Daily Archives: April 21, 2011

30-Year Fixed-Rate Mortgage Drops to 4.80 Percent – Apr 21, 2011

30-Year Fixed-Rate Mortgage Drops to 4.80 Percent

MCLEAN, Va., April, 21 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Freddie Mac (OTC: FMCC) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), which shows mortgage rates dropping after four consecutive weeks of inching higher.  

News Facts

  • 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.80 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending April 21, 2011, down from last week when it averaged 4.91 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 5.07 percent.  

  • 15-year FRM this week averaged 4.02 percent with an average 0.7 point, down from last week when it averaged 4.13 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 4.39 percent.  

  • 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 3.16 percent this week with an average 0.6 point, down from last week when it averaged 3.25 percent. At this time last year, the 1-year ARM averaged 4.22 percent.  

Average commitment rates should be reported along with average fees and points to reflect the total cost of obtaining the mortgage. Visit the following links for the Regional and National Mortgage Rate Details and Definitions.

Quotes

Attributed to Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist, Freddie Mac.

  • “Low inflation is keeping mortgage rates at bay. The core consumer price index rose just 0.1 percent in March, below the market consensus forecast. The 12-month growth rate in core prices was 1.2 percent, which is also rather low by historical standards.

Get the latest information from Freddie Mac’s Office of the Chief Economist on Twitter:  @FreddieMac

Freddie Mac was established by Congress in 1970 to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the nation’s residential mortgage markets. Freddie Mac supports communities across the nation by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Over the years, Freddie Mac has made home possible for one in six homebuyers and more than five million renters.

Find more information about Freddie Mac at http://www.freddiemac.com

SOURCE Freddie Mac

For further information: Chad Wandler, +1-703-903-2446, Chad_Wandler@FreddieMac.com

US Housing Market Rises 3.7%

Sales of existing homes rose slightly in March but prices fell as the U.S. housing market continues to struggle.

Existing home sales rose 3.7% from February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.1 million, the National Association of Realtors reported Wednesday. That marked the sixth monthly rise for existing home sales in the past eight months. “We’re clearly on a recovery path,” says Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist.

Yet median prices in March dropped 5.9% from March 2010 to $159,600. Distressed homes accounted for 40% of sales, up from 35% a year ago, the NAR says. Distressed homes, such as those in foreclosure, typically sell at a 20% discount and pull down market prices.

“At this point, we’re likely to see a steady improvement in sales,” says economist Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors. But prices will continue to come under pressure because of so many distressed homes. Many economists expect U.S. home prices to fall 5% to 7% this year. Some economists predict steeper declines.

For now, investors are driving much of the increase in existing home sales. They’re snapping up distressed homes, fixing them up and selling them for a slight profit, or turning them into rentals, says Patrick Newport, economist at IHS Global Insight. Investors accounted for 22% of sales activity in March, the NAR says, up from 19% a year ago. Thirty-five percent of March sales were all-cash deals, a record.

Investors are seizing on low prices and strong rental demand, says Paul Dales, U.S. economist at Capital Economics. Rents have edged up in recent months after staying fairly stable for two years, he says. There are also more renters after millions of people lost homes to foreclosure.

There are signs that non-investor buyers are getting more active. Applications for mortgages to buy homes, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Purchases index, have risen 10% over a seven-week period, Newport says.

“This pickup in demand should show up in improved existing home sales in April and May, unless lending conditions tighten,” he says.

Tight credit is already restraining demand, Yun says. The NAR says the average credit score for loans bought by government-backed mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is now about 760, up from 720 in 2007.

High unemployment and underwater mortgages are also hurting demand. Almost 25% of homeowners with a mortgage owe more than their homes are worth. “This means many households that want to move can’t,” Dales says.

Home sales may rise this year, but “a meaningful recovery is a few years away,” he says.

Blogging for business: tips for real estate pros | Inman

 Flickr image courtesy of <a href=.

Agents are interested in blogging for business; they continue to ask questions about how to get a blog started and how to keep it going.

This isn’t a new idea but it is an idea that keeps evolving, and there is still very little competition among agents for local real estate blogs. Starting a blog keeps getting easier, but for most people keeping it going remains the biggest challenge.

Business blogs are powerful marketing pieces and there is still little competition for local real estate blogs, especially blogs that are written for consumers instead of for real estate agents. Go one step further and include information about housing and there is no competition in most markets.

Consumers search the Internet for information that goes beyond what is in the multiple listing service, and static websites are just plain boring — even if they do have the agent’s face plastered all over them.

Homebuyers want to know what it is like to live in your town, and what the housing market is like, and where the amenities are and if the neighborhood is walkable, and maybe where to buy a cup of coffee or find some good pizza.

They also want to work with an agent who can be trusted and who is friendly (but not the creepy kind of friendly) and that knows the area.

Last week I attended a continuing education class and the speaker mentioned blogging and recommended a keyword-stuffing scheme that doesn’t work. Business blogging isn’t about using keywords over and over. It is about supplying useful information and showing expertise.

For the last couple of years the emphasis has been on self-hosted WordPress blogs, but there are other options that are free and easier to start and to maintain.

There are agents who invest a significant amount of time in WordPress testing plug-ins and tweaking their blog design instead of writing blog posts or selling real estate.

The popular free blogging platforms can be run off of any domain name, and it is important for businesses to own and control their own domain names. It is fairly easy to import a blog into WordPress and self-host it if that becomes desirable at some point.

No traffic is lost, and if it is done right the regular blog readers will not notice the change, and neither will Google. I don’t think it is wise to use any of the free platforms for a business blog without owning the domain name.

The easiest way to start a blog today is to use Posterous, Blogger or WordPress.com — and all are free. Blogger is a free platform from Google. It is the No. 1 most used blogging platform on the planet.

The Google search engine loves it and they just keep making Blogger better. It is highly customizable and very easy to use. I have used blogger for four years now and all of my posts were created with a BlackBerry.

All three platforms have smartphone apps that can be used to write a post, and add a photo and update the blogs. The apps can also be used to store blog posts and approve comments. The WordPress app even works on a BlackBerry.

Posterous has become very popular, and I have a Posterous blog, too. The beauty of Posterous is that it can be used to update other social media accounts and it works well as a mobile blog. I can update my Posterous blog and have it automatically update Facebook and Twitter at the same time.

A new agent or a new blogger could buy a domain name, use it with a Posterous blog, post to it by smartphone, or email and use it to update a Twitter account and a Facebook page.

A self-hosted WordPress blog can do all of that, too, but it takes expertise to install all of those plug-ins and keep them updated. Those functions are built right into the Posterous blog, and it is ready to go.

It should be noted that free blogs can be backed up. I would highly recommend that blogs on any platform be backed up at least once a week. I have heard grown men and women cry after losing hundreds of blog posts because a site got deleted or because something else went wrong.

The easiest way to create blog posts is while you’re on the go — they can easily be created with a smartphone. It doesn’t take much time or effort.

Here are some simple ideas:

  • Snap a picture of a street sign and write a few words about the neighborhood.
  • Write one or two posts a month that have local housing market statistics.
  • Make sure your contact information is easy to find on the blog and that anyone reading it can tell which areas you work in.
  • There is still almost no competition in most markets for a consumer-oriented real estate blog.
  • Include information about local parks, architectural styles, road closings and most anything local.
  • Don’t spend hours and hours writing blog posts, but write a short one each day and include a picture.

There are several other platforms I could mention, but these are my top picks for business. Before spending money to build a blog, try one of these free platforms. That is what I did before I started my business blog five and a half years ago.

Teresa Boardman is a broker in St. Paul, Minn., and founder of the St. Paul Real Estate blog.

 
    

4 ways to boost real estate showings

4 ways to boost real estate showings

REThink Real Estate

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Thursday, April 21, 2011.

Inman News™

Q: It is now April and we have not had a showing in almost a month. Any suggestions how to get more showings? I thought of offering to pay closing costs, lowering the price or offering a flooring allowance. –Frustrated seller

A: All of the above. But in a different order of priority. And that’s not all!

One thing that virtually never changes about real estate is this: When a listing won’t sell and isn’t even getting any showings, a price reduction is the single tweak a seller can make that wields the most potential to get buyers interested and get the home closer to being sold. Is it that buyers are greedy? Not necessarily — several things make this so.

First: the realities of how buyers search for homes. Well, over 90 percent of buyers look for homes, first, on the Web. As such, they are forced to enter some basic search parameters, which normally include a range of bedrooms, a range of bathrooms, a price range, and an area (city/state or ZIP code). If your home’s list price does not fall within a given buyer’s price parameters, that buyer will never see your home’s listing.

Second: the realities of house hunting. The buyers who aren’t coming to see your home are going to look at listings of other homes in your neighborhood, and they’re going to see the other homes in town with similar prices and features. And then they’ll compare them all. If yours is smaller, less upgraded or not as attractive as other homes at the same price, or is priced higher than really similar homes, buyers will take a pass.

Third: Other than their own space and location needs, buyers have very few reasons to feel urgency to buy on today’s market. The buyers that are out there are primarily buying now to take advantage of affordability — i.e., they want a great deal. So, overpriced homes are an A-class turnoff.

In fact, buyers who may see your overpriced home online, and like it, will actually wait to allow the market to educate you into reducing the price, rather than taking on the unpleasant and often impossible task of convincing a seller of their home’s true market value.

While being educated by the market, to a seller, sounds terrible, it’s worse for your home to be lagging and you not taking the lesson away.

Clearly, my top-line advice is to lower your price, below a $25,000, $50,000 or $100,000 cutoff, so that your home falls within buyers’ search parameters.

And my No. 2 recommendation is something you didn’t mention: offer a time-sensitive bonus and/or commission increase to the buyer’s broker or agent. The vast majority of the qualified buyers out there are working with buyer’s agents. Incent these agents to show your home by offering an extra half or full percentage point of commission, or a bonus to the buyer’s agent who brings an offer that closes escrow by a given date.

Ask your own agent about how the agent can publicize this offer to other agents mostly likely to represent your home’s target market.

Buyer incentives, like closing-cost credits, can also help distinguish your home from the competition, but they are not likely to dramatically increase showings of a home no one is currently coming to see, unless you’re going from zero credit offered to a full 6 percent, which might not be necessary.

If you can reduce the price and offer a bonus or commission increase to the buyer’s broker or agent, you will reposition your home, and a buyer’s incentive offering won’t hurt your case, either.

Instead of offering a flooring credit, though, I’d rather see you consider replacing the flooring that is in bad shape. I’m not big on sellers doing much costly repair work these days, but floors are a massive surface in a home — replacing them can create an entirely different experience for those who do come see your home, and it can be done cost-effectively (ask your real estate broker or agent for suggestions of flooring installers and which floor materials to use).

Marketing your price-reduced homes as having new floors vs. having a flooring allowance (which implies that it has old, dirty or otherwise undesirable floors) might be the better boost to viewings.

The more viewings you get, the more likely you are to get your home sold.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson is author of "The Savvy Woman’s Homebuying Handbook" and "Trillion Dollar Women: Use Your Power to Make Buying and Remodeling Decisions." Tara is also the Consumer Ambassador and Educator for real estate listings search site Trulia.com. Ask her a real estate question online or visit her website, www.rethinkrealestate.com.

       

      

    

    

     

      

      

   

  

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5 Craigslist tips to generate free real estate leads

5 Craigslist tips to generate free real estate leads

Time of day, content can make all the difference

By Bernice Ross, Thursday, April 21, 2011.

Inman News™

Craigslist headquarters in San Francisco. Flickr image courtesy of <a href=Craigslist headquarters in San Francisco. Flickr image courtesy of blmurch.

Are you using Craigslist as a part of your lead generation and conversion system? If not, there’s no better time to start than now.

Recently, I hosted a webinar with Josh Schoenly of ReTechulous.com. Schoenly also manages a real estate brokerage office in Mechanicsville, Pa., and is a self-proclaimed "lead generation junkie." One of the best lead generation tools for his business is Craigslist.

Many agents use Craigslist, yet very few systematically generate and convert leads from this highly visited site. Schoenly says most agents fail in this attempt because they don’t understand the dynamics of online lead generation. Also, they don’t know how to make their ads stand out from the competition.

If you want to generate more leads from working with Craigslist, the first step is to avoid these five most common mistakes:

1. Posting at the wrong time of day
Have you ever given any thought to the best time of day to post on Craigslist? Schoenly cites research that shows people visit Craigslist in the morning between 8:30 a.m. and 9 a.m., just before they begin work. They also visit Craigslist around lunchtime.

Nighttime visits to Craigslist peak at different times depending upon the season. In the wintertime, it’s usually after dinner, from 7 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. In the summertime, it’s more likely to be later, usually between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Rather than flooding Craigslist with a lot of ads, Schoenly recommends posting one or two strategic ads at the peak times of day.

2. Writing boring headlines and boring ads
A major challenge on Craigslist is how to make your ad stand out. In order to "cut through the clutter," Schoenly recommends making your ads intriguing.

For example, most agents write ads like this: "123 Lakeview Terrace $605,000: 4 bedroom, 3 bath, with breathtaking lake view. Updated kitchen with granite countertops, new appliances, two offices, master suite with double walk-in closets."

The ad above is completely feature based. To have more people click to view your ads, write an ad with an attention-grabbing headline and intriguing text. Here’s an example that cuts through the clutter to capture the reader’s attention: "$206,900. LAKE it? You’ll LOVE it! (Can you believe the price on this gem?) Click here to see other JUICY deals like this one in the Houston area. INCLUDES FORECLOSURES."

3. No call to action
The boring ad in the example above also has another major mistake. There is no call to action.

In contrast, the "LAKE it" ad has a clear call to action for the reader to "see other JUICY deals." Everyone wants a great deal. This ad taps into that emotion, especially because the list includes foreclosure properties.

4. No lead capture trap
There is little point in spending money on Web advertising unless you have a lead capture strategy. A major mistake most advertisers make is driving consumers to a branded website. A branded website is your primary website that has all of your normal listing information and other resources.

What works best is a simple unbranded website devoted exclusively to the property you are marketing. (Please note you must still follow your state, local and MLS rules in terms of what you post on these sites regarding the fact that you are an agent.)

Schoenly’s unbranded website normally converts 15 percent to 35 percent of the people who visit it into actual leads. This type of page is often called a "squeeze page." In contrast, when he used a branded website, the conversion rate was only a pitiful 1 percent.

Here’s what Schoenly uses for one of his most effective squeeze pages: The headline, "Free weekly list of foreclosure and bank-owned properties."

Beneath the headline is a picture of a house with a foreclosure sign in front of it. Next to the picture, there is a bright green arrow pointing to the box where the reader can enter their email address. Directly below there is another box that states, "Phone number: We’ll Call You and Tell You about the Hot Buys We Know about Right Now." The final box says, "Get the Weekly List and See Local Foreclosures Now."

For this to work in your business, you must be willing to compile and maintain an up-to-date foreclosure list. You must also be willing to respond quickly with a return phone call when someone decides to use the telephone option. Finally, you will also need an "autoresponder" system that automatically sends out the list to anyone who clicks on the link.

5. No consistency
The biggest mistake that agents make when using Craigslist is a lack of consistency. Schoenly suggests setting up a recurring appointment with yourself so that you always remember to do your posts three times per day.

Avoid being "flagged"

Craigslist and its community are very vigilant about ads that don’t meet the site’s criteria. Triggers that can cause your ads to be "flagged" (i.e., that will cause your ads to be removed), include being overly "sales-y," overhyping, using all caps, posting ads in the wrong categories or posting the same ads multiple times in a short period of time, and using the word "free."

You can be flagged if two or more people report your ads. It could be market competitors seek to remove your ads from the site. If this does happen, Schoenly’s recommendation is to post your ads at night. Most ad "snipers" hang out at the office during the day, and that’s when they’re most likely to be online.

Consequently, to succeed on Craigslist, post at the busiest times of days, write intriguing headlines and ad copy, include a call to action, use a lead capture or squeeze page, and be consistent. These five simple steps work for Schoenly and they can work for you as well.

Bernice Ross, CEO of RealEstateCoach.com, is a national speaker, trainer and author of the National Association of Realtors’ No. 1 best-seller, “Real Estate Dough: Your Recipe for Real Estate Success.” Hear Bernice’s five-minute daily real estate show, just named "new and notable" by iTunes, at www.RealEstateCoachRadio.com. You can contact her at Bernice@RealEstateCoach.com or @BRoss on Twitter.

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