Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!usa-post Newsgroups: usa-today.real From: usa-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: usa-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: real Mon, Aug 10 1992 Date: Mon, 10 Aug 92 04:17:59 EDT Message-ID: 08-10 0000 DECISIONLINE: Real Estate USA TODAY Update Aug. 10, 1992 Source: USA TODAY:Gannett National Information Network AGRICULTURE WON'T FUND WETLANDS: The 1993 U.S. Agriculture Department spending bill will not provide money for a program designed to encourage farmers to restore wetlands they have converted to farm or pasture land. A House-Senate conference committee killed the Wetlands Reserve program when it deleted the $54.9 million plan the Senate had added. The bill now goes to the House and Senate for final votes. (For more, see special Wetlands package below.) HOUSING PROVISIONS STUCK ON BILL: Provisions affecting homebuyers and those concerned with low-income housing have been attached to a $31 billion package of tax breaks scheduled for Senate action this week. What began as a $5 billion package has burgeoned into an unwieldy bag holding provisions frustrating to both political parties. Included: Tax breaks for first-time homebuyers. HOMEBUYER BREAKS ATTACHED: Among provisions attached to a $31 billion aid package facing Senate action this week is an array of tax breaks proposed since January by President Bush. They include tax breaks on real estate and tax breaks for first-time homebuyers. Lawmakers and lobbyists have been looking for a way to extend tax breaks that expired June 30. The package offers the means. OWL BILL MAY BE DRAFTED: Members of Congress from the Northwest have been asked to consider drafting a spotted owl bill that would dissolve court injunctions that have paralyzed timber harvesting in Washington, Oregon and northern California. Staffers for key committees floated the idea of revoking the injunctions at a meeting with the Northwest delegation called by House Speaker Tom Foley, D-Wash. BLM PLAN IS OPPOSED: Hundreds of ranchers, hunters and environmentalists plan to fight a Bureau of Land Management plan that would significantly restrict 1.5 million acres in Clark County, Nevada, to protect the desert tortoise and woundfin minnow. Critics say the plan favors animals over people. The BLM calls the plan fair and legal. 25% OF N.Y. PROPERTY EXEMPT: Almost $275 billion worth of property in New York was exempted from property taxes in 1990, according to the state Board of Equalization and Assessment's annual report. That's 26% of the market value of real estate in the state. Property owned by local governments accounted for almost $92 billion. VERMONT HOME PRICES SOAR: The average price of a home in Vermont in 1990 was $95,400, up 42.5% from the median 1980 price of $67,000. The average rental rate was $378 a month in 1990, compared to $276 in 1980. That's a change of 37%. DAY-CARE FOR HOMELESS OFFERED: A day-care center serving children of the homeless will open Aug. 24 at the YWCA in Jacksonville, Fla. The center is designed to give parents time to look for work, housing and assistance. A $50,000 state grant will open the center. MORTGAGE RATES STEADY: Fixed-rate mortgage rates were steady for the first time in six weeks, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. says. Thirty-year fixed mortgages averaged 8.05% last week - unchanged from a week earlier, when they fell to their lowest level since July 1973. One-year adjustable rates: 5.30%, vs. 5.37%. SPECIAL PACKAGE ON WETLANDS: LEAHY HELPED PROGRAM: Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, was a key architect of the Wetlands Reserve program. The program, which would pay farmers to return wetlands to their natural state, was not approved by the House. The Senate had included money for the program in the 1993 Department of Agriculture spending bill. BILL CALLED `MAJOR LOSS': Leahy called the final bill "a major loss for farmers and the environment. Experts have long recognized that wetlands are critical to protecting drinking water, curbing flooding and conserving wildlife habitat." The Center for Resource Economics, an environmental group, predicted a greater rift between environmentalists and Congress. VOTE CALLED `SCANDALOUS': The Center for Resource Economics says things will get worse. "It is a scandalous anti-environmental vote that will only harden positions in the environmental community. If this is what we get for supporting a voluntary, incentives-based approach, then stricter regulation is clearly the only answer," said Ken Cook, the center's policy vice president. (End of package.) Real Estate Editors: Beth Mann and Martin Baucom. (1-919-855-3491) Making copies of USA TODAY Update (Copyright, 1992) for further distribution violates federal law. This article is copyright 1992 Gannett News Service. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM