South of NoVa Guide to Real Estate
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Where is the Housing Market as of June 26th 2009

While sales finally seem to be stabilizing, prices are still likely to keep sinking well into next year and maybe longer. Prices have been cut in half in Las Vegas and Phoenix, according to one popular home price measurement.
            

But statistics like these mask the many complexities involved in trying to measure U.S. home prices.

Every home price gauge captures a somewhat different slice of the housing market, even when they all depict the same general trend.

Also, all real estate is local — some neighborhoods have largely escaped the housing bust, and price declines can vary sharply within a single metro area. In many parts of the country, faraway suburbs, where many buyers moved into new subdivisions and stretched to qualify for mortgages, have been hit harder than established, wealthy enclaves.

Here are some answers to common questions about how home prices are measured.

Q: How far have national home prices fallen?

A: It depends on what measurement you use. But according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller National Home Price index, the measure that’s most widely watched on Wall Street, home prices have fallen 32 percent after peaking in the second quarter of 2006.

Q: How much will they drop in the future?

A: Analysts expect national prices to drop another 10 to 15 percent over the next year, depending on how long the recession lasts and its severity.

Markets that were last to be hit by the housing bust will be the slowest to emerge. Deutsche Bank, for example, projects prices in New York are still likely to fall another 40 percent. Los Angeles, meanwhile, has only another 11 percent left to go, according to the Wall Street firm’s forecast.

Q: Do real estate agents have anything to say about home prices?

A: Yes. The National Association of Realtors’ median home sales price — collected from real estate listing services around the country — is another prominent measurement. It peaked at $230,300 in July 2006 and has since fallen about 25 percent to a median of $173,000 in May.

Q: That’s pretty easy to understand. Why not just use that?

A: Economists don’t like using median prices because they can be skewed by a change in the mix of properties that sell in a given month.

A median is the point at which half of the prices are above, and half below. If many low-end properties sell in one month, that will push the median lower; if many high-end properties sell, the median goes higher. Economists want to make sure their data isn’t distorted by those natural fluctuations.

Q: How do you fix that problem?

A: Economists have created indexes like the Case-Shiller reading that examine price changes for the same properties over time instead of calculating a median price for all houses sold during a particular month or quarter. Doing so prevents the data from being skewed by changes in the mix of houses sold.

Q: Does the government collect similar information?

A: Yes. One index, created by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is calculated solely using loans that are bought or backed by government-sponsored mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Importantly, that excludes many high-end properties, as well as many properties bought with some of the riskier varieties of home loans that went sour this year. Also, if an investor pays entirely in cash, those transactions are excluded.

As a result, this index paints a much more tempered picture of the housing bust. It shows home prices dropping by just over 11 percent from a peak in April 2007.

"It’s missing much of the action," said Dean Baker, an economist and co-director of the liberal Center for Economic Policy Research in Washington.

By contrast, the Case-Shiller index, developed by Yale University economist Robert Shiller and Wellesley College economist Karl Case, peaked in mid-2006 and has shown far more rapid and dramatic declines.

Q: Which one is better?

A: Both are valid measurements — they just measure different things, experts say. Nevertheless, investors will be far more interested when they finally see some consistent positive trends in the Case-Shiller index — most likely a substantial slowdown in the rate of decline. That’s likely to mean that the housing bust is finally wearing down.

Q: When will that finally happen?

A: It could be at least a year, economists say.

"House price trends, they’re more like Mack trucks than Porsches," said Mark Fleming, chief economist with First American CoreLogic, which has its own home price index. "The truck is still in reverse."

Q: What impact do foreclosures have on prices?

A: They drag them way down. In fact, many real estate agents say that when you factor out foreclosures and other distressed properties, their markets look a whole lot healthier.

In Minneapolis, for example, median prices were down about 22 percent to a median of around $123,000 in the first three months of this year for distressed properties, but declined less than 4 percent to a median of $212,000 for traditional, non-distressed sales.

"We describe our market as a tale of two markets," said Mark Allen, CEO of the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors.

There are realtors® in Northern Virginia and South of Northern Virginia are noticing that there are fewer foreclosures coming on the market. Reason, the banks and lenders are encouraging higher prices by putting out a few foreclosures or short sales at a time. This means that they are sitting on them. They are also renting out foreclosures, again waiting until home prices increase.

This means that the great prices that investors were buying homes, is no longer in the 2 digit thousands, such as 77,000 or 89,000 or 99,000. The home prices have increased because the inventory is being held back. Therefore, homes prices are 3 digits, such as 120,000 or 149,000 or 200,000, which are still bargains. There are too many multiple offers on one home, so that the market price increases. As an example, a house is listed for 149,000, there are multiple offers which drive the sales price to 179,000. Then the banks or lenders ask for a best and final offer, which means the buyers agent goes back to the buyers and ask, how high do you want to go. This then pushes buyers to offer more and the home could actually sell for 185,000. It is still a great sales price for a 3 bedroom, 1 & 1/2 bath, with a finished basement for this area. But, if you are only approved for 160,000 you are left out in the cold.

A contract that recently was ratified, started at $225,000. The home appraisal came in at $260,000,  while the best and final offer went up to $269,000. The bank said they would accept the final price based on the appraisal. When folks who bought at the beginning of the foreclosure down turn, purchased these same homes for $325,000 and up sales prices. The homes, now are inching up to that $300,000 and above sales price which would then give those who purchased in the $260,000 range, equity. This is a fairly new subdivision with homes that are 5 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths, 2 car garage and finished basements. Given a few years more and these homes should go for $360,000 to $389,000 or a little higher. They will never return to the sales price of $425,000, $475,000 or more until a few more years pass, if then.

There is hope out there, but it will be some years before the upward turn of the market starts to appear.

You must have a great credit score and down payments of $20,000 to as high as $50,000 to bring the loan payments $1569 or higher. Investors can purchase 4 or more homes for resale or rentals. Homeowners can purchase a second home at a lower sales price and rent out their current home. There are criteria that must be met, but it can be done. First-Time Home Buyers still have the opportunity to take advantage of this market. If their credit is middlin, there are folks out there that are willing to direct them towards getting their credit score up to acceptable credit scores. The acceptable credit score starts at 620. 



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What Is Going On With Facebook!

We have heard a lot about Facebook this week and viruses, we were wondering what is going on?

It doesn't matter what age you are, someone is out there, has already planned a scheme to take your money by any means necessary. Even the tech savvy internet folks who are communicating through social networks are in trouble. Something that started on the premise that folks can communicate with each other by internet has turned into a nightmare. You can gain friends by the same profession as yourself, even let people learn to trust you to do some business together are some of the benefits of social networks. You can also find long, lost acquaintance(s), family and so on. So now you can stay in communication with them. You can share photos, share laughs and triumphs with each other.

AARP has an article in the June 2009 AARP Bulletin, page 16 about Hackers joining social networks and really doing harm to some folks. The article is written by Sid Kirchheimer, who is the author of Scam-Proof Your Life. (AARP Books/Sterling)

Yes, we are in that age bracket, but it wouldn't do any hackers any good to try to figure out our age because if you tried to steal our identity, you would send all the information you gained back to us. You may even say: "Hey, we have some scams you can try and get some money for yourselves!"

We're in that group of Realtors® that are struggling to hang in there. We came in at the end of the fast-moving high market and needless to say, we were not a part of those who had saved for the bad times. Therefore if you haven't money saved up to go into real estate, it is shocking the expenses required to get just one person started. The guesstimate is you need $6000 to start, so double that figure and we were in trouble from the start.

This all goes to say: Hackers beware of us, our identity will hurt you. (Sometimes, I crack my own self up) You can't get money from our friends because they don't have any either. With the market as bad as it is now, our deals are going as long as six months or more and they still haven't closed, yet. You see our Facebook is for Realtors®, Sellers, Buyers, Renters who we can communicate and share information. Maybe send some referrals out their way, if we have clients moving there and stuff like that. We're just giving you a fair warning: "HELP, WE ARE IN TROUBLE AND WE NEED MONEY FROM YOU HACKERS!"

You see, what these hackers are doing is:

1. Taking private information from a person's Facebook profile and any information they can find in comments from friends and impersonating the person.

2. They close off your account and if you have a mate and there's information on the comments that you share with each other, her account will be attacked as well.

3. Change the passwords, so the person cannot communicate to their friends: "Hey, some folks have closed our accounts, so that we cannot say to you - be careful. Don't answer anything that comes from us because it has been hacked."

4. Then the Hackers put a message: "YOUR FRIEND IS IN URGENT NEED OF HELP!"

5. The Hackers have enough information about you to make your friend say to him/herself: "I got your back."

6.You as a friend don't know, you think this is for REAL. You'll definitely come to the aid of your friend that's without money in another country. What are friends for?

This is where the virus comes in by downloading a program that these criminals can imitate your keystrokes. Once they have access to your computer, when you come online, they can gather all sorts of information. We have a virus protection program that instantly tells us if someone has a cookie on our machine that is trying to communicate with some unknown program from who knows where. You can click and stop it in its' tracks.

And listen to this, there's a virus spelled Facebook backwards is Koobecaf that attacks your computer with a deadly infection when you very innocently click on a video link as many of us do. It gets all of your personal information and then tries to fake you out of money. Now, you know someone was thinking this up while we were sleeping.

Now, here is where we have a problem with the figures that a spokesman for Facebook related. It is less than 1% of the 200 million users that encounter "security issues" over a number of years. That sounds really small when it is put like that, so-o-o say-ay-ay, we were in that 1%, this means that a total of 20,000 folks have had "security issues." And say-ay-ay that your "security issue" involved being defrauded of, oh let's say, $1200.00, does that hurt you in your pocketbook where you definitely had other uses for that money? Or say-ay-ay, your friend, who hasn't done anything to anyone, who innocently is conned out of say $1200, that you both are in such small numbers, we, that is to say a spokesman for Facebook intimated that they are doing great to the 1,980,000 who didn't get duped. We don't know about you, 20,000 people. Well 20,000 people are still a lot of people in our book. Just one person is the only one that has "security issues" is one too many to us.

Just an alert: OKAY, PEOPLE, LET'S BE CAREFUL OUT THERE. THE BEASTS ARE ON THE RAMPAGE.

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Moonshine

Hey Folks Out There, Y'all can git Legal Moonshine in the state of ole Virginny.


Belmont Farm Distillery is where "Legal Moonshine" is made. Master distiller, Chuck Miller, got this idea from his Grandfather (who made illegal moonshine, back in his day). In 1987, six miles south of Culpeper, Virginia, on their 189 acre farm, in their backyard, Chuck and Jeanette Miller renovated an old workshop into a distillery.  Licenses and permits were obtained from the Federal and State governments, the BATF and the VAABC. With his unique recipe, Chuck, made his first batch of Virginia Lightning (moonshine). Today, Virginia Lightning, sells in all the ABC stores in Virginia and in their gift shop on the farm.

We are open Tuesday through Saturday, 9:00am to 5:00pm, April 1 through December 1.

 You must want to know how to find this place, right?

It can be found in Culpeper County at 13490 Cedar Run, Culpeper, VA 22701


Chuck and Jeanette

Telephone:
Home and Distillery: 540.825.3207
Fax: (540) 825-5418

Hours:
Opens: 9:00 AM
Closes: 5:00 PM


Children Welcome

For more information go to: www.moonshine.com


This find was to unsual to not be passed on. The statement that "Virginia is for Lovers" definitely proves true if you want or like overproof.

Thanks for visiting

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TidBits About Wine in South of NoVa Homes™ Area

As you may have read, we are very enthusic about wine within distance of Stafford, VA. We have found some that we did not know is near to us folks in Stafford, VA

Here's one we hope you enjoy, IngleSide Vineyards in Oak Grove, VA.
 
Come find the casual side of elegance at Ingleside Vineyards. Our vineyards and winery are like nowhere else on earth. You will not find strip malls on every corner here in the Northern Neck, and you will probably see more herons than minivans. But that's what makes our surroundings so unspoiled and unpretentious. Ingleside Vineyards embraces the casual attitude and lifestyle of the Northern Neck, and by visiting us, you too, can experience great wines in a relaxed environment.

Ingleside Vineyards has produced a long heritage of award-winning wines and is rich in nature's beauty and history.  Our wines have consistently earned top honors in state, national and international wine competitions, such as the Virginia Governor's Cup Competition, the San Diego International Wine Competition and the London International Wine and Spirits Competition. Nearby you will find the birthplaces of George Washington, Robert E. Lee and James Monroe. As one of the oldest and largest wineries in Virginia, we have been producing hand-crafted wines from estate grown vineyards for almost thirty years. Our winery is part of the 3,000 acre Ingleside Plantation Estate, which has been owned by the Flemer family for over o­ne hundred years.  We take pride in the fact that we are a Virginia Century Farm.

Ingleside Plantation has "worn many hats" over the years. Built in 1834, it has served as a boys' school, known as Washington Academy, a Civil War garrison, a courthouse, and a dairy farm. Now the property is home to Ingleside Vineyards, as well as Ingleside Nursery. Our winery is housed in the plantation's former dairy barns. Ingleside Vineyards began in 1980 and produces over 18 varieties of wine from estate grown grapes today.

You may wonder, where is Ingleside Winery located: Westmoreland County which is part South of NoVa Homes™ Area.

As part of Virginia's Tidewater region, forested upland, rolling farmland, wetlands and cliffs characterize Westmoreland County.
There are gullies and small creeks that drain into the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers that lace the terrain.

For more statistics go to: www.southofnova.com and Westmoreland County

Check out for some of us is a cool way to relax in the next post.

Thanks for checking in on us.


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Borrowers With Good Credit Push Foreclosures To New Levels

Borrowers With Good Credit Push Foreclosures To New Levels.

As many of you already know….the foreclosures crisis has spread far beyond the ‘Sub-Primes Borrowers’ to the prime borrowers. Here is a look at what is happening on a national scale.

The mortgage crisis is spreading and hitting new heights: Borrowers with good credit now make up the largest share of foreclosures as job losses and pay cuts exact their toll.

A record 12 percent of homeowners with a mortgage were behind on their payments in the first quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Thursday. And the trend is predicted to continue until the end of next year, about six months after unemployment is expected to peak.

The genesis of the recession — risky adjustable-rate loans made to borrowers with bad credit — remains a significant factor in foreclosures. Today, almost half of all subprime ARMs are past due or in foreclosure. In Florida, New Jersey and New York the number is above 55 percent.

When those borrowers started defaulting in droves in late 2006, it forced dozens of lenders out of business and sparked a credit crisis in the summer of 2007. Businesses nationwide couldn’t get short-term loans to finance new orders or even cover their payrolls. Economic production began shrinking at the end of 2007 in what has become the longest recession in the United States since World War II.

The impact has now filtered out, consuming homeowners who until recently had a good track record of paying their bills on time. Nearly 6 percent of these prime borrowers with fixed-rate mortgages were past due or in foreclosure, nearly doubling in the past year.

"These (borrowers) are the best of the best out there," said real estate analyst Mike Larson with Weiss Research in Jupiter, Fla. "Clearly, borrowers far and wide are getting hit by this."

The worst of the trouble continues to be focused in California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida, which accounted for 46 percent of new foreclosures in the country and reported the worst delinquency and foreclosure rates on prime fixed-rate loans. The four have suffered massive job cuts in the housing industry. There were no signs of improvement.

But experts expect the pain to spread throughout the country as job losses mount. MBA’s chief economist Jay Brinkmann estimates the unemployment rate will top out in mid-2010 and foreclosures will abate about six months afterward.

The number of newly laid off people requesting jobless benefits fell last week, the government reported Thursday, but the number of people receiving unemployment benefits reached 6.78 million in mid-May, the highest on record.

The continuing rise in unemployment, which economists say could reach double digits, means more trouble for the ailing financial system and the economy. Lower incomes and lost jobs are the No. 1 reason people lose their homes through foreclosure. Higher unemployment also means people have less money to spend on basic necessities, let alone luxuries.

And borrowers without jobs are harder for lenders to help with loan modifications.

Nadine Harris in Bakersfield is hoping to modify her 30-year fixed-rate mortgage under President Barack Obama’s loan modification and refinancing program introduced earlier this year.

The 55-year-old was laid off two years ago by Sears after working there 34 years. Harris found another job, but she makes $20,000 less a year. The $925 she takes home every two weeks doesn’t cover her $1,522 mortgage and other living expenses. She’s used all her savings to stay current on her payments, but next month the reserves will run dry.

"I’ll have to scrimp to make up the payment in June," she said.

 

Jodi Woodsmith, a housing counselor at Self-Help Enterprises in Visalia said that in the last eight weeks she’s seen more and more homeowners with similar stories walk through her door.

"Those who had savings, they’ve exhausted their savings hoping they could ride it out," she said.

Woodsmith said a recent change to the president’s program allows borrowers to use unemployment benefits as a source of income for a loan modification. Income from spouses who are not on the mortgage also is taken into account.

Though the plan might stem some foreclosures, it might not be enough to significantly alter the crisis.

"It may be too much to say that the numbers will fall because of the plan," Brinkmann said. "It’s more correct to say that the numbers won’t be as high."

 

 

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Foreclosures Coming..”With A Vengeace”

 Foreclosures Coming.."With A Vengeace"

Diana Olick, CNBC just posted this on her blog….

I got a call yesterday from Scott Scredon at the Consumer Credit Counseling Services in Atlanta. He says they’ve seen a distinct change in callers. "We’re getting calls from engineers and attorneys and post graduate students," he says. "Many of these people run through their 401Ks and their savings and start living off credit cards and then they call a counseling agency for help. So it’s a new kind of person we’re seeing today, but it’s a sign of the times."

It’s not like we didn’t know it was coming, but apparently it’s coming with a vengeance.

Prime fixed-rate loans have finally leapfrogged those nasty subprimes to take the lead in the race to foreclosure. The foreclosure rate on primes has in fact doubled in the last year, and almost half of the overall increase in foreclosure starts in the first quarter of this year was due to the increase in primes.

So I asked Jay Brinkmann, chief economist over at the Mortgage Bankers Association, why all these aggressive industry and government modification programs aren’t helping, especially if the troubled borrowers are not in those nasty, exotic subprime loans.

"We have seen already in April a step up in some of the actions filed on people who don’t qualify. But when we look at vacant homes, when we look at cases where people are simply out of work, there’s simply nothing there that can be modified or worked out if they don’t have a job," notes Brinkmann. On top of that, more and more borrowers are redefaulting and ending up in the mod system again. "Unfortunately, people that can’t live up to the promises they made originally when they were in a loan workout situation or simply that they were hoping things were going to get better and they did not. They then get back into the process and end up going to foreclosure. I think those factors will continue to drive the numbers up," adds Brinkmann.

And one more thing: Freddie Mac estimates that 40% of the loans they have in foreclosure are on vacant homes. The borrowers don’t want a modification. Home prices have fallen so far that they will not see any equity for decades. So why pay?

Realtors, Its not too late for you to learn how to easily list and sell short sales. Watch the FREE Agent Short Sale Secrets video now and then download the FREE Agent Short Sale Secrets book.

On the bright side, if you can find it, the bulk of the trouble is still centered in four states: California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida, with Michigan, Ohio and Illinois close runners up. Brinkmann was surprised to see less of a national rise in foreclosures, but he is expecting it in the coming months.



Questions?  Comments?  Diana Olick CNBC RealtyCheck@cnbc.com

                                          

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Great News!!!

Great News and Sad News

 

Larry and Madeline Whitehead have changed Brokerages from Saab Realtors® Corporation which we have enjoyed for many years, working together.

We are now with the Brokerage Heatherman Homes LLC in Fredericksburg, VA. The commute into Tyson’s has been a bear for us from Stafford, VA. It is sad that we had to leave a Brokerage that has been very kind and helpful to us. That drive was taking a toll on us. We decided it would be best for us to become realtors® with a Brokerage near home. Therefore, we are a part of the Heatherman Homes Team. Frances Heatherman with South of NoVa Homes Team as part were recently ranked in the top 100 real estate agents (overall - all companies, all types) in America. 

 

The Wall Street Journal has done a study of the "top 400's" or Top 100's of different industries. They have been gathering data since the beginning of the year and have finally calculated nationwide agent production and Frances Heatherman & team managed to make it to one of the highest producers in the whole country.  Its’ called "top 400" but it is really the top 100 agents in America in 4 different categories (teams/individuals and units and dollar value).


We say Ha-Rah for Frances and High Kudos.

 

We figured since we were going to use the word Kudos, we should know the right definition of the word. You know, how we pick up words in our travel through life. We, thus use the word as a part of our vocabulary without really looking up its’ meaning. So for us, who don’t know or for us, that think we know here it is from www.dictionary.com is the result.

First of all, did we know this? Kudo
may also be an erroneous singular of the word kudos
and then did we know this?
Kudos (often /ˈkuːdoʊz/), from the Greek κῦδος (not to be confused with κύδος "taunt"), kydos, (literally "that which is heard of") means "fame" and "renown" resulting from an act or achievement. Extending "kudos" to another individual is often done as a praising remark. It entered English as British university slang in the early 1800s. In Standard British English, as in Greek, Kudos is a singular and not a plural noun, and is used exclusively as such in Britain. However, in common use in the US the noun is often plural: She received many kudos ['ku:doʊz] for her work.

The term is often attributed to recognition in the workplace with many Employee Recognition Programs developed solely to recognize the achievement of individuals.

Usage expanded again as the term entered the vocabulary of the gaming community. For example, you can earn kudos for completing certain in-game tasks, such as those in the Metropolis Street Racer, the Project Gotham Racing series and as part of the 'Varrock Museum' mini-task in the MMORPG Runescape.

All those who knew the meaning of the word, watch out, we're catching up to you!

Thanks for bearing up with us on this word trip! 

bear: to be patient or forbearing with: Please bear with me until I finish the story—Idiom, (I do not know how we got into this and are still carrying it on,) an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements, as kick the bucket or hang one's head, or from the general grammatical rules of a language, as the table round for the round table, and that is not a constituent of a larger expression of like characteristics.

Thanks for visiting our blog!


We service all of Northern Virginia and South of NoVa Homes™ areas.

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Easy Commute to Washington, D.C. and surrounding areas - Foreclosure

MLS# FX672365  9864 Hagel Circle Lorton, VA       Selling Price: $195,000
Subdivision: The Highlands

Description:
BANK OWNED! BELOW MARKET! Sold as is. Great location! Close to Ft.Belvoir, Rt 1 and I-95.


Photo                                         Photo
   Exterior                                                                                        Living Room


                                                       Photo
                                                           Kitchen

 For more information and photos, please visit www.southofnova.com  

 

 

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Bank Owned End Town House Condo

MLS# PW6723725  1634 Thenia Place #5-1 Woodbridge, VA      Selling Price: $149,900
Subdivision: Devils Reach Condo

Description:
Nice 3 level TH/condo in a great location. Convenient to I95, Rt 123 and Prince William Parkway. Walkout basement.



Photo      Photo      
   Exterior                                            Entrance/Foyer


For more information, please visit: www.southofnova.com

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REO Woodbridge VA

MLS #PW6600035 16856 Miranda Lane Woodbridge, VA           Selling Price: $205,000
Subdivision: River Oaks

Description:
Bank Owned. A must see remodeled townhouse. Beautifully appointed large 4 BR, 3.5 BA Townhome w/ eat-in kitchen & pantry, new carpeting & ceramic title flooring throughout, new countertops, stainless steel appliances. Huge mstr BR w/ huge BA w/ soaking tub and sep shower.


           
   Exterior                                            Living Room                                 Kitchen

                          
                                                           
                                                              View from Deck


For more information please visit: www.southofnova.com

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