Daily Archives: February 21, 2014

Checking In On The East Side Access Project’s Massive Caverns | Armonk Real Estate

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exc1.jpg [All photos by Rehema Trimiew for MTA Capital Construction via Gizmodo]

Last we heard of the plagued East Side Access Project, the tunnel extending the LIRR to Grand Central station was not due to be completed until 2023 at a cost of $10.8 billion, a decade later and $6.5 billion more than anticipated. Now, checking in with the project via a series of photos Gizmodo brought to our attention, we’re almost willing to forgive the delay and massive overdraft. The project is indeed moving forward, and doing so on a scale so massive that it’s almost too large for a picture to capture. The photos, on the Grand Central Terminal side of the project, show what will become a new subterranean station for the LIRR. Gizmodo notes that the tunnel’s yellow walls won’t stay that way forever, as the coatings are just geotextiles that will get covered over with some drab concrete. Nevertheless, these photos of the cavernous excavations taking place below our very feet are certainly humbling (and reassuring that progress is indeed being made.)

 

 

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/02/21/checking_in_on_the_east_side_access_projects_massive_caverns.php

 

4 signs the real estate market is in trouble | South Salem NY Real Estate

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wish I’d said this (and in a few weeks I will have, I’m sure) but Ramsey Su at Acting Man Blog did it first and in a way I’ve been searching for the words to explain.

Every week or so we get another indicator that’s supposed to tell us how the housing market is doing.

And every part of the industry trumpets whichever metric best serves its own purpose. Thus you have the Mortgage Bankers Association touting this “good news” about interest rates, while the National Association of Realtors touts how rising home prices are a great sign, and on and on.

But none of these measures – home sales, home starts, home prices, interest rates – tell the real tale.

Then along comes this boy named Su, who gets right to the heart of the matter:

The strength of the real estate market should not be measured by price appreciation, or the number of new and existing home sales. It should be measured by the support of underlying fundamentals and whether they can help to withstand economic cycles without policy makers having to go hog wild just to avoid a total collapse.

How healthy is the real estate market today?

He looks at some troubling measures we’ve noted at HousingWire – the decline of income growth, the bulk of Americans having subprime credit, and the fact that there’s nothing left in the Fed for another bailout if (when) things go pear-shaped again.

1. The Subprime Majority

Recently, I came across a report by the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) titled Assets and Opportunity Scorecard. Some of their findings are quite interesting. According to the CFED Scorecard, 56% of all consumers have sub-prime credit. Sub-prime is “earned”. A consumer has to miss a few payments, or default on a loan or two to earn that status. These 56% cannot, or should not, be taking on more debt, especially a large debt like a mortgage.  They may also be struggling with a mortgage that they should not have taken out in the first place.

And with so few companies willing to loosen credit standards, even the worthy subprime don’t have many options.

2. Liquid Asset Poor

CFED found that 44% of households in America are Liquid Asset Poor, defined as having saved less than three months of expenses. As one would expect, 78% of the lowest income households are asset poor, but 25% of middle class ($56k to $91k) households also have less than three months of expenses saved.

How much of a down payment can you expect them to have on hand?

 

 

http://www.housingwire.com/blogs/1-rewired/post/28994-signs-the-real-estate-market-is-in-trouble

World’s 10 most spectacular university buildings | Waccabuc Real Estate

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If the memory of your university is a somewhat hazy mix of missed lectures, cheap food, empty beer cans and cold, concrete classrooms, you won’t recognize this list.

Hamburg-based architectural data company Emporis recently released a report on what it’s calling “the world’s most spectacular university buildings.”

“Lecture halls at dizzying heights, libraries with glass-domed roofs or crooked seminar rooms with slanting walls — it is not just in the field of learning that universities have plenty to offer, but on an architectural level, too,” the report stated.

The 10 buildings include Lomonosov Moscow State University, the world’s tallest university building at 240 meters; Swanston Academic Building in Australia, which “catches the eye with its wavy and jagged façade”; and Bradfield Hall at Cornell University in the United States, which is “almost entirely windowless.”

The report also describes how old school university buildings are gradually being replaced.

“One by one, chunky relics of the ’60s and ’70s are being torn down,” it states, citing the demolition of the AfE‑Turm in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, which was brought down earlier this month in Europe’s largest inner-city controlled blasting.

 

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/19/travel/spectacular-university-buildings/index.html?hpt=wo_bn2

Mount Kisco Native Documents History Of Mount Kisco Golf Club | Mt Kisco NY Real Estate

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From caddy, to tournament champion, to now historian, Garth Bishop’s love affair with the Mount Kisco Golf Club has lasted a lifetime.

The Mount Kisco native, 59, has written an article detailing the club’s history dating back to the early 20th century, and is in the process of writing a book on the subject.

“My hope for the book is to make sure that the history gets recorded, period,” he said. “There are some things that need to be set in stone for the record before it gets missed forever.”

Bishop spent his summers caddying at Mount Kisco Golf Club starting at the age of 12. He started playing the game at Geneva College, and was a member from 1978 to 1987.

“In an effort to learn more about the Golf course homes for sale I’ve done some research over the last 35 years because it seems to have some sentimental value to me,” he said.

That research has included collecting newspaper articles, brochures, pamphlets, photos and anything he can get his hands on.

Before taking its current name from a failed competitor in 1941, the club was known as the Lawrence Family Country Club, which opened for play in 1930 to this golf community homes. A few years earlier, Lawrence Properties of Westchester County acquired 1,000 acres of land in town, including the famous 436-acre Annandale Farm.

http://mtkisco.dailyvoice.com/neighbors/mount-kisco-native-documents-history-mount-kisco-golf-club

Is Wells Fargo Getting Back Into Subprime Mortgages? | Cross River Real Estate

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Wells Fargo is once again setting sail on subprime mortgage waters, despite how choppy they were several years ago. The bank will consider mortgage applicants with credit scores as low as 600, announced Franklin Codel, a Wells Fargo mortgage executive. Previously, the minimum was 640, and this change applies to purchase mortgages to be guaranteed by the Federal Housing Administration.

Lenders routinely re-evaluate their standards as consumer credit trends shift, and Wells Fargo considered applicants with credit scores in the low 600s as recently as the fourth quarter of 2011, said Tom Goyda, a Wells Fargo spokesman. In fact, that threshold was 500 in January 2011. The 640 benchmark had been in place since about November 2012, before the change to 600 last year.

There are dozens of credit scoring models, but most lenders use the 301 to 850 range, and anything in the 600 to 649 bracket is considered poor, or subprime. Consumers in the next highest credit tier (650 to 699, aka near prime) enjoyed increased access to home loans over the last several quarters, according to data from Experian-Oliver Wyman Market Intelligence Reports and Experian’s IntelliView tool. (The tool uses the VantageScore model but breaks down borrowers into tiers like prime, near-prime, etc.)

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/wells-fargo-getting-back-subprime-123018201.html

 

Are mortgage servicers back to their old tricks? | Katonah Real Estate

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The housing crisis of 2007-2008 pummeled home prices and tossed millions of people out of their homes because they couldn’t make their mortgage payments. Home prices and sales have rebounded and foreclosures have declined since then, but now there are signs that the recovery may be faltering.

The New York Times reported this week that the same abuses by lenders and mortgage servicers that led to massive foreclosures during the housing crisis are creeping back into the market.

Steven Antonakes, the deputy director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, told an industry meeting of servicers Wednesday that he remains “deeply disappointed by the lack of progress the mortgage servicing industry has made” despite “some improvements,” according to American Banker.

David Stevens, chief executive of the Mortgage Bankers Association, which hosted that meeting, told The Daily Ticker that he can’t speak directly to the Times story but he’s “sure this new set of allegations…will be looked into” and that they reflect “past practice.”

 

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/new-rules-for-mortgage-servicers–will-they-really-protect-borrowers–132212701.html

 

5 Cities Most Likely to Serve Up a Soul Mate | Bedford Hills Real Estate

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If true love hasn’t found you this Valentines Day, here’s a look at five cities you can move to if you want to boost your odds of meeting the perfect mate.

“We feel that these are the places you should go to if you want to find love,” says economist Krishna Rao of real-estate site Zillow.com, which this week released its Valentines Day Index of America’s most singles-friendly locales.

The firm analyzed America’s 50 largest metro areas for three criteria key to finding your soul mate:

  • what percent of the local population is single;
  • how many restaurants and other date-friendly sites a place has per capita;
  • how much disposable income the typical single has — an important consideration if you expect your date to at least sometimes pick up the check.

Rao says singles-friendly cities are actually harder than you’d think to find, as unmarried people make up just 50.8% of America’s total 15-and-older population.

Zillow also estimates that the typical single has just $1,301 a month of gross income left after paying rent — not always enough to pay for dates considering that also has to cover taxes, car payments and other expenses.

Lastly, Rao says the average U.S. community has just 15.9 restaurants, bars, museums and other date-suitable establishments for every 10,000 residents, meaning there aren’t always lots of interesting places to go.

In Tight Housing Market Baby Boomers Block Young Buyers | Bedford NY Real Estate

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Baby Boomer homeowners are cornering the housing market while potential young buyers are increasingly locked out. BBVA Compass research reveals recovering home values are boosting the equity of older homeowners, allowing them to buy new or second homes — many times with cash — while younger adults are faced with higher housing prices that exceed their buying power.

“For these prospective homebuyers, home prices have risen faster than their incomes during the recovery,” BBVA Compass economist Jason Frederick says in his 2014 housing outlook. “Currently, home prices are now on the high end of a historical relationship between median home prices and median family income, and young families will need to see faster income growth and save additional money to make a larger down payment.”

The report says that builders are more frequently targeting buyers age 55 and up due to their rising home equity and net worth, a factor that is likely contributing to the increase of all-cash transactions. About 42% of residential sales in December 2013 were all-cash purchases, up from just 18% in December 2012.

“Older homeowners are increasingly able to purchase a new residence with cash only after they sell their current home,” Frederick says. “One factor holding back the growth of owner-occupied homes has been weak purchase demand from young families and households. Many early-career professionals are saddled with high student debt burdens that constrain their capacity to borrow.”

But Frederick believes that late-career professionals and older homeowners will help sustain sales. Overall, he has a positive outlook for the housing market in 2014 as the economy slowly recovers; noting that home prices rose in all 50 states last year, delinquency rates have declined sharply, and the pace of foreclosures is slowing. His analysis projects…

 

http://www.mainstreet.com/article/real-estate/tight-housing-market-baby-boomers-block-young-buyers

Spring Thaw May Not Heat up This Housing Market | Pound Ridge NY Homes

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The severe winter weather has been a convenient scapegoat for the slowdown in the housing market. While many analysts and builders predict a significant pickup in activity in the spring, slack demand may continue to define an uneven recovery — even as green grass replaces ice in the coming months.

The Commerce Department said Wednesday that groundbreaking on new homes last month tumbled 16 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 880,000 units, the lowest level since September. The percentage drop was the largest since February 2011. Starts for December were revised up to a 1.05 million-unit pace from the previously reported 999,000-unit rate.

Warmer weather could certainly get more people out looking, but with monthly payments potentially much higher this year, new buyers will have to clear a high bar.

“There must be low demand — that’s what we’re seeing,” said Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, an online real estate brokerage based in California. “We saw a huge spike in demand last year, which is why we were so confident the market had bottomed. … We’re not seeing the same thing this year, so even though there aren’t many homes for sale, there aren’t many buyers looking for them, either.”

 

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/#/business/real-estate/spring-thaw-may-not-heat-housing-market-n33531