because our roof is too old,” Lavina said. “We signed a contract to have our roof done, but we were told ‘supplies are delayed’ and it will take months until it’s done. Unfortunately, we are now under hazard insurance with our mortgager which of course is not ideal given our limited income at this time.”
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David Quinones started a Facebook group for Floridians dropped by their homeowners’ insurance. It’s called Forced Out Florida.
“I’ve been dropped by my homeowners insurance effective in July and was also refused by Citizens because of an arbitrary rule they passed in February disallowing new policies if the dwelling has ever had more than two non-weather related water claims,” Quinones said. “So we are truly locked out of the market and our mortgage and home itself is imperiled.”
Friedlander said Florida’s elevated hurricane risk isn’t to blame for the crisis.
“We look down the road in Louisiana and see they’ve had seven storms strike the state in the last few years, Florida has had no direct strikes,” he said. “So you can’t blame hurricanes. This is 100% a man-made crisis driven by years of rampant risk fraud replacement schemes and excessive litigation filed against insurers.”
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Friedlander zeroed in on roof repair fraud.
“Roof repair fraud schemes are the fuel that’s lighting the fire behind the rampant litigation being filed against Florida property insurers,” he said.
Local 10 News has tips on how to scam-proof your home after a storm
Friedlander said the legislature failed to address fraud and litigation issues during last May’s special session on property insurance reform.
Homeowners said the state needs to do more.
“If they try to put some patches or Band-Aids on it, we still have an existential dilemma,” Quinones said. “Like, how are we going to live in Florida?”
Homeowner Neal Bloom also expressed disappointment in the government’s response.
“I’m very disappointed the Florida government refuses to acknowledge or do anything for relief,” Bloom said. “I’ve sent emails to my congressman but none of their replies was what I wanted to hear. We have a small mortgage on our home, very high credit scores, pay our bills on time. So I think it’s unfair that people in our situation are penalized because others decided to file fraudulent claims for new roofs from prior hurricanes, which was the excuse I’m getting as to why we were dropped just like that.”
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Bloom recently had to go back into the Citizens pool after being dropped by his carrier, increasing his premium by more than $1,000 per year. He said he ended up having to spend thousands of dollars just to pass the company’s required inspection.
For some, like Lavina, the crisis is making them question whether they want to remain in the Sunshine State.
“My wife and I are trying to decide are we going stay in Florida,” Lavina said.
Friedlander said don’t expect things to get better in the near term.
“We’re seeing no signs of stability at this point and unfortunately, we expect to continue to see deterioration in the Florida insurance market throughout the rest of the year,” he said.
Insurer insolvencies, market exits
A number of home insurers have gone bankrupt in 2022, Friedlander said. He provided a list of companies that have either become insolvent or exited the market.
2022 Florida Home Insurer Insolvencies:
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Avatar Property and Casualty Insurance Co.
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Lighthouse Property Insurance Corp.
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Southern Fidelity Insurance Co.
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St. Johns Insurance Co.
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Weston Property & Casualty Insurance Co.
Florida home insurer that announced exit from market due to ongoing volality and litigious environment (company will still write small commercial, renters and flood insurance in Florida):
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Brad Pitt settles with New Orleans homeowners for $20.5 million
Dodging assassins on a fast-moving bullet train may come easy to Oscar-winner Brad Pitt, but lawsuits? Not so much! Per Page Six, the Bullet Train star and his Make It Right Foundation have reached a $20.5 million settlement after being sued in 2018 by New Orleans homeowners for the shoddy homes they constructed post-Hurricane Katrina.
According to The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate, while only six of the 107 homeowners are named in the settlement, all those who may choose to receive compensation for repairs will be eligible for up to $25,000 each. While the settlement still requires approval from a judge, the bill is being footed by Global Green, an environmental non-profit.
“I am incredibly grateful for Global Green’s willingness to step up and provide this important support for the Lower Ninth families,” said Pitt in a statement. “We collaborated in the early days post-Katrina and we are very fortunate to have Global Green’s generous continuing commitment to help address the challenges around these homes and others in need. Hopefully this agreement will allow everyone to look ahead to other opportunities to continue to strengthen this proud community in the future.”
The geometric, structurally-challenged houses of Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation trace their history back to two years after Katrina, when plans for the construction were announced. According to The Washington Post, the goal was for residents of the devastated Lower Ninth Ward to have energy-efficient and durable homes against the Louisiana weather, made for an average price of $150,000. While initially the program was deemed a success, reports from residents of leaking roofs, mold, and electrical fires caused the city of New Orleans to develop sour feelings towards the project.
Initially, Pitt had petitioned to be taken off of the suit due to him feeling that he wasn’t responsible for the physical construction of the project, but the request was ultimately denied.
New Jersey governor floats property tax relief for homeowners, renters
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy delivers a victory speech on Nov. 3, 2021, in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez | Getty Images
Property tax relief may soon be coming to New Jersey.
Gov. Phil Murphy has proposed the ANCHOR property tax relief program, extending savings to nearly 1.8 million households, as part of the state’s 2023 fiscal year budget.
Homeowners earning up to $250,000 per year may be eligible for rebates averaging $700, lowering the effective property tax rate to 2016 levels for many households, according to the plan.
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Renters making up to $100,000 may also qualify for a rebate up to $250, to help offset higher housing costs.
“This program will provide direct property tax relief to households regardless of whether they own or rent,” Gov. Murphy said. “While the state does not set property taxes, we believe that we must take action to offset costs and make life in New Jersey more affordable.”
The $10,000 cap on the federal deduction for state and local taxes for filers who itemize, known as SALT, has been a pain point as New Jersey faces the nation’s highest property taxes.
While some New Jersey and New York lawmakers have fought to include SALT reform in the Democrats’ spending package, the status of the plan is unclear.
Meanwhile, if New Jersey’s tax relief passes in the Democrat-controlled state legislature, it may distribute $900 million in property tax relief for fiscal year 2023.
The program aims to boost relief over a three-year period, increasing rebates to an average of $1,150 by 2025 for eligible families.
The proposal comes as many states are eying tax cuts, including income, sales, corporate, property and more, amid budget surpluses resulting from federal Covid-19 relief.
Maryland homeowners burn down $1.8 million house trying to get rid of snakes :: WRAL.com
What started as an attempt to get rid of household pests ended with a million-dollar home going up in flames.
Last month, about an hour west of Baltimore, homeowners were trying to smoke out a snake infestation.
The coals were too close to combustible materials, and the fire that started in the basement quickly spread through each floor.
No one was injured in the fire, officials said — but the status of the snakes is unknown.
The house was recently purchased for $1.8 million and it sustained more than a million dollars in damage.
Fire officials recommend if you have a snake infestation in your home to call a professional and not try to take matters into your own hands.