Daily Archives: November 12, 2010

Wall Street Journal House of the Week | New Canaan CT Real Estate

JetBlue’s Neeleman Puts Connecticut Home Up for Sale

 

JetBlue founder David Neeleman and his wife, Vicki, are asking just under $11 million for their 13,300-square-foot mansion in New Canaan, Conn.

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Ms. Neeleman spent a year designing the stone mansion and hired a builder and designer from the West Coast, where the couple had previously lived, to work on the home. It was completed in 2008 and has eight bedrooms, eight fireplaces, a pool and a gym with a basketball court. “There are so many homes in New Canaan that are the same thing,” Ms. Neeleman says. “I wanted to do something unique.” She says their prior 8,000-square-foot home nearby felt “squished” with their nine children.

The couple spent more than $17 million on the home and have put it on the market because they may relocate, Ms. Neeleman says. Mr. Neeleman has started a budget airline in Brazil. Lynne Leonard of Lynne Leonard Realty has the listing.

Drummer Max Weinberg Downsizes in New Jersey

Max Weinberg and his wife, Rebecca, are asking $6.5 million for a seven-bedroom, Colonial-style home in Middletown, N.J.

The 8,900-square-foot house, above, is the first home that the prolific real-estate flippers, who also have a Los Angeles home on the market, built from the ground up. The home has a soundproof music room, a movie theater with a lobby and concession area and a pool. There’s also a guest house, a 3,200-square-foot barn and a three-acre skating pond that has bleachers and stadium lighting. “This house was great; it should serve another family,” says Mr. Weinberg, 59, saying he’s downsizing now that his children are grown. The couple is building a smaller home nearby.

The house sits on almost 17 of 40 forested acres that Mr. Weinberg bought in 1997 for less than $1 million. He’s keeping the remaining 23 acres. Since the end of “The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien” Mr. Weinberg has continued to play with Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and his own band. Mary Burke of Heritage House Sotheby’s International Realty has the listing.

Calvin Klein Co-Founder Seeks $21.9 Million for Miami Lot

Calvin Klein co-founder Barry Schwartz has put back on the market an undeveloped three-acre parcel in Miami Beach, Fla., for $21.9 million, about 9% off his $23.9 million asking price in 2008.

WSJ Article

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Mortgage Banks Tightening Credit As Demand Falls | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate

Even as demand for mortgages declined with the expiration of homebuyer tax credit in the third quarter, a small number of banks tightened standards on both prime and nontraditional mortgage loans, reversing a slight net easing reported in the second quarter.

The Federal Reserve’s quarterly survey of senior loan officers released yesterday provides additional fuel for demands by the National Association of Realtors urging lenders to change their lending policies to make it easier for qualified home buyers can become home owners. 

At its board meeting yesterday, the NAR appealed to FHA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac to which it said account for more than 90 percent of the mortgage market, arguing that FHA and GSE underwriting rules eliminate many buyers with credit scores as high as 750, and lenders are imposing credit overlays of their own, restricting the availability of credit.

The most recent tightening of standards on prime mortgage loans was largely accounted for by smaller banks; large banks generally left standards about unchanged. Both large and other banks reported a net tightening of standards on nontraditional mortgage loans. Continuing a pattern seen since the start of the financial crisis, fewer than half of the respondents reported having made such loans. Modest numbers of banks reported weakening demand for both prime and nontraditional mortgage loans to purchase homes.

Lenders began tightening standards for prime as well as non-traditional loans beginning in 2006, reaching a peak in the third quarter and fourth quarters of 2008, when 90 percent of senior loan officers reported to the Federal Reserve that they were planning to tighten lending standards on non-traditional loans and 69 percent planned to tighten standards on prime loans. 

Since then, the number of bankers tightening standards has decreased, but virtually all the changes in underwriting standards imposed following the subprime crisis remain in effect.  During the second quarter of this year, a small fraction of large banks reported having eased standards on prime residential mortgage loans, a trend that was reversed in the third quarter.

NAR said stricter FHA and GSE underwriting rules eliminate many buyers with credit scores as high as 750, and lenders are imposing credit overlays of their own, restricting the availability of credit.

“Under current practices, many would-be home buyers who could responsibly, affordably become home owners are unable to do so,” said Vicki Cox Golder, NAR President. “NAR wants to ensure that anyone who is able and willing to assume the responsibilities of owning a home should have the opportunity to pursue that dream.”

NAR plans to encourage FHA, the GSEs, lenders and federal regulators to assess their credit policies on a regular basis, and will urge them to re-evaluate their policies regarding which home owners can qualify for loan modifications, short sales, or deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure to help more home owners keep their homes or, when that is not possible, help them begin to rebuild their credit.

 

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