Original List Price: $334,500

Sale Price: $327,000

The 15-year mortgage, a popular option for refinancing, declined to 3.04 percent. That’s down from last week’s previous record of 3.05 percent.

Rates on the 30-year loan have been below 4 percent since early December. But so far, those cheap rates haven’t been enough to ignite home sales.

While sales of previously occupied homes picked up in January and February, they fell again in March and remain well below healthy levels.

Boost in Confidence
Low mortgage rates have helped boost builder confidence, which rose in May to a five-year high. And home construction has improved in the past six months, a reflection of that increase in confidence.

Builders broke ground in April at a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 717,000 homes, the government reported Wednesday. That nearly matches January’s pace, the best since October 2008.

Construction rose for both single-family homes and apartments. And builders requested more permits to build single-family homes, a sign that they expect more demand in the coming months.

Still, many would-be buyers can’t qualify for loans or afford higher down payments required by banks. Home prices in many cities continue to fall. That has made those who can afford to buy uneasy about entering the market. And for those who are willing to brave the troubled market, many have already taken advantage of lower rates — mortgage rates have been below 5 percent for more than a year now.

The Treasury-Note Connection
Mortgage rates are lower because they tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note. Slower U.S. job growth and uncertainty about how Europe will resolve its debt crisis have led investors to buy more Treasurys, which are considered safe investments. As demand for Treasurys increases, the yield falls.

To calculate the average rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country on Monday through Wednesday of each week.
The average rage does not include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.

The average fee for 30-year loans was 0.7 last week, unchanged from the previous week. The fee on 15-year loans also was 0.7, the same as the previous week.

The average one-year adjustable rate was 2.78 percent last week, up from 2.73 percent the previous week. The fee on one-year adjustable rate mortgages was unchanged at 0.5.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

Finally, a perfectly kept end unit in the desirable gated community of Allaire Country Club. This 3 bedroom end unit includes an in suite bath, eat in kitchen with a formal dining area, Wood Burning Fireplace, Hardwoods throughout with tons of natural light. 1 car garage with direct entry into the home & convenient for commuters – GSP,I-195,Rt18 just moments away. For the lazy beach weekends, enjoy Asbury Park, Belmar, & Spring Lake Beaches just moments from home at the Jersey Shore.

CLICK HERE FOR VIRTUAL TOUR

We don’t usually get many food trucks pulling up to the curb in Little Silver or Oceanport but on May 27, we’ll get a parking lot full of rolling eateries to choose from when the Jersey Shore Food Wars pull into Monmouth Park.

The day-long event will give foodies the chance to sample everything from lobsters to tacos and top it all off with a cupcake and then cast their vote for the People’s Choice Award.

Participating food trucks include:

• Max’s Hot Dogs
• Red Hook Lobster
• Pudgy’s Street Food
• Rickshaw Dumplings
• Kona Ice
• The Taco Truck
• Lil Dans Gourmet
• Dellano’s Food Service
• The French Quarter – A Taste of      New Orleans LLC
• Mustache Mobile
• Cupcake Carnivale
• Thai Elephant Truck

Point Beach council voted on Tuesday night for bars to close at midnight, two hours earlier than the current 2 a.m. closing time.

Councilmembers Kristine Tooker, Bret Gordon and Michael Corbally voted for the earlier bar closing, while Councilmembers William Mayer, Tim Lurie and Stephen Reid voted against it. That left Mayor Vincent Barrella to break the tie, and he voted yes.

The ordinance goes into effect on July 1.

The council also voted for preliminary approval for a second ordinance giving bars the option to pay fees to stay open until 2 a.m., which is the current closing time. However, councilmembers agreed to postpone the deadline for bars to request a later closing time from the town. That deadline had been May 24 but was moved to June 25.

The date change means council will have to vote on the original ordinance, with the new amendment for the date change, at a meeting in June.

Corbally was the lone no vote on the second ordinance. He said after the meeting that he voted no because he does not know if the state will approve the ordinance and because he hopes a different alternative can be worked out with the boardwalk.

The state Department of Community Affairs wrote a letter to Barrella saying “it appears” the ordinance regarding fees “may be unlawful.”

The town and boardwalk businesses had several private negotiation sessions recently, with the hope that an agreement could avert the need for earlier bar closings.

Jenkinson’s and Martell’s offered a joint payment of $160,000 per year for five  years, totalling to $800,000 and then the arrangement would be re-visited.

The meeting room at Point Beach Borough Hall was packed with residents, boardwalk and bar employees and media from all over the tri-state area.

The tension in the small, seaside town, which has only 5,000 year-round residents, was pronounced, with employees saying it could hurt or even eliminate their jobs, and residents complaining about bar patrons urinating, defecating and dumping litter on their properties.

Aleta Weinstein, who lives in the oceanfront Harbor Head development, said she has not been able to keep her windows open for the past five summers because of the drunken patrons making noise in the middle of the night and defecating on her property.

Frank Kinneavy, owner of Frankie’s Bar and Grill, on Route 35, told the council he has a unique perspective on how earlier bar closings affect a community.

He said when his other business, Rod’s Tavern, in Sea Girt had to close at midnight in 1984, that only sent patrons speeding off to Manasquan to drink at bars there.

He said earlier bar closings create the problem of bar patrons driving out of Point Beach at midnight to go to drink at bars in other towns and, if they are staying in Point Beach, then driving back into town drunk.

“Closing bars at 12 will not solve any problems, it will only create a lot of problems,” he said.

He said the mayor, council, bars, businesses and police need to work together to come up with solutions.

Corbally and Gordon spoke in favor of the plan.

Gordon said negotiations between boardwalk businesses and governing body members were cordial, but a failure.

“We had way too many lawyers in the room,” he said, emphatically. “We had five. That was about four and a half too many and I include our lawyers in that. I believe lawyers only muddy the waters.”

“The disappointing thing that came out of our last meeting was we asked the boardwalk to come up with a solid plan. Mr. Storinos and Mr. Bassinders, I believe your lawyers failed you in that regard,” Gordon said to several members of the Storino family who were in the room, along with Scott Bassinder, Martell’s owner.

“Now what do we do? Now the burden is on us to make a decision that is going to affect a lot of people. I haven’t given up on negotiations, but I refuse to continue to kick this can down the road. The days are over when our residents continue to subsidize the extra police services” that are needed because of boardwalk bar patrons, Gordon said.

“I do not scoff at the fact that $800,000 is a generous offer, but I don’t like that it’s a finite plan. I heard Mr. Ramos’ question and that has been my concern,” he said.

A bit earlier in the meeting, resident Mike Ramos asked, “It sounds like a good offer, but what happens after five years?”

Gordon said police statistics illustrate how the town’s most problem-plagued time period is from midnight to 3 a.m.

More than 42 percent of all citations written in the town over the entire year are written between midnight and 3 a.m., including in the summer, Gordon said.

He said he hopes the boardwalk businesses come up with a solid plan and then the issue can be re-visited.

Councilmember Tim Lurie said the debate about earlier bar closings that has stretched out over the past several months has divided and hurt the town. He said the local tourism industry brings in $3.2 million and that the town needs to work with the boardwalk businesses.

“I think we all need to work together, and I think this ordinance is a bad idea,” Lurie said.

Mayer said he favored tabling ordinances and instead finalizing the agreement for the boardwalk businesses to pay $160,000 per year for a total of $800,000 for five years.

Reid noted that there were TV news crews around the meeting room. He said the bad publicity is already hurting the town.

Reid said that because the town will have more special police officers this summer, the problems can be addressed through additional enforcement.

“We have enough cops to put one on every corner in District 4,” which is an assertion that Tooker has challenged, saying there will not be nearly enough officers to put a cop on every corner.

On Tuesday night, Tooker said, “We don’t have a serious proposal with mechanisms in place to make it happen in perpetuity, beyond five years. If we pass this, we can always rescind it. Mr. Reid talks about the damage that has been done. What about the damage that has already been done because of the change in our clientele, the Jersey Shore crowd?”

Tooker said she hopes in the future the boardwalk bars can come up with a better plan, with mechanisms in place for payments to be made, and then the town can consider possibly rescinding the earlier closing.

Barrella, just before voting, said it seemed that a lot of the people speaking against the earlier bar closings, saying the tourism industry will be hurt, are actually talking about the alcohol industry, not the tourism industry.

He said bars need to do a better job serving alcohol responsibly.

“I think they really want to do that, I hope they want to do that,” Barrella said.

Barrella said he did not like the fact that the boardwalk businesses filed a lawsuit against the new parking plan as they were entering into discussions with him, Mayer and Gordon. He said he was voting yes, but still hoped negotiations could resume to work out an alternative solution.

After the vote, Marilou Halvorsen said, “What’s the point of negotiating now? They just voted to close the bars early.”

She said the two sides “were so close” to reaching an agreement, noting that none of the councilmembers or the mayor had said the amount of $800,000 offered was too low.

When asked about assertions by some on council that the written offer did not include an explanation about any mechanisms for the money to be paid or other details, Halvorsen said, “It’s up to the town to work out the mechanisms. We said we were making these payments for quality of life issues. Working out the details was up to them.”

She said it would be up to the Storinos whether to pay fees to stay open until 2 a.m. or to consider other action.

Bassinder and Ron Gasiorowski, an attorney for Jenkinson’s and Martell’s, declined comment after the vote.

This story will be updated.

ByDenise Di Stephan

Starting May 26, NY Waterway ferries will be transporting beachgoers to and from Manhattan and Sandy Hook by boat on weekends through Labor Day.

The boat ride is a one-hour trip each way. Beachgoers can catch the ferries from two locations in New York City: the Midtown West Ferry Terminal at 39th Street in the Hudson River Park;  and the Downtown World Financial Center terminal at the foot of  Vesey Street.

There are will be five departures from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.  Return  trips start at 3 p.m. and leave Sandy Hook every hour until 7 p.m..

Beach-goers from New Jersey get a free round-trip ferry pass between  Port Imperial in Weehawken when they purchase a Sandy Hook ticket. Free  ferry rides between 14^th Street in Hoboken and West 39^h Street in Manhattan are available with advance Sandy Hook ticket purchase.

Schedules and fares are available at nywaterway.com or 1-800-53-FERRY.

Sandy Hook, the barrier peninsula, which is part of the National Park Service’s Gateway National Recreation Area, has several beach and picnic areas and hosts various bird watching and nature tours. There are more than 300 species of birds that can be seen on the Hook. The Hook is also home to historic sites, such as the Sandy Hook Lighthouse, built in 1764, and Fort Hancock, with its historic World War I and II concrete gun emplacements that served to protect the NY Harbor during the wars.

Roundtrip fare is $49.  For children under 12 ride for $25.  Senior  citizens’ tickets are $44. Children under 3 ride free. There is a $5 roundtrip  fee for bikes.

Reservations are strongly recommended.  Click on nywaterway.com or call 1-800-53-FERRY.

ASBURY PARK

Promoter Live Nation said earlier this week the extra parking would be at Seven Presidents Oceanfront Park in Long Branch, also owned by Monmouth County.

But Benjamin Friedman, a senior confidential aide with operations and maintenance for the county park system, said the extra parking will be at Wolf Hill in Oceanport.

Live Nation has set up free parking at Monmouth Park for each of the three days of the festival. People will then pay $10 for the bus ride to and from the festival, Scott O’Donnell, Live Nation’s executive director of proms and festivals.

Written by Nancy Shields

At least that is the prospect facing gift card owners in the Garden State. New Jersey will soon require gift-card sellers to obtain ZIP codes from buyers so it can claim unused balances of cards that have been inactive for two years.

Gift-card owners will be able to file claims to get their money back, thus preventing unused balances from reverting to retailers, the state Treasury Department said in a statement. There will be no time limit on redemptions.

If the money is never claimed, “it can be used for the benefit of all New Jerseyians to prevent tax increases and service cutbacks,” the state Treasury Department said.

Treasury spokesman Andy Pratt said the state is still discussing implementation of the law with retailers, some of which already have started collecting ZIP codes. Small businesses are exempt from the law.

Some large gift-card providers already have headed for the nearest exit. American Express has yanked its gift cards out of New Jersey convenience and grocery stores. Blackhawk Network, which distributes cards sold in drugstores and grocery stores, will stop selling gift cards in New Jersey in June unless the law is changed, said chief marketing officer Teri Llach. InComm, which distributes gift cards from Visa and MasterCard, said it also is leaving the state in June.

Opponents of the law say the problem it was designed to solve no longer exists. The vast majority of retail cards never expire, and a provision of the 2009 credit-card reform bill prohibits general-purpose cards from expiring in less than five years. In addition, the law restricts dormancy fees that used to eat away at unused balances.

Since the law was enacted, the amount of unused balances on gift cards has plummeted, said Brian Riley, an analyst at CEB TowerGroup. In 2006, the value of unused gift cards — known in the industry as “spillage” — totaled $8 billion, or 10 percent of all gift cards. Last year, the value of unused gift cards was $2 billion, or about 2 percent of gift cards, CEB TowerGroup estimates.

Still, $2 billion is a lot of money, and if New Jersey succeeds in reaping revenue from spillage, other states may follow suit, said Bill Hardekopf, chief executive of LowCards.com.

About half of states have laws that give them the authority to claim all or a portion of unused gift cards or gift certificates, usually after three to five years of inactivity, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

“Over the years, retailers have tried to keep (unused gift cards) out of the state’s hands,” said Dan Horne, associate professor of marketing at Providence College in Rhode Island. “Now the states are trying to get it back.”

Click here for more additional photos and virtual tour 

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