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ERIC SMITH | The Daily News

A handful of high-dollar deals highlighted Shelby County's commercial real estate sales landscape in January, helping 2008 begin on a positive note with a total sales volume of $137.4 million.

Topping the list of commercial sellers for the month was Fair Oak LLC, which sold two multifamily properties for a combined $17.7 million. It marked the top total dollar amount for any one seller during January, according to the latest data from real estate information company Chandler Reports, www.chandlerreports.com.

In addition to being lucrative, the first month of the new year also proved to be an active one, as 99 companies sold at least one commercial property, though only five of those entities registered more than one sale. Ty Investments LLC had the highest number of sales with three totaling $1.1 million.

'Steady eddy'

As for total dollars, Fair Oak's No. 1 ranking was bolstered by the sale of Poplar Place Townhomes for $13.5 million and Collier Village apartments for $4.2 million, both to the same undisclosed out-of-town investor.

"We are a very steady-eddy, reliable market that institutional-grade investors and even smaller investment groups like to have in their portfolio," Lea Heilig of Woodyard Realty Corp. told The Daily News recently. "We're solid, we're not going to go anywhere and Memphis is a good market to have an asset in."

That portfolio was followed by a shopping center at 890 Poplar Ave., on the corner of Market Boulevard in Collierville. Christian Mission Concerns of Tennessee Inc. sold the property to two couples - Alan L. Kosten and Susan Kosten, and Stanley Rosenblum and Judy Rosenblum - for $16 million, the single largest transaction in the county all month.

Rounding out the top five in terms of total sales dollars, Houston Levee Galleria Joint Venture sold a three-building, 65,000-square-foot retail center to DBSI Houston Levee Galleria LLC for $15.8 million; Weingarten/Investments Inc. sold an acre of land in the Ridgeway Trace Center to Target Corp. for $14.2 million; and Kindred Healthcare Inc., working as Kindred Development 15 LLC, sold the Cordova Rehabilitation and Nursing Center at 955 N. Germantown Parkway to a Chattanooga, Tenn.-based health care company for $10 million.

Same refrain

On the residential side, the theme was similar to one that played out during the latter half of 2007, when the rise of foreclosures prompted banks and trust companies to become the county's top sellers.

Indeed, Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. - a division of Frankfurt, Germany-based Deutsche Bank AG - led Shelby County in residential home sales for January in terms of dollar amount, according to Chandler Reports.

Deutsche Bank sold 62 homes in the month - a 29.2 percent rise from the 48 it sold in January 2007 - for a total of $4.3 million. Its average sales amount was $70,122.

The increase occurred because the organization acted as the trustee for numerous securitization trusts and, in some cases, as custodians for mortgage documents, said Deutsche Bank spokesman John Gallagher.

The company's large number of sales stemmed primarily from Shelby County's rise in foreclosures during the past year. The skyrocketing foreclosure rate occurred because so many adjustable-rate mortgages made in 2004 and 2005 reset to higher interest rates during 2007, causing borrowers to default on their loans.

The upheaval turned homes over to banks and trust companies, who were quick to get them off their books. That resulted in a high number of those organizations registering sales in Shelby County, and the trend continued into January.

During the month, 1,476 residential properties sold for a total price of $201.6 million. That marked an increase from the 1,983 sales totaling $288.2 million in January 2007.

Deutsche Bank was followed in dollar amount by U.S. Bank NA with 50 sales totaling $3.9 million; Housing and Urban Development with 67 sales totaling $3.4 million; Kevin and Sharon Kimery with one sale totaling $2.1 million; and Chamberlain & McCreery Inc. with eight sales totaling $2 million.

HUD's 67 sales led the county for the month, followed by Deutsche Bank's 62, U.S. Bank's 50, Wells Fargo NA with 35 and Bank of New York Trust Co. with 26.

By JOHN BRANSTON

An editor at another newspaper asked me this week to summarize the position of the "influential" Ford family relative to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

My first reaction was, "Got about five minutes and/or 400 words of space?" Because with two Harolds, two Edmunds, John, Ophelia, Joe, Jake, three indictments, one hospitalization, one trial, three candidacies — where do you start?

Besides, the Tennessee presidential primary isn't until February 5th, although early voting began at the Election Commission office downtown on January 16th and at 18 other sites on January 25th. Tennessee's time to share the spotlight will come but not for a week or two.

But I cobbled together a long, complicated answer and sent it along, under the heading DISARRAY, which describes our city as well as the Ford family.

Our political scene is in disarray. We elected a mayor, Willie Herenton, with 42 percent of the vote and a congressman, Steve Cohen, with 31 percent. We have nine new members on the 13-member Memphis City Council. We have an interim city schools superintendent and may soon have a proposal for a mayor-appointed school board along with a consolidation proposal. We have ongoing federal investigations of political corruption.

Our economy is in disarray. If Memphis is in the national business news, it's apt to be for something bad. This week, it was the 10 percent rental vacancy rate, highest among metro markets. Housing starts are down, and foreclosures are up. "We have never been here before," says suburban developer Jackie Welch. "It doesn't matter who you are — closing attorney, surveyor, agent, or builder. If you are dealing with real estate, you are feeling the pain." There is a financial earthquake coming when the city and county come to grips with lower tax collections and property reappraisals.

Rich people are not as rich as they were a year ago. Profits and stock prices are down at FedEx Ground, First Horizon, Regions, and many other "stocks of local interest," shedding billions of dollars in personal net worth. When a global company like Citigroup posts a $9.8 billion loss and cuts its dividend 41 percent because of losses on mortgage-related investments, can it be long before the regional banks follow suit? Airline passenger traffic is up, but the Memphis hub is endangered if Northwest Airlines merges with Delta. That possible marriage was reported last week.

Our sports scene is in disarray, with an empty Pyramid, thousands of empty seats at Grizzlies game, a stadium proposal going nowhere, and the development of the Mid-South Fairgrounds and Kroc Center still on hold. And if Bass Pro ever moves into The Pyramid, the Mississippi River may be bass-less, thanks to the accidental infestation of those high-jumping and ravenous Asian carp.

Our print media companies are ripe for change. The Commercial Appeal is cutting costs and changing its business model to adjust to declining readership and the Internet. So is Contemporary Media, Inc., the parent company of this newspaper. The Flyer will put out its 1,000th edition this year, and Memphis magazine will be 32 years old.

Our city and county public school systems are polar opposites. The Shelby County system brags, with justification, about making all "A's" on the Tennessee Department of Education's Report Card. The city system, with justification, is forever explaining the difficulty of educating so many low-income and special-needs students. The county builds new schools like Southwind High School in heavily populated areas once targeted for annexation but no more. The city rebuilds underpopulated schools like Manassas, which had 38 graduates in 2007. The people running and attending Shelby County schools are understandably opposed to consolidation, as Mayor A C Wharton has admitted.

One of the things the Flyer tries to do is give alternative points of view. If the prevailing mood is boosterism, then there is probably something to be said for skepticism, and vice versa. So here's an optimistic prediction. Out of our current disarray will come the future leaders and fresh ideas that will move Memphis politics, business, and education forward. The survivors and big winners will be the people who throw caution aside, reinvent themselves, and bet on the right horses, either through analysis or luck or more likely a combination of them.

Memphis leadership is ripe for turnover. All of the following people are over 60 years old: Willie Herenton, A C Wharton, Fred Smith, Allen Morgan Jr., Jack Belz, Henry Turley, Michael Heisley. By 2011 or sooner, there will be different leadership in city and county government. Within a year or two, there could be a new face in the Ninth Congressional District seat, the Memphis Grizzlies ownership group, the ownership and management of the daily newspaper, and one or more of the local television stations.

In politics, I think there will be a swing to Barack Obama starting next week. There are always more outsiders than insiders, and the upside is higher with an outsider.

Memphis Democrats delivered Tennessee, and Tennessee delivered the election to Bill Clinton and Al Gore in 1996. Herenton is supporting Hillary this time around. But the 70-member Clinton Tennessee "steering committee" includes only three Memphians — insiders Gale Jones Carson, Sidney Chism, and Beverly Marrero. And the newly minted "Tennessee Women for Hillary" announced Tuesday doesn't include a single Memphian.

Obama's supporters include pastor and city school board member Kenneth Whalum Jr., who says there is "a little bit of disgust in the black community with the Clintons, especially with people who say Hillary is entitled to the nomination." Congressman Cohen is staying uncommitted, although he has been wooed by both candidates or their representatives. Cohen's straddle makes sense for a white guy who has to run for reelection in a predominantly black district in November. But in his younger days, I bet a rebel like Cohen would have broken for Obama, and I think modern-day Cohens will too. After the presidential election, a Memphis variant of Obama, with no StickUm to Herenton or Wharton, will emerge and politely say "enough" to dwelling on 40th anniversaries and 25th anniversaries and get people looking ahead instead.

In business, if Northwest merges with Delta, I still think the eminently accessible Memphis airport will be fine. Two things you can't change about Memphis are mild weather and location. If Phil Trenary and Pinnacle Airlines don't reinvent the airport and passenger travel and logistics, then someone else will.

The next big bank is out there somewhere, maybe Independent Bank under Susan Stephenson and Chip Dudley, who largely avoided the perilous mortgage business. As national columnist George Will has said, America is awash in money relative to our forefathers and the rest of the world, and lending for construction and new businesses and homes will revive. Stand outside of Malco's Paradiso multiplex movie theater on a Saturday night and look at the cars, clothes, cell phones, and lines and tell yourself Memphians don't have any spending money.

Despite crime problems, some older neighborhoods will come back as people deal with $3 or $4-a-gallon gas and traffic. The downtown medical centers, more shopping, and a redeveloped Mid-South Fairgrounds will help pull them in.

With or without a new football stadium, the University of Memphis and its surrounding neighborhoods will prosper because the secret of success for most cities is colleges, not pro sports, which will prove to be unsustainable in all but the largest markets. And if you make B's in high school, tuition at the U of M is practically free because of the lottery scholarships. But someone better come up with different eligibility standards, because in 2007 only 862 Memphis high school graduates (14 percent) accepted a lottery scholarship, and, if form holds, half of them will lose it before they finish college.

In elementary and secondary education, after consolidation officially flops, the search will start for other solutions. The answer will be deconsolidation, more charter schools, expansion of idealism-driven programs like Teach for America, and smaller, not larger, governance.

Print newspapers will survive. Older people still read them, and it's hard to take a laptop to the bathroom. More cuts are coming, but good reporters and editors work best when they are busy and challenged. They will figure out a way to make their work better, profitable, and relevant. Somebody, maybe at the Tri-State Defender, will put out a profitable and consistently high-quality black-owned newspaper in Memphis. Bloggers with good journalism skills and instincts will thrive because they really like what they do and because eventually name-calling, scare-mongering, and hate speech get boring.

For Bill Maury, a broker and vice president at Hobson Co. Realtors, the best defense is a good offense.

A couple of months ago, after getting numerous phone calls and e-mails from clients asking about the slumping residential housing market, he decided to send them each a letter explaining that Memphis doesn't face the same problems that plague other cities, namely those on either coast.

He didn't want to lie to them - or turn Pollyanna by painting an overly rosy picture of Memphis real estate - but he did want to set the record straight.

"A customer will see through if you're telling them it's great. It's not great, but it's good," said Maury, a 23-year industry veteran and newly elected director to the Memphis Area Association of Realtors (MAAR). "If you sit down with someone, you can show them the numbers and let them know that the market here is not as bad as everyone thinks - that the sky is not falling."

Signs of hope

The sky might not be falling, but residential home sales nationwide are limping into the final month of 2007.

Each week of the past year has produced some headline or another depicting doom and gloom in the housing market, and many local Realtors will be happy to see this year vanish - if only so they'll no longer hear how sluggish 2007 has been compared to the record sales of 2006.

During these last few months, however, some glimmers of hope have appeared on the horizon. For example, residential housing in Shelby County registered a decent October with sales increasing from the previous month for the first time since early summer.

The month's sales totaled 1,747 units sold, up 10.4 percent from the 1,582 sold in September, according to the latest data from real estate information company Chandler Reports, www.chandlerreports.com.

Granted, that was down about 18 percent from the 2,134 homes sold in October 2006, a year that rewrote the real estate record books, but it's a sign nonetheless that people are continuing to sell and buy homes - housing woes notwithstanding.

"October was a good month for us," said Elsie Ward, broker for Crye-Leike Inc. and vice president-elect of MAAR. "We've been encouraged because there are still buyers, properties are still being shown and properties are still selling."

No Seasonal Affective Disorder here

Of course, they aren't selling at the same pace as 2006. Year-to-date sales are down 15.8 percent for 2007 through Oct. 31. The 18,296 homes sold in Shelby County are down significantly from the 21,722 sold in 2006 for the same period.

But it could still wind up being a banner 12 months for the county.

"What we're seeing is that this will be the second or third-best year in the last decade, so we're not having that bad a year," Ward said. "It's not going to last year, but last year was outstanding, far and above the best year anybody has had."

Moreover, while November and December are typically flat, they have the potential to be active as families look to reap the many benefits of home ownership and take advantage of low rates and healthy inventory.

"I find that November and December sometimes are the best months of the year because people are trying to get into a house before Christmas, before the end of the tax year, for whatever reason," Maury said. "For me, four out of five years, I'm going to be the busiest in those two months."

Ward agreed that the shorter, colder days - what many would consider a dreadful climate for the housing market - don't necessarily translate to a darkened sales period.

"Houses sell every month of the year," Ward said. "There will still be sales made in November and December. Many people still like to buy before the end of the calendar year, so we never write the year off. Some years, November has been my very best month."

Not stellar, but not awful, either

One of the surprising stories from October's numbers was the oft-maligned suburb of Cordova, whose 38016 ZIP code notched a county-high 115 sales during the month at an average sales price of $172,223.

"Sometimes the perception is that houses aren't selling well in Cordova, and that's really far from the truth," Ward said. "Houses sell every day in Cordova, so it's still doing well. It's a very affordable area, a good place for first-time homebuyers to go. There's all price ranges in Cordova, but it's especially good for first-time buyers.

"What we find is that there's houses selling all over town."

Still, the usual suspects - Germantown and Collierville, plus a few smaller outlying areas such as Arlington and Lakeland - led the way in October as they have all year.

No matter what happens to close out 2007, Realtors are ready to start anew. Maury called this year "unusual" because of the subprime fallout and the rise of foreclosures and the lack of consumer confidence.

But like many in the profession, he said he believes Memphis will rebound once 2008 rolls around.

"The buyers and sellers in Memphis got caught up in so much of the national news that it really affected Memphis more than it should have," he said. "I've always thought of Memphis as a relatively stable market. I think this year has been a good year.

"It certainly hasn't been an awful year."

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ANDY MEEK | The Daily News

Tamara Mitchell-Ford - the ex-wife of former state Sen. John Ford - dodged a foreclosure sale of her two-story East Memphis home this week the same way scores of cash-strapped debtors do in Memphis. She filed for bankruptcy protection.

Doing that prevented an auction of the four-bedroom, four-bath house originally scheduled to occur Tuesday on the Shelby County Courthouse steps.

Mitchell-Ford's predicament no doubt garnered media attention because of her last name. By marrying Ford, who was sentenced to prison this summer on federal bribery charges, she joined one of the most prominent family dynasties in Tennessee.

But it should go without saying that the consequences of getting financially over-extended, accepting risky mortgage plans and falling behind on monthly payments are, of course, no respecter of persons.

Third quarter foreclosure numbers released this week show that a growing number of Memphis homeowners are - like Mitchell-Ford - trapped in the same financial pinch and likewise in danger of losing their homes.

Jump? How high?

The total number of foreclosure notices from July through September of this year saw a 24 percent jump from Q3 2006 and a 37 percent jump over Q3 2005, according to real estate information company Chandler Reports, www.chandlerreports.com.

Homeowners in neighborhoods from Raleigh to Frayser to Westwood appear to be among the worst off. Most first-run foreclosure notices, as well as the actual foreclosure sales, concerned homes in those communities.

The Daily News tracks foreclosure notices - notices of potential foreclosure sales - as well as the sales that go all the way through the process.

"I think this problem will get wider, and I think that as more and more (adjustable rate mortgage) loans reset - my guess is that in many of the interior communities here, what's happened is we're beginning to see a wave of refinances that are subprime and now resetting," said Corky Neale, director of research and innovation at the RISE Foundation (Responsibility, Initiative, Solutions and Empowerment).

"I suspect that that's much more likely than first-time home buyers or people who are coming to the community for the first time."

He was referring to the difficulty some homeowners now are facing in adapting to things such as adjustable rate mortgages, loans that may have carried low "teaser" rates early on but are now re-setting their rates.

That "sticker shock," plus loan defaults and a host of other negative financial trends, suggests that the logjam of problems in the housing market pipeline has yet to be broken and returned to its normal level.

Eye-popping revelations

A review of third quarter foreclosure data offers more evidence of that fact. In tracking the spread of foreclosures through the Memphis housing market, another eye-opener is a list of the most recent top residential sellers.

Many of those sellers are no longer "traditional" homebuilders, but banks - the implication being that one reason a bank acquires homes to sell in the first place is through seizing them at foreclosure.

Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. was No. 2 on a list of top residential sellers year-to-date, posting 462 sales totaling a little more than $27 million from January through September of this year.

The only entity posting more sales in that same period was the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which recorded 804 local sales totaling more than $40 million.

Factors besides the obvious ones - perpetually late mortgage payments, for example - also appear to have a hand in sketching the local foreclosure picture.

"One of the interesting things I just heard is some of the newly annexed areas - in (Cordova's) Berryhill, for example - are getting whacked because banks neglected to collect ahead of time for the new city taxes," said Steve Lockwood, executive director of the Frayser Community Development Corp. "So they're having to double up in the first year - they're collecting for this year and next year."

Upside down, inside out

The local communities that saw the biggest Q3 jumps in foreclosure filings quarter-over-quarter included a few surprises.

In Cordova's 38016 ZIP Code, Q3 foreclosure notices climbed 151 percent from 2005 through 2007. In the 38002 ZIP Code shared by Arlington and Lakeland, Q3 notices are up 146.2 percent from 2005 through 2007.

"The Arlington/Lakeland results, that's probably due to new housing construction, people who are coming to the neighborhood for the first time and probably in brand new houses," Neale said. "People were essentially buying more house than they could afford.

"Now, with Cordova, I'm not at all surprised about that one. We'd been seeing that before - earlier this year - that Cordova has a fairly substantial increase in terms of foreclosures. And housing prices in Cordova are probably twice what they are in Frayser and Raleigh."

Development partners Dick Willingham and Randy Sprouse would probably tell you it's disingenuous to suggest the Memphis real estate market is entirely protected from nationwide industry swings.

In mid-August, for example, condominium units in the six-story Park Terrace property across from Overton Park were scheduled to go on the auction block. Sprouse and Willingham had poured $2.6 million into renovating the roughly 40-year-old former apartment building and converting the units to condos.

They tapped Memphis-based Roebuck Auctions to drum up interest by auctioning some of the units. A minimum of nine were supposed to be sold during the auction - though only three ultimately found buyers that day.

Then, about two weeks before the Aug. 18 sale, is when broad uncertainty began to take hold in the housing market and credit-almost overnight - became more difficult to come by.

As it stands now for the Park Terrace developers, any such concerns over that turn of events apparently has amounted to only a temporary bump in the road. About half of the project's 35 units are spoken for, and the development team already is chalking up their effort as a success.

Always a next time

Even so, the project remains an example of how large-scale tremors in the economy of late have reverberated far and wide, knocking developments such as Park Terrace off balance - even if only momentarily.

"When the auction day came, people were sitting on their hands going, 'Well, I'm not sure if the sky's falling,'" said Atlanta-based Willingham. "Now that people's fears have subsided somewhat, they're saying, 'You know, maybe it wasn't as big of a disaster as we first thought, so let's go ahead and get in while the getting's good.'"

Recent events appear to support that sentiment, at least as it's applied strictly to the Park Terrace project.

Buyers who may have stayed on the sidelines initially are stepping up, perhaps lured by the prospect of owning a luxury condo in the heart of Midtown, the vista of a large urban park beckoning across the street. Those people who have reportedly expressed interest in snapping up units include Dick Hackett, former mayor of Memphis.

Jody Hopkins, vice president of administration and finance for Roebuck Auctions, said an estimated 700 people showed up for the project's open house.

That's not to say the development partners wouldn't perhaps take a different tack next time around.

"In my business, we are essentially creating the product, so as a developer I perhaps have a little more vision than the ultimate consumer," Willingham said. "We'd definitely be interested in doing something else here. We like the Memphis market, but it took us a little while to understand it, to be honest with you.

"Next time around," he continued, "I probably wouldn't jump the gun from a marketing perspective; I probably would wait a little longer to introduce it to the market until such time as we have a true finished product and people have the opportunity to touch and feel what they're actually buying, as opposed to a more visionary discussion."

Getting creative

Hobson Co. Realtors is listing the property, at 2195 Poplar Ave. Its current appraisal is $1.7 million, according to real estate information company Chandler Reports, www.chandlerreports.com.

The idea of auctioning the condo units, proceeds of which benefited The Children's Museum of Memphis, was conceived as an untraditional way of both capturing attention and kick-starting the sales process.

"When you think about a new development, and if you were to think of yourself as a potential buyer of one of those units, you may be a bit reticent of going in and being the first guy and living by yourself," Hopkins said. "So in essence what the auction was going to do was generate the excitement, interest and, for lack of a better word, accelerate the process.

"And even if you didn't sell all 35 units right from the get-go or if it took you an extended period of time - and of course, in this buyers' market things are slow, no doubt about it - you've at least jump-started things."

Aug. 16, 2007 —

It's been said that it doesn't matter who your parents were  it matters who you remember they were.

Elvis Presley died 30 years ago today when his only child, Lisa Marie Presley, was 9 years old, leaving her with memories of a loving, but troubled father.

This week, as tens of thousands of people make a pilgrimage to Graceland, Lisa Marie is making new musical memories with the help of her father in a virtual video duet of his 1969 song "In the Ghetto" to be released Friday.

Lisa Marie remembers a dad who used to sing her lullabies, even in the wee hours of the morning.

"Oh yeah, he'd always wake me up to sing in the middle of the night, get on the table and sing," she told Diane Sawyer, in an exclusive interview on "Good Morning America." "I remember him as my dad, but he was a very exciting dad."

Were Elvis alive today, he would be 72 years old  something that might be difficult for his fans to contemplate, but not his daughter.

"I can imagine it, yeah," she said.

Memories Suspended in Time

But returning to Graceland, the family's famous Memphis, Tenn., home, is filled with mixed emotions for Lisa Marie.

While millions of tourists have tramped through parts of Graceland over the years, the upstairs part of the house has always remained private  and almost exactly as it was when Elvis died.

"It's hard. It's also really comforting," she said. "I don't know if anyone has, you know, the place that they were raised, you know, held in a capsule like this. It's not often that you have that."

In a building off the main house is an archive of Elvis and his family's life  his wallet with pictures of Lisa Marie, a child's snowy-white fake fur coat (he gave her a real one, which her mother made him take back) and a blue scarf with a handwritten message to Lisa Marie that she had never even seen before.

"My God, I've never seen that," she said when she saw the scarf. "I want it. Can I take it? I'm going to get it framed."

Even as a toddler, Lisa Marie knew something was wrong with her father.

"And I think that he was in trouble. He was not happy. He was, you know, obviously crying out for help," she told Sawyer.

Everyone now knows about Elvis' painful decline  the prescription pills, the sleepless nights, the feeling of being haunted. But as a little girl, Lisa Marie said her father's behavior could be confusing and frightening.

"If I was watching TV in my room, he'd come to my room and sort of stumble to my doorway and start to fall, and I had to go catch him. You know, things like that. And he'd try to pull himself out of it if he saw me, things like that," Lisa Marie recalled.

And she would say to him, "Don't die. Are you going to die?"

Then he did die. Elvis collapsed of a heart attack at Graceland on Aug. 16, 1977, and Lisa Marie saw the paramedics rush his body away.

She said she "couldn't really process what was happening."

She remembered the day of the public viewing of Elvis' body.

"I did a lot of strange things that day, because it didn't really settle in," she said. "I rode my golf cart. I ran around and smoked cigarettes at 9, in the guard shack somewhere. I was crazy. I don't know, I did, like, wacky things."

New Take on a Radical Old Song

Now Lisa Marie wants her own tribute to her dad.

To memorialize his songs and his passion, a new video of Lisa Marie singing "In the Ghetto," accompanied by her father, will be posted Friday on the AOL Web site Spinner.com, and on iTunes. The video will also include images of Elvis.

"My father lived in a family housing project, transitional housing project, when he was young," Lisa Marie said.

Never forgetting his roots, Elvis would eventually build Presley Place, a shelter for Memphis-area families in crisis, where they can get job and life skills training.

"In the Ghetto" was a pioneering song at that time  the very word "ghetto" was a new one for America.

Lisa Marie said she thought about using many other songs for the duet, but this is the one that spoke to her the most.

"It's got a pretty strong message," she said. "There may be a little bit of a reaction to the content."

Lisa Marie had a strong reaction while recording the song, at one point breaking out in tears.

"I got more emotional during that recording than I've ever gotten," she said.

When her mother, Priscilla Presley, heard the song, "she lost it," Lisa Marie said.

"She was shocked," Lisa Marie said. "I guess she saw there was something special about it."

Lights On at Graceland

Elvis' daughter would grow up into a walking reminder of her father's smile, his eyes and his daring.

Lisa Marie has worked hard to build her own music career. She released her debut album, "To Whom It May Concern," in 2003, which included a song called "Lights Out" about death and loss at Graceland.

Today she sees her father emerging in her own two children, Ben 14, and Riley, 18.

"They both have traits. My son has got this very regal thing about him. He's just got this dynamic energy that is familiar. & And then my daughter just, the humor, you know. She's got the intelligence, and she's smart, although I find her more like my mother than I do him."

Wednesday night, the eve of Elvis' death, Lisa Marie paid another tribute to her late father. She went upstairs to his room at Graceland and turned on the light in his window.

"That was something that hasn't been done before but I thought it would be cool to do this anniversary," she said.

It was a salute across 30 years from a woman who lived through the darkness of her father's death. A woman who, as a little girl, wrote down three wishes she had:

"If I had three wishes, I would wish I could drive a Volkswagen. I wish I had 100 astropops. I wish my mother and father don't die."

Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures

The Memphis mom recently finalized the purchase of her first home, located at 543 North Adams Street.

It is a homecoming of sorts, as Hope actually spent some time growing up in the house.

“We lived here when I was about nine years old,” she said. “I honestly don’t remember a lot about the house itself, but I have plenty of memories of growing up here.”

Hope and her two-year-old daughter Nevaeh, are enjoying the move to the more spacious residence.

“We had been living in a two-bedroom apartment,” Hope said. “But over those two years we outgrew the place and needed more space.”

Enter the United States Department of Agriculture. The USDA didn’t help Hope buy a farm. Instead the organization’s rural development branch helped the family finance its first home purchase.

Owning your own home is part of the American Dream and the program helped Wamsley learn that obtaining financing may be easier than you once believed. With this program, a conventional lender (bank, savings and loan, mortgage company, etc.) actually makes the loan and Rural Development guarantees repayment of the loan.

“At first, I contacted the property owner to see if the house was available for rent,” Hope stated. “I learned that the owner preferred to sell the house, so I started looking into financing.”

A local realty agent put Hope on the trail of the USDA program, which is allowing her to make a monthly house payment that is very similar to what she expected to be paying in rent. The financing is being provided by Bank Midwest in Kirksville.

Through Rural Development’s Guaranteed Rural Housing Program more individuals and families may be eligible to become homeowners.

The program allows for purchase of a new or existing home with no down payment required in rural areas with a population of 20,000 or less.

Some or all the closing costs may also be included in the loan if they are within the appraised value of the home. Loan payments are based on market interest rates with a 30-year fixed term. Both real estate taxes and insurance are escrowed and included as part of the monthly payment.

“The program is so nice,” she said. “It makes it possible to get a house bought. There is no down payment.”

Another major advantage of the Guaranteed Rural Housing Program is that Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) is not required. Since Rural Development guarantees are backed by the federal government, they do not require PMI, thus resulting in substantial monthly savings to the homebuyer.

To be eligible for Guaranteed Rural Housing Program financing, applicants must have an adequate and dependable income, be legally able to incur the debt, have an income that does not exceed the moderate income limit for the area, have a satisfactory credit history and have adequate repayment ability.

For example, in some counties, in order to meet the income requirement, a household would need to have an adjusted annual income less than $54,850 for a two-person household, $61,700 for a three person household and $68,550 for a four person household.

The Rural Development staff can provide income figures for any Missouri county.

Buyers must personally occupy the dwelling following the purchase. Dwellings must be structurally sound, functionally adequate, and in good condition. There are no restrictions on the size or cost of the home financed; the amount of the household’s income determines the maximum loan amount. Loans can exceed $200,000 under this program, if the household has adequate repayment ability.

In order to utilize the Guaranteed Rural Housing Program, homebuyers should make application directly with a participating conventional lender. When contacting a lender, interested homebuyers are encouraged to relay to the lender that they are interested in a USDA Guaranteed Rural Housing Loan.

Anyone seeking more information about homeownership financing or any other USDA Rural Development program may visit the Rural Development webpage at http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/mo/ or by contacting Daniel R. Niemeyer, Rural Development Manager, by e-mail at dan.niemeyer@mo.usda.gov. You may also visit the office at 2410 S Franklin in Kirksville or call 660-665-3274, ext. 115.

Memphis is being touted as one of the best cities for moving families.

Last month, a study by Memphis-based Primacy Relocation and Worldwide ERC ranked the city 19th among metro areas with more than 1.2 million people.

Cities were selected for the joint list based on cost of living, crime rates and climate, among other factors. This year's report also placed an increased emphasis on the real estate market, which currently is one of the most significant issues in relocation nationwide, officials said.

Prove it

Skeptics might say, "It's one thing to say Memphis is a good place to relocate, but quite another for people to actually make that decision."

But within the last year and a half, people seemingly have been doing just that.

One of the major reasons for those relocations is the fact that major companies such as International Paper Co. and ServiceMaster Co. have chosen to move their corporate headquarters here.

Eileen Cherny, director of the relocation division at Marx & Bensdorf Realtors, said much of the company's business comes from people moving to the city because of their jobs. She said the business roughly is split evenly between corporate and individual moves.

"We do a lot of corporate business as well as individual relocation business referrals that come one-on-one, or group moves," Cherny said.

Marx & Bensdorf, which began in 1868, is a member of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, a network of independent residential real estate firms with 650 members representing 4,700 offices and 120,000 associates across the U.S.

Selling points

Cherny said when people come to Marx & Bensdorf seeking help with their moves, they also are looking for good schools and areas with good neighborhoods, parks and other amenities.

"And most of those people being relocated don't have time to custom build," Cherny added. "Some of them will do it (themselves) or they'll find (a home) that's just about done and they'll be able to finish it out with the custom features that they want. But I would say it's pretty even as to whether they're getting new construction versus existing homes."

Keith Grant, president of the Memphis Area Home Builders Association (MAHBA), pointed to a number of other factors that contribute to Memphis being a prime locale for people looking to relocate.

"One is the fact that we don't have a state income tax," Grant said. "If you're looking at it from a national perspective, the state of Tennessee not having an income tax, it makes a lot of people want to retire to Tennessee. That's not just Memphis, but it's across the whole state, with Memphis included."

Another factor, Grant said, is the Memphis area's housing market.

"Housing in Memphis is more affordable than just about any other part of the country on a cost-per-square-foot basis," he said. "Our land values are less than in other parts of the country, the cost of living in Memphis is less in general, and the labor's a little bit less expensive.

"(In) California, for example, you're going to pay a lot more for the land for individual lots out there than you will in Memphis. The land in California or the land in the Northeast or the land in Florida is going to be a lot more expensive than in the Memphis area. So that's going to drive the cost up in other parts of the country. And in Memphis, you don't have that situation, so it helps keep the cost down."

Choices

Cherny said she's found that people moving to the Mid-South tend to choose neighborhoods in Germantown, Cordova, Collierville and Bartlett.

Grant also pointed to the large inventory of houses in the Memphis area. The large inventory, along with a market that's offering stable prices, is a combination that makes investing in a new home now a good move.

"There's a lot of inventory out there where people can choose from the current houses on the market - a lot of houses where people can move in within 30 days," Grant said. "And from an investment perspective, you would want to get in now when housing prices are stable before they start going up again."

MAHBA offers a number of resources for people who are moving into the city. The Change of Address magazine, which can be found in local grocery stores and Blockbuster locations, shows maps of the metropolitan area. It also shows where all the new communities are.

The benefits of developments like Uptown, which is gradually replacing blighted areas near The Pyramid, are well-documented.

In other words, the project meets the criteria established by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Kelo vs. City of New London and provisions of Tennessee law that justify the use of eminent domain to acquire property.

The Kelo decision in 2005 gave states the right to decide when eminent domain is necessary, even if that includes taking property for economic development purposes.

A Tennessee law passed subsequent to Kelo placed some new restrictions on the use of eminent domain, but nothing that would prohibit the government from seizing the small Looney Street lot purchased by former Memphis City Councilman Fred Davis in 1989.

If Davis follows through with his plan to develop the property, especially if it is done in a way that meshes with the Uptown project, no one should stand in his way.

There should, however, be a limit to how long city government can wait for that to happen.

As a marketable Uptown continues to spring from the blight, the transition can be gradual, but it must be orderly.

Uptown is not being developed to generate more tax revenue for Memphis. Its value is in attractive and affordable housing that could keep people from leaving Memphis and perhaps even bring a few emigrants back.

Its location near Downtown, Mud Island, The Pyramid and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital also gives the project an important role to play in the cultural and economic life of the city.

It would be a shame to see vacant lots in the center of an otherwise revitalized area.

But as important as it is, no one wants to see property owners sustain crippling economic losses as a result of a project like Uptown.

Davis, owner of Fred Davis Insurance Agency, paid $53,000 for the quarter-acre lot with the intention of developing it. It's now appraised at $16,200.

Eventually, the Memphis Housing Authority and the Division of Housing and Community Development may have to resort to eminent domain to obtain the tract.

In any case, the owner deserves fair market value.

In Davis' case, that would seem to be a lot more than its current appraisal, perhaps even more than the $53,000 he paid for it as an investment.

If he and other property owners like him are treated fairly, there is every reason for progress in Uptown to continue.

A $60 million residential development on about 115 acres on the north side of James Road near North McLean Boulevard soon will change the face of the blighted Frayser community.

Frayser is perennially beleaguered by high foreclosure rates, low property values and crime.

Longtime resident Betty Hunt said she's glad to hear that steps are being taken to turn things around, but she's still afraid to venture into certain neighborhoods.

"There are some streets that I'm just really afraid to drive down," she said.

The James Road development will be the first the Frayser area has seen in almost five years. The last to be built in Frayser was the Victoria Park subdivision near Debby Street and Whitney Avenue, which has fewer than 20 homes.

To the rescue

United Housing Inc. (UHI) is spearheading the new project.

UHI is a local nonprofit organization that works to support the revitalization of neighborhoods across West Tennessee by providing homebuyer and financial literacy education, affordable loan products and construction services for low- to moderate-income families.

The project is part of a continuing effort to revitalize and re-invigorate the community of about 45,000 people.

"The subdivision process already has been completed through the (Shelby County) Office of Planning and Development (OPD) and the funding for the middle-income housing program has already been approved by the city as well," said Tim Bolding, UHI's executive director.

Rocking and rolling

The project will be completed in seven phases, with the first expected to be under way in the very near future, although no timetable has been set. The subdivision will be called Wolf River Bluffs.

Its first 34 lots are slated for completion by July 1, 2008. The entire subdivision will take about seven years to build, Bolding said.

The site plan for Wolf River Bluffs calls for 320 single-family detached lots, with lot sizes ranging from 5,291 square feet to more than 2.5 acres, according to the residential plan submitted to the OPD.

No builders have been named yet. Bolden said UHI officials are working to finalize a private financing deal before taking the next step.

The Wolf River Bluffs site plan also calls for three common open spaces.

"Once we get everything rocking and rolling, we ought to be able to get that done within 12 months," Bolding said.

Good omens

The Memphis City Council approved the project last year. Designating it as a middle-income housing project means the subdivision's home costs will range from $150,000 to $200,000.

The UHI board of directors has approved Renassant Bank to serve as the project's lending partner.

City officials have said this type of housing is needed in Frayser for its stabilizing effect on the surrounding community and to prevent further decline.

The community has for years distinguished itself negatively by having the highest number of foreclosures than any other part of the city.

Frayser had 477 foreclosures in 2005, the latest year for which information was available, according to data compiled by the Frayser Community Development Corp. That's the highest number of foreclosures for one area in Memphis for that year.

Steve Lockwood, FCDC executive director, said he believes the 2006 foreclosure rate for the community mirrored 2005.

But FCDC, like UHI, has been working to change the image of the community. FCDC recently opened a resource center at 3684 N. Watkins St. FCDC staff will be working to educate potential homebuyers about bad borrowing and lending practices, as well as making affordable housing available.

FCDC buys foreclosed homes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and resells them, making sure buyers get a good, sound loan they can repay.

A number of other resources will be offered to Frayser residents, all intended to help breathe life back into the area.

Lockwood said he is thrilled at the prospect of having the new subdivision added to the community. But he doesn't want to stop there. He said he would like to see all the major developers in the city, such as Boyle Investment Co. and Henry Turley Co., investing in the area.

Cautious optimism

Hunt, who works at Skylake Food Market Deli & Grocery on North Hollywood Street, said despite the problems Frayser has faced in the past, she can foresee the new residential development having a positive effect on the neighborhood.

"I can see where it'll be a good project," said Hunt, who has been robbed at gunpoint in the past. "Because there are a lot of people out here who want to own their own homes."

Bolding said he's excited about the chance to bring something positive to Frayser.

"We want to really do a project here that's a real plus for the neighborhood and that really adds quality to Frayser," he said. "We know there's a lot of folks in Frayser that really love that neighborhood and want to stay there and we're looking forward to building some houses that are probably a step up maybe from some of the ones that are there."

While Hunt expressed happiness about the new development, she pointed out that it will take more than that to turn the area around.

She said people need to be realistic and acknowledge that it's going to take more than a lot of new homes to change the landscape of the community.

"There also needs to be more police presence out here," she said. "And also more jobs. Because when people have jobs, they're not out doing things they shouldn't be doing."

Recent Lead Stories Recent Lead Stories
ERIC SMITH | The Daily News

What goes up must come down. As far as mortgages filed in Shelby County are concerned, that old adage appears to hold true.

Between January and March, 13,604 mortgages were recorded at the Shelby County Register's Office, according to The Daily News Online, www.memphisdailynews.com.

That figure, which includes first and subsequent mortgages on both residential and commercial properties, represents a 6.9 percent decrease from the 14,613 mortgages filed in first quarter 2006.

Of course, the 2006 data marked an 11.8 percent increase from the 13,072 filed in first quarter 2005, which in turn happened to be down from the nearly 16,000 filed in first quarter 2004.

But why this current dip? With the prime rate at 8.25 percent and 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages as low as 6 percent, interest rates are not to blame.

"We're still in a good interest-rate environment," said Michael Wiegert, vice president of Wachovia Mortgage Corp. and president of the Memphis Mortgage Bankers Association. "We haven't seen a lot of fluctuation, really, for the last year or so. Just a little bit up or a little bit down, so I don't think that's driving any decrease in the filings."

Luxury of choosiness

Despite the overall decline, Wiegert said business at his company has been up the past three months. Still, he acknowledged the countywide decrease and attributes it, at least partially, to a surplus of homes on the market. A buyer's market - whether it's real or perceived - can mean prospective buyers are being patient about when and where they purchase.

"A lot of times, they're going to wait and find the best deal," Wiegert said. "And people who are thinking about selling aren't going to put their house up for sale because they feel they can't get full value for it. Therefore, it may cause things to slow down a bit."

Wiegert pointed out that whatever slowdown has occurred in early 2007 can be traced back to the low mortgage rates four years ago that prompted a slew of refinancings. The market is still returning to normal.

"In 2004, you were on the tail end of the big refinance boom," he said. "Rates really bottomed out in June 2003, when they were at the lowest they'd been in 30 years or so. When you got to the middle and latter part of 2004 is when things really started to slow down.

"There's not too many people refinancing right now. We've been saying for the last couple of years that that was part of the reason for a decrease in filings, too."

Pop goes the bubble ...

It's important to note that the decrease has been minor, most mortgage lenders said. Things are far worse in other parts of the country, where bubbles continue to burst.

"Memphis tends to be a steady market," Wiegert said. "Memphis' economy is very service-oriented and we tend to be pretty steady as she goes, as opposed to some of the big roller coaster rides like you might see in parts of California, parts of Florida and parts of the Northeast."

Like Wiegert at Wachovia, Jo Garner of First Tennessee Home Loans hasn't seen firsthand any kind of slowdown.

Though it helps to work for a large lender that can offer a variety of mortgage loans for borrowers, Garner likewise credits the Memphis market for relatively small peaks and valleys.

"You can buy more house for your dollar in Memphis than you can in most areas of the country," she said. "We're an undervalued market. We do not see precipitous appreciation or precipitous depreciation in our real estate. What we have going for us is a stable market. Overall, we appreciate steadily but not precipitously."

Mortgages of $100,000 or less had the lion's share of non-commercial borrowers' filings in the first quarter, keeping with a trend that's held over the past two years. Of the 13,604 first-quarter filings in Shelby County, 3,573 - or 28.1 percent - were between $50,000 and $99,999. And 3,276 loans - or 25.7 percent - were between $10,000 and $49,999. Those figures include first and subsequent mortgages with non-commercial borrowers.

Note that non-commercial borrowers differ slightly from non-commercial loans. For instance, a company (a commercial borrower) could finance a non-commercial property, such as a house; likewise, a group of individuals (non-commercial borrowers) could finance a commercial structure, such as an office building.

How the players play

Many other factors have played bit roles in the first-quarter mortgage decline. Meribeth LaBarreare, vice president and senior loan officer at 1st Trust Bank for Savings, noted how a drop-off in filings here was borne of more filings in neighboring counties.

"The flight to Fayette County and Tipton County is big because of the property taxes," she said. "The taxes are less than half in Fayette County than they are in the City of Memphis and Shelby County."

LaBarreare also cited predatory lending laws, which are forcing lenders out of business and giving potential homebuyers fewer options for financing a home.

"I think that's really a big key as to why not as many people are buying," she said. "The subprime lending is still out there, but the guidelines have gotten harder."

Yet another factor is the sharp decline in Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs). As Garner pointed out, they aren't nearly as attractive as they once were.

"Normally, your short-term rates are much lower than your long-term rates," she said. "But, right now, because prime is up at 8.25 (percent), you've got long-term, 30-year rates at around 6 (percent) and 6.25. It's just not advantageous for people to jump into these adjustable rates. It's cheaper for them to go ahead and get a fixed rate."

Land of opportunity

All told, mortgage lenders observed that the decline wasn't unusual and didn't portend any future doom. First, they all said they believe rates will continue to stay where they are.

"We're going to see them remain relatively low this year because no one wants to upset the housing market," Garner said.

Second, the warmer months should bring a flurry of home buying.

"We certainly expect to see filings increase the second quarter of this year over the first quarter of this year because things pick up in the spring and summertime," Wiegert said.

Last, the Memphis market tends to go its own way, leaving mortgage lenders optimistic about the market and its ability to bounce back up after being down.

The most dramatic neighborhood turn around in modern Memphis history is underway just north of downtown.

Hurt Village was once a crime ridden, drug infested public housing project. It's now gone. In its place is "Uptown."

Justin Macre rocks in safety on the front porch of the home he shares with his wife just north of downtown.

"We moved in thinking that we might get robbed, shot and killed. But two and a half years later, we haven't gotten shot, haven't gotten robbed and haven't got killed," says Macre.

But you can see why Macre had some justifiable fear.

Hurt Village once stood just North of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital; a neighborhood filled with many law abiding people terrorized by the drug dealers and criminals next door.

The Uptown Partnership ripped down the public housing and replaced Hurt Village with new single family homes and apartments.

Single women make up 56 percent of the 3,000 people who've moved to Uptown in the last couple years.

Tanja Mitchell rents an Uptown apartment where she's helped lead Neighborhood Watch and a community website called Uptown-yak, "now it's just picture perfect," adds Mitchell.

"That's our online everyday neighborhood watch. Anything that goes on in this neighborhood, someone is on the computer typing about it," says Mitchell.

Alexandra Mobley created the website that's become a way for neighbors to watch each other's back on anything suspicious, like a strange vehicle in a neighbors' driveway.

"You call them at work or you send them a message or you e-mail a photo of the vehicle.You e-mail the police a photo of the vehicle and they're here in a minute," says neighbor Alexandra Mobley.

All the vigilance has kept crime largely out of the area where Hurt Village once stood.

Mitchell says she feels safe because she knows her neighbors are looking out for her.

It's an astonishing transformation where people not only took back a neighborhood, they created a new one.

Memphis area home sales plummeted in February when compared with last year, according to the Memphis Area Association of Realtors.

There were 1,202 home sales in the Memphis area in February, down 10 percent from 1,336 last year.

Sales volume for February totaled $203 million, down 7.5 percent from $219.5 million last year.

While the number of sales and sales volume slowed in February, the median sales price of homes increased.

The median price for a home sold in February was $133,600, up from $128,900 last year.

"Sales price appreciation in February continued at the steady pace we've historically seen, demonstrating again the relative strength of the Memphis market as compared to other markets that have been experiencing decreases in valuation," said MAAR president Neil Hubbard.

NATIONAL

FTC wants more info on Whole Foods

The Federal Trade Commission wants more information about Whole Foods Markets Inc.'s purchase of rival natural-foods retailer Wild Oats Markets Inc.

The companies said in regulatory filings Wednesday that they received the requests from the FTC the day before.

Last month, Austin-based Whole Foods announced that it would pay $565 million, or $18.50 per share, for Boulder, Colo.-based Wild Oats. Whole Foods has experienced slower growth recently, increasing pressure on company executives.

Wild Oats operates about 110 natural foods stores in 24 states and Canada under several names, including Wild Oats Marketplace and Sun Harvest.

Shares of Whole Foods rose 25 cents, to $44.45, and Wild Oats shares fell 8 cents, to $18.13 Thursday on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

GE to buy PHH for $1.8 billion ,/b>

General Electric Co.'s leasing, financing and asset management business plans to buy PHH Corp., a top provider of mortgages and services for managing vehicle fleets, for about $1.8 billion, the companies said Thursday.

Under the all-cash deal, GE will then sell Mount Laurel, N.J.-based PHH's mortgage operations to an affiliate of a private investment and advisory firm, New York-based The Blackstone Group. Terms of that deal were not disclosed.

GE Capital Solutions will pay $31.50 per share for PHH, giving its stockholders a 13 percent premium over the shares' closing price Wednesday.

The news pushed PHH shares up $3.44, or 12 percent, to close at $31.25, while GE shares rose 22 cents to $34.53, both on the New York Stock Exchange.

Bear Stearns 1Q profit up 8%

Bear Stearns Cos., Wall Street's largest underwriter of mortgage securities, on Thursday reported first-quarter profit rose 8 percent despite turmoil in the subprime lending sector.

Its profit after paying preferred dividends rose to $548.5 million, or $3.82 per share, for the three months ended Feb. 28 from $508.7 million, or $3.54 per share, a year earlier.

Revenue rose to $2.48 billion from $2.19 billion last year.

Wall Street expected earnings of $3.80 per share on revenue of $2.49 billion, according to analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.

Its shares rose $2.81, or 1.9 percent, to close at $148.10 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Greenspan: Little mortgage spillover

The troubles plaguing lenders of risky mortgages are not likely to spill over into the broader economy unless housing prices see another substantial dip, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said Thursday.

Greenspan said that as home prices dipped, "subprime borrowers have not been able to build up enough equity."

If home prices drop in a year, he predicted that could cause the problems to "spill over into other areas."

Mounting concerns about risky mortgages by subprime lenders who provide loans to people with poor credit histories have been making investors jittery. Those fears prompted a sharp drop on Wall Street earlier this week and they contributed to a worldwide stock meltdown on Feb. 27, where the Dow Jones industrials suffered a 416-point plunge.

INTERNATIONAL

Bayer 4Q earnings surge

Bayer AG said Thursday its fourth-quarter earnings surged, buoyed by strong growth in its health care business, and the drug and chemical maker forecast that annual group sales would rise at least 5 percent as it benefits from the acquisition of rival Schering AG.

The company said it earned 311 million euros ($410 million) in the October-December period, compared with 46 million euros a year earlier, beating the 62 million euros ($81.73 million) that analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires had predicted.

Sales during the fourth quarter rose 25 percent to 7.97 billion euros ($10.51 billion) from 6.37 billion euros in 2005.

Bayer shares rose 3.25 percent to close at 44.13 euros ($58.18) in Frankfurt.

OPEC keeps output at agreed levels

OPEC decided Thursday to stick to already agreed-on output levels while paying more attention to curbing overproduction -- a decision that could push prices higher by taking up to 700,000 barrels of crude a day off world markets.

Oil prices slipped below $58 per barrel after the announcement.

OPEC members have generally expressed satisfaction with their oil fetching around $60 a barrel in recent weeks and their decision to stick with the status quo reflected their desire to keep prices around that level.

Output could fall even without newly mandated reductions if ministers implement compliance with cuts agreed on in the past four months.

In meetings in Qatar in October and Nigeria in December, OPEC agreed to take a combined 1.7 million barrels a day off global oil markets as they sought to shore up sagging oil prices and shrink burgeoning inventories.

KAREN OTT MAYER | The Daily News

Every once in a while, someone needs to set the record straight, and it appears the time has come for the manufactured housing industry.

Hurricane Katrina stirred much controversy over housing. The August 2005 storm also sparked debates about design and the fear of endless trailer parks. But almost two years have passed, and manufactured housing sales are still strong in North Mississippi and Tennessee.

"It's the quality of the product at an affordable price," said Jerry Bell, general manager of Freedom Homes. "People may still have the impression that these homes are like older models, but they're not."

Not trash, but treasure

A retail sales center in Como, Miss., Freedom Homes is part of Clayton Homes, the largest manufacturer and distributor of manufactured housing in the country and a subsidiary of Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Berkshire Hathaway is a Fortune 500 company controlled by business mogul Warren Buffett. The company's core business includes property and casualty insurance.

Manufactured housing models have come a long way since earlier days. With costs hovering at about $38 per square foot versus $78 for a traditional site-built home, buyers represent all walks of life.

"The people I see are those wanting to move out of DeSoto County or Memphis and who realize they could realistically buy a manufactured house and land for around $100,000," said Mark Rotenberry, sales consultant for Freedom Homes. "We're also selling to retirees who want to downsize or who don't want any more debt."

Chris Nicely, vice president of marketing for Freedom Homes, has been with the company 12 years and travels nationally.

"We see first-time home buyers, baby boomers and working families," Nicely said.

With 450 retail stores and about 1,400 independent business owners, Clayton also finances and insures homes. Nicely said the industry isn't as rate sensitive as traditional real estate markets. Instead, sales are affected more by employment numbers.

The company built 125,000 homes throughout the country in 2006, Nicely said, with Tennessee ranking among the top 10 for sales.

"Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi are generally strong sales areas," Nicely said.

While rural markets still are strong, Nicely said a new trend has emerged in the last five years, as cities are buying manufactured housing for infill projects.

The truth about quality

While misconceptions might still persist about the industry, the reality is that quality has improved.

"In the past 12 years, the evolution of this product is wonderful," Nicely said. "No longer are there special dimension building products. We use the same materials as builders."

Models include high ceilings, drywall, copper wiring (replacing aluminum) and stronger construction using 2-inch by 6-inch wooden framing. Nicely said there is a continual evolution in design and visual street appeal as roof pitches increase, mirroring more residential styles.

Another advantage is that construction takes at most a month, decreasing time that materials are exposed to weather.

For buyers like Jenny Willard, all of the above made her want to buy. When she considered moving to help her middle-aged parents, she looked into a manufactured home because it was a quick process, was affordable and would allow her to save for land. When she put her house up for sale, she said it sold quickly.

She even grew up in a 1967 model home.

"I said I don't want to move back into another manufactured house, but a friend said I should check them out," Willard said. "There is a total difference. Some models are nicer than a regular house."

Back to basics

Willard chose a Southern Energy model, which has sheetrock, and she both financed and insured her home through Clayton. The entire process took about a month.

"Mark (Rotenberry) was really helpful," Willard said. "I told him that we'd basically have two families living in the home, and he helped with a floor plan. We picked out the colors and that was it."

Nicely said the company always has been more conservative on the lending side than other companies and has been able to withstand the fluctuations in the market to continue to grow.

After Katrina, Clayton was the first to respond to the demand for housing.

"We provided about 4,500 homes total from September (2005) until February 2006," Nicely said. "Our pricing was aggressive so that people could afford homes. For many people, it was their first experience with manufactured housing."

While recent reports of the housing market are less than bright, Bell and his team seem to be heading in another direction and taking consumers with them.

According to the Memphis Area Association of Realtors, 1,369 homes were sold in November, down 4.1 percent from 1,427 last year.

Sales volume for November hit $237.4 million, down 2.2 percent from $242.6 million last year. Meanwhile, the number of homes on the market soared 23.1 percent to 10,910, from 8,864 last November.

"For those who might be unsure of current economic conditions, there couldn't be a better time than now to buy a home in the Memphis area," said MAAR president William Mitchell. "With our market's long track record of steady and measured increases in property values, the historically low mortgage rates and the good supply of homes available, buyers have a unique opportunity now invest in their future."

Year to date, sales volume is $3.17 billion, up 10.1 percent from last year. Total sales volume for 2005 was $3.2 billion.

NATIONAL

Merck wins 2nd Vioxx trial in week

Merck & Co. won its second Vioxx trial in less than a week Friday when jurors rejected the claims of a man who blamed the once-popular pain medication for a heart attack in 2001.

The jury of eight women and four men needed only one hour of deliberations to side with the drug manufacturer in the lawsuit filed last year by Gary Albright, 57, of Chelsea, Ala.

A federal court jury in New Orleans ruled for Merck on Wednesday.

Another Vioxx trial continues in Los Angeles, and Merck spokesman Kent Jarrell said six more lawsuits are set for trial between now and June, with the next slated to start in New Jersey Jan. 16.

The company is sticking by its plan of defending each of thousands of claims over Vioxx rather than settling the suits.

VP: Safety complaints led to firing

A former vice president at two Johnson & Johnson subsidiaries claims in a lawsuit he was fired for seeking recalls of numerous faulty products, including the Ortho Evra birth control patch, itself the subject of at least 1,000 product liability suits.

New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson, one of the world's largest drug and medical product makers, said Friday the former executive was fired for inappropriate conduct.

In his civil complaint, Dr. Joel S. Lippman alleges he was unlawfully terminated May 15, after working for Johnson & Johnson for 15 years, because he repeatedly complained about product safety problems and urged that several products be recalled or not launched.

Lippman declined to be interviewed.

Three top executives will leave AOL

Three senior executives are leaving AOL following a recent shake-up that brought in a veteran NBC executive as the online company's new chief executive, two people familiar with the matter said Friday.

The executives are Joe Redling, who is chairman and chief executive of AOL International, Jim Bankoff, executive vice president for consumer and publisher services, and John Buckley, executive vice president for corporate communications.

The company had no official comment. The people who confirmed the changes spoke on condition of anonymity because they involved personnel matters that have not been announced yet.

Over the past two years, the company has been giving away more of its services to drive traffic to its Web sites and boost online advertising dollars.

In August, AOL accelerated the transition by deciding to give away AOL.com e-mail addresses and software once reserved for paying customers.

Miners vote on contract next week

The United Mine Workers said Friday it has tentatively agreed to a new five-year contract with the Bituminous Coal Operators Association.

About 16,000 union members across the country are scheduled to vote on the tentative pact next Thursday, UMW spokesman Phil Smith said. The agreement would take effect Jan. 1. It covers only workers at unionized subsidiaries of Pittsburgh-based Consol Energy, which make up the only members of the BCOA.

Waning membership in the union and the coal association has eroded the importance of the contract in recent decades. The UMW once had more than 700,000 members and the clout to shut down the industry. But the introduction of mechanized mining equipment and production shifts from Appalachia to western coalfields have cut that figure, and today the union represents perhaps one-third of coal miners.

However, Smith said other coal companies should pay attention to the new agreement. "We hope the ratification vote sends a message to the other companies in terms of what our members are prepared for."

INTERNATIONAL

U.S. gets standard replies from China

U.S. and Chinese officials pledged Friday to work on reducing China's swollen trade surplus, but ended two days of closely watched talks with little progress on currency and other disputes that are straining ties.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said China would pursue currency flexibility, long-sought by Washington. But he seemingly came away with little more than Beijing's standard statement that it will relax currency controls and enact market-opening reforms at its own pace.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a member of Paulson's high-profile delegation, also urged Beijing to take faster action on its currency. He said a stronger yuan would boost living standards and help ordinary Chinese as well as promoting global economic stability.

The two sides promised to launch discussions on opening China's service industries wider to foreign competition and on cooperating in environmental protection and developing cleaner energy sources.

Japan Tobacco deal aims for W. Europe

Japan Tobacco Inc., the world's third-biggest cigarette company, is buying Britain's Gallaher Group PLC for about $14.7 billion in a deal that gives the maker of Mild Seven cigarettes a bigger stake in the Western European market. The deal would reportedly be the biggest Japanese overseas acquisition.

The move comes as Japan Tobacco, which already is the overseas distributor for Winston, Camel and Salem cigarettes, tries to bolster earnings by expanding outside of Japan, which has seen declining smoking rates. Like many tobacco companies worldwide, Japan Tobacco has also been looking to diversify outside cigarettes.

The deal would take Japan Tobacco into a Western Europe market where it has little presence. Japan Tobacco has operations in Russia, but was rejected last year in a bid for Turkey's state-run Tekel tobacco company.

Tokyo-based JT is offering 1,140 pence for each outstanding share of its British rival, or a total of 7.5 billion pounds.

-- From Staff and Wire Reports