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  1. #1
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Time to buy Southern California real estate -- if you can

    Time to buy Southern California real estate -- if you can

    By Muhammed El-Hasan, Kevin Smith and Gregory J. Wilcox, Staff Writersdailynews.com
    Posted: 01/12/2013 04:27:46 PM PST
    January 13, 2013 9:49 PM GMTUpdated: 01/13/2013 01:49:54 PM PST

    Real estate agent Alan Castillo recently listed a client's fixer-upper in Granada Hills for $278,250.

    It was only 1,600 square feet -- but it drew 128 offers, most of them in cash.

    The final selling price, after all of 10 days on the market? $377,872.

    "I was very surprised," said Castillo, the owner of Financing Realty Center Inc. in Granada Hills, who has been in the business for 20 years.

    "I didn't think I'd get that many offers. This was overwhelming."

    While that particular transaction may be an extreme example, it reflects a Southern California housing market that is emerging from the late 2000s crash.

    For 2013, real estate experts say it's time to get ready for a new normal, or, perhaps more accurately, a new abnormal.

    Interest rates are at historic lows, prices are moderate and demand is surging.

    But at the same time, banks are keeping a tight rein on credit, and homeowners -- especially those who bought at higher prices a few years back -- are still reluctant to sell. Plus investors are swooping into the market with all-cash offers that often pre-empt first-time homebuyers with moderate credit.

    Those factors combine to make it a great time to buy -- and a more complicated, difficult time to do so.

    With rates so low and the housing bubble in the rearview mirror, home prices are starting to show some signs of recovery.

    Last year was "the long-awaited transition year for California and locally," said Robert Kleinhenz, chief economist at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. "We can't say that the housing market has recovered fully. I think that is a couple years off. But this is the turning point.

    "We've seen a year of at least average, if not above average, sales. That is one indication that the housing market is in recovery."

    The median price of a Southern California home sold from July to September was nearly 11 percent higher than the same quarter last year.

    The number of homes sold for that period also rose by about 11 percent.

    Fourth quarter sales numbers, due out this week, are expected to continue the improving trend.

    However, any improvement is tempered by the fact that the region's housing market is rising from such a low base line.

    For example, the median price in the 2012 third quarter, $310,000, is still lower than the third-quarter median of 2003, when it stood at $325,000.

    And while Southern California sales have started to improve, with 62,304 sales in the third quarter of 2012, that is still below the level in the first quarter of 2003, which saw 72,123 sales. Still, the improving sales trend doesn't mean the


    In this Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012, photo, a woman walks towards a home for sale during a viewing for brokers in Leucadia, Calif. Americans bought new homes in November 2012 at the fastest pace in more than two and a half years, further evidence of a sustained housing recovery. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

    boom times have entirely returned. Experts vary on their projections for Southern California this year, but most are looking at only moderate growth.

    "Everybody thinks, oh, the housing market is turning around. But it's turning around because the inventory is lower," said Warren Snyder, who co-owns Carriage Realty & American Broker Loans in Rolling Hills Estates. "The short inventory count is causing people to pay more for the house. It's supply and demand."

    Absent some economic shock, like a boom or bust in the jobs market, Gary Painter, director of research at the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, expects the Los Angeles region to see flat to moderate growth in home values, with maybe a 3 percent annual increase.

    The California Association of Realtors is more optimistic, expecting prices to improve 5.7 percent this year, with sales to rise by 1.3 percent.

    But others like Bruce Norris, a prominent investor in Riverside who predicted the housing bubble and sold off his holdings a year before the crash, now thinks market prices are primed to shoot up by 20 percent this year because of tight supply and growing demand.

    Unhappy house hunting

    One of those struggling to find a home is Arthur Hamamdjian of Valencia, who spent a recent Sunday afternoon shopping for a four-bedroom, single-family home -- with no luck.

    "I'm renting now," the 40-year-old said. "I have three children and my father living with me, so I really need four bedrooms, but I'm having trouble finding anything. The market is tight."

    Hamamdjian dropped in at an open house for a three-bedroom home in Valencia that was priced at $425,000, but he didn't like the looks or the size of it.

    "I keep hearing that there are a lot of foreclosures on the market, but I don't see them," he said. "I've looked around and I just don't see them."
    Real estate agent Jamie Morton, who hosted the open house, said about 30 people came through that Sunday to look at the home.

    "I've had more than normal today," said Morton, of Realty Executives in Valencia. "Usually it's about 10 to 20 people. It's really a seller'smarket now because there isn't much out there. We're getting 10 to 20 offers on some of these homes, and they're bidding them up $10,000 to $20,000 over the list price."

    Morton said a large percentage of the buyers she has seen are investors who move in with all-cash offers.

    Those investors make competition over homes even more difficult for regular buyers.

    The lack of sufficient inventory has several causes. Owners are delaying putting their home on the market in hopes of values rising more. But those owners' attitudes about selling could change as signs of the housing recovery increase confidence.

    "Now that we've observed house prices being constant or going up for the last six months, (sellers are) going to be more confident," said Painter, the USC research director.

    In addition, investors who bought foreclosed homes are renting them out until they can sell for a big enough profit. This is an attractive option for investors since rents have been rising.

    And then there's the "shadow inventory," which refers to homes that could be on the market, but aren't. Experts say banks may be holding back on selling foreclosed homes to avoid incurring losses and to prevent flooding the market with homes for sale and driving prices back down again.

    Some renters encouraged

    With historically low interest rates of around 3.4 percent and most homes a bargain compared with a few years ago, some renters see an opportunity to become owners.

    That is the case with Maria Naranjo of Sylmar.

    "We've been renting for 12 years," Naranjo said. "We were talking to a Realtor who said we could rent a three-bedroom home for about $2,200 a month. But he said we could also buy a home for around $2,100 a month, so it would be cheaper to buy."

    However, many renters remain unable to enter the ranks of homeowners because they can't secure a loan.

    Kyle Kazan, a major regional rental property owner, describes those people as being stuck in "apartment jail."

    "It's keeping a number of our tenants as tenants because they can't get a loan," said Kazan, CEO of Long Beach-based Beach Front Real Estate Services, which owns and manages 6,000 rental units throughout Southern California.

    That reality has helped push rents up.

    "We have plenty of buildings that are full, which wasn't the case two years ago," Kazan said. "And at many of our properties, we've raised rents in 2012, and we would not have dared to have done that in 2010."

    The credit crunch

    The difficulty in securing a mortgage comes after years in which home loans seemed to be handed out like candy.

    Less than a decade ago, as the housing bubble expanded, banks paid less attention to the quality of a buyer's credit or ability to make monthly payments since home values were increasing so quickly. The assumption was that if the buyer could no longer pay, the bank would make up its investment by selling the property for more than the value of the mortgage.

    Because of the housing bust, banks went to the other extreme, focusing almost exclusively on a buyer's ability to pay.

    "We went from a time when they didn't care about the quality of the credit because the property was going to be worth something, to a period when credit was everything," USC's Painter said. "I haven't seen evidence of a middle ground yet, but that's my expectation."

    John Miller, president of CityLights Financial, an Agoura Hills-based lender, said he is seeing some of the tightest credit standards in decades.

    He referred to formerly easy credit as "pulse loans" -- if you had a pulse, you got a loan.

    "You can have an 800 FICO score and not get a loan. We are back to 1970s underwriting," said Miller, who has been in the business for 41 years. "You've got to give me your W-2s, your 1040s and your pay stubs."

    One of the major reasons people with a high credit score are turned down is that their debt-to-income ratio is too high; the monthly mortgage payment eats up too much of their income.

    "They want to make sure you have the ability to pay, and they are very standoffish on lending money," Miller said of banks.

    Even if a buyer qualifies for a home loan, the process takes much longer than before, serving as another drag on the housing market.

    "If you've got all your ducks in a row, you could get a loan closed in 30 to 45 days before this recession," Snyder said.

    "Now if you were to get a loan closed in 45 days it would be a miracle," he said.
    Snyder said an average time to complete a mortgage is two to three months if things go smoothly.

    The future

    After the housing bubble and bust, the local real estate market seems to be in a quiet period with no major moves in any direction.

    The region could remain this way for an extended period. Or this may just be the quiet before the storm. After all, the housing roller coaster is bound to return.

    "The normal for L.A. is to have cycles," Painter said. "We're through one and there are likely to be them (cycles) in the future, but there's no way to predict when they will start."

    http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_22362287/time-buy-southern-california-real-estate-if-you
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    Proposition 13 Tax Curbs Face Attack In California

    That could change in the next two years as Democratic state lawmakers with a new two-thirds majority in both houses take aim at Proposition 13 tax restraints in their hunt for money.
    By Tom Gray, For Investor's Business Daily

    Posted 01/10/2013

    The tax revolt that swept California and the nation starting in the 1970s may have run out of steam, but its landmark law, Proposition 13, is still largely intact.

    That could change in the next two years as Democratic state lawmakers with a new two-thirds majority in both houses take aim at Proposition 13 tax restraints in their hunt for money.

    Taxpayer advocates are girding for battle. "This year, for us, will be devoted entirely to defending Proposition 13," said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association.

    Backers of Proposition 13 warn that changes could pinch family finances and hurt businesses, large and small, in a state with joblessness still near 10% and costs higher than many locales.

    Passed in 1978 with nearly 65% of the state voting yes, Proposition 13 is a shield and political symbol. It has kept California property taxes moderate and predictable, capping them at 1% of a property's value when it last sold, plus a 2% annual inflation factor.

    Critics long blamed the law for state fiscal woes. But mainstream politicians knew it was popular and didn't want to touch it.

    Other Taxes Already Rising

    That was before November, when Californians OK'd a ballot initiative to raise income and sales taxes and put more Democrats in the Legislature. The new seats gave Democrats the power to enact tax hikes under Proposition 13's supermajority rule without Republican support, as well as to put amendments to the law before the voters.

    Liberals hailed the events as the end of an era. "The Tax Revolt is over," Robert Cruickshank wrote on the Calitics blog.

    The November vote was a victory for public-sector unions, which have the most to gain from weakening Proposition 13. It also put California business owners on alert for tax changes that fall hard on commercial property.

    "Even the people who advocate a change in Proposition 13 don't seem to want a change in residential (tax) rates," said Allan Zaremberg, CEO of the California Chamber of Commerce.

    Already, state Sen. Mark Leno wants to put a measure on the ballot to lower the two-thirds vote threshold for school district parcel taxes to 55%. State Sen. Lois Wolk introduced a bill that would ask voters to drop the vote threshold to 55% for library parcel taxes and bond measures.

    In the Assembly, Tom Ammiano plans to reintroduce a bill seeking to revise the definition of an ownership change that triggers a new business property assessment. Voters' OK isn't needed. Even if the bill stalls, as it has in the past, business owners fear that its goal — squeezing more tax money from commercial property — will surface in other proposals, some with better odds.

    The Split

    The biggest threat to businesses is a split roll, giving different tax treatment to commercial and residential property via higher tax rates or more frequent assessments. Proposition 13 foes long have favored the idea, which may have traction among voters despite their support for the law's homeowner protection.

    In a December poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, 58% of likely voters favored taxing commercial properties at their current market value.

    The business community is poised to counterattack if the issue comes before voters. One group, Californians Against Higher Property Taxes, has commissioned two studies showing how a split-roll regime that raises taxes on business would lead to more unemployment.

    "The price of land is already higher than in the rest of the country," said Zaremberg. "To add to that would make it even more difficult to create jobs."

    The split roll could also hurt small, family-owned businesses. Rex Hime, CEO of the California Business Properties Association, sees the biggest blow hitting properties such as strip malls, restaurants and small office buildings "owned by a family for a generation."

    Parcel Taxes Eyed

    Ballot measures to allow more parcel taxes face some hurdles. The taxes can be highly regressive, placing the same levy on all properties regardless of their value or the owner's income.

    The election calendar could be an issue too. If the Leno and Wolk measures make the ballot, it will be in November 2014, when Gov. Jerry Brown likely will be running for re-election. He was an enthusiastic backer of last November's tax hike. Two years from now, he may not be so eager to take on Proposition 13.

    Brown opposed the motion when it was on the 1978 primary ballot, but backed it that November. Now his views are a mystery.
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  3. #3
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    We already know you hate California, it isn't necessary to post a negative comment on every article about California to prove it.
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    WHo in the hell in America has that kind of cash to buy homes like this? Must be organized crime, the Chinese, and the Saudis snapping up those homes because American citizens sure don't have that kind of money right now.

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    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Cash-only home deals hit record levels

    Written by Lily Leung
    12:34 p.m., June 18, 2012

    Also of interest
    Single-family resales at nearly 7-year high
    SD's April home sales hit 6-year high


    Consumers who bought homes with cash had another record showing in San Diego County in May, the latest DataQuick numbers say.

    The share of cash deals rose to 33.3 percent, breaking the previous peak of 33 percent set in April. They made up 26.5 percent of all sales a year ago. May's percentage of cash buyers surpassed that of the Southern California region, which was 31.3 percent.

    Those who buy homes with cash are mainly investors, said DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage, but there are other groups, too.

    "It's people who retire or are near retirement who want to sell big houses and buy smaller houses," LePage said. "Or parents buying houses near universities, paying with cash...and then you've got wealthy people buying luxury properties in cash."

    Throughout Southern California, cash buyers paid a median of $232,500 in May, up from $225,000 in April and $220,000 in May 2011. The median price for all types of homes combined in San Diego County in May was $335,000.

    Related: Homes sales hottest in these 10 ZIP codes

    Here's a breakdown of other important numbers to track:

    Foreclosure resales: These are homes that were foreclosed upon in the last year and were later resold. DataQuick says 21.3 percent of total resales fit into this category in May, the lowest it's been since October 2007, when it was 20.8 percent. A year ago, the share of resales that were foreclosures was 30.9 percent.

    Short sales: An estimated 19.8 percent of total resales in May were short sales, down from 20.7 percent in April but up from 18.4 percent a year ago.

    When comparing May 2012 to May 2012, sales of San Diego homes:

    Below $200,000 were up 5.6 percent.

    Below $300,000 were up 10.3 percent.

    Below $400,000 were up 16.4 percent.

    Between $300,000 to $800,000 were up 28.8 percent.

    LePage, of DataQuick, says those numbers signal "strong evidence of move-up buyers," likely folks with home equity who have been on the sidelines for some time and are now taking the homebuying plunge.

    Have story tips, a hot property listing or a question? Email me: lily.leung@utsandiego.com

    Cash-only home deals hit record levels | UTSanDiego.com
    Last edited by JohnDoe2; 01-29-2013 at 09:51 PM.
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  6. #6
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Published: Jan. 27, 2013 Updated: Jan. 28, 2013 10:56 a.m.

    Lansner: Hot property isn't just an O.C. trend

    By JONATHAN LANSNER / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

    Orange County housing wasn't the only hot real estate last year.

    Commercial property – a space typically played by huge investors – enjoyed a renaissance, too, across the nation and around the globe.


    Commercial property – a space typically played by huge investors – enjoyed a renaissance across the nation and around the globe last year.

    That advance is detailed in a study by SNLReal Estateof how Real Estate Investment Trusts, pools of commercial real estate sliced into small investments, fared last year.

    Overall, SNL says U.S. REITs provided investors total returns – that's appreciation plus dividends – of 20.2 percent last year. That bested, among other markers, the S&P 500 index, a key stock benchmark, up 16 percent for 2012.

    The hottest play in the American REIT world? Trusts focused on industrial properties, up 32 percent last year.

    This real estate niche – owning factories and warehouses – isn't usually this sexy. But an overall rebound in the economy brought back demand for manufacturing and distribution facilities. Also, many operators of these businesses decided to use cheap mortgage rates as an opportunity to buy their own facilities.

    Next hottest in the U.S. REIT world was retailing – trusts owning regional malls were up 29 percent; pools with smaller shopping centers rose 26 percent.

    Owning store space in America still is a challenge. But the profits that retailing investors received in 2012 were more a statement that the outlook is less bleak than it had been previously – and that financial potential for top-flight shopping hubs is still good, at least for the medium term.

    Health care REITs generated an average 20 percent gain for investors in 2012. As is the story with just about anything medical, investors like the fact that these properties – and their related medical business tenants – benefit from an aging population that will require more and more medical services.

    REITs owning self-storage sheds did well, too. They were up 18 percent on average in 2012. This niche has been hot since the recession started because folks who lost their homes in the real estate downturn needed places to store their belongings as they downsized their lifestyles. Some experts now wonder if self-storage will cool as the economy heats up.

    It's not just American real estate that's a hot property.

    Standard & Poor's global review of real estate values shows that the rest of the globe actually surpassed the American upswing in commercial real estate returns.


    S&P found average U.S. REIT returns for 2012 at 18 percent. Compare that with Europe's REITs, which were up 32 percent despite a troubled continental economy. Asia's real estate trusts produced 32 percent in total return. In so-called emerging economies, REITs betting on those markets produced an average 37 percent gain.

    Investors bid up the same real estate niches globally as they did in the states. REITs owning industrial properties around the world produced 2012 gains of 36 percent. Retailing real estate trusts was good for 32 percent gains.

    In many cases, these eye-catching gains are simply part of a real estate reversal that's merely bringing values back to the peak of a half-decade ago.

    For example, S&P's index of all REIT performance around the globe over the past five years shows a collective gain of only 2 percent.

    Still, 2012's big appetite for real estate – here and internationally – is another sign of growing confidence in an economic rebound.

    Contact the writer: 949-777-6727 or jlansner@ocregister.com
    http://www.ocregister.com/articles/percent-409468-real-estate.html
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  7. #7
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    North Texas home sales for 2012 reach highest point since 2008

    David Woo/Staff Photographer
    A home for sale located at 5303 Morningside in Dallas, shown on Tuesday, July 30, 2012.

    By STEVE BROWN
    The Dallas Morning News Real Estate Editor
    stevebrown@dallasnews.com
    Published: 08 January 2013 11:24 PM

    North Texas’ pre-owned home market ended 2012 with the best sales total in four years.

    The area saw a 16 percent gain in the number of single-family homes sold through the Realtors’ multiple listing service for North Texas.

    And median home sales prices in 2012 rose 8 percent from the year before, according to numbers released Tuesday by the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M and the North Texas Real Estate Information Systems.

    For all of last year, 75,207 pre-owned single-family homes were sold by real estate agents in North Texas. That’s up from just 63,832 sales at the worst of the housing market slowdown in 2010.

    December home sales in the area were 10 percent higher than a year earlier with 5,658 houses sold through the MLS.

    The local housing market rebound has occurred faster than many economists had predicted, largely because of a drop in properties on the market and fewer home foreclosures.

    “I thought that 2012 would turn out to be an OK year, but it turned out to be a whole lot better,” said Dr. James Gaines, an economist with the Real Estate Center. “The market has turned, and it’s strengthening.”

    Home sales in North Texas recovered to 12 percent below where they were at the top of the market in 2006, when more than 85,000 pre-owned single-family homes were sold by real estate agents.

    Sales might have been stronger in the final months of the year if there had been more properties to sell.

    At the end of 2012, there was only a 3.5-month supply of pre-owned single-family homes listed for sale with Realtors in North Texas. That’s the lowest inventory of houses on the local market in more than a decade.

    “A lot of people that might be thinking about selling have been holding off putting their properties on the market,” Gaines said. “I think that in March, April and May we will start seeing the spring upswing and things will take off.”

    Rich Thomas, executive director of the MetroTexas Association of Realtors, said the Dallas-Fort Worth housing market is tight.

    “We’ve got relocation buyers who can’t find what they want and are renting,” said Thomas, who expects to see the number of for-sale signs to grow in the weeks ahead.

    “You don’t really start seeing an increase in listings until after the Super Bowl is over,” he said.

    Fewer than 22,000 single-family homes are currently offered for sale by real estate agents — down from almost 43,000 houses in the MLS in mid-2010.

    Home prices in North Texas have recovered most of what was lost during the housing downturn.

    In December, the median price of single-family homes sold by area real estate agents was $162,000 in the more than two dozen North Texas counties included in the monthly survey. At the bottom of the market in January 2010, the median price was just $130,000.

    The recovery in the pre-owned home market is moving in step with a rebound in the D-FW homebuilding business.

    During the fourth quarter of 2012, sales of new houses in North Texas rose by almost 20 percent.

    And starts of new homes jumped by more than 48 percent in the fourth quarter compared with the final three months of 2011, analysts at Residential Strategies reported Monday.

    Even fewer new homes are available than in the pre-owned market. At the end of 2012, less than 2,000 finished vacant houses were counted in the D-FW area.
    Follow Steve Brown on Twitter at @SteveBrownDMN.
    D-FW area home resales
    October pre-owned home sales and prices in North Texas and change from a year earlier:
    Single-family homes Condos/townhomes
    Resales 5,658 10% 354 32%
    Median price $162,000 9% $146,500 5%
    Average days on market 73 -18% 90 -20%
    Pending sales 4,318 17% 272 31%
    Listed for sale 21,981 -19% 1,660 -25%
    SOURCES: Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University; North Texas Real Estate Information Systems

    http://www.dallasnews.com/business/area-home-sales/20130108-north-texas-home-sales-for-2012-reach-highest-point-since-2008.ece
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    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    L.A.-O.C. home prices up 7.7%

    L.A.-O.C. home prices up 7.7%

    Published on January 29th, 2013
    Written by: Jeff Collins



    Home prices in the Los Angeles-Orange County area rose 7.7 percent in November, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index released Tuesday.

    November was the fifth consecutive month of home-price gains in the region, boosting prices back to January 2004 levels, the survey shows. Despite those gains, home prices still are 36 percent below the September 2006 price peak.

    The Case-Shiller report is the last, and most conservative, of four key price reports for November.

    DataQuick, The California Association of Realtors and CoreLogic likewise showed hefty percentage gains in home prices, ranging from 8 percent to almost 16 percent in November.

    Although Case-Shiller and CoreLogic reports lag other home price indexes, experts believe that both more accurately reflect changes in home values because they compare a home’s latest sale price to its price the last time it sold.

    Nationwide, prices were up in 19 of 20 metro areas included in the Case-Shiller survey, with prices up 4.5 percent in a composite of 10 metro areas and up 5.5 percent in a 20-city composite.

    Home prices got their biggest bounce in Phoenix and Las Vegas, two of the hardest-hit markets during the housing market crash. Phoenix home prices shot up 22.8 percent in November from the same month in 2011, while Las Vegas prices were up 10 percent.

    Three other metros had double-digit price gains: San Francisco, up 12.7 percent; Detroit, up 11.9 percent; and Minneapolis, up 11.1 percent.

    The only annual decline occurred in New York, where home prices dropped 1.2 percent from year-ago levels.

    http://lansner.ocregister.com/2013/01/29/169069/169069/
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  10. #10
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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