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Armonk NY Luxury Homes

How Rare are Housing Bubbles? | #Armonk Real Estate

Do house prices experience periodic bull and bear markets like the stock market?  Or are they stable in real (inflation-adjusted) terms most of the time, with big disruptions once or twice in a century?  Two popular house price series tell these very different stories.  Knowing which is better will lead to superior investment outcomes and improved policy decisions.

Karl (Chip) Case, of Wellesley College, and the Nobel Prize-winning Yale professor Robert Shiller, have constructed the most widely-known suite of indices, which are now part of the S&P index family. Here is the Case-Shiller national house price index in real terms from 1890 through December 2013:

Figure 1
Case-Shiller National House Price Index in Constant Dollars, 1890-2013

Housing bubbles

Source: http://www.multpl.com/case-shiller-home-price-index-inflation-adjusted/

And here is a house price series distributed by the data firm of Crandall, Pierce & Co., consisting of the median new home sales price in constant dollars collected by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. (For brevity, we call this the “Crandall” series.)

Figure 2
Crandall, Pierce Median New Home Sale Prices in Constant Dollars, March 1963-March 2014.03

Housing bubbles

Source: Crandall, Pierce & Co., Libertyville, IL.  Reprinted with permission.

Could any two charts describing the same underlying phenomenon look more different?  In the Case-Shiller chart, there was one great bear market in the last 50 years, from late 2006 to early 2012, following a massive price expansion or bubble.1

In the Crandall chart, however, bull and bear markets have alternated in a remarkably regular pattern.  All of the bear markets represent losses of roughly 20%, with the crash of 2008-2011 only a little worse than the three other housing bear markets that occurred in 1968-1970, 1979-1982, and 1988-1992.  The Crandall chart also shows real prices rising pretty smartly – 1.35% per year – while the Case-Shiller chart shows a much slower rise.

Note that the two price series do not purport to measure the same thing.  The Crandall data are for new houses only; the Case-Shiller data are intended to reflect the entire stock of housing capital.2 The Crandall data are for a median house, the size and quality of which are constantly changing; Case and Shiller explicitly adjust for changes in the size and quality of a house. There are many other differences, so it’s understandable that the two series disagree somewhat – but they’re both intended to track house prices, so the contrast between them is striking and troubling.

 

 

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http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/09/rare-housing-bubbles/

Buying and selling homes could soon be as easy as trading stocks | Armonk Homes

HomeUnion wants to level the playing field for smaller investors, helping them compete with institutional giants to identify bargain-priced single-family rental properties in markets around the country, and then buy and manage them from afar.

Institutional investors try to make a killing by snatching up undervalued homes and renting them out. But it can be harder for smaller investors to get in on the action if they don’t live near the markets with the best deals, or don’t want to be landlords.

 

 

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http://www.inman.com/2014/08/26/buying-and-selling-homes-could-soon-be-as-easy-as-trading-stocks/?utm_source=20140826&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyheadlinesam

Mortgage Rates Remain Largely Unchanged | Armonk Real Estate

Freddie Mac (OTCQB: FMCC) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing average fixed mortgage once again showing very little change while remaining near their 2014 lows prior to a better than expected second quarter gross domestic product reading.

News Facts

  • 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.12 percent with an average 0.6 point for the week ending July 31, 2014, down from last week when it averaged 4.13 percent. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.39 percent.
  • 15-year FRM this week averaged 3.23 percent with an average 0.7 point, down from last week when it averaged 3.26 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 3.43 percent.
  • 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 3.01 percent this week with an average 0.5 point, up from last week when it averaged 2.99 percent. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 3.18 percent.
  • 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 2.38 percent this week with an average 0.4 point, down from last week when it averaged 2.39 percent. At this time last year, the 1-year ARM averaged 2.64 percent.

Average commitment rates should be reported along with average fees and points to reflect the total upfront cost of obtaining the mortgage. Visit the following links for the Regional and National Mortgage Rate Details and Definitions. Borrowers may still pay closing costs which are not included in the survey.

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

“Mortgage rates were little changed this week with the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate at 4.12 percent, just a basis point lower from the previous week. Meanwhile, on Wednesday afternoon the yield on the 10-year Treasury surged as data showed gross domestic product for the second quarter at a 4.0 percent annualized rate, above expectations.”

Chinoiserie Chic in New England | Armonk Real Estate

Interior designer Phoebe Lovejoy Russell’s kitchen/dining room was not working for her family at all. One of the first things you see when you walk into her condo, the kitchen had an oddly placed freestanding closet, and a 4-foot-long island divided the space in an awkward way. Striving to keep it open, light and not too kitchen-y, she created a look that’s bright and crisp with fresh chinoiserie style, taking inspiration from two hand-painted silk wallpaper panels.

Rates are low, prices stable — why is no one buying? | Armonk Real Estate

 

Motley Fool has a piece up from the weekend that caught HousingWire’s eye: “2 Simple Charts Prove That Now Is An Exceptional Time to Buy a Home.”

It caught our eye because it sounds like the kind of story we publish from time to time – our own story from just a month ago along these lines looks at the convergence of low mortgage rates and home prices with a slightly different twist. The Motley Fool writer starts strong enough:

If you’re wondering whether this summer is a smart time to buy a home, then let me cut to the chase. Thanks to still-historically low mortgage rates, housing may never again be as affordable as it is right now.

At present, the interest rate on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage is 4.19%. That’s the cheapest they’ve been all year, and they even recently dipped below half the long-run average of 8.52%.

Click below to see the chart.

Mortgage rates and home prices are two of the big drivers of home sales, after all. Motley Fool looks at these in terms of rates (ridiculously low) and home price affordability, which as measured by the National Association of Realtors, is “the degree to which a typical family can afford the monthly mortgage payments on a typical home.”

Click below to see the chart.

And by that NAR measure alone, homes are more affordable – but that’s just too broad a measure. It’s an empty measure, like the 77 cents on the dollar argument, that doesn’t fairly reflect reality.

But for the sake of argument, let’s say the NAR affordability index isn’t flawed.

Rates are low. According to Freddie Mac’s latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey, although rates edged slightly higher for the week ended June 12, they are still low for the year. The 30-year, fixed rate mortgage averaged 4.20%, up from 4.14% last week and 3.98% a year ago.

 

 

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http://www.housingwire.com/blogs/1-rewired/post/30331-rates-are-low-prices-stable-why-is-no-one-buying

Cute Clinton Hill Townhouse Asks $2.6 Million, and More | Armonk Homes

 

9 images

↑ First up on the Roundup is this cute little townhouse in Clinton Hill. Built in the 1860s, it has carved marble mantels, ceiling plasterwork, oak flooring, 10-foot ceilings, and exposed beams. There’s also a planted garden. Asking price is $2.599 million.

More townhouses in Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens, and Park Slope after the jump >>

↑ Up next is this two-building property in Boerum Hill. The lot includes a brick townhouse, a contemporary carriage house, and a very nice landscaped garden. The 1800s townhouse has original wide plank floors, tin ceilings, and marble mantles, while the carriage house has a huge kitchen and three floors of living space. It’s asking $3.3 million.

 

 

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http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/05/11/cute_clinton_hill_townhouse_asks_26_million_and_more.php

Transunion: Mortgage delinquency rate falls to mid-2008 low | Armonk NY Homes

 

The mortgage delinquency rate has declined more than 24% in the last year, down from 4.76% in Q1 2013, and it is now at the exact same level as it stood in Q2 2008.

“It’s encouraging to see mortgage delinquencies drop once again, especially during a period when mortgage originations slowed considerably,” said Steve Chaouki, head of financial services for TransUnion. “This trend in improved performance is driven in part by lenders working their way through the foreclosure backlog, along with continued conservatism in underwriting new mortgages.”

All 50 states and the District of Columbia experienced declines in their mortgage delinquency rates between Q1 2013 and Q1 2014.

The largest percentage declines continued to occur in states most impacted by the mortgage crisis – Arizona (down 37.8%), California (down 36.9%) and Nevada (down 34.0%). Both Arizona (2.81%) and California (2.80%), which just five years earlier had delinquency rates nearly double the national average, are now significantly lower than the rest of the nation.

 

 

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http://www.housingwire.com/articles/29923-transunion-mortgage-delinquency-rate-falls-to-mid-2008-low

 

Westchester Foreclosure Spike Not An Economic Indicator, Legislator Says | Armonk Real Estate

 

Foreclosure judgments on Westchester homes spiked 514 percent in February and 200 percent in March, which Westchester County legislators said was a ripple effect from the housing crisis and isn’t a reflection of the county’s economic health in 2014.

Westchester County Clerk Timothy Idoni said that about 90 percent of the foreclosures were filed two-to-three years ago. The number of judgments had dipped 41 percent in 2011 and 32 percent in 2012, but rose 23 percent in 2013.

“We’re starting to see that kind of stuff clearing out,” he said at a meeting of the county Board of Legislators Labor/Parks/Planning/Housing Committee Tuesday.

In some cases banks haven’t taken the title on a foreclosed home because of new obligations placed on them by the courts to maintain the property, said Norma Drummond, deputy commissioner of the Westchester County Planning Department. As a result banks don’t want as much inventory and are handling foreclosures differently than they used to before the recession.

 

 

 

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http://armonk.dailyvoice.com/real-estate/westchester-foreclosure-spike-not-economic-indicator-legislator-says

Sacramento home sales still hot, but not burning | Armonk Homes

 

As a region, Sacramento still ranks in the top 10 in the nation for turning over home inventory, but as other metrics have also shown, sales are quite a bit slower than a year ago.

According to rankings compiled by Trulia, 45 percent of all homes for sale in the region have been on the market for two months or more, good enough for ninth nationally. The figure was 41 percent a year earlier, when Trulia noted both investor buys and rapid price appreciation fueled by bidding wars were much more common, making the market that much more active.

The slight cool down, only 4 percent below a year earlier, reflects mostly more inventory on the market, which is still a sellers’ market overall, according to Trulia.

By comparison, in Virginia Beach, Va., 72 percent of homes on sale now were also on the market two months ago.

Of the overall list, every city above Sacramento was on the West Coast and almost all on or near the Pacific Ocean, with Denver, at fourth, the only exception.

In Oakland, which topped the list, 29 percent of the homes on the market had been there two months or longer, and asking prices were 22.7 percent higher than a year earlier. Sacramento asking prices have risen by 22.2 percent, according to Trulia figures.

 

 

 

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http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2014/04/28/sacramento-home-sales-still-hot-but-not-burning.html

4 Fairfield County Towns Among Top Spots For Renters Raising Families | Armonk Real Estate

 

Darien, Wilton, New Canaan and Ridgefield have all been named to Rent.com‘s Top 25 Cities for Renters Raising Families.

The towns “boast some of the nation’s best school systems, beautiful parks and affluent communities,” according to a press release. Darien ranked the highest of Connecticut towns at No. 6. Wilton was ranked 12th, New Canaan was 18th and Ridgefield was named 24th.

Rent.com has assembled the Top 25 Cities for Renters Raising Families with the help of New York-based Onboard Informatics 2014, a data and technology company.

“This list is based on cities and towns with a high concentration of family households (greater than 70 percent), population greater than 10,000 and a median household income of $50K or more,” according to the release.

Rental data and median rental rates based on Rent.com data. Cities with fewer than 1,000 rental dwellings were eliminated.

 

 

 

http://greenwich.dailyvoice.com/real-estate/4-fairfield-county-towns-among-top-spots-renters-raising-families