Most consider pet needs when buying or selling homes

When making decisions about buying, selling or renovating their homes, Americans, by and large, take their pets' needs into account, according to a new report from the National Association of Realtors^®. The 2017 Animal House: Remodeling Impact report found that 81 percent of respondents said that animal-related considerations play a role when deciding on their next living situation. 

"In 2016, 61 percent of U.S. households either have a pet or plan to get one in the future, so it is important to understand the unique needs and wants of animal owners when it comes to homeownership," said NAR President William E. Brown, a Realtor^® from Alamo, California and founder of Investment Properties. "Realtors^®understand that when someone buys a home, they are buying it with the needs of their whole family in mind; ask pet owners, and they will enthusiastically agree that their animals are part of their family."

In fact, according to the survey, 99 percent of pet owners said they consider their animal part of the family, and this becomes apparent in the sacrifices pet owners are willing to make when it comes to buying and selling homes. Eighty-nine percent of those surveyed said they would not give up their animal because of housing restrictions or limitations. Twelve percent of pet owners have moved to accommodate their animal, and 19 percent said that they would consider moving to accommodate their animal in the future.   

Realtors^® who were surveyed indicated that one-third of their pet-owning clients often or very often will refuse to make an offer on a home because it is not ideal for their animal. Realtors^® also noted that 61 percent of buyers find it difficult or very difficult to locate a rental property or a homeowners association that accommodates animals. 

When it comes to selling, 67 percent of Realtors^® say animals have a moderate to major effect on selling a home. Approximately two-thirds of Realtors^® say that they advise animal owning sellers to always replace things in the home damaged by an animal, have the home cleaned to remove any animal scents and to take animals out of the home during an open house or showing.

More than half of all survey respondents, 52 percent, said they had completed a home renovation project specifically to accommodate their animal. Of those who undertook projects, 23 percent built a fence around their yard, 12 percent added a dog door and 10 percent installed laminate flooring. Ninety-four percent of consumers said they were satisfied with their renovation; 58 percent indicated they have a greater desire to be at home and 62 percent enjoy spending more time at home since completing their renovation.

When it comes to the enjoyment homeowners gain from these projects, fencing in a yard and installing laminated floors rated highest, both receiving Joy Scores of 9.4; Joy Scores range between 1 and 10, and higher figures indicate greater joy from the project. Adding a dog door came in a close second with a Joy Score of 9.2.

A majority of surveyed animal owners, 83 percent, said they own a dog, which helps explain the overwhelming popularity of dog-related renovation projects. Forty-three percent of those surveyed said they own a cat, 9 percent own a bird, reptile, amphibian, arthropod, small mammal, or miniature horse, 8 percent a fish and 5 percent own a farm animal.

NAR members were also surveyed about their relationships with animals, with 80 percent of Realtors^®considering themselves animal lovers and 68 percent indicating that they have pets of their own. Twelve percent of Realtors^® surveyed volunteer for an organization that helps animals, and 21 percent plan to volunteer in the future.  

For more home improvement ideas and solutions, visit www.Houselogic.com or join the pet-friendly conversation on social media using the hashtag #realtorpets.

The National Association of Realtors^®, "The Voice for Real Estate," is America's largest trade association, representing more than 1.2 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.

Thousands in Illinois still underwater on their mortgages

From ILLINOIS NEWS NETWORK

Illinois residents are more commonly underwater on their homes than nearly any other state.

A report released Thursday by ATTOM Data Solutions shows that more than 16 percent of Illinois’ homes are what they called “seriously underwater,” meaning their outstanding mortgages are at least 25 percent higher than their home’s worth. Only Nevada has a higher percentage. The national average is 9.6 percent.

ATTOM Vice president Darin Blomquist says that the most common factors of states with underwater homes are low wage growth and high property taxes. Both plague Illinois. “People look at those taxes as the cost of homeownership,” he said. “That has a chilling effect on home prices.”

He says Illinois is an outlier. Unlike other states where the major metro areas like Las Vegas’ high percentage of underwater homes drag the rest of the state’s number up, Chicago’s only .3 percent higher than the state.

That means the metropolitan area isn’t driving up the percentage of underwater homes. It’s a statewide problem. “It is a widespread issue across the state that’s causing the high percentage statewide,” Blomquist said.

Another casualty of the underwater homes is jobs. The report says that Illinoisans are staying in their homes for an average of eight years, compared to just four to five years before the recession. This lack of cycling from starter home to larger houses creates a lag on the local construction economy, which according to a recent government employment report, is Illinois’ highest paying — and fastest declining — employment sector.

Nationally, there are 1 million fewer seriously underwater homes than there were in December of 2015.

Molly Crusen Bishop: From County Kilkenny, Ireland to Peoria

Below is the Peoria Star Monday May 7^th, 1923 obituary for my Great Aunt Maggie

Mrs. Margaret Nolan Caffyn

“On the hillside in old St. Mary’s cemetery there is a little mound of freshly turned clay, entirely covered with the most beautiful flowers of springtime, beneath which were laid with loving hands this morning all that was mortal of Mrs. Margaret Nolan Caffyn, 905 Smith Street, widow of the late Jacob Caffyn, and who died in this city last Saturday morning.

Maggie Nolan, which was her maiden name, was the last surviving member of a party of young Irish folks who came to Peoria from County Kilkenny in the late 1860s , and gave the best they had to the up-building of this community until each in turn was summoned unto rest.

From this little group of Irish pioneers there has sprung an ever-widening circle of descendants and friends, so that when they were gathered in St. Patrick’s church this morning to pay the last tribute of respect that large edifice was very well filled with the decedent’s relatives and friends, who united with the officiating priest, Rev. Fr. Cullerton, in sending her soul beyond the skies on a wave of prayer and sacred melody.

At the time of her death Mrs. Caffyn was 76 years of age, and leaves to mourn her loss, besides relatives and friends mentioned, her sister Miss Joanna Nolan, and members of her husband’s family.”

Maggie Nolan was my great grandmother’s sister. My great grandmother was named Kate Nolan Waugh. There were two other sisters named Johanna and Mary, and a brother named James. All five of the siblings were a part of this group of young Irish folks that came from County Kilkenny.

Next is the brief obituary from 1920 of my great-great uncle, Thaddeus McGowan. This comes from a copy and it doesn’t say which newspaper.

“Thaddeus McGowan was aged 90 years and a resident of Peoria for 20 years, died suddenly of a complication of ailments at 11 0’clock last night at the home of his nephew Charles Needham at 113 Barker Avenue.

Mr. McGowan was born in Egypt County, Ireland, in 1830, and came to America in 1865. He settled in Brooklyn, New York, where he followed the builder’s trade. Twenty years ago he came to Peoria to live with his sister, 24 years his younger, Mrs. Ellen McGowan Needham. On Ellen Mary McGowan Needham’s death certificate it lists that she was born in May, 1854 to Patrick McGowan and Ellen Mulligan McGowan. Thaddeus’s information lists him as a widower born in 1830.

The Needham family lived on the West Bluff, in a humble house on Barker Avenue. There were family stories of an Aunt Jo, or Joanna Nolan, lifting up her skirts and doing the Irish jig and reel, while the Needhams would be listening to records of the Irish jig and hornpipes playing on the family victrola. Thaddeus had built a larger home down the street from the Needham house on Barker, yet he never lived there. The family rented out the home to earn income.

My great-grandma Kate Nolan Waugh died in 1900 in her early 40s, leaving seven children age 14 and younger. I feel I can get to know a bit of the family’s personality through family papers, and their obituaries.

Aunt Jo was quite a character; as I stated she was known to lift her skirts and dance a jig. She was also known to smoke a clay pipe. Her Irish brogue was said to be very thick, and she was very witty, and had a sarcastic yet humorous attitude. She worked as a carpet sewer, and had several finger injuries from doing this as a living. Jo also had a hairpiece that family info says wiggled when she would scratch or shake her head too much.

James Nolan was the brother born in Kilkenny, Ireland and he came to Peoria with his sisters and other young folks when he was only 19 years old. He was a night watchman for the Corning rectifying plant for more than two decades. He was married to Catherine Doherty in 1875 and they lived on Third Avenue. They had four daughters and one son. His obituary lists his sisters as Mrs. Maggie Nolan Caffyn, Mrs. Mary Nolan Kenny, and Miss Johanna Nolan, and the late Kate Nolan Waugh. His funeral was at St. Patrick’s Church. Most of the siblings are buried at St. Mary’s Cemetery on Sterling Avenue in West Peoria.

The Needham, Nolan, and Waugh family’s lives intertwined through marriages, friendships and church. They also had a lot in common with many young Irish immigrants during the middle to late 1800s.

Ireland suffered from the potato famine off and on for decades. This was also known as the “great hunger” and the “great blight” as well. The English controlled much of their lives and had control of their destinies. There were plenty of other crops and food grown during the famine, but the English would have it shipped back to England, leaving many poor tenant farmers without any decent food for sustenance. Many times they were not allowed the right to vote, own land, and at one point a law was passed that an Irishman could be arrested just for walking outside at the wrong time of day, even on the land they lived on.

The entire country was suffering from mass starvation, disease, and emigration. The term Diaspora is often found when reading or researching this topic. Diaspora’s definition is an involuntary mass dispersion of historic proportions forcing people to emigrate from their homeland to other places. There were so many people and children dying, some had green, grass-stained mouths from eating grass, while slowly dying from starvation.

Many starving Irishmen and women sold anything they had to take a chance in America and Canada. They would arrive in Liverpool, England, and take passage in distressing conditions on what was known as “coffin ships.” These coffin ships were old English ships from the late 1700s and early 1800s and were very unsanitary and unsafe. I have read accounts of these ships arriving on the coast of Canada and America, with the Irish crawling upon the shore and dying while trying to get to their destination. Their bodies were weak and frail and malnourished, and they mustered all of their strength, leaving everything they had ever known to come here to die.

Ship conditions improved slightly by the 1860s when my Irish ancestors were coming here, but opportunities for the younger Irish were very small in Ireland, making the dream of American all the more appealing.

If you couldn’t own land, had little to no education, and no job opportunities to feed and support one’s family, it is no wonder that Ireland lost around a million souls to death, and another million who left for Canada and America.

My mom, Joani Needham Crusen, celebrated her Irish heritage. She signed me up for Irish dancing lessons in the early 1980s. I was one of the original modern group of Irish dancers in Peoria, along with Megan Hanigan, the Doyle sisters, Grainne Kenny, and others. Each St. Patrick’s Day we would get to miss school at St. Mark and dance throughout the parade. We would be wearing our kilts and gillies and venture over to perform at the Pere Marquette, followed by a performance at the Holiday Inn, usually a nursing home or two.

The finale of the day was dancing at the Donnelly family Shamrock Pub event at Expo Gardens. We often danced at the early Erin Feis celebrations, at many schools’ cultural week events, etc.

I am now 45 and I can still do five steps of the Irish jig and most of a reel or two. I try to continue to learn as much as I can about my ancestry, and the Irish chapter is filled with controversy, pain and suffering, yet the strength of the spirit of an Irishman is bigger than these. The joy, the ability to be a storyteller, the energy and love of the ancient dance, and the ability of their sheer strength, heart, mind, and bodies to survive in catastrophic conditions outweighs the darkness. There is nothing quite like the twinkle in the eyes of the Irish, nor like the contagious laughter that comes from deep within their soul, or the wit from telling a good tale.

It comes to my heart how much my ancestors’ stories are so adaptable to the world we are living in today.

I am personally so thankful for the bravery and strength of these humble Irish ancestors. There is an expression by Linda Hogan that sums up my love for my ancestors, “Walking, I am listening to a deeper way. Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen for you are the result of a thousand loves.”

NRF predicts retail sales will grow in 2017

A top retail trade association projects retail industry sales will increase between 3.7 percent and 4.2 percent in 2017; online sales could go up as much as 8 percent and 12 percent.

The National Retail Federation made the projections in its economic forecast for 2017. Its forecast excludes automobiles, gasoline stations and restaurants.

“The economy is on firm ground as we head into 2017 and is expected to build on the momentum we saw late last year,” said NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay. “With jobs and income growing and debt relatively low, the fundamentals are in place and the consumer is in the driver’s seat. But this year is unlike any other; while consumers have strength they haven’t had in the past, they will remain hesitant to spend until they have more certainty about policy changes on taxes, trade and other issues being debated in Congress.

“Lawmakers should take note and stand firm against any policies, rules or regulations that would increase the cost of everyday goods for American consumers,” Shay said.

“Prospects for consumer spending are straightforward – more jobs and more income will result in more spending,” said NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz. “Regardless of sentiment, the pace of wage growth and job creation dictate spending. Our forecast represents a baseline for the year, but potential fiscal policy changes could impact consumers and the economy. It seems unlikely that businesses will notably increase investment until tax reform and trade policies are well-defined.”

“It is clear that online sales will continue to expand in 2017 and provide growth for the retail industry,” Kleinhenz said. “But it is important to realize that virtually every major retailer sells online and many of those sales will be made by discount stores, department stores and other traditional retailers. Retailers sell to consumers however they want to buy, whether it’s in-store, online or mobile.”

Additional Economic Insights:

• The economy is expected to gain an average of approximately 160,000 jobs a month. That is down slightly from 2016 but consistent with labor market growth.
• Unemployment is expected to drop to 4.6 percent by the end of the year.
• Economic growth is likely to be in the range of 1.9 percent to 2.4 percent.
• The forecast is a baseline, and does not take into account new fiscal measures pending in Washington.

Retail industry sales as defined by NRF include most traditional retail categories including non-store sales, discounters, department stores, grocery stores, specialty stores, and auto parts and accessories stores but exclude sales at automotive dealers, gasoline stations, and restaurants. Non-store/online sales include online sales, kiosks, catalogs, etc. and are a breakout of the overall number.

The Retail Federation also forecast that imports at the nation’s major retail container ports are expected to increase 4.6 percent during the first half of 2017 over the same period last year as the economy improves and retail sales continue to grow. That’s from the monthly Global Port Tracker report released by the NRF and Hackett Associates.

“This is very much in line with what we are forecasting for retail sales and consumer spending this year,” said Jonathan Gold, NRF vice president for Supply Chain and Customs Policy. “Retailers try to balance inventories very carefully with demand. So, when retailers import more merchandise, that’s a pretty good indicator of what they are expecting to happen with sales.”

Cargo volume does not correlate directly to sales because only the number of containers is counted, not the value of the cargo inside, but it nonetheless provides a barometer of retailers’ expectations.

“The United States is well placed in 2017 and is likely to outperform most of the rest of the developed economies,” said Ben Hackett, founder of Hackett Associates. “If the infrastructure investments promised by the new administration come about, we can expect stronger growth than in 2016, but that assumes good relationships with U.S. trading partners and no recourse to trade barriers that would result in a tit-for-tat response.”

Global Port Tracker, which is produced for NRF by the consulting firm Hackett Associates, covers the U.S. ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle and Tacoma on the West Coast; New York/New Jersey, Hampton Roads, Charleston, Savannah, Port Everglades and Miami on the East Coast, and Houston on the Gulf Coast. The report is free to NRF retail members, and subscription information is available at www.nrf.com/PortTracker or by calling (202) 783-7971. Subscription information for non-members can be found at www.globalporttracker.com.