Green Real Estate Appraiser

Locking up Green Energy

Posted on December 21, 2013 | Leave a comment

Renewable energy prospectors plying the vast deserts and windswept plains along the U.S.-Mexico border have found an influential financial ally with a top credit rating.

The North American Development Bank, founded nearly 20 years ago under the North American Free Trade Agreement with an infusion of capital from the U.S. and Mexican governments, has traditionally focused on drinking water and sewage systems.

But renewable energy projects, like solar and wind farms, also fit under the bank’s broad umbrella for infrastructure projects that improve human health, promote sustainable development and enhance the quality of life in the border region.

Last year, nearly three-quarters of the bank’s new financing was devoted to renewable energy development.

Free Solar Job Training for Veterans

Posted on December 6, 2013 | Leave a comment

Veterans looking for jobs in the local solar industry can get a boost on that career path through a program beginning locally next year, backed by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.

This week, the board unanimously passed a resolution endorsing Empower America, a nonprofit based in Temecula that will provide two weeks of training for free to honorably discharged veterans, and then try to place them in the local solar industry. The program, currently operating in Riverside County, is scheduled to launch in San Diego in early 2014.

Mario Pabon, CEO of the nonprofit, said the program would work through local employment offices, military bases and other organizations to locate veterans for the two weeks of training. Each session would include 10 to 12 veterans, who will learn hands on how to place solar panels, so that they will be ready for the profession.

The program aims to help alleviate veteran unemployment, which has remained stubbornly high. While the overall unemployment rate has been on a downward trend, joblessness among veterans of the recent gulf wars was 10 percent in October, unchanged from October 2012.

“Veterans face unique barriers when trying to integrate back into civilian life, including high unemployment rates. We need to ensure that we are doing everything in our power to assist our heroes once they leave the military,” Supervisor Dianne Jacob said in a statement.

In Riverside County, where the program has been operating since August, Pabon said four employers have given authorization for more than 160 jobs. He said the entry level wages generally start at $14 to $16 per hour, but he said there is opportunity for advancement. He said the organization recently placed a warehouse manager, who earns $50,000 per year.

“Renewable energy solar is by far out in front and has a tremendous amount of continuing opportunity,” said Pabon, whose son is a Marine deployed to Korea. “A lot of these owners are saying, ‘look, we need the leaders that can run the crews and we envision the veterans that are coming in are naturally taught to do that.’ And so we see that as a phenomenal fit.”

Locations for the training have not yet been determined. Veterans interested in the program can call Empower America at (951) 296-0208, or visit the organization’s website, www.weempoweramerica.org.

Wall Street’s New Get Rich Quick Scheme with Residential Housing

Posted on December 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

Over the last year and a half, Wall Street hedge funds and private equity firms have quietly amassed an unprecedented rental empire, snapping up Queen Anne Victorians in Atlanta, brick-faced bungalows in Chicago, Spanish revivals in Phoenix. In total, these deep-pocketed investors have bought more than 200,000 cheap, mostly foreclosed houses in cities hardest hit by the economic meltdown.

Wall Street’s foreclosure crisis, which began in late 2007 and forced more than 10 million people from their homes, has created a paradoxical problem. Millions of evicted Americans need a safe place to live, even as millions of vacant, bank-owned houses are blighting neighborhoods and spurring a rise in crime. Lucky for us, Wall Street has devised a solution: It’s going to rent these foreclosed houses back to us. In the process, it’s devised a new form of securitization that could cause this whole plan to blow up—again.

Since the buying frenzy began, no company has picked up more houses than the Blackstone Group, the largest private equity firm in the world. Using a subsidiary company, Invitation Homes, Blackstone has grabbed houses at foreclosure auctions, through local brokers, and in bulk purchases directly from banks the same way a regular person might stock up on toilet paper from Costco.

In one move, it bought 1,400 houses in Atlanta in a single day. As of November, Blackstone had spent $7.5 billion to buy 40,000 mostly foreclosed houses across the country. That’s a spending rate of $100 million a week since October 2012. It recently announced plans to take the business international, beginning in foreclosure-ravaged Spain.

Disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only

Locking up Green Energy

Free Solar Job Training for Veterans

Wall Street’s New Get Rich Quick Scheme with Residential Housing

Follow Blog