Future of the Home Buying Market in Lead Air Polluted Frisco

The Frisco Real-Estate market has enjoyed national rankings in home purchase ratings and new home builds in the last 10 years. As a Frisco homeowner, I think most other Frisco residents will agree, we hope that the return of the economy will soon bring big gains in our home values as well. On the contrary, if Frisco isn't taking priority in the cities air pollution, national news may read a completely different story in years to come in which could have a very negative affect on our values moving into the future. (It's only fitting that I write this Blog entry in GREEN...things that make ya wanna say hmmmm?)

At the Frisco Chamber of Commerce years ago, when I was building my mortgage business, I met today's City Council Member, Matt Lafata. When I was concerned of my family's health in relation to the lead pollution so publicized in the Dallas Morning News recently, I contacted Matt for his thoughts. I was very pleased to receive his response. Matt also is worried of the effects and urges Frisconians to stay on top of this issue and demand the city to stay on top of it as well. You can see Matt's Blog on this by clicking here. From the beginning where time spent together at the Frisco Chamber during the time I was building my mortgage business
In my Activerain Real-Estate network, I wrote a blog with the below story:

For months now, my wife and I, residents of Frisco for over 6 years now,
have been reading about the pollution by the recycling plant near downtown
Frisco. The news is not sounding good, and I am scared to death that my
two babies, daughters 2 and 4 that were raised here, are going to have learning
issues similar to previous children that proved to have high levels of lead in
their systems.
Some of the research studies gathered regarding this topic
where thought provoking. A couple children from the same Frisco family
near downtown Frisco both had issues that could possibly be a result from the
mother transmitting lead to her babies. One daughter has had learning
disabilities attributed to her spinal meningitis and the other can't walk today
do to her spinal issues.
The citizens of Frisco, and homeowners to be in
Frisco deserve easy to reach knowledge on the future governing and real effects
of this lead pollution issue. I think that if anyone has hard evidence on
this issue, or if there is someone studied in the area in which this topic
targets, they might reflect publicly their views on this
issue.
It would be VERY heartbreaking for any family to have a child
that grows up with learning disabilities that could have been controlled from
the beginning by a better maintenance or governing of our city's pollution
levels. It hits home for me and my wife because we have two children here,
and we actually moved to Frisco because of it's attention to detail
regarding the focus and education of children.
Just a disclaimer, I am
not stating that this is a State of the City Emergency, but just wishing to hear
more educated opinions on what is going on to protect the citizens of Frisco,
and my daughters.

Please don't be afraid to voice your opinion and lets get this issue resolved sooner rather than later.

In closing, I wanted to quote Matt on a paragraph from his Blog that really brings this issue "home"...Matt said, "One source of pollution that continues to haunt Frisco and its residents however, is the Exide battery recycling plant. This plant, located just south of downtown Frisco, has been polluting the Frisco air and ground for decades. It extracts lead from old batteries and despite their best efforts in filtering systems, or whatever they do to reduce emissions, they continue to contaminate the area (and with the way the wind blows around here, who knows how far the contamination spreads)."

Using the Owelty of Partition During a Divorce

When is an Owelty Lien used, and why can it be a better option than a Texas Equity or Texas Cashout Refinance? First, here is a couple definitions from different resources, so you can "get your hooks in" on exactly what an Owelty is? For further reference in this Blog, Texas Equity, Texas Cashout, Texas Home Equity, and Texas 50(a)(6), are all terms that can be used synonymously in this Blog for generalization purposes for the specific purpose of this Blog. There are variations of Texas Equity loans, but determination between those variations are not applicable to the specific focus here. Lawyers.com defines "Owelty"- Noun[Anglo-French oelté equality, from Latin aequalitat- aequalitas]: a lien created or a pecuniary sum paid by order of the court to effect an equitable partition of property (as in divorce) when such a partition in kind would be impossible, impracticable, or prejudicial to one of the parties. For the laymen, that means, when parties to a divorce own a home that in which there is substantial equity, one party will often be awarded the home as their separate property and the party receiving the home in the divorce decree will be ordered to pay a cash sum to the other spouse to compensate for that spouse’s community interest in the property.

When there are other alternatives to meet a person's needs in a loan that bring a similar outcome as a Home Equity or Texas Cashout Refinance, many times those are taken. The reason can be for various reasons. To avoid having to delve in too deep about all the specific unique laws of the Texas Equity, I'll try to make a general statement that could be elaborated upon in a number of ways. Once a Texas Equity, or the legal term for it, Texas 50(a)(6), always a Texas Equity...this means, if you refinance your home or current home loan into a Texas Cashout/Texas Home Equity, any refinance you make on that loan from then on out must also fall under the Texas Cashout loan guidelines. Texas Cashout guidelines are more restrictive, and many times lender charge a bit higher interest rate for them. To see a good definition of a Texas Cashout or Texas 50 (a)(6), click here. Lastly, the state of Texas will only let you have a loan to value on your home of up to 80% when you have a Texas Home Equity, and that means you lose the opportunity to use the remaining equity if needed...contrary to many state in the U.S.

In an Owelty Lien, you can get cash/equity out of your home to pay off a spouse in the process of a divorce. You can go over an above the Texas Cashout limit of 80%, and you get the best of the best market interest rates as if you were doing a regular rate and term refinance. In addition, you can Quit Claim Deed the spouse that is moving out of the residence from the property to remove their interest in that property and remove their influence or rights on the loan attached to that property if they were on the loan.