Government

The Virginia Association of REALTORS® thanks Governor McDonnell and the members of the General Assembly for working together to pass a sustainable transportation funding plan, resulting in HB 2313.

“We know the importance of an adequate, efficient transportation network. It enhances the quality of life in cities and towns across the Commonwealth. Transportation impacts everyone: parents getting children to school, businesses aiming to attract customers, first responders and law enforcement responding to emergencies, and commuters on their way to work,” says Mary Dykstra, President of the Virginia Association of REALTORS®.

This transportation bill is not perfect, but a result of compromise and working together for the greater good.

Add to the never-ending List of Things That Caused the Housing Market Collapse: zoning. Specifically, zoning for too many large, expensive, single-family homes.

That kind of policy, according to a paper in the journal Housing Policy Debate, left people who wanted to live in an area with a choice of either living elsewhere or being lured by the promise of low/no payments and the idea that they could refinance when their ARMs reset.

Naturally, they chose the latter, and the data show the result: Communities zoned for those larger homes were much more likely to see foreclosures. (And that, of course, drove down property values, making it harder for people there to refinance..)

Some last-minute work by VAR has paid off: In his proposed amendments to Virginia’s transportation bill, Governor Bob McDonnell has asked that the proposed grantor’s tax increase in Northern Virginia be reduced from 25 cents per $100 to only 15 cents.

The bill passed by the General Assembly included a regional package for Planning District Commission 8, which includes a large portion of Northern Virginia. To help raise approximately $30 million for congestion relief, the bill (HB 2313) raised the grantor’s tax in the region by 25 cents per $100.

The good folks at DPOR are working hard to get your license paperwork processed — applications, transfers, and the like.

We’ve already given you some tips on how to speed that process; we’ve got some more info to pass on.

Don’t call DPOR and ask for the status of your license. No one there can give it to you.

Get that? The same people who process applications are answering the phones, so every minute spent explaining “I’m sorry, I can’t provide that information” means one minute fewer actually processing it.