Economic Development February Recap

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Economic Development February Recap

New & Expanding Companies:

Phononic Devices | Manufacturing | Expanding
Phononic Devices, a small Raleigh startup that makes miniature electric
heat pumps, has scored $10 million in venture capital to create
prototypes of its product for demonstration to potential customers.
Phononic Devices has 10 employees at its Centennial Campus offices and
plans to hire up to 20 scientists and engineers in the next 18 months.

Salix Pharmaceuticals | Pharmaceuticals/Biotech | Expanding
Salix Pharmaceuticals is moving its headquarters to north Raleigh. Salix
has signed an 11-year lease for the 126,926-square-foot Colonnade II
office building. Salix will also occupy 26,000 square feet in a second
Colonnade building. The value of the two Colonnade leases is about $36
million. The company expects to relocate this fall.

TyraTech | Pharmaceuticals/Biotech | New
TyraTech, a Florida company that develops pesticides and products to
fight internal parasites, is relocating its headquarters to Morrisville,
bringing 105 jobs to Wake County. Some of those positions are expected
to be filled by existing employees moving from Florida. The company said
that it is expanding and expects to begin posting open positions in the
Triangle in late March.

Trade Shows & Recruitment:

* Wake County Economic Development Project Manager Wesley Fricks
traveled to Las Vegas to attend the annual convention of NAI Global Feb.
7 – 11. This event affords WCED the opportunity to connect with NAI’s
global network of real estate brokers, developers, and site selection
consultants and remind them why Wake County is “Smarter All Around.”

* Wake County Economic Development Executive Director Ken Atkins and
Project Manager Wayne Watkins spent Feb. 14 visiting Fort Bragg as
guests of the 82nd Airborne Division. The visit was designed to
demonstrate the airlift and deployment capabilities of the 82nd and
included a day-long tour of the key base components that make these
capabilities possible. The WCED team was treated to a behind-the-scenes
look at the complex preparations that go into making a successful
airborne deployment possible, from vehicle packing and loading to
personnel pre-jump rehearsals.

* Jennifer Bosser, assistant executive director for Wake County Economic
Development, exhibited at the Medical Design and Manufacturing West Show
in Anaheim, Calif. Feb. 7 – 11. MD&M West is the world’s largest event
for medical design and manufacturing. A delegation of seven
representatives from the Triangle region participated in the show,
including NC State University, ibiliti, Community Workforce Solutions,
Research Triangle Regional Partnership, and Kilpatrick Townsend &
Stockton LLP.

* Wake County Economic Development sponsored and exhibited at the
Council for Entrepreneurial Development’s Biotech Conference Feb. 21 -
22 at the Raleigh Convention Center. The annual Biotech/Life Science
Conference unites the Southeast’s life science community and includes
world-class speakers, a variety of panels on industry topics and trends,
and networking opportunities with life science leaders.

* Wake County Economic Development and Raleigh Economic Development have
established a new partnership with TACQUIRE to integrate a new building
and sites function into their respective websites. This new feature
enables companies seeking real estate to access the TACQUIRE database to
search for property directly from the two websites.

* Wake County Economic Development, in partnership with Raleigh Economic
Development and the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, has added “Downtown
Raleigh” as an additional submarket to Executive Pulse, the county’s
database tracking system that stores information on existing industry
visits and prospect activity.

* Wake County Economic Development has established a new subscription to
the www.locationadvisors.net, created by Development Counsellors
International. The subscription provides Wake County and its
municipalities access to site selection consultants, top real estate
brokers, and executives from incentive advisory firms. This subscription
gives Wake County the most up to date and accurate information for
contacting and communicating with site location decision makers.

Recent Accolades:
For a full list of accolades please visit www.raleigh-wake.org.
* #9 Best Value in Public Universities (North Carolina State University)
Princeton Review
* #2 Biggest Brain Magnet in U.S. (Raleigh-Cary, NC) Forbes.com
* #4 Metro in 10-Year Job Growth (Raleigh-Cary, NC) BusinessFirst

Activity Comparison:

Janhttp://raleighchamber2.org/emails/images/EDFeb2011.png

Labor Market Statistics:

Wake County

January
2010

January
2011

Year to Date Change

Labor Force

449,830

460,163

+ 10,333

Employed

408,490

414,154

+ 5,664

Unemployed

41,340

36,009

- 5,331

Rate

9.2%

8.0%

- 1.2%

Source: North Carolina Employment Security Commission

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By Walter Updegrave , senior editor

February 1, 2011: 11:03 AM ET

Typically, you can take the loan proceeds in a lump sum, monthly
payments for life, as a credit line or a combination of these.

One of the big appeals of this type of arrangement — as opposed to,
say, tapping your home equity by refinancing or opening a home equity
line of credit — is that you don’t have to repay the loan until you die
or move out of your house.

Another plus is that the payments you receive from a reverse mortgage
don’t affect your Social Security benefits (although they could affect
your eligibility for programs like Medicaid and Supplemental Security
Income, or SSI, the program that provides income to people with low
incomes and disabilities).

Until recently, though, there’s been a practical problem for anyone who,
like you, plans to use a reverse mortgage primarily as a line of credit
that could be drawn upon when and if needed, versus taking out a large
amount for some immediate need (renovating a home, replacing a car,
whatever).

That problem: In addition to interest expense and an annual insurance
charge (now 1.25% a year) on the outstanding balance, the Department of
Housing and Urban Development’s popular Home
Equity Conversion Mortgage reverse mortgage program (aka HECM Standard)
also levies an initial one-time insurance premium of 2% of the value of
your home.

That amounts to $6,000 for a $300,000 home. You don’t have to pay this
charge out of pocket. Still, it boosts the overall cost of borrowing,
and can significantly drive up the effective annual interest rate you
pay if you wind up drawing very little against the reverse mortgage or
if you die or move from your home shortly after taking out the loan.

But in October, HUD unveiled a new reverse mortgage program, known as
HECM Saver, that whittles down the initial insurance premium from 2% to 0.01% of your home’s value, reducing that one-time charge from $6,000 to just $30 on a $300,000 home.

You’ll still incur interest charges and the annual insurance fee. But by lowering the upfront cost, the HECM Saver potentially makes a reverse mortgage a more viable option if you intend to use it primarily as a back-up line of credit or an emergency fund, or if you think you will use it sparingly or not remain in your home for many years.

I say “potentially” for two reasons. For one thing, you’ll still have to
pay closing costs on the loan, which can include such expenses as an
appraisal, title search and insurance, credit checks, mortgage taxes and
a loan origination fee.

Lenders can charge an origination fee of as much as $2,500 if your
home’s value is less than $125,000. If your home is worth more than
that, lenders can charge 2% of the first $200,000 of your home’s value
plus an additional 1% on the amount over $200,000.

That translates to a $5,000 origination fee on a $300,000 home. (The
origination fee is capped at $6,000.) As my MONEY colleague George
Mannes noted previously

index.htm?iid=EL> , some lenders may be willing to waive origination
fees and pick up a portion of other upfront costs, such as the initial
insurance premium.

But you’ll still want to take a close look at what you’re being charged
upfront and decide if that amount makes sense given the likely amount
you’ll be borrowing.

You should also know that because it levies a lower initial insurance
premium, the HECM Saver doesn’t allow you to borrow as much as you can
with a HECM Standard reverse mortgage.

For example, a 62-year-old who owns a $300,000 home with no mortgage
debt might qualify for just under $102,000 with an adjustable rate HECM
Saver.

Under the HECM Standard program, that same person might be able to
borrow almost $141,000. (To see how much you might get under each
program given your age, where you live and the market value of your
home, check out AARP’s reverse mortgage calculator .)

No matter how enticing getting money on the house might seem, remember,
a reverse mortgage isn’t something you should take on lightly. As part
of the deal, you’re required to pay homeowners insurance premiums and
property taxes. You must also maintain the property in good condition.

Fail to do so, and you could be forced to repay the loan even if you’re
still living in the house. If you don’t have other resources to do that,
you would have to sell. So before signing up for a reverse mortgage,
consider whether there are other options for you and your spouse.

In some cases, retirees can be better off tapping a cash-value life
insurance or freeing up their home equity by downsizing to smaller or
less expensive digs that have lower ongoing maintenance and utility
costs.

Fortunately, HUD has beefed up the mandatory no- or low-cost counseling
that borrowers must get before taking out a reverse mortgage.

And to help people considering a reverse mortgage more fully understand
the pros and cons of such a loan, counseling agencies
must now provide
potential reverse mortgage borrowers with a packet of information before
the counseling session, including material for assessing these loans’
true costs and a booklet from the National Council on Aging that outlines how reverse mortgages work.

Remember too that while HECM reverse mortgages are insured by the
federal government, the loans themselves are made by private lenders who
do not set identical terms.

So compare the offerings of several lenders before settling on a loan.
You can find tips on choosing the best loan by clicking here

I also suggest you peruse the material
on the reverse mortgage section of AARP’s site

Finally, a recent Consumers Union report

contends that some unscrupulous reverse mortgage lenders push these
loans on people who might be better off without them or even use reverse
mortgages to perpetuate various financial scams.

I’ve also warned about such abuses

as putative advisers recommending reverse mortgages
and then persuading borrowers to invest the money in high-cost
investments like annuities. So certainly, you and your wife should look
into a reverse mortgage as a way of getting some extra income.

But don’t commit until you’ve thought about other options, you
understand all the costs and you’re convinced that the person making the
loan is on the up and up. \l “TOP”\l “TOP”

http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/01/pf/expert/reverse_mortgage.moneymag/inde
x.htm

Best Regards,

Corey Bauer

Retail Sales Manager

Wells Fargo Home Mortgage

M5609-011

7721 Six Forks Road, Suite 116

Raleigh, NC 27615

(Office: 919-841-5305

4 Fax: 866-709-6842

8* corey.d.bauer@wellsfargo.com

Apply Online @ www.cdbauer.com

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It’s time again to move your clocks forward one hour. You’ve heard that
every six months when you “spring forward”, it’s a good time to change
the batteries in your smoke or carbon monoxide detectors, schedule an
exterminator to spray for unwanted pests, flip your mattresses and
repair any leaks around your house. But did you also know that computer
experts recommend changing your passwords to critical computer and
online areas twice a year as well?

Changing your passwords to log on to your computer or access critical
stored information gets you in the habit of having a different one every
so often. At the same time, it reduces the chance that someone else will
be able to “break in” to your computer files or online information.
Experts caution though that you shouldn’t “sequence” your passwords to
make them easier to remember. If someone gets hold of an old password of
yours, “green03,” and it doesn’t work, it won’t take long for your
average computer hacker to guess the new password is “green04″ or
“green05.”

It’s a good idea to have different passwords for different things. This
can be hard to do in practice because there are so many things needing
passwords. Experts say having a couple different passwords can be
helpful. Use one for less important things like your log on to the New
York Times online or an Internet message board, and another, more
complex one for more important things like your online banking or the
place you store sensitive business documents on your hard drive.

Try to vary your passwords by using things that aren’t easy to guess or
find out, like your Social Security number, your birthday, or child’s
name. Another good idea, experts say, is including both letters and
numerals in passwords. A good way to do this is to substitute numbers
that look most like the vowels for a, e, i and o. “A” can be “4″, “E”
can be “3″, “I” can be “1″ and “O” can be “0″. A password for an “agent”
might be “4g3nt.” These letter/number combinations are harder to guess
but also, harder for a hacker to remember if they somehow are able to
see them very briefly.

Whatever you do to make it easy for you to remember your passwords but
hard for others to guess, consider changing your passwords when you
change your clocks, detector batteries and replace any broken sprinkler
heads. You may be very glad you did!

And after the time change, please feel free to contact me if you’re
clients are in the market for an affordable home mortgage!

Hugh Page
FM Lending Services, LLC
Senior Mortgage Consultant
5925 Falls of Neuse Rd
Raleigh, NC 27609
(919) 874-7557
hpage@fmlending.com
www.fmlending.com