Daily Archives: December 14, 2012

Vermont Named Healthiest State of 2012 | Chappaqua Real Estate

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vermont healthy state

The annual report, now in its 22nd year, measures problems and progress in all 50 states in the U.S. – using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Census Bureau and American Medical Association.

While the report concludes we’re living longer (life expectancy is now 78.5 years), the flip side is that we’re living sicker. ”What worries us in particular about this year’s report is that some key risk factors that are driving up preventable chronic illness are getting worse,” Dr. Reed Tuckson told CBSNews.com.

An incredible 26% of the country (1 in 4) in physically inactive – a sedentary lifestyle that can lead to such health problems as heart disease, diabetes and certain forms of cancers. The report also found some 66 million Americans to be obese – 27.8% of the country and rising.

“There’s no way that this country can possibly afford the medical care costs and consequences of these preventable chronic illnesses,” says Tuckson. “We have two freight trains headed directly into each other unless we take action now.”

“People have to be successful at taking accountability for their own health-related decisions.”

Vermont scored the top position for the sixth year in the row due to its high rate of high school graduation, low violent crime rate, low incidence of infectious disease, low prevalence of low birthweight infants, high per capita public health funding, a low rate of uninsured population, and ready availability of primary care physicians.

Coming in second was Hawaii – followed by New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Minnesota.

For the 22nd year in a row Mississippi and Louisiana scored near the bottom – with Miss. in particular reporting more than 800,000 adults living a sedentary lifestyle, 780,000 adults that are obese and almost 280,000 adults with diabetes.

Check out the full rankings here.

Photo credit: Shutterstock.com

via ecorazzi.com

Home Sellers Awake | Bedford Hills Real Estate

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A year of record low inventories of homes for sale and improving prices may finally be catching the attention of millions of prospective home sellers.  Is a seller’s market in the offing?

According to a November consumer survey released today, 22 percent of homeowners said they are likely or somewhat likely to sell in 2013.  Should the sales materialize, the number of homes on the market next year would increase five-fold over 2012.  Annualized sales were 4.71 million (as of October), or about 6.2 percent of the nation’s 75 million owner-occupied homes.

The survey found that homeowners who bought their homes between 2010 and 2012 and have owned then less than two years are more likely to sell than those who have lived in their homes longer.  One out of three homeowners (33 percent) who bought their homes in the past two years said there are likely to sell next year compared to 20 percent who bought before 2002.

Most of the new owners seeking to sell are probably move-up buyers who won’t be adding to the overall inventory but will be vacating entry-level homes, which are in high demand in most markets.  For years, low home values have frozen move-up buyers in place, many of them underwater.  Today 22 percent of owners with a mortgage still owe more than their homes are worth.

“2013 could be the year that inventory turns around, just as 2012 was the year that prices started recovering,” said Jed Kolko, Trulia’s chief economist. “Homebuyers need inventory to choose from, and with fewer foreclosures on the market, new inventory will come from new construction or homeowners wanting to sell. Rising prices will bring out more sellers, especially if price increases lift them back above water. ”

The Trulia survey also looked at attitudes towards homeownership.  Millennials (18-34 year olds) said they haven’t completely written off homeownership. In fact, 72 percent of these young adults said homeownership is part of their personal American Dream, which is the same as the adult population overall. Among renters in this age group, 93 percent plan to purchase a home someday. Meanwhile 43 percent of young adults are homeowners already.

Yet despite these long-term aspirations, Millennials have much more negative expectations for the housing market in 2013 than older generations. Younger adults have a harder time imagining price increases and higher mortgage rates than older adults who have lived through more years of rising prices and high rates.  Just 37 percent of Millennials expect prices to rise in the next year, and 22 percent expect prices to fall:

“Millennials have been shaken, not scarred by the housing bust,” said Kolko. “Nearly all of them want to own a home someday, if they’re not homeowners already. But many of them think today’s low prices and low mortgage rates will last. They may be in for sticker shock if the cost of homeownership has returned to normal levels by the time they’re ready to buy.”

via realestateeconomywatch.com

Fitch: Regional Problems Hamper Recovery | Bedford Corners Real Estate

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In addition to banks’ tight mortgage lending standards that were criticized by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke two weeks ago, Fitch also said continued recovery in residential real estate prices will require regional improvements.

Meaningful improvement is likely to be hampered by slow foreclosure processing in judicial. The judicial process governing liquidations in states, including New Jersey and New York, may add more than six months to the timeline. While home prices in those states fell less than in many others during the downturn, both have seen prices erode in the past year.

Meaningful improvement in housing is also being hindered by regional unemployment rates said the Fitch ratings service in an article that originally appeared as a post on the Fitch Wire credit market commentary page.

On Nov. 20, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics released unemployment data showing the Pacific region continued to report the highest jobless rate at 9.5 percent, while the lowest was the West North Central at 5.6 percent. Just two of the regions reported statistically significant unemployment rate changes. The rate in the South fell by 0.2 percent and the West by 0.1 percent.

The service said that at the national level, tight residential lending practices must be loosened before a meaningful recovery can take root. While tight underwriting practices were appropriate after the collapse in the subprime mortgage market, at a speech last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said “it seems likely at this point that the pendulum has swung too far the other way, and that overly tight lending standards may now be preventing creditworthy borrowers from buying homes, thereby slowing the revival in housing and impeding the economic recovery.”

via realestateeconomywatch.com