Daily Archives: March 18, 2014

The Coming Real Estate Bubble | Armonk Real Estate

Leave a reply

 

Three and a half years ago, my newly married household acquired an actual house, a 1,750-square-foot slice of paradise in Washington’s Eckington neighborhood. In real estate euphemism, the house is what’s known as “lightly renovated,” the neighborhood “transitional.” “Lightly renovated” meant that some stuff had been done, most of it badly, but the HVAC dated from the Paleozoic, and the yard . . . um, better not to speak of the yard, unless you’re a Hollywood location scout looking for somewhere for your heroin-addict protagonist to bottom out.

“Transitional” meant . . . oh, you can figure it out. We had gone north of H Street and east of North Capitol to the unfashionable precincts of the city’s Northeast quadrant. The most common response, when we told people where we lived, was “Where the hell is Eckington?” The second-most-common response was, “Wow [rapid eye-blinking]. I could never live there. It’s too far from everything.”1

Now some of the same people who politely suggested we were crazy for buying so far east are lamenting that they can’t afford to buy in our neighborhood. Lest you think this is schadenfreude, let me point out that some of these people are friends I very much want to live near me; I would even give up a little of my real estate price appreciation to make that happen.2

The point is, something insane has happened to Washington real estate prices in those intervening years. There’s a feeding frenzy over single-family homes in neighborhoods that are barely within walking distance of a metro. This cri-de-coeur was recently posted on a local real estate blog:

My husband and I are in the process of purchasing our first home.
Our realtor has put a focus on the Edgewood and Brookland neighborhoods since it previously looked like you can still get a house for a reasonable price.
However we have been baffled by these two recent purchases.
Are we really looking at spending nearly $600,000 for an up and coming neighborhood? Have we missed some big announcement for something coming to the area? Are we ever going to find something in our price range of under $500,000 if we want to stay in the District?
We are becoming discouraged.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-17/the-coming-real-estate-bubble?cmpid=yhoo

How homeowners should react to unsolicited offers on their home | North Salem Real Estate

Leave a reply

 

Some buyers are getting creative when low inventory levels threaten to crush their home-buying dreams: They’re writing letters to homeowners, asking if they’d be interested in selling.

That’s what Will and Jung O’Donnell did last year.

After unsuccessfully searching for a home in San Francisco for months, they switched real-estate agents. Their new agent helped them find listings that expired years ago — including the one they’d eventually buy. The agent then presented the owner with a letter of interest from the couple.

The O’Donnells are now happily living in their Lower Pacific Heights home.

Hey, if you don’t ask, you’ll never know, right?

But for those on the other side of the transaction, the homeowners, getting an unsolicited offer for your home can feel a little strange. Maybe even a bit creepy.

“Nine out of 10 [homeowners] will say ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’” said Brendon DeSimone, real-estate expert for the website Zillow, and an agent licensed in California and New York.

If the home was on the market a couple of years ago, then removed, many times the homeowner is on to plan B; maybe they’ve built an addition to create the space they needed or they overcame an objection they once had about the home, DeSimone said.

But sometimes they’re still interested in selling the property. Perhaps they decided to rent out the place instead for a while, but really don’t want to be a landlord. Or maybe they weren’t willing to part with their home at post-housing crash prices, but would be satisfied with their return now.

Granted, this strategy isn’t popular everywhere. But in places where the inventory of desirable homes is tight or for highly sought-after properties, it isn’t all that unusual, real-estate agents say.

Alyssa Hellman, who lives in a historic condominium building in the West End neighborhood of Washington, D. C., gets letters from people interested in buying her home every few months. “Maybe even once a month, when the market is active,” said Hellman, a real-estate agent with Long and Foster Real Estate, based in Arlington, Va. Apartments in the building — and especially units with certain layouts in the building — are highly sought after, she said.

 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dear-homeowner-can-i-buy-your-house-2014-03-17?siteid=yhoof2

Is Homeownership A Smart Investment Again? | Mt Kisco Real Estate

Leave a reply

 

One year ago, Trulia’s Rent vs. Buy Report, released by online real estate aggregator Trulia, found it was 44% cheaper to buy a house than to rent. Today, the gap has narrowed, due in part to rising interest rates and home prices. The newest edition of the report finds that buying a home is now 38% cheaper than renting. The report compares costs for a seven-year period using five calculations:

  1. The average rent and sale prices for an identical set of properties;
  2. The initial total monthly costs of owning (assuming 20% down and a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 3.5% interest, as well as annual maintenance, insurance, utility, and property tax expenses) and renting (monthly rent plus renter’s insurance);
  3. The future total monthly costs of owning and renting;
  4. One-time costs and proceeds (for owning, this includes closing costs and capital gains tax of 15% for gains above the $500,000 annual exclusion; for renting, this includes one month’s security deposit); and
  5. The net present value to account for opportunity cost of money (this compares cash flows over time).

According to the report, homeownership remains cheaper across the nation and in all of the 100 largest metro markets. However, these findings speak broadly to the national market, and there are several situations where it still makes more sense to rent. Here, we look at some of the reasons why it’s a good time to buy for many Americans, and circumstances when it might make more sense to rent.
Reasons to Buy
Peggy Jennings, a Broker/Realtor with Prudential Great Smokys Realty in Sylva, North Carolina, cites favorable interest rates, good inventory and relaxed loan requirements as good reasons to buy now. “Interest rates are still good. The inventory is improving as more people are deciding it’s time to sell. There’s going to be a lot of good inventory coming up, especially since the foreclosures from a couple years ago are now rehabbed and ready to sell,” says Jennings.

 

 

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/031714/homeownership-smart-investment-again.asp?partner=YahooSA

25 richest US neighborhoods | South Salem Real Estate

Leave a reply

 

Much like the rest of the country, America’s richest neighborhoods continue to evolve in terms of racial diversity.

In his latest Higley 1000, a list of the highest-income neighborhoods in the U.S., Stephen Higley, a professor emeritus of urban social geography at the University of Montevallo, found that the top neighborhoods are home to more Asian and Latino residents than ever before.

Higley ranked the most expensive neighborhoods in America based on American Community Survey 2006 – 2010 data. He aggregated contiguous block groups (subdivisions of Census tracts) with a mean income over $200,000. You can read his complete methodology here.

 

http://realestate.msn.com/25-richest-us-neighborhoods

Lower consumer confidence and real estate | Waccabuc Real Estate

Leave a reply

 

LOWER consumer confidence could put a dampener on a housing market, which had shown strong improvements since the start of the year.

The latest consumer sentiment data from Westpac and the Melbourne Institute revealed that consumer confidence had fallen for the fourth consecutive month.

RP Data research director Tim Lawless said the index did move around a lot from month to month, so as a result following the trend was more important than the monthly result.

“However we have seen the index move lower over five of the past six months which indicates a softening consumer mind set,’’ he said.

Mr Lawless said consumer confidence and housing market conditions were highly linked.

“If a consumer is lacking confidence in their household finances they aren’t going to be as prepared to make a high commitment decision such as purchasing a property,’’ he said.

Mr Lawless said if consumer confidence continued at similar levels in the coming months, he thought the “exuberant’’ housing market conditions would taper off.

He said at the moment even though confidence levels had eased, consumers still viewed the housing market as a ‘wise’ place for their savings.

“Consumer confidence can be fickle, and we may see the consumer mind set bounce back to a more optimistic position if the jobless rate stabilises and economic data flows improve,’’ he said.

 

http://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/lower-consumer-confidence-could-put-a-dampener-on-the-market/story-fncq3era-1226858156877

Last Year’s Foreclosures Hit Lowest Total Since 2007 | Katonah NY Real Estate

Leave a reply

 

In the past year, the national foreclosure rate declined each month by at least 20 percent from where it had been the year before, according to the CoreLogic Market National Foreclosure Report from December. Additionally, the 12-month sum of completed foreclosures hit its lowest level since 2007.

103583081

The progress is encouraging ? about 837,000 homes in the United States were in a stage of foreclosure in December, down from almost 1.2 million in December 2012 ? but that’s still a lot of homeowners struggling to pay for their homes.

CoreLogic’s report puts the serious delinquency rate among U.S. mortgages at 5 percent in December, its lowest level since November 2008. Quarterly data from Experian-Oliver Wyman Market Intelligence Reports and Experian’s IntelliView tool also show a smaller share of mortgages were delinquent. In the final quarter of 2013, the percentage of mortgages that were more than 90 days past due dropped from the previous year’s and the previous quarter’s levels, the reports said. The delinquency rate declined to 2.52 percent, down from 2.74 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 and 3.26 percent at the same time in 2011.

?Clearly, 2013 was a transitional year for residential property in the United States,” Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic, said in the foreclosure report. ”Higher home prices and lower shadow inventory levels, together with a slowly improving economy, are hopeful signals that we are turning a long-awaited corner. The housing market should continue to heal in 2014, but we expect progress to remain very slow.?

Mortgage originations had been increasing year over year since the first quarter of 2012, but that momentum faltered in the third quarter of 2013, when new loans declined by about 110,000 from the previous year, according to Experian. Fourth-quarter data isn’t yet available.

 

http://www.realtor.com/news/last-years-foreclosures-hit-lowest-total-since-2007/

 

Find an Apartment in the Top Cities for Singles | Bedford Hills Real Estate

Leave a reply

 

If you are single and looking for the best possible place to live, you should make your way to the sunny shores of Santa Barbara, according to Kiplinger’s recently released list of the top 10 cities for singles.

The city along California’s Central Coast—home to the University of California, Santa Barbara—sits atop the list thanks to “a financially fit populace [making for] a highly eligible dating pool,” Kiplinger reported.

Many of the other hotspots for singles are also located in college towns. If you would like to settle in a singles hotspot, we’ll play matchmaker by giving you a heads-up on what you can expect to find in its rental market.

Here are four of Kiplinger’s top 10:

Santa Barbara

Willow Springs in Santa Barbara has one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments for rent that range from $1,740 to $2,410 per month. New units are being added to the community along with amenity upgrades aplenty. If you wind up at Willow Springs, you will be just minutes away from the ocean. The complex also features a patio and pool area perfect for relaxing with a date.

 

 

http://www.realtor.com/news/apartments-top-cities-singles/

The Best Real Estate Markets 2013 | Bedford NY Real Estate

Leave a reply

 

When considering which real estate markets are the best, it is wise to look at home sales among other aspects as this number often reveals a thriving real estate market. Below is a list of the top 25 real estate markets in America today from the least to the greatest:

 

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma:

According to trulia.com, the median sales price for homes in Oklahoma City from April 13th to June 13th was $126,000. This represents an increase of 0.8 percent compared to the prior year. The average price per square foot was listed as $83, which is a 6.4 percent increase from the same period last year. Popular neighborhoods in Oklahoma City include Gatewood UCD, Woodland Park, Shepherd Historic District, the Greens, Cleveland UCD and Quail Creek. According to moneyjournal.com, the 2013 real estate market in Oklahoma City is forecasted to grow 4.3 percent.

Omaha, Nebraska:

According to trulia.com, the median sales price for homes in Omaha was $150,000. This is an increase of 5.6 percent compared to the previous year. The price per square foot for Omaha homes increased 13.7 percent from the previous year and is currently averaging $116 per square foot. Moneyjournal.com predicts an increase in the market of 4.5 percent in the year 2013.

El Paso, Texas:

The median home price in El Paso, Texas, increased 8.8 percent compared to the same period the previous year. The average list price for a home in El Paso is $194,499. The moneyjournal.com predicts a 5.3 percent growth in the El Paso’s real estate market in 2013.

 

http://www.housingpredictor.com/the-best-real-estate-markets-2013/

Homeowners are Refinancing with Ultra Cheap Rates | Pound Ridge Homes

Leave a reply

 

Homeowners are becoming increasingly savvy, and many are surprised to learn how much they’e able to save on their mortgage while refinancing with lending finder services. For example, the average reduction was a savings of about 33% last year. On a $200,000 loan, that translates to an average savings of $3,600 in their first year. And with the low rates, 39% of homeowners were actually able to shorten their loan terms as well.

Visiting any number of these services, such as LendingTree, has consistently surprised homeowners how low the rates have become. Historic lows are still prevalent, but economists believe rates are gradually moving up throughout the year. In mere moments, homeowners are finding out just how much they can save by refinancing. Most importantly, homeowners can compare rates from multiple lenders who they’re matched up with based on their specific needs and limitations.

 

http://www.dailymortgagemonitor.com/tbla/mortgage.html?esourceid=6134136&cchannel=display&csource=Taboola&cmethod=&cname=189161334725111812&ccontent=&cterm=LendingTree___display_campaign&mpch=ads