by admin | Feb 5, 2020 | Uncategorized
When the number of buyers in the housing market outnumbers the number of homes for sale, it’s called a “seller’s market.” The advantage tips toward the seller as low inventory heats up the competition among those searching for a place to call their own. This can create multiple offer scenarios and bidding wars, making it tough for buyers to land their dream homes – unless they stand out from the crowd. Here are three reasons why pre-approval should be your first step in the homebuying process.
1. Gain a Competitive Advantage
Low inventory, like we have today, means homebuyers need every advantage they can get to make a strong impression and close the deal. One of the best ways to get one step ahead of other buyers is to get pre-approved for a mortgage before you make an offer. For one, it shows the sellers you’re serious about buying a home, which is always a plus in your corner.
2. Accelerate the Homebuying Process
Pre-approval can also speed up the homebuying process, so you can move faster when you’re ready to make an offer. In a competitive arena like we have today, being ready to put your best foot forward when the time comes may be the leg-up you need to cross the finish line first and land the home of your dreams.
3. Know What You Can Borrow and Afford
Here’s the other thing: if you’re pre-approved, you also have a better sense of your budget, what you can afford, and ultimately how much you’re eligible to borrow for your mortgage. This way, you’re less apt to fall in love with a home that may be out of your reach.
Freddie Mac sets out the advantages of pre-approval in the My Home section of their website:
“It’s highly recommended that you work with your lender to get pre-approved before you begin house hunting. Pre-approval will tell you how much home you can afford and can help you move faster, and with greater confidence, in competitive markets.”
Local real estate professionals also have relationships with lenders who can help you through this process, so partnering with a trusted advisor will be key for that introduction. Once you select a lender, you’ll need to fill out their loan application and provide them with important information regarding “your credit, debt, work history, down payment and residential history.”
Freddie Mac also describes the ‘4 Cs’ that help determine the amount you’ll be qualified to borrow:
- Capacity: Your current and future ability to make your payments
- Capital or Cash Reserves: The money, savings, and investments you have that can be sold quickly for cash
- Collateral: The home, or type of home, that you would like to purchase
- Credit: Your history of paying bills and other debts on time
While there are still many additional steps you’ll need to take in the homebuying process, it’s clear why pre-approval is always the best place to begin. It’s your chance to gain the competitive edge you may need if you’re serious about owning a home.
Bottom Line
Getting started with pre-approval is a great way to begin the homebuying journey. Let’s get together today to make sure you’re on the fastest path to homeownership.
by admin | Sep 14, 2019 | Uncategorized
지난 컬럼에서는 21세기 미국 교육정책의 핵심으로 혁신적 사고를 가능케하는 교육, 그리고 체계적이고 목표 지향적인 스템 교육 커리큘럼 개발이 왜 중요한가와 미국 K-12학부모들을 대상으로 한 스템 교육에 대한 설문조사결과등을 다루었다.
이번 컬럼에서는 그렇다면 혁신적 사고와 스템 교육들은 과연 어떻게 연관이 되어지며, 혁신적 교육은 어떻게 개발되어질 수 있는지에 대해 다루기로 한다.
혁신 (Innovation)이란 새로운 아이디어, 창의적 생각, 혹은 새로운 상상력을 새로운 형태의 디바이스나 방법으로 구현하는 것이며, 아이폰과 지속적인 혁신을 가능케 하는 기반이 된 IOS와 같은 새로운 운영체계들을 예로 든 바 있다 (컬럼 2 참조).
이러한 혁신적 사고를 가능케 하는 기반으로는 사회와 자연에서 일어나는 각종 현상들에 대해 관찰과 실험, 검증을 통해 체계적으로 정리하고 접근해 가는 과학(Science)적 사고와 새로운 상상력이나 개념들을 기계나 구조물 등을 통해 디자인하고 구현해 가는 공학적 접근방법 (Engineering). 그리고 이러한 과학적 접근방법들을 산업에 실용적으로 적용하는 것을 기술 (Technology)로 정의한다. 영어에서의 Technology와 한국어에서 정의하는 전통적 의미의 기술은 사전적 의미에서 다소 큰 차이가 있을 수 있다. 수학(Math)은 이러한 논리적 사고와 체계를 숫자를 통해 객관적으로 표현하고 발전해 나갈 수 있도록 논리적 기반 (빌딩블록)을 제공해주며, 컴퓨팅(Computing)은 이러한 기술들을 하드웨어와 소프트웨어를 사용하여 논리적, 체계적으로 결합하여 사람이 일일 히 개입하지 않고도, 자동적으로 문제를 해결하거나 필요한 과업들(Tasks)을 해결해 주는 과정을 일컫는다.
암기나 주입식 지식위주의 교육방식이 가져오는 한계
인터넷, 스마트폰, 그리고 구글과 같은 새로운 지식 검색체계가 가져온 가장 큰 변화 중 하나가 암기나 주입식 지식위주의 교육방식이 가져오는 한계를 들 수 있다. 각종 정보나 지식을 쉽게 검색하여 찾아 볼 수 있는 시대에서는 무엇을 암기하여 알고 있느냐에 대한 평가보다는, 문제점에 대한 체계적 이해와 분석과 새로운 해결책 개발을 위해서 어떻게 접근해 나가느냐 하는 창의적이고 혁신적사고력의 비중이 인재평가의 핵심이 되어가고 있다. 이러한 사례들은 신경제 산업체제를 상징하는 구글, 페이스북과 같은 기업들의 인재평가와 채용방식에서도 쉽게 찾아 볼 수 있다.
흥미를 살리는 개방형 교육과 혁신적 사고
그렇다면 과연 이러한 혁신적 사고 방식은 과연 어떻게 교육되어 지고 발전되어 갈 수 있는가에 대해 살펴보기로 하자. 수많은 혁신적 사고자 (Innovators)들과 혁신적 기업들의 경영자들을 대상으로 한 연구 조사들을 종합해 보면 혁신은 타고나는 혁신적 DNA도 중요하지만 (25~40%), 다음과 같은 다섯가지를 종합한 포뮬러와 반복적 강화 교육 과정 (Practice)을 통해 개발되고 교육되어질수 있다.
- 질문 (Questioning): 현상에 대한 의문점에 대한 질문과 새로운 가능성을 추구하는 질문
- 관찰 (Observing): 조그만 디테일과 새로운 가능성을 위한 관찰능력
- 네트워킹 (Networking): 다양한 배경을 가진 동료들과 협력을 통해 다양한 접근 방법에 대한 네트워킹과 소통을 통해 배타적이 아닌 협력적 혁신사고능력의 개발
- 실험 (Experimenting): 새로운 아이디어를 다양한 실패와 실험과정을 통해 함께 완성해 가는 훈련
- 관련적 사고 (Associated Thinking): 서로 관련이 없을 것 같은 다양한 분야를 이러한 단계들을 통해 관련성을 추출하고, 새로운 문제 해결방법으로 연결해 갈수 있는 사고력.
이중 자녀교육의 관점에서 첫번째가 자녀들의 과학적 사고에 대한 흥미를 유발할 수 있고, 자발적으로 질문하고, 몰입할 수 있는 교육환경과 이를 단계적으로 상승시켜 나갈 수 있는 혁신적 교육 프로그램개발의 중요성을 들 수 있다.
by ashley | Jun 16, 2019 | Uncategorized, Farms
Jim Goodman is an organic dairy farmer from Wonewoc, Wis.
December 21
After 40 years of dairy farming, I sold my herd of cows this summer. The herd had been in my family since 1904; I know all 45 cows by name. I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to take over our farm — who would? Dairy farming is little more than hard work and possible economic suicide.
A grass-based organic dairy farm bought my cows. I couldn’t watch them go. In June, I milked them for the last time, left the barn and let the truckers load them. A cop-out on my part? Perhaps, but being able to remember them as I last saw them, in my barn, chewing their cuds and waiting for pasture, is all I have left.
My retirement was mostly voluntary. Premature, but there is some solace in having a choice. Unlike many dairy farmers, I didn’t retire bankrupt. But for my wife and me, having to sell our herd was a sign — of the economic death not just of rural America but also of a way of life. It is nothing short of heartbreaking to walk through our barn and know that those stalls will remain empty. Knowing that our losses reflect the greater damage inflicted on entire regions is worse.
When I started farming in 1979, the milk from 45 cows could pay the bills, cover new machinery and buildings, and allow us to live a decent life and start a family. My father had farmed through the Great Depression, and his advice — “don’t borrow any more than you have to” — stuck with me and probably saved the farm many times over.
We survived the 1980s, when debt loads became impossible for many farmers and merely incredibly onerous for the lucky ones. Interest rates went up , export markets plummeted after a wheat embargo against the Soviet Union, oil prices soared, inflation skyrocketed and land prices began to collapse. More than 250,000 farms died that decade, and more than 900 farmers committed suicide in the upper Midwest alone.
Farmers felt the impact most directly, but there were few in rural communities who were untouched. All the businesses that depended on farm dollars watched as their incomes dried up and the tax base shrank. Farm foreclosures meant fewer families and fewer kids, so schools were forced to close . The Main Street cafes and coffee shops — where farmers talked prices, the weather and politics — shut down as well.
As devastating as the 1980s were for farmers, today’s crisis is worse. Ineffective government subsidies and insurance programs are worthless in the face of plummeting prices and oversupply (and tariffs certainly aren’t helping). The current glut of organic milk has caused a 30 percent decrease in the price I was paid for my milk over the past two years. The new farm bill, signed by President Trump on Thursday, provides modest relief for larger dairy farmers (it expands some subsidies, and farmers will be able to pay lower premiums to participate in a federal program that offers compensation when milk prices drop below a certain level), but farmers don’t want subsidies; all we ever asked for were fair prices. So for many, this is little more than another PR stunt, and the loss of family farms will continue. This year, Wisconsin, where I live, had lost 382 dairy farms by August; last year, the number at the same point was 283. The despair is palpable; suicide is a fact of life, though many farm suicides are listed as accidents.
A farmer I knew for many years came home from town, folded his good clothes for the last time and killed himself. I saw no warning, though maybe others did.
When family farms go under, the people leave and the buildings are often abandoned, but the land remains, often sold to the nearest land baron. Hillsides and meadows that were once grasslands for pasturing cattle become acre upon acre of corn-soybean agriculture. Farming becomes a business where it used to be a way of life. With acreages so large, owners use pesticides and chemical fertilizers to ensure that the soil can hold an unsustainable rotation of plants upright, rather than caring for the soil as a living biotic community.
Those dairy farms that remain milk hundreds or thousands of cows, keeping them in huge barns and on concrete lots. The animals seldom, if ever, get the chance to set their hooves on what little grass is there. Pigs are raised indoors for their entire lives, never feeling the sun or rain or what it’s like to roll in mud.
“I’ve been reading about it,” Trump said to cheers. “That demands really immediately fair trade, with all of our trading partners, and that includes Canada.” (The Washington Post)
All the machinery has become bigger, noisier, and some days it runs around the clock. Manure from the mega-farms is hauled for miles in huge tanker trucks or pumped through irrigation lines onto crop fields. The smell, the flies and the airborne pathogens that go with it have effectively done away with much of the peaceful countryside I used to know.
What kind of determination does it take for someone young and hopeful to begin a life of farming in times like these? Getting credit as a small farmer is more difficult today. As prices continue to fall, increasing production and farm size is often the only way to survive. But there is just too much — too much milk, too much grain, too much livestock — thanks to tightening export markets and declining domestic demand for dairy products. The situation is great for the processors who buy from the farmers, but it will never give the farmers a fair price.
With fewer farms, there are fewer foreclosures than in the 1980s. But watching your neighbor’s farm and possessions being auctioned off is no more pleasant today than it was 30 years ago. Seeing a farm family look on as their life’s work is sold off piece by piece; the cattle run through a corral, parading for the highest bid; tools, household goods and toys piled as “boxes of junk” and sold for a few dollars while the kids hide in the haymow crying — auctions are still too painful for me.
As I end my career as a farmer, I feel fortunate it lasted as long as it did. Some choices made long ago did keep me ahead of the curve, at least for a while. I always told people that 45 cows were enough for me, and being able to give them names rather than numbers and appreciate each one’s unique nature was important. I remember Adel, who always found her way across the pasture for a good head scratch, and Lara, whose sandpaper tongue always found my face as I milked her.
Cows like these didn’t fit into the “get big or get out ” theory of farming that took over during the 1980s, so over the years, we needed to get better ideas or get out. By switching to organic production and direct marketing, we managed to make a decent living. We also found that this method of farming required good environmental stewardship and direct involvement with our rural community. And, for almost 20 years, it worked.
But organic dairying has become a victim of its own success. It was profitable and thus fell victim to the “get big” model. Now, our business is dominated by large organic operations that are more factory than farm. It seems obvious that they simply cannot be following the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s strict organic production standards (like pasturing cattle), rules that we smaller farmers see as common sense.
Although small organic farms pioneered the concept, organic certification has become something not meant for us — and a label that mega-farms co-opted and used to break us. When six dairy farms in Texas feed their thousands of cows a diet of organic grain and stored forage, with no discernible access to a blade of grass, they end up producing more milk than all 453 organic dairy farms in Wisconsin combined. Then they ship it north, undercutting our price. We can’t make ends meet and are forced out of the business. We played by the rules, but we no longer have a level playing field.
Despite this, I hung on, but I couldn’t continue milking cows indefinitely. Perhaps it’s for the best. A few years before we sold our herd, we had to install huge fans in our barn — the summers were getting too hot for the cows to be out during the heat of the day. Climate change would have made our future in farming that much harder. We could have adapted, I think, but we ran out of time.
They say a farmer gets 40 chances. For 40 years, each spring brings another shot at getting it right, at succeeding or failing or something in between. If that were ever true, it isn’t now. That’s why, after my 40 chances, I’m done.