| ELLIOTT® 
            PROMOTES HOLT AND WILLIAMS 
              ELLIOTT® 
            & Company Appraisers has promoted Vice President and Client Services 
            Director Carlyle Holt to the position of Vice President and General 
            Manager and Review Appraiser George Williams to Director of Client 
            Services. 
 Carlyle, a graduate of North Carolina State University in Economics, 
            has spent most of his life in the home mortgage industry and holds a 
            North Carolina Loan Officer License and a North Carolina Real Estate 
            License. George, a graduate of the University of North Carolina with 
            a B.S. in Industrial Relations, has been a North Carolina real estate appraiser for almost 25 years.
 
 “Since joining our company both Carlyle and George have not only 
            met, but also exceeded our expectations,” said Charlie Elliott, 
            president of ELLIOTT® & Company Appraisers. “Promoting them to their 
            respective new positions will make better use of their abilities and 
            improve the management of our company.”
 
 ELLIOTT® & Company Appraisers is a full service real estate 
            appraisal management company that operates throughout the United 
            States and beyond.
 
 ELLIOTT® 
            REGISTERED IN ALL AMC-REGULATED STATES  
             For 
            more than 10 years, ELLIOTT® & Company Appraisers has been able to 
            secure appraisals, evaluations, research, consultation and 
            representation for real estate matters anywhere in the United 
            States. We have been able to continue this despite the proliferation 
            of appraisal management company (AMC) regulation that has taken 
            place in many states. 
 At this writing, 20 states have passed laws that regulate AMCs. Some 
            of these states charge high fees to the companies they are 
            regulating. The cost of regulatory compliance to meet these new laws 
            has discouraged some AMCs from operating in states that charge high 
            fees. ELLIOTT® works diligently with each state in its continuing 
            effort to meet every client’s needs.
 
 “Our company remains committed to serving our clients in all 50 
            states of the United States,” said Charlie Elliott, MAI, SRA, ASA, 
            and president of ELLIOTT® & Company Appraisers. “It is important for 
            us to be able to serve our clients in all locations throughout the 
            United States, and we are prepared to meet all regulatory 
            requirements, nationwide, in order to make this possible.”
 
 EXPERTS DISAGREE 
            ON HOUSING PRICES IN 2011 
             Will 
            housing prices increase, decrease or remain flat in 2011? The answer 
            will come in time, of course, but if you want an answer now, it 
            would depend upon which “expert” you ask. All three directions have 
            professional housing analysts pointing their way. 
 Going up: Warren Buffet, the legendary billionaire investor, has 
            gone on record for predicting the real estate decline will probably 
            end in 2011.
 
 “Prices will remain far below the bubble levels, of course, but for 
            every seller hurt by this there will be a buyer who benefits,” 
            Buffet was quotes as saying in the Wall Street Journal.
 
            Lately, Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, has 
            been strongly encouraging people, with money to do so, to invest in 
            real estate. He points to high affordability, due to low prices and 
            interest rates, and he expects inventory to decline because of lack 
            of recent construction activity. Jim Cramer, a veteran stock market 
            analyst and reporter, looks at the recent stock prices of housing 
            related companies like Whirlpool, Lowe’s, Sherwin Williams and Ethan 
            Allen.
 “These stocks are screaming that sales for homes are going higher 
            and that the value of homes is going higher, or people wouldn’t be 
            throwing good money after bad,” Cramer wrote. “It’s not a question 
            of when the housing recovery will occur but of how big it will be.”
 
 Going down: Rick Sharga, a RealtyTrac senior vice president, has 
            forecasted a 5% drop in average home prices during 2011 because of 
            the foreclosure suspension in the wake of “robosigning” late last 
            year. Daryl Jones, an analyst at investment-research company Hedgeye, 
            points to tight credit standards and an 11-month supply of homes on 
            the market (in November) and suspects that home prices will continue 
            to decline, perhaps as much as 30% from their current levels.
 
 Remaining flat: A December 22 report by Chris Isodore for
            CNNMoney.com 
            stated, “Economists expect home prices to be essentially flat in 
            2011, with an anticipated rise of just 0.4%, a bit lower than in 
            earlier forecasts. Five of the 21 economists who gave home-price 
            forecasts are projecting prices to fall in 2011.”
 
 The report, which was prepared by consulting 23 economists on 
            different facets of the economy, noted that the 21 economists who 
            offered predictions on housing predicted, on the average, home 
            prices in increase 2.2% in 2012.
 
 FREE LAND STILL 
            OFFERED IN U.S. 
             The 
            Homestead Act, initiated by the United States in 1862, gave people 
            free land, primarily in the west. Those who met and accepted the 
            conditions wound up settling about 10% of the country. While this 
            country no longer gives land away, such generosity still exists 
            here. Land giveaways now tend to take place in agricultural-based 
            towns, with a population of less than 1,000. Most of the free land 
            is located in the Midwest or the Great Plains states. 
 One such example is in Ellsworth County, Kansas, where free land is 
            offered in the communities of Atwood, Ellsworth, Holyrood, Kanopolis, 
            Lincoln, Marquette, Osborne, Plainville, Tescott and Wilson. In 
            order to qualify for land in this county, through the Smokey Hill 
            Development Corporation’s “Welcome Home Program,” one must promise 
            to build a home of specified qualifications and follow up on that 
            promise. Obviously, the recipients of the land would then become 
            taxpayers, supporting the local infrastructure.
 
 Other municipalities, willing to give away land to committed 
            residents, are located in Alaska, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, North 
            Dakota and Wisconsin. Muskeegan, Michigan, is willing to give land 
            to companies that can produce industrial jobs, and Camden, Maine, is 
            offering a 3.5 acre lot to a business that can generate tourism.
 
 
            
             ASK MARTITIA 
            QUESTION:  Are appraisers required by USPAP to include 
            their qualifications as part of the appraisal report? 
            MARTITIA:  No. States normally require information on the 
            appraiser’s license, some professional appraisal organizations ask 
            their members to list them on their reports, and sometimes clients 
            request that this be done. The inclusion of qualifications and 
            professional appraisal designations in the appraisal reports, 
            however, has nothing to do with the Uniform Standards of 
            Professional Appraisal Practice. Martitia Mortimer, Elliott’s executive vice president, answers 
                  appraisal questions on a regular basis in Elliott Evaluation 
            News. 
 
            QUOTES
            
              
             “It’s easier to do a job right than to explain why 
            you didn’t.” – Martin Van Buren
 “A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that’s unlocked and 
            opens inwards, as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather 
            than push.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein
 
 “Even I don’t wake up looking like Cindy Crawford.” – Cindy 
            Crawford
 
 “There’s one thing about baldness; it’s neat.” – Don Herold
 
 “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what 
            you become by achieving your goals.” – Zig Ziglar
 
 
             
 
              
              
                
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