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PALOUSE
YOUR RESOURCE FOR BUYING, SELLING AND ENJOYINGYOUR HOME IN MOSCOW AND PULLMAN
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PALOUSE HOMES2 | April 2013 | Moscow-Pullman Daily News
Teri Skiles, OwnerREALTOR®, ABR, CRS, GRI
Patty Gemberling, OwnerASP, REALTOR®
Terri Guenthner, OwnerREALTOR®, GRI208.301.2374
Karyl Davenport,Owner Assoc. Broker, GRI
325 W. Third Street • Moscow, ID
ConnectionsThe Best Move You Will Ever
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Cherie ColemanREALTOR®, ASP509.330.3308
Alan BrownAssoc. Broker, CGP
Kathy Weber • BrokerABR, CRS, C-CREC, GRI
Susan MillerREALTOR®, e-PRO
April 2013 | Moscow-Pullman Daily News | 3PALOUSE HOMES
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PALOUSE HOMES4 | April 2013 | Moscow-Pullman Daily News
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April 2013 | Moscow-Pullman Daily News | 5PALOUSE HOMES
Enjoy Palouse HomesIN PRINT: Palouse Homes is
published monthly, with 12,500 copies distributed in the Daily News, Lewiston
Tribune and at key drop spots and advertisers across the Palouse.
ONLINE: Check out the latest edition in digital format at www.DNews.com, just
click on the Special Sections tab.
To advertise your business or service inthe next edition, contact advertising
manager Craig Staszkow at [email protected]
PALOUSE
YOUR RESOURCE FOR BUYING, SELLING AND ENJOYINGYOUR HOME IN MOSCOW AND PULLMAN
HOMES
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s By Marcy GordonAssociated Press
WASHINGTON — Home prices are up. Foreclosures are down. Construction is up. And now comes the latest
sign of the U.S. home market’s revival: Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant that nearly collapsed five years ago, has earned its big-gest yearly profit ever.
Fannie Mae earned $17.2 billion last year and said this month that it expects to stay profitable for “the foreseeable future.” It also paid $11.6 billion in dividends to the U.S. Treasury in 2012.
And last year was Fannie’s first since its takeover by the government in 2008 that it asked for no federal aid. As recently as 2011, Fannie lost nearly $17 billion and requested and received nearly $26 billion in aid.
Some experts had suggested that Fannie and Freddie were so deep in debt to the government that it could take decades for
them to repay taxpayers. But the past 12 to 18 months have marked a solid advance for the housing market, noted Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics, and Fannie and Freddie will continue to benefit.
“It’s a spir-ited recovery,” he said. “The housing sector will be by far the strongest (economic) sector growth-wise.”
The speed of Fannie’s resurgence is a testament to a much healthier U.S. mort-gage market.
Fannie’s “profit recovery has come at a faster pace than I thought it would,” said Bert Ely, a banking industry consultant.
Once symbols of the reckless risk-taking that fed the housing bubble, Fannie and the smaller firm Freddie Mac were seized
by the government in 2008 after they were buried by bad mortgages. Taxpayers have spent $188 billion to rescue the two
— collectively the costliest bailout of the financial crisis.
During much of the 1980s and 1990s, Fannie’s stock was a darling of Wall Street, thanks in part
to home-price increases and the govern-ment’s implicit backing. In 1988, it was added to the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index. In 1996, Fannie reported its 10th straight year of record profits.
Pay for Fannie’s top executives soared. One former CEO, Franklin Raines, received roughly $90 million in compen-sation from 1998 through 2003, accord-ing to Fannie’s regulator. The regulator concluded that some Fannie employees had
“It’s a spirited recovery. The housing sector will be by far the strongest (economic) sector growth-wise.”
Ken Maylandpresident of ClearView Economics
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PALOUSE HOMES6 | April 2013 | Moscow-Pullman Daily News
rigged accounting so the company could meet earnings targets and top executives could receive bonuses.
The excesses at Fannie paralleled the housing market’s surge — until they fizzled along with the industry boom.
Fannie still has a long way to go to repay taxpayers. It received $116 billion in aid. So far, it’s repaid $35.6 billion.
Fannie and Freddie don’t actually make loans. Rather, they buy mortgages from lenders, package them as bonds, guaran-
tee them against default and sell them to investors. In doing so, they help make loans available and exert influence over the housing market.
Together, Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee about half of U.S. mortgages — nearly 31 million home loans worth $5 trillion. And along with other federal agen-cies, they back about 90 percent of new mortgages.
The two companies nearly folded during the financial crisis because of huge
losses on risky mortgages they bought. Fannie and Freddie bore some responsibil-ity for those losses. Like banks, they relaxed their standards on the loans they bought or guaranteed during the boom and failed to thoroughly check incomes and assets. High-interest loans, some with low “teaser” rates, were given to risky borrowers.
Fannie and Freddie grew spectacularly as demand for mortgages exploded. The two firms, championed by powerful Wash-ington lawmakers, rushed to compete with big banks for dominance in the home-loan market. In doing so, they bought or guar-anteed mortgages they once would have deemed too risky.
Now, the two companies are benefiting from the home market’s steady recovery. Previously occupied homes are being sold each month at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of nearly 5 million, compared with a recession low below 4 million. Nationally, prices have risen nearly 9 percent since bottoming in March 2012. The number of homes repossessed by lenders has reached its lowest point since September 2007, ac-cording to RealtyTrac, a foreclosure listing firm.
And the proportion of loans Fan-nie holds or guarantees that are at least 90 days’ delinquent is down: The figure dropped to 3.3 percent at the end of 2012, compared with 5.5 percent in early 2010.
Ely, the industry analyst, thinks their financial improvement also reflects higher fees that Fannie and Freddie now charge banks to guarantee their mortgages.
Fannie earned $7.6 billion in the Octo-ber-December quarter, a quarterly record for the company. About $1.3 billion of the gain came from a settlement paid by Bank of America Corp. related to mortgages that soured during the housing crash.
Fannie paid the Treasury a quarterly dividend of $2.9 billion. Under federal
policy, Fannie and Freddie must give their profits to the government. Fannie’s fourth-quarter earnings compared with a net loss of $2.4 billion in the final quarter of 2011.
“Our financial results improved signifi-cantly in 2012, and we expect our earnings to remain strong over the next few years,” Timothy Mayopoulos, Fannie’s CEO, said in a statement.
After their takeover by the government, Fannie’s and Freddie’s pay and bonus struc-ture came under fire when it was revealed that 12 executives received a total of $35.4 million in salary and bonuses in 2009 and 2010. Fannie’s chief executive received about $9.3 million for the two years, Freddie’s $7.8 million.
Once mainstays of the New York Stock Exchange, the stocks of both companies traded above $60 in 2007. Since 2010, both have been listed on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board, an electronic quo-tation service. They’re trading below $1.
Since taking control, the government has owned 80 percent of each company, and a federal regulator has made financial decisions.
The government provided taxpayer aid in exchange for preferred stock in the two companies. The stock pays 10 percent interest, which Fannie and Freddie have been repaying in dividends each quarter in which they make a profit.
Freddie has received $72 billion in fed-eral aid and paid back nearly $24 billion. Freddie has reported positive earnings for five straight quarters.
Fannie and Freddie have since tightened their credit standards for the borrowers whose loans they back. And early last year, under pressure from Congress, the compa-nies’ regulator capped pay for their CEOs at $500,000 a year and eliminated annual bonuses for all employees.
By Lee ReichAssociated Press
For a time many years back, I would become nervous every time I went out to my garden to weed. The weeds were so few that I feared something was
wrong with the soil.True, I had taken deliberate steps to cre-
ate this condition, but initially it was hard
to believe that results could so well bear out theory.
The first step in creating this “weedless” condition was to stop turning over or till-ing the ground.
Buried in every soil are countless dormant weed seeds just waiting to be awakened by exposure to light and/or air. Not tilling — whether with a shovel, gar-den fork or rototiller — keeps those seeds buried and dormant.
Added bonuses to the no-till approach are preservation of valuable soil humus (organic matter), earlier planting in spring, more efficient water use and, of course, not having to go through the trouble of tilling.
Keep soil intact and covered
I now take great pains to avoid disturb-ing the layering that naturally develops over time in any soil.
I clean up old marigold plants, tomato vines and other spent plants during and at the end of the growing season by just jerking them out of the ground, coaxing out plants with large roots, such as corn, by first cutting around their main roots with a garden knife.
I also enrich the soil from the top down, spreading fertilizers and compost or other organic materials right on the surface. Most of a plant’s feeder roots
GARDENING
(Nearly) weedless gardening is possible
Serving Latah County Since 1947 201 E Third | Moscow, Idaho 83843 | 208-882-5531
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April 2013 | Moscow-Pullman Daily News | 7PALOUSE HOMES— the roots that benefit most from organic materials and fertilizers — grow near the surface anyway. And near or on the surface is where organic materials can also do the most good offering protection from the pounding of raindrops and the summer sun.
Still, there are always those weeds that arrive in the garden as seeds hitchhiking in with the wind or dropped by birds. Each year, I smother them by spreading a thin, weed-free mulch over the soil. The mulch of choice depends on the look I want, the plants and the soil.
Poor soil and hungrier plants demand the most nourishing mulch. So every year, compost gets slathered an inch thick over the ground where vegetables grow.
Buckwheat hulls, straw or wood chips are adequate and attractive for most flow-ers.
Don’t walk on my bed
Of course, you can’t just stop tilling, throw mulch on the ground and garden as usual. Walking on the soil and rolling a wheelbarrow, garden cart or tractor over it compacts the soil; tillage is then needed to aerate it.
The way to avoid compaction in the first place is to lay out the garden with permanent areas for plants and for traffic.
Trafficked areas also need to be mulched, in this case with some lean, weed-free ma-terial such as wood chips, gravel or straw.
Planted areas in my vegetable garden consist of rectangular beds 3 feet wide surrounded by 18-inch-wide paths. Beds in my flower garden are more free-form or have stepping stones.
Planted areas in a vegetable garden don’t need to be raised beds, however; they can be laid out flat on the ground.
A big advantage of bed planting is that you can pack more plants into less space. Instead of planting carrots with 18 inches between rows, four or five rows can be planted with only a few inches between them. (That 18 inches is to let you walk between the rows for planting, weeding and harvesting. With a 3-foot-wide bed, you can do all that from the paths.)
Also, different vegetables, flowers, or vegetables and flowers can be grown together in beds.
Drip that water
Changing watering technique was the final step on my road to “weedlessness.” Not all plants need regular watering, but for those that do, drip irrigation is the way to go.
Drip irrigation puts water near garden plants, so none is wasted or promoting
weed growth in the areas between plants or in paths.
This is not to say that with the above four steps — drip irrigation, mulching, keeping traffic off planted areas, and not till-ing — weeds never appear. They do. But weed problems do not.
What few large weeds do appear get yanked out of the soil, roots and all, coaxed out, if neces-sary, with a garden knife or trowel at their roots.
Colonies of small weeds are quickly done in with a “winged weeder,” colinear hoe or some other hoe with a sharp blade that can be slid along parallel to and just a fraction of an inch below the soil surface.
Also important in keeping a garden weed-free is to search regularly for them.
With the above four steps, this activity is pared down to nothing more than a few pleasant minutes per week.
Lee Reich is the author of “Weedless Gardening” (Workman, 2001)
Lee Reich/Associated PressCan you garden without weeds? Perhaps not. But there are tips for keeping those weeds at bay.
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PALOUSE HOMES8 | April 2013 | Moscow-Pullman Daily News
By Jennifer ForkerAssociated Press
Artists and craftspeople know that the colors they choose — and leave out — are critical ingredients in their works’ suc-cess, no matter the medium.
Color done well is captivating. Color done badly? It’s just bad. Or drab.
Yet a color tweak may be all it takes to turn up a piece’s vibrancy and magic.
An eye for color is both intuitive and learned, say the experts.
Kaffe Fassett has spent a lifetime experi-menting. The septuagenarian is exuberant with color in his embroidery, knitting and fabric designs. He’s known for bold florals, fruits and vegetables, and geometric shapes — in sweaters, knitted coats and needle-point. The author of 15 books, his latest, “Kaffe Fassett Quilts: Shots and Stripes” (STC Craft, 2013), goes minimal with vi-brant swaths of color — a simplicity that’s
a stretch for him.A Londoner for 40 years who was born
and raised in California, Fassett eschews conventional color rules, although he subscribes to a few intuitively.
“I left art school the minute the color wheel came out,” he muses. “I thought that was the work of the devil.”
When Fassett talks about harmony and “bounce,” his language is as energetic as his artwork.
“Pick up one color and stick it next to another and see if you get a bounce from it,” says the textile artist. “Colors can either dampen each other or they can light each other up. It’s just fantastic to see color that is pulsating. It’s just vibrating with life. Other times, the most wonderful color is dropping dead because it’s in the company of something that’s killing it.”
“I want to make the colors lush,” Fassett continues. “I’m after the glow all the time.”
During the quilting workshops he teaches in the United States and elsewhere,
including online, he recom-mends using myriad shades of the same color to create depth and harmony.
“Whenever possible, you have 10 shades of something rather than just one,” says Fas-sett, who is inspired in part by faded, antique carpets.
For example, while knitters are usually told to adhere to a single dye lot when buy-ing multiple yarn skeins for a project, Fassett recommends working with several dye lots.
“I never had dye-lot angst,” he says. “Just the opposite. I loved when a color ran out.”
Also, stick to a color theme but make it “pop” with little surprises of a different color. That ensures a piece won’t become muddy or drab from a color theme’s overuse. For example, if you’re working in warm tones of red and orange, inject a little cool blue. This works in quilting and in other artistic media, such as painting.
“It can go very mushy if you don’t have enough vivid differ-ences,” says Fassett.
In quilting and other textile arts, mix up the fabric patterns — use both large and small prints — to add interest.
Anna Maria Horner, a Brentwood, Tenn., fine artist turned fabric and home-decor designer, echoes some of Fassett’s tips.
“What people overlook is arranging the light and dark — the depths of every shade,” says Horner, who designs fabrics and needlework products for Westminster Fibers. “You can throw all the right colors into it, but maybe you don’t have the right lightness and darkness and depth of shade.”
Meanwhile, too much of a good thing — too much vibrant color — creates chaos, she says. Injecting a neutral color can help.
“There’s a difference between vivid and chaos,” Horner says. “It’s really a fine, small step between the two.”
Betina Fink, an oil painter for 25 years, teaches art classes — including one about color — at The Drawing Studio in Tucson,
Ariz. She recommends studying the same color wheel that Fassett detests and learn-ing about color theory, including how our brains process color.
“Color is a system,” Fink says. “You can take a lot of the mystery out of it if you follow the system.”
For starters, learn about complementary and analogous colors, she says. Comple-mentary colors are opposite each other on the color wheel — say, blue and orange. Analogous colors, such as blue and purple, are near each other on the wheel.
Learn how to mix complementary colors and how to use them side by side. Learn about their values — their lightness or darkness — to understand different aspects of the same color.
Then, see what color combinations ap-peal to you, says Fink.
ARTS and CRAFTS
Build color confidence into your crafting
AP photo/AbramsThe Bordered Diamonds quilt from Kaffe Fassett’s book “Simple Shapes Spectacular Quilts” (STC Craft/A Melanie Falick Book, 2010) and it also appears in his autobiography, “Kaffe Fassett: Dreaming in Color” (2012). He’s taught workshops on this quilt throughout the world.
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Her main advice: Don’t use too much color in your artwork.
“It will all start to cancel each other out,” she says. “There’s more impact in your artwork when you use a limited art palette.”
Finally, avoid using white to lighten and black to darken a color, Fink says; each mutes colors. Instead, lighten and darken color with another that’s near it on the color wheel. For example, lighten orange with yellow. Darken orange with red.
This same color advice can be used elsewhere in our lives — when planning a garden, decorating a room or dressing for a night out. Likewise, get color advice from your surroundings. Horner turns to fashion, Fink looks to nature and Fassett is inspired by antique quilts.
“The main thing is to get out your
colors and keep looking at them,” says Fassett. “See which ones make each other happy, and which ones overshadow and dominate the scene and make things dull. Get it to the point of glowing.”
Fassett teaches a class, Rosy Quilt Design, online at creativebug.com. The show “Kaffe Fassett: A Life in Colour,” chronicling his 50 years in the textile arts, ap-
pears through June 29 at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London.
ONLINE www.annamariahorner.com www.betinafink.com www.kaffefassett.com www.creativebug.com
AP photo/AbramsThree needlepoint chairs with overblown blooms by Kaffee Fassett. Fassett uses exuberant color and bold images in his embroidery, knitting and fabric designs.
By Melissa RayworthAssociated Press
Warm weather and the first buds of spring have been slow to arrive in much of the country. But even if your garden
has yet to grow, you can add beauty, fragrance and a sense of springtime to your home by decorating with lush plants and potted trees.
Decorating with plants “kind of fell out of vogue” for a time, says California-based interior designer Molly Luetkemeyer. “It was such a ‘70s thing, or I think people associated it with the ‘70s,” but it’s become popular again in recent years.
Today, “designer spaces pretty much always include some element of life,” says interior designer Brian Patrick Flynn, founder of decordemon.com. “While that can be anything from coral to tortoise shells, pressed leaves or even a tiny bowl with a goldfish, the most common way to add life is with potted plants and trees.”
We’ve asked Flynn, Luetkemeyer and
Betsy Burnham of Burnham Design in Los Angeles for advice on choosing the right plants, potting them perfectly and keeping them blooming with minimal effort.
WHERE TO START?
“Talking to someone at a nursery is a re-ally good idea,” says Burnham, because em-ployees at garden stores and plant nurseries are usually glad to answer questions about choosing and caring for plants.
You can choose plants based on the spot in your home where you’d like to keep them (sundrenched windowsills, shady corners or in-between spaces that get a mix of sun and shade). Or you can select a plant you love and then ask for advice on where to place it.
If you have pets or small children, ask whether a plant you’re considering is poi-sonous. And if you want plants that need very little attention, don’t be shy about saying so.
“While I’m a fan of making a big statement with greenery,” Flynn says, “I’m only interested in plants and trees that are
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PALOUSE HOMES10 | April 2013 | Moscow-Pullman Daily News
low-maintenance. Give me something that requires daily care and/or delicate groom-ing, and it’s most likely to go from green to brown or black in less than 72 hours.”
Fabulous ferns
All three designers like ferns, such as the maidenhair. “They’re so delicate and soft,” says Luetkemeyer. “They’re fresh, and they’re that pale green that’s the beginning green of spring.”
Maidenhairs are fairly easy to care for: “They need to be watered,” she says, “but if you water them, they hang around.”
Consider grouping several together in small pots or buying just one large fern.
“They can ground a space grouped together in odd numbers in pots of varied heights on the floor,” Flynn says. Or “you can use them to add life high up in a room with hanging basket planters. And then they also look excellent potted and placed on a pedestal, coffee table or console table.”
If you want something larger and bolder than the delicate maidenhair, Flynn suggests the staghorn fern. Just remember that all ferns do best in shade rather than direct sunlight.
Flowring plants
“I love plants that flower in the spring,”
says Luetkemeyer, who recommends daf-fodils, narcissus and hyacinth.
She also loves gardenia plants for their heady fragrance and shiny leaves. But they do require a bit of effort.
“Any plant that’s a woody plant, with a wood that’s exposed, is going to be a little bit trickier,” she says.
Consider researching gardenias online to learn how much water and how much light your plant will need.
And with all potted plants, Luetke-meyer suggests placing a dish underneath the pot to catch and maintain the water, then placing a coaster underneath the dish to protect the furniture or floor.
Potted trees
“A statement tree,” says Burnham, “adds height to your room, and plays with the light at a window.”
Her clients in southern California often opt for the color and fragrance of small cit-rus trees in their homes or at the entrance to a patio or yard.
“They require light and require water,” Burnham says, “but they have fabulous floral blooms in addition to the color of the fruit.
Flynn also suggests fig trees: “Fiddle leaf fig trees are, hands down, my favorite,” he says. “They’re super architectural and
almost kind of minimalist. Since these grow straight upwards, they’re perfect for corners or flanking a fireplace or focal point without growing out and over it.”
“I also use fiddle leaf fig trees in unex-pected places,” he says, “just to add a big burst of life into an otherwise utilitarian space such as a bathroom or even offices. The key to using them successfully is ensuring they don’t come into contact with direct light, and that they’re not exposed to dry heat.”
Countertop herbs
“This might be a great time to put some herbs in your kitchen,” Luetkemeyer says.
Many grocery stores and nurseries sell herb plants such as mint or basil that are already blooming in small plastic pots. You can re-pot them into more attractive containers, then cluster several together on a countertop.
Perfect potting
“What you plant something in makes just as much of a statement as the tree or plant itself,” says Burnham.
Take time shopping for exactly what you want. “Add a little extra effort,” she says, “and you get a really chic little addition to your room.”
One simple approach is to “put the plant into a fabulous low basket and cover it with reindeer moss,” Burnham says. “You don’t see the soil, and don’t see the plastic container inside.”
Luetkemeyer agrees that it’s worth tak-ing time to choose the right pots: “You can take the same plant and pot it four different ways and it creates four different vibes,” she says. A pot is “sort of like the frame on the piece of art. It sets the tone.”
Non-plant greenery
If you don’t wish to commit to even a low-maintenance plant, Flynn suggests you “work in fruits in decorative ways.”
“Oranges, clementines, apples and limes ... look excellent grouped in vessels,” he says. “The key to getting it right is to sepa-rate them, and not have different types of fruit within the same grouping. My favorite way to use fruit decoratively is by placing them in apothecary jars in different heights and sizes.”
Whatever kind you choose, Flynn is sure you’ll be happier if you add some kind of greenery to your home.
“Whether you’ve got all the time in the world to care for something or just want to be able to squirt a water bottle on your way out the door,” he says, “there’s definitely something out there for you.”
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$100 OFFa Culligan® Iron-Cleer® Water Filter
Up to $100 OFFa Culligan ® Water Softener
Limited time offer. See participating dealer for details. ©2010 Culligan International Co.May be subject to credit approval. Not valid with other offers. Dealer participation mayvary. Coupon must be presented at time of sale. Contaminants may not be in your water.
Limited time offer. See participating dealer for details. ©2010 Culligan International Co.May be subject to credit approval. Not valid with other offers. Dealer participation mayvary. Coupon must be presented at time of sale. Contaminants may not be in your water.
CR
0365
455A
better water. pure and simple. ®
ener will help you keep up with your lifestyle.We’ll make laundry brighter, skin smoother and hair shinier.We’ll knock out the rust and throw out the scale. We target odors,stains, and spots too. If you want to get “hooked-up”, just say“Hey Culligan Man”® or contact us at culliganwatermoscow.com.
PALOUSE HOMES12 | April 2013 | Moscow-Pullman Daily News
Thinking of Selling?
128 E. Third St., Moscow • 208.883.1525 • 800.205.7530For ALL Area Listings: www.LatahRealty.com
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