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This free monthly newsletter, the Findoha MarketLink eLetter, brings you latest news about real estate market, expert business forecast, recommendations, company changes, global news and more. In this issue, you'll learn the latest acquisitions in North America, house pricing trends, oil market prices, and new contractor tools.

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CATCH THE MARKET

US Home Builders Expect Slowdown  
According to a report by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) the housing market will move cooling zone after the multiyear boom, with slower price increases and fewer housing starts as interest rates move up.
 
After a very strong couple of years for the housing industry, markets are now starting to cool down to more sustainable levels. Overall forecast shows that there will be a slowdown in housing starts in the next 6 months. However, each market has different factors that affect its local economy and housing market, and contractors shall take the local conditions into consideration.

The average price of a home increased 13.2% last year and 10.8% in 2004, driven by coastal markets which is expected to cool in rest of 2006 and 2007. 

Syngenta to Acquire Conrad Fafard, Inc.  expanding NAFTA Lawn and Garden Business
On July 10, 2006 Syngenta announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Conrad Fafard, Inc. (Fafard), a leading North American producer of packaged growing media to professional ornamental growers and the consumer retail market.
 
This acquisition will reinforce Syngenta's leading position in plant protection and flower seeds in a market currently estimated at $1.5bn and growing at around 6% p.a.

Oil prices through the years
Oil prices, adjusted for inflation, now are well above the $46.07 average of 1974, the first oil shock sparked by the Arab oil embargo on the West for its support of Israel in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

Averaging $69.10 so far this year, oil prices are still not close to the $87.65 average of 1980, the second oil shock that followed the 1979 Iranian revolution.

The following table includes key moments in oil market history. It gives average annual oil prices in money of the day in dollars and the equivalent price in 2005 money as adjusted by inflation.

Wal-Mart Seminar Seeks to Increase Minority Contractor Participation in Northeast Ohio Construction Projects
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.(NYSE: WMT), in partnership with the Urban League of Greater Cleveland and the Black Contractors  employers Association, yesterday hosted a seminar to educate Northeast Ohio's minority contractors about opportunities to develop working partnerships with Wal-Mart. Approximately 50 contractors attended the session.

For more tips and articles about roofing and other subjects go to Findoha Resources pages

You can now submit your articles in Findoha and ask us to publish them on Findoha or in our next Newsletter.

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KNOW THE LATEST

Bucks Worth / Real Estate
House prices, which rose 12.5% in the year through March, were up in every state. Homes in Arizona, Hawaii and Washington, D.C. rose over 18%. 

House prices in Hawaii were up more than 23% in the past year. The median single family home price for June, $639,000, was up 7.7% from a year prior, reports the Honolulu Board of Realtors.

House prices in Washington, D.C. area were up more than 18.7% in the past year. The current median price of $429,200 is 106% higher than the national average. Home prices in the area had been relatively flat for most of the 1990s.

Prices in Arizona are up more then 30% in the past year. The state exhibited the greatest gains this year and last year, although price growth dropped. Quarterly appreciation in Arizona slowed to 3.8% from approximately 7.4%. 

Will Northeast Gas Consumers avoid Winter Chill?
With natural gas prices at all-time highs after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Northeast braced last November for cold-weather price shocks.  Fortunately, the winter ranked as third mildest in recent memory. According to government statistics, only 1997/1998 and 2001/2002 were milder.

As a result, space-heating demand from northeast residential and commercial customers, which normally consume three-quarters of winter natural gas supplies, fell 13% from previous-year levels.  By March, Boston city-gate gas prices had dropped 40% to $10/MMBtu.

Preliminary forecasts for this winter predict temperatures to be 10% colder. Unfortunately, the gas market is growing more fragile with high heating-oil prices and declining industrial consumption. Currently, industrial consumption has fallen to less than 10% of the Northeast market.

More gas supply would help the situation, but new sources have been hard to come by.  Production from U.S. and Canadian gas fields is flat. LNG import terminals have been blocked or stalled.  The Northeast is faced with growing residential, commercial and electric-power demand, but limited supplies.

U.S. rails benefiting from trucking shortage  Tight capacity and a driver shortage at U.S. trucking companies should push up rail shipping prices and benefit North American railroads. Trucking companies had a better first quarter this year than in 2005, but are less optimistic about the future.  Post-recession economic growth in the United States has absorbed much of the trucking industry's capacity, while outsourcing to China is driving long haul demand.

Complete Your Home Carpentry Projects like a Pro
This summer, why not finish all those projects you've been planning all year.  A portable table saw will help you complete a wide range of indoor and outdoor carpentry projects - you can cut plywood for shelving or cut wood to size to build furniture, bird houses, decks, gazebos, or any other project you have in mind.

Perfect for ripping or crosscutting materials to size, Metabo's TS 250 Portable Table Saw has the largest table on the market: 25-1/2" x 30".  The T-slot miter gauge allows you to crosscut wider pieces (up to 22") in front of the blades.


Home investors, flippers may fade into woodwork
The decade's fiery demand for U.S. homes as investments may soon be doused, dragging down inflated house prices and choking consumer spending, housing analysts and industry executive say.

Torrid demand to buy investment properties helped fuel the past five years of record home sales and propped the economy. An unusual spike in short-term interest rates to match long-term rates will thwart many second home buyers who tended to use low adjustable-rate mortgages for savings or affordability. Whether for vacation, retirement, rental cash flow or the quick flip as home prices surged, the incentive to invest in homes is shriveling, experts say.

The stats that we've all seen show anywhere from 15 to 25 percent of all home purchases right now are from investors and second homeowners.If you revert to the mean, you could have somewhere between maybe 10 and 20 percent of the market that could really just dry up, and if it does, it has the potential to put more downward pressure on prices.

This decade's record sales pace and price appreciation are seen as unsustainable. Housing economists look for slowing this year, but still robust levels historically. An investor pullout is considered a major risk. Nearly one-third of new home loans last year were adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, which carry a low initial rate that later gets reset.    These loans, and more exotic and riskier mortgages, made investment home buying appealing just as home prices soared and the stock market seemed less of a sure bet.   

Verizon Business' IP Web Center Service Earns Top Honors for Outstanding Innovation
Verizon Business announced today that its IP Web Center service has received the 2006 INTERNET TELEPHONY TMC Labs Innovation Award, presented by Technology Marketing Corp.'s TMC Labs division. The award honors Internet protocol communication products that are truly innovative.

IP Web Center, a Web-based, complete hosted contact-center solution, allows companies to quickly start up or expand their customer communications operations in response to rapidly changing business plans or business continuity requirements.  It is one of the industry's first end-to-end-IP, hosted contact-center services and enables Verizon Business customers to take advantage of a VoIP infrastructure to achieve new capabilities and cost savings afforded by IP telephony in a contact-center environment.

GSA Announces 2006 Travel and Relocation Innovation Award Winners DHS and the Department of Interior Recognized
On June 30, 2006 The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) announced that the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection Service (CBP) received GSA's first biennial 2006 Travel and Relocation Innovation Award, and the Department of Interior's National Park Service Midwest Region (DOI) was awarded an honorable  mention.

GSA established this award to promote improvements in travel and relocation management in the federal government by recognizing and publicizing innovative achievements that benefit the entire federal community. Both awards were announced and presented yesterday in Los Angeles Calif. At GSA's National Travel Forum. CBP's work to protect US borders requires constant relocation of the more than 15,000 border patrol agents.  To address its need and to reduce costs, CBP developed the innovative Volunteer Relocation Program, approved under a GSA Federal Travel Regulation Pilot Test Program. Under the Volunteer Relocation Program, border patrol agents who volunteer to relocate receive a lump sum reimbursement for relocation expenses. The lump sum is less than the typical relocation reimbursement paid to those whose relocations are mandatory.

DOI was recognized for creating a centralized, online travel and relocation program, which provided customers with immediate access to need-to-know information, thus, reducing overall relocation man-hours and management costs.

CenterPoint Energy Houston  Electric, a unit of CenterPoint Energy Inc. <CNP.N>, said it reached a settlement in a rate case before the Public Utility Commission of Texas.
If approved by the commission, the Houston-area utility will reduce its electric base rate revenues by $58 million a year and spend an additional $10 million a year on energy efficiency. The settlement also freezes rates until June 30, 2010.Pending approval, the programs and new base rates are to begin this fall, the company said.

Consumers Energy is asking its 1.8 million electric customers to take immediate action to reduce their power use.

The heat wave gripping much of the United States is pushing power demand to record levels in the Midwest, including the Consumers Energy system. Conservation by individual customers will help maintain the stability of the electric system. Consumers Energy asks customers to take the following steps:
    * Turn off air conditioning equipment and electric water heaters, if possible.
    * If air conditioning must be kept on, raise the temperature setting on the thermostat by several degrees.
    * Close off air ducts to rooms which are not used. Close window curtains and drapes to reduce solar heating.
    * Avoid using an electric stove, clothes dryer and any other high-consumption electric appliances during the day.
    * Turn off all unnecessary lights and non-essential appliances during the day.
   
Consumers Energy, the principal subsidiary of CMS Energy, provides natural gas and electricity to nearly 6.5 million of Michigan's 10 million residents in all 68 Lower Peninsula counties.

Real-Time Control Innovation Creates Spinning Reserve Capacity in Groundbreaking California Electricity Sector Project

Connected Energy Corp announced on July 26, 2006 that it has been selected to participate in a project funded by the California Energy Commission in cooperation with the Consortium for Electric Reliability Technologies (CERTS), based at Berkeley National Laboratory, Southern California Edison (SCE), and the California Independent System Operator (CAISO).

The project, called the Demand Response Spinning Reserve Demonstration, will provide new and powerful capability in California to match demand to available power. Spinning Reserve is an industry term for generation that can be immediately brought on line to meet rapid increases in power demand due to a variety of circumstances including severe weather or supply system constraint.

In this project, rather than adding new electricity production to the grid to meet spiking demand for electricity, a real-time remote management system connecting a number of non-essential electricity loads will enable the grid operator to remotely turn them off in response to system signals. This will result in new capacity at times when high demand for electricity jeopardizes grid stability, creating rolling blackouts or other interruptions in service.

Republican-written bill to raise the minimum wage
The proposed bill includes cut taxes on inherited wealth and renews several expiring tax breaks for businesses and individuals. The bill would cost the federal treasury roughly $310 billion over 10 years. The bill:
* Raises minimum wage over three years to $7.25 an hour from $5.15 an hour. Allows employers to count tips toward meeting minimum wage increases, overriding state laws prohibiting that.
* Excludes estates up to $5 million per individual from inheritance taxes as of January 1, 2015. That amount is phased-in starting in 2010 when the individual estate tax exemption will rise to $3.75 million from $3.5 million. It also gradually increases exemption from gift taxes to $5 million.
* Taxes estates over $5 million to $25 million at the capital gains rate, currently at 15 percent. Anything over $25 million would be taxed at 30 percent. President George W. Bush's 2001 tax cut included a phase out of the estate tax but full repeal would only last for one year in 2010. Without congressional action, in 2011 the tax would be reimposed on estates over $1 million and the top rate would be 55 percent.
* Renews a number of popular expired tax breaks for individuals and businesses and extends them through 2007. Tax breaks include a $4,000 deduction for college tuition, a deduction for state sales taxes and a tax credit for research and development.
* Shifts some coal companies' costs for retiree health benefits and land reclamation to taxpayers.

Strategic Partnership with Leading Roofing Contractor
Open Energy Corporation, a renewable energy company focused on solar energy products, announced a strategic distribution and installation alliance with DRI Companies of Irvine, CA, one of the premiere roofing contractors in the Western U.S. The alliance includes distribution of Open Energy's SolarSave(TM) building-integrated roofing tile and membrane products for residential, commercial and industrial applications.

This collaboration with Open Energy represents DRI's first integrated solar energy roofing offering which creates a significant increase in demand for solar energy roofing solutions.

Pending home sales - a leading indicator for the housing sector - have risen for the last two months
The Pending Home Sales Index (a), based on contracts signed in June, increased 0.4 percent to a reading of 113.9 from an upwardly revised level of 113.5 in June, but is 9.6 percent below June 2005.The index is based on pending sales of existing homes. A sale is listed as pending when the contract has been signed and the transaction has not closed, but the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing.

Electrovaya to Develop Battery-Powered Lawn and Turf Equipment for New York State Parks and Golf Courses
Electrovaya Inc. (TSX: EFL), announced it intends to expand into New York State, where it will  focus on developing pollution free, quiet, battery-powered lawn and turf equipment for the New York State parks and golf courses.

There are nearly 20,000 golf courses in the US and they all need quiet and efficient battery-powered lawn and turf equipment. Electrovaya plans to be a key contributor to the golfing and parks economy through initiatives involving environmentally friendly greens cutting.

U.S. office furniture order growth slowed again in June
Industry orders rose 2 percent from the same period last year to $1.075 billion, the Business and Institutional
Furniture Manufacturers Association said.

Industry for May had shown a double-digit increase in orders on the year, following a slower month in April. Although the results still show positive growth, it could lend credence to the prospect that growth in the office furniture space is moderating, particularly when taken with April's results. Shipments rose 7 percent in June to $1 billion, according to BIFMA data.Improvements in key macro factors, including office vacancy rates, nonresidential construction and corporate spending, likely point to strong demand

Eagle Roofing Accelerates Construction Process for New Florida Manufacturing Plant
Eagle Roofing Products Florida LLC, a subsidiary of Burlingame Industries, has begun construction of their new manufacturing facility in Central Florida. Eagle Roofing Products is a major concrete roof tile manufacturer serving California and the Southwest. The new plant in Florida will serve the current shortages and growing demand for concrete tile roofs in the Southeast. The multi-line manufacturing facility is scheduled to be supplying products into the state as soon as the fourth quarter of 2006.

There is a serious shortage of tile supply against demand in Florida, reports the Tile Roofing Institute. This is due to the rebuilding construction needs caused by last year's hurricane season in the South and the rapidly growing demand for new housing in Florida.

Honeywell and Linuo Paradigma Launch First Solar Energy Water  Heater Using Enovate(R) Blowing Agent<HON.N>
Honeywell  (NYSE: HON) announced on July 27, 2006 that Shandong Linuo Paradigma Co., Ltd, one of the largest solar energy water heater manufacturers in China, will use Honeywell's Enovate(R) blowing agent to improve the performance of foam insulation.  It marks the first such application of Enovate.

Honeywell Enovate is a non ozone-depleting hydro fluorocarbon that allows rigid, closed-cell insulation to expand. The liquid blowing agent stays resident and provides superior insulating properties. Researchers from both Honeywell and Linuo Paradigma jointly developed this latest Enovate application as the phase-out of ozone-depleting substances such as CFCs continues worldwide. The phase-out is driven by the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. 

Decking Contractors Climb to New Heights with the Elk Peak Performance(SM) Contractor ProgramElk Composite Building Products, Inc., announced on July 12, 2006 that Elk has added a decking division to its Elk Peak Performance(SM) Contractor Program, an exclusive sales-incentive program designed to give qualified decking contractors a leverage boost over the competition.

Contractors can earn rewards and build their business with enhanced product warranty options and rebates, acquiring points for selling Elk CrossTimbers(TM) brand composite decking, CrossTimbers Signature Railing and RailWays(TM) composite railing systems. Points can be redeemed for targeted marketing materials, personal rewards or even ElkCorp common stock. The program also provides its members with an online lead generation program, custom web page development, a homeowner financing program and other benefits to help close more sales.

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Ed
Owner
Findoha.com