Daily Archives: December 17, 2012

Freddie Mac Economist Sees New Households Outpacing Apartment Boom | Cross River Real Estate

Leave a reply

In his 2013 forecast, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, Frank Nothaft, sees more than a million new households bolstering housing starts, driving apartment vacancy rates down to ten year lows and outpacing the boom in new apartment construction.

“The last few months have brought a spate of favorable news on the U.S. housing market with construction up, more home sales, and home-value growth turning positive. This has been a big change from a year ago, when some analysts worried that the looming ’shadow inventory’ would keep the housing sector mired in an economic depression. Instead, the housing market is healing, is contributing positively to GDP and is returning to its traditional role of supporting the economic recovery,” Nothaft says.

Here’s how Nothaft sees the coming year:

  • Next year some regions will post faster house price gains, while some will be stagnant or see value loss fof the year, but overall, the housing recovery continue to strengthen property values and most U.S. house price indexes will likely rise by 2 to 3 percent, according to 2012 forecast from Freddie Mac’s chief economist,
  • Look for fixed-rate mortgage rates to remain near their 65-year record lows for the first half of 2013 then begin rising a bit in the tail end of next year, but staying below 4 percent. In the single-family market, this means homebuyer affordability should remain very high in 2013 for those with good credit history, stable income, and sufficient savings.
  • Household formation will be up. Unemployment, while still high, will likely drift down toward 7.5 percent; the resulting job and income gains will facilitate household formations – meaning that more members of the boomerang generation who have been living in their parents’ basements should start to move out. Look for net growth of 1.20 to 1.25 million households in 2013. These gains will help drive more housing construction and reduce vacancy rates further. Housing starts should be up around the 1.0 million pace (seasonally adjusted annual rate) by the fourth quarter of 2013.
  • Vacancy rates have been trending lower for much of the past three years because household formations have outpaced new construction. To illustrate, in 2012, net household formations through the third quarter totaled 1.15 million but completions of newly built homes (both rental and for sale) were just under 700,000; the difference is made up by a reduction in vacancies. This trend will continue in 2013 and could bring total vacancy rates down to levels last seen a decade ago. While this is good news for property owners, tenants will likely see rents rise a bit faster than prices on all other goods.
  • Refinance activity accounted for the bulk of residential lending in 2012 and will account for the bulk of it in 2013, too. But, simply put, we’ve seen the peak in refinancing. Homeowners who obtained a loan with a low mortgage rate in 2012 or refinanced through the Home Affordable Refinance Program are unlikely to refinance in 2013. Next year’s likely pickup in home sales won’t be enough to offset the coming drop in refinance activity. Consequently, total single-family originations will probably drop by about 15 percent in 2013. On the other hand, permanent financing on newly built apartment buildings, a pickup in property transactions, and refinancing of loans exiting “yield maintenance” terms are expected to increase multifamily lending by about 5 percent.
via realestateeconomywatch.com

Bedford Corners Real Estate | Southeastern and Northeastern Metros Rank Lowest on Home Value Forecast List

Leave a reply

While California and Texas markets dominate the top tier of the latest Home Value Forecast ranking, the bottom of the list includes Southeastern and New York City retional metros that could miss the housing recovery in the months to come due to high inventories and low employment.

“Home Value Forecast has been pointing out for the past year that most of the fundamental factors for a recovery in home sales activity and prices are falling in place. However, the residential real estate market has always had a strong psychological component driven by consumer confidence,” said Tom O’Grady, CEO of Pro Teck Valuation Services. “In this month’s release it is interesting to see how prices reflecting current consumer confidence and longer term market fundamentals like employment track one another, the later always anchoring consumer perception from straying too far.”

Pro Teck Valuation Services’ December Home Value Forecast (HVF) Update explores the relationship between home prices and market fundamentals such as employment predicting that many of the hardest hit markets still show more upside. As the housing inventory has been gobbled up, pushing prices up, activity has slowed and these CBSA’s have dropped off HVF’s Top 10 rank.

According to the HVF contributing editors, swings in sentiment toward the real estate market result in the tendency for home prices to oscillate above and below what they think is a central value for each market.

“During periods of great exuberance, these swings can carry prices far above sustainable values as we saw during the most recent bubble period,” added O’Grady. “Similarly during times of extreme pessimism, these swings can move prices below intrinsic values as we have seen in the past several years. Such behaviors also may help explain why home sales and prices are not reacting in late 2012 the way history would suggest based on historically low interest rates.”

One of the primary drivers in Home Value Forecast’s home price forecast models is employment. December’s update delves into the strong correlations back to the early 1970s of annual percent changes of single family home price and total employment for the Sacramento metro. As HVF reported in August, Sacramento is particularly interesting because home prices overshot on the downside after the market peak in 2006.

“When home prices are rising, home buyers assume that they will keep rising, and when prices are declining, buyers assume that they will continue declining,” O’Grady said. “Rising home prices lift not only consumer confidence, but business confidence as well. They also increase homeowner net worth and encourage those buyers who have been sitting on the fence to purchase. These new buyers lead to higher turnover rates, reinforcing the existing trend.”

This month’s Home Value Forecast update also includes a listing of the 10 best and 10 worst performing metros as ranked by our market condition ranking model. The rankings are run for the single family home markets in the top 200 CBSAs on a monthly basis to highlight the best and worst metros with regard to a number of leading real estate market indicators, including: sales and listing activity and prices, MRI, days on market, sold-to-list price ratio and foreclosure and REO activity.

“Three of the top ranked metros are located in Texas while another three are in Southern California. The former are markets which really did not exhibit bubble conditions during the nationwide run up and, thus, did not need to experience a meaningful housing price correction,” said Michael Sklarz, Principal of Collateral Analytics and contributing author to Home Value Forecast. “The California markets fall into the category of markets which did overshoot on the downside and attracting home buyers looking to take advantage of very favorable prices.”

December’s top CBSAs include:

Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine, CA

Dallas-Plano-Irving, TX

Bethesda-Rockville-Frederick, MD

Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX

Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, WA

Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA

Salt Lake City, UT

Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI

Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, CA

Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX

“The bottom-ranked metros also represent an interesting mix with four being in the greater New York-New Jersey-Connecticut area. There also are four in the Southeast with new additions to the ranking including the metros of Little Rock and Knoxville. Most of the bottom-ranked have double-digit months of remaining housing inventory,” added Sklarz.

The bottom CBSAs for December were:

Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, AR

Virginia-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC

Newark-Union, NJ-PA

Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, OH

Edison, NJ

Knoxville, TN

New York-White Plains-Wayne, NY-NJ

New Haven-Milford, CT

New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, LA

Greenville-Mauldin-Easley, SC

via realestateeconomywatch.com

Home Sellers Awake | Bedford Hills Real Estate

Leave a reply

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

South Salem Real Estate | Google Analytics in Real Life: What would your customer experience look like?

Leave a reply
With the holiday shopping season in full swing, it’s important to ensure your website and digital marketing is running on all cylinders. Your potential customers should be able to find what they need on the digital shelf as easily as in real life. Sadly, many sites leave visitors frustrated – losing potential customers. However, the advantage of your online storefront is that you can understand where you’re losing customers and work to improve your shopping experience.For the holiday season, our team at Google Analytics thought it would be helpful (and fun) to demonstrate how missteps on the digital shelf play out in real life.

What’s distracting your customers?
Have you accidently placed obstacles directly in the path of your customers buying what they really want on your site? Watch Nick’s journey to finding what he wants. Play Video

Improvement Tip:
Always make sure your landing pages meet your users expectations. Be sure your ad text leads visitors to a page that matches what was featured in the ad. Here is a helpful article on ways to improve the performance of your landing pages.

How can it be so challenging to find your favorite type of milk?

Are you making it difficult for users to browse or search your site by the way you categorize your products? Watch as Oli struggles to find his breakfast essentials. Play Video

Improvement Tip:
A search box can be a goldmine of information because each time visitors search your site, they tell you in their own words what they are looking for. Here is an article on insights available from your Google Analytics Site Search reports to learn what your visitors want so you can improve your website to better meet those needs.When do visitors check out from your online buying process?
We shared this last year, but it’s too much fun not to share again. Great example of the importance of having a simple easy to use checkout process on your website. Watch for the humor, stay for the insights.  Play Video

Improvement Tip:
Are there some product pages that consistently send higher traffic through your shopping cart than others? See if there are differences between the page designs that might be driving the difference in traffic volume. Do the better performing pages offer more information about their products, more customer reviews, explain shipping options or provide more options for visualizing the products before adding them to the shopping cart? The Google Analytics goal flow visualization can help to identify these better performing pages to repeat their success.

Ready to learn more about how to improve your online customer experiences? Check out these Google Analytics resources:
– Article: Improve the performance of your landing pages
– 5 questions to ask of your Site Search data
– Understand the path or missteps visitors take to completing your goals with flow analysis

We hope this helps you to find more way to use Google Analytics to make your customers lives easier, and generate more happy and loyal customers for you – now that’s a holiday present worth giving.

via analytics.blogspot.com

Chappaqua Realtor | Celebrate Your Marketing?!

Leave a reply

This guest post is by Karl Staib of Domino Connection.

Have you ever planned out your day and put marketing as the last thing on your list because you just can’t stomach another rejection?

I know I did. I have a popular blog named Work Happy Now that gets 15,000 visits a month. That’s due to backlinks, Google search, and social love. This happened because of my desire to build relationships with people. I didn’t force myself onto anyone. I connected with them via interview, guest post or Twitter. It was this kind of outreach that I enjoyed.

The marketing that I avoided was cold calling, cold emailing, and buying ads on websites. I just didn’t want to build connections with people who weren’t interesting to me.

You marketing should be a celebration instead of some stodgy task that you have to do to get a few sales. If you hate the kind of marketing you’re doing, your business won’t grow.

Think about it this way: everything you do is marketing, from a blog post to a conversation with another blogger. You are creating something. You can create something beautiful and memorable, or you can create something forgettable. It’s up to you.

In this post, I’ve put together a few concepts that you can use to delight and encourage people to talk about your blog.

Give away surprise gifts

Studies have proven when people receive an unexpected gift their dopamine levels skyrocket. Knowing this you can give someone an extra boost to your visitors. You may even want to include a little blurb about it on your blog.

I would suggest keeping track of everyone that leaves a comment on your blog for one month. The person with the most comments for that month wins a free ebook, ecourse, or something along those lines.

The idea is to keep it a surprise. I guarantee that person will keep coming back to your blog and leaving comments for a long time.

Throw an online party

Throwing an online event is a great way to get people talking about you. The technology is so good today that you can do almost any kind virtual event. You can create a webinar, tele-seminar, Twitter party, Facebook giveaway, or a contest that engages people.

The idea is to build authority and friendships with your tribe.

Throw a physical party

An online event is cool because it’s not as stressful as a real-life event, but a live event has a few benefits.

I still remember my first tweetup with Robert Scoble. I’m not really a tech guy, but I wanted to see what a tweetup was all about. Robert was visiting Austin and put together a group of people to meet at the restaurant. He was a cool enough guy, but the best part of the party was the people I met. I still keep in contact with someone I met that night over five years ago.

By creating an event for people that allows them to bond, you are creating something worth sharing. Since Robert threw that Twitter party over five years ago, he gets a link from Problogger.net. That’s priceless.

Help out a charity

My friend Colleen Wainwright created the 50 for 50 event. She promised to shave her head if she was able to raise $50,000 by her 50th birthday.

You should check out her link. She has an image of her shaved head on the page. She was able to raise over $50,000 for WriteGirl, a charity that helps young girls improve their writing skills.

Colleen gets the benefit of raising money for a super-cool charity, but also building her network. I know that’s not why she created the event, but it’s a nice bonus to have a new network of people to help you with your business.

Your story

It’s all about creating a story. If you can get people on board with your story, you are able to create an event that tugs at their hearts.

Chris Guillebeau created The Empire Building Kit to help people who wanted to create a lifestyle business that fits their needs. He wasn’t sure how to get people excited about it, so he went on a trip. His return trip stopped in Chicago and he wasn’t able to get a flight to Portland. His wife suggested that he take the train. At first he balked, but then he found out the train was called Empire Builder.

He then got a bag from Tom Ben called the Empire Builder. Chris realized that he needed to launch the Empire Building Kit while riding on the train back to Portland. He invited his friend J.D. of Get Rich Slowly and it kept building from there. He blogged about the whole trip, turning the story into his launch. A very successful launch.

Can you see how this story sucks you in? This is great marketing that can be a lot of fun. When you are planning on releasing something to the world, you need to have a plan that grabs people’s attention and makes them take notice of who you are and what you created. It’s a little more work than a standard launch, but very much worth your time and energy.

These are just a few ideas, but each of us has a different approach. What have you done to celebrate your marketing and turn it into a fun event?

Check out Karl Staib of Domino Connection and his free e-course “How to Create an Amazing Product Launch,” You can also check out Domino Connection on Facebook because he shares all kinds of great content and tips.

via problogger.net

Property values continue to gain momentum | Pound Ridge Homes

Leave a reply

Monday Morning Cup of Coffee takes a look at news coming across the HousingWire weekend desk, with more coverage to come on bigger issues.

Residential property values in the U.S. continued to gain momentum in October, showing signs of an ongoing expansion in national economic activity, according to FNC’s latest residential price index. By comparison, September values showed little change.

Home prices in the U.S. were up for the eight consecutive month in October by 0.4%, leading to a total appreciation rate of 5.1% year to date. On the other hand, foreclosures dropped from 26.7% at the beginning of the year to 17.6% in October.

See the full residential price index by clicking here.

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said the U.S. government, lender and borrowers need to reset their expectations that anybody can become a homeowner.

“We need to look hard at some of the old assumptions and ask the question is homeownership the right solution for everyone?” Moynihan said.

Moynihan believes the rest should include an alteration in the government’s role in housing and an “orderly transition” in the role of Fannie and Freddie. In order to get even the lowest-income families into homes, Moynihan said the FHA needs to return to its original focus on helping low- and moderate-income borrowers.

“FHA has been instrumental in sustaining the market the past few years, but they have come a long way from their original mission,” he said.

Read the full article by Bloomberg by clicking here.

Boston will enforce a program that gives the Natick Housing Authority, provider of low-income housing for state-assisted families and the elderly, nearly $255,000 in order to fix up 28 vacant units. There are 33 agencies taking part in the state-enforced program.

The program will provide $2.2 million in grant money to help local housing agencies fix up vacant units so they can be rented. Vacant units that are eligible for renovations must require repair costing between $2,500 and $25,000 and the grants will be doled out as reimbursements after the work is complete.

The state officials are tightening the rules a bit, however, requiring that tenants be in the refurbished units by March 31 in order for the local agencies to receive reimbursements.

Read more about the newly announced housing program by clicking here.

The Missouri Division of Finance closed Sunrise Beach, MO.-based Community Banks of the Ozarks on Dec. 14. 2012. The Bank of Sullivan acquired all assets and deposits. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was named Receiver.

Community Bank of the Ozarks owns two branches and $42.8 million in total assets and $41.9 million in total deposits as of Sept. 30, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. According to the FDIC, the two branches will operate as branches of Bank of Sullivan beginning Dec. 15.

It is estimated the closure of Community Bank of the Ozarks will cost $10.4 million for the Deposit Insurance Fund.

via housingwire.com