The planned corner of Bank and St. Paul streets For years, Burlington residents have been pushing the city to make progress on two important goals: improved walkability, which will reduce its carbon footprint; and a healthy mix of locally owned businesses, to serve not just tourists but the people who actually live downtown. The new CityPlace Burlington project has the potential to solve both problems, according to University of Vermont economics professor Jane Knodell, a former Burlington city councilor. In the decades she served the city, Knodell says she heard from many Burlingtonians who wanted to see more stores selling the daily essentials of life. And she listened to shop owners complain about sporadic foot traffic heavy in the summer and fall, and on snowy winter weekends, but too light the rest of the time.
UK, Canada Sign Post Brexit Continuity Agreement
UK, Canada Sign Post Brexit Continuity Agreement
by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington
10 December 2020
Canada and the UK have formally signed a post-Brexit trade continuity agreement that will apply from January 1, 2021.
The UK-EU Brexit transition period ends on December 31, 2020. The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada will no longer apply to the UK as of January 1, 2021.
A Trade Continuity Agreement (TCA) between the UK and Canada was agreed in principle on November 21, 2020, and was signed on December 9, 2020. The TCA aims to preserve the main benefits of CETA.
In the case of Canada, this will ensure the continued elimination of tariffs on 98 percent of products exported to the UK. The UK will benefit from tariff-free trade on 98 percent of goods that can be exported to Canada. In addition, tariffs will be eliminated on UK car exports to Canada.
anymore. the banks are trying to cover their interest. i think that what we ve seen is sort of a rebound of them being very concerned an very afraid in trying to look at their shareholders and say, we re protecting their interests, and right now the appraisal process is the only way they have to do that. mike, you ve made a point before on this program, if you are a do that. if you are a seller, listen up. you need to be priced right. that goes into this whole concern of not being priced right. you got to track the buyer s interest, but at the same time you don t want to be priced too high. if you re overpriced in this marketplace, people will look completely past you. not only do you need to be priced right and in some places depending on what the competition is like, you need to be priced aggressively. mention that cash buyers are out there and that number is going up. what does that say to me? it says that investors think that we re nearing the bottom of the real estate market
in fact, cash is king right now. the percentage of buyers paying cash for property is somewhere over 30%. it s really one of the highest i ve ever seen. talk more about that in a couple minutes. mike, talk about the problems people have been having. signing deals. got a buyer, seller coming together. decide on a house. the seller is so glad to have this off his or her hands. buyer so glad of the bargain, suddenly the deal falls through because the assessor comes in and the value is less than the agreed upon deal? the word you mechbt to use, appraiser? right. sorry. tell you what, what appraisers are doing now is essentially changing the marketplace as we know it. i can be the best real estate agent in the world and i can be the best negotiator in the world, but even though p.t. barnum told us there was a sucker born every day that sort of has changed. it doesn t matter if that sucker s out there anymore. only if the house appraises at the val of the deal made. you can t really
just weeks before the all-important spring selling season in real estate, frigid number. sales of existing homes fell 9.6% in february. new home sales had the worst month since records had been kept in 1963. a terrible 12 months for housing sales. at the same time, the value of the house is falling. the median house price declined 5.2% from february 2010. mike godfrey is a licensed realtor in real estate intervention. mike, what s it going to take to get people to buy houses? i m not surprised by these numbers at all, christine. obviously, people are afraid. i think that people don t want to invest in homes right now, and coupled with the fact we re starting to see mortgage rates begin to inch back up again,