A continuing slide in the volume of distressed properties seen in the housing market is helping to boost home prices in many parts of the country. Meanwhile, uncertainty about the impact of next month’s national elections appears to be causing some would-be homebuyers to delay taking any action until after November, according to the October HousingPulse survey  of real estate agents.

The survey found that one major reason behind the rise in home prices is a fairly sharp drop in the share of distressed properties found in recent home sales.

The HousingPulse Distressed Property Index (DPI), which tracks the proportion of home purchase transactions involving distressed properties, fell to a record low of 38.6 percent in September based on a three-month moving average. This was the fifth month in a row that the DPI has fallen, and is now down more than 10 percentage points from the near-record-high 48.7 percent DPI level recorded in February of this year.

The precipitous drop in the share of distressed properties in the housing market is largely attributable to fewer foreclosed properties or real estate owned (REO) being put up for sale by banks. HousingPulse respondents reported in October that major banks appear to be keeping many REO properties off the market this year. But they also suggest banks may be looking to unload significant amounts of REO next year – a move that could put downward pressure on home prices.

In addition to the standard monthly questions about housing market conditions, HousingPulse respondents were asked in this month’s survey whether the upcoming national elections were having any impact on the housing market in their area. Interestingly, the results were mixed.

A number of agents reported that home sales had slowed in September and October as many homebuyers were taking a wait-and-see attitude about the elections. “We are seeing middle-to-high-income buyers pausing due to the upcoming elections. We hear it daily,” reported an agent in Georgia. “It [the election] is having a negative effect on home sales in our market. Everyone is waiting to see who gets elected in November,” added an agent in Pennsylvania.

But other agents reported the upcoming presidential election was actually spurring some home purchases by buyers concerned that mortgage interest rates would rise after November. “Many of my clients are worried about interest rates rising after the election and feel they may be artificially held down by the current administration,” noted an agent in Virginia. “I think now people are in a hurry before the election and not knowing what the future will hold after the elections,” added an agent in New York.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• Share/Save

New homes, the hottest sector of the real estate market, got even hotter in September as sales hit the fastest pace in two and a half years.

Sales of newly built, single-family homes rose 5.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 389,000 units in September, according to newly released figures from HUD and the U.S. Census Bureau. This is the fastest sales pace recorded since April of 2010.

“Combined with consistent, positive reports on housing starts, permits, prices and builder confidence in recent months, today’s data provides further confirmation that a gradual but steady housing recovery is underway across much of the nation,” said Barry Rutenberg, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Gainesville, Fla. “Consumers who have been on the sidelines during the past few years are deciding now is the time to go forward with a new-home purchase, assuming they can qualify for a good mortgage under today’s exceedingly stringent guidelines.”

“New-home sales this year have consistently and significantly out-paced their year-ago levels as favorable interest rates, rising prices and improving consumer confidence have driven demand higher,” noted NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. “Meanwhile, despite a small increase in the inventory of new homes on the market in September, the number of completed new homes for sale is now at an all-time low and the month’s supply is at its tightest since October 2005. This is an indication that builders continue to have a tough time obtaining construction credit, even as demand for new homes increases.”

Three out of four regions registered substantial gains in new-home sales this September, including the Northeast’s 16.7 percent increase, the South’s 16.8 percent increase and the West’s 3.9 percent increase. The Midwest was the exception to the rule, with a 37.3 percent decline.

Meanwhile, the inventory of new homes for sale inched slightly upward to a still-low 145,000 units in September, which is a 4.5-month supply at the current sales pace.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• Share/Save

The continuing decline in listing inventories that is choking home sales this fall inspired one of the Internet’s leading real estate Web sites to take a fresh approach.

Zillow today began displaying 1.8 million pre-foreclosure and foreclosed properties in its home search for free, providing buyers information on homes are not yet listed for sale and can’t be found on any Multiple Listing Service (MLS), nor are they freely available on other real estate sites.

With inventories of listed homes falling by 20 percent over the past year, buyers now will able to see a broader inventory in their market, both pre-market and for-sale, even if they can’t make an offer on homes that are not yet on the market. Zillow’s introduction of pre-market inventory enables buyers to see not only homes that are currently listed for sale, but homes that will soon be listed for sale.

“This is another tremendous step forward in consumer empowerment. Zillow is taking information that was really only available to a select group – in this case, savvy investors – and making it more easily available to interested home buyers,” said Spencer Rascoff, Zillow’s CEO. “What’s more, bringing this information to light, and taking this inventory out of the shadows, can help bring these homes to market faster than ever before.”

Zillow’s pre-market inventory includes:

• More than 1.5 million pre-foreclosure properties: Homes where the lender has initiated foreclosure proceedings or an auction has been scheduled.
• 250,000 foreclosed properties: Homes that are owned by a bank or a lender but have not yet been listed for sale.
• More than 147,000 Make Me Move® properties: This is a Zillow feature where homeowners have named a “dream price” for which they would potentially sell their home.

Data on these properties include:

• Foreclosure Estimate: Zillow’s estimate of the sale price of the home if sold as a foreclosure, in addition to the percentage and dollar discount this represents off fair market value.
• Number of beds and baths, square footage and historical sales and listing history.
• Foreclosure details, including: timeline of the foreclosure process, foreclosing loan amount, unpaid balance, lender, trustee and/or attorney information.

Zillow also announced it is launching the Zillow Foreclosure Center, which provides consumers with information and how-to guides on navigating the foreclosure process and answers frequently asked questions about foreclosures.

Additionally, with this launch, Zillow is surfacing addresses and detailed information for more than 67,000 foreclosure listings (bank-owned homes currently listed for sale) in its for-sale search category.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• Share/Save

Home prices in New York’s Hamptons, the Long Island oceanside retreat for summering Manhattanites, declined in the third quarter as mortgage rates near record lows focused buyer attention on cheaper properties.

The median price of homes that sold in the period fell 10 percent from a year earlier to $765,000, according to a report today by New York appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. In the Hamptons and North Fork, the median for luxury properties, defined as the top 10 percent of all sales, fell 23 percent to $4.23 million. About 63 percent of luxury deals were for properties under $5 million.

“Multimillion-dollar properties, that’s the brand of the Hamptons,” said Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel. “But there’s an expansion to that, so its not as one- dimensional as it was during the peak.”

Property prices that are 30 percent below their 2007 peak have drawn new buyers to the second-home market in the Hamptons, according to Miller. Homes priced at less than $1 million, which draw buyers who rely on mortgages, accounted for 70 percent of sales in the quarter as borrowing costs approached all-time lows, he said.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed U.S. home loan fell to a record-low 3.36 percent earlier this month, according to McLean, Virginia-based mortgage-financier Freddie Mac.

‘Unprecedented Opportunity’

“If you look at monthly payments on mortgages, the prices have become very competitive with rental prices,” said Terry Thompson, a Southampton-based broker with Prudential Douglas Elliman. “Low interest rates and lower-priced homes are giving renters an unprecedented opportunity to own versus rent.”

Thompson helped Gennaro Vendome and his wife, Carol, find a four-bedroom home in Hampton Bays for $490,000, a 4.9 percent discount from its original asking price, after they decided to sell the Montauk property that they owned since 2005 and move further west. They chose Hampton Bays after Thompson found a place in the town for their daughter’s in-laws for $615,000.

The Manhattan couple had been searching for a new second home in a town that was closer to the city and offered amenities such as movie theaters within a shorter drive, according to Gennaro Vendome. The trade was well-timed, he said. The couple sold the Montauk home for a profit and completed the new transaction with cash.

“There are some real great deals out there, great homes,” said Vendome, 66, a real estate investor who owns apartment properties in Manhattan and Queens. “The home we got, I would say in the pre-banking collapse days, that would be close to a million-dollar home.”

Stable Investment

Brown Harris Stevens, which also released a report on the Hamptons today, said the number of homes sold for less than $1 million in the quarter increased 25 percent from a year earlier. The surge pushed down the median price of single-family properties that changed hands in the period to $850,000, a 6 percent drop from the third quarter of 2011, according to the brokerage.

“There’s a lot of people worried about Wall Street,” said Gregory Heym, chief economist for New York-based Brown Harris Stevens. “Bond yields are at record lows, and people look to real estate to provide both the stability and a higher rate of return.”

Sellers Wait

The number of Hamptons homes on the market declined 16 percent from a year earlier to 1,302 as owners refrained from listing their properties, Miller said. The absorption rate, or amount of time it would take to sell all the listed homes at the current pace of deals, was 9.6 months, down from 11.7 months a year earlier.

“Sellers become buyers, and if they can’t trade up, they wait,” Miller said.

With the Federal Reserve signaling it will keep borrowing costs low through 2015, sellers aren’t in a rush to capitalize on rising buyer demand, he said.

“The sense of urgency has been removed,” Miller said. “Sellers aren’t worried that they’re going to miss the market.”

In the East Hampton area, purchases climbed 14 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, according to a report this month by brokerage Town & Country Real Estate. The combined dollar value of the 48 homes that sold jumped 36 percent from a year earlier to $71.5 million, while the median price fell 16 percent to $712,500.

In Bridgehampton, purchases climbed 23 percent to 32 deals, while the median price fell 34 percent to $1.63 million, Town & Country said. Those figures also include the areas of Water Mill and Sagaponack.

To contact the reporter on this story: Oshrat Carmiel in New York at ocarmiel1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kara Wetzel at kwetzel@bloomberg.net

Whether you’re the type who anxiously waits for Sherwin Williams and Pantone to release the latest palettes each year or are merely tired of the ’70s hue that dominates your vanity top, painting over a laminate counter is a relatively inexpensive and simple way to change up the color in your bathroom. Just plan carefully, from the paint selection at the start to the three weeks of curing at the end, says Stephen Ingerson, color specialist for Hirschfield’s, Inc., a full-service decorating center based in Minneapolis.

“Your color choice is so wide open, but remember it will need to coordinate with the wall color, floor and accessories, without necessarily matching it,” says Ingerson. “Take a look at what’s going on with the newest laminates to get an idea of color trends you can approximate with paint.”

Also consider how long the color will need to work with your bathroom decor. “A color like bright blue is fine if you’re just looking for a temporary fix and intend to buy new laminate or a solid surface to replace it in a year,” says Ingerson, whose company is also the largest manufacturer of trade sales paint in Minnesota. “But usually you need to think about color that will still look good if you don’t change anything for a long time. Just think of all those rose and light blue counters that are still around from the ’70s.”

And since the counter is so large and so close to the bathroom mirror, its color should be good with your coloring — nothing that makes you look sickly and nothing so bright you can’t look at it for long. “Most important, it should be something that you want to see when you first get up in the morning,” says Ingerson.

Once you find a color that meets all those criteria, follow these steps for a high-quality paint job:

 

1. Clean the countertop with warm soap and water and dry it with a soft cloth.

    

2. Lightly sand the counter with 150-grit sandpaper and wipe off any dust with a damp cloth.

    

3. Prime the entire surface with 100 percent acrylic primer. “You want a flash-bond primer, one that will stick to the laminate and that will allow paint to stick to it,” says Ingerson, who suggests XIM primer, Benjamin Morris Fresh Start, Bullseye 1-2-3 or any other high-quality primer that says on the label it’s intended to cover gloss or high-gloss surfaces.

    

4. Let the first coat of primer dry and then apply a second.

    

5. When the second coat of primer is dry, paint over it with a couple of coats of latex satin or semi-gloss enamel, allowing each coat to dry before painting another.

    

6. After the finish coat is dry, seal it with a couple of coats of clear acrylic. “Make sure to use satin or semi-gloss, because the higher the shine in the acrylic, the stronger it is and the more protection it offers against scratches and wear,” says Ingerson. “Avoid egg shell or flat paint.”

The acrylic seal will dry quickly, says Ingerson, but it’s important to go easy on the counter for a while anyhow. “The seal takes two or three weeks to cure, and during that time you shouldn’t scrub it, just wipe it off lightly with a damp cloth,” he says. “Of course, you never want to use scouring powder or other abrasives on an acrylic-seal painted counter, even after curing.”

But you don’t have to wait three or even two weeks to make changes if you don’t like the color — that’s one of the benefits of working with inexpensive paint in lieu of solid surfaces or even laminates. “Get a good look at the finish coat once it’s dry, because of course a lot of times paint on a counter won’t look the same as it did on the color swatch or in the photo you’re working from,” says Ingerson.

If you don’t like it, it’s back to Square Two. “Lightly sand the finish coat and then put on another coat of primer before painting it a different color,” says Ingerson.

And if you’re the type that sees something you like each time the new color palettes are issued, you can repeat the whole process every couple of months — it’s quick, it’s simple, and it’s ever so easy to change with the color trends.

Resources

Hirshfields paints, wallcovers and window fashions
www.hirshfields.com