Daily Archives: February 21, 2014

Home prices rise as market recovers | Bedford Corners NY Homes

Median home prices in Carroll County are on the rise, along with average monthly payments, according to a national survey on home affordability released Wednesday by RealtyTrac, the nation’s leading source on housing data.

These findings are among many recent indicators that show the local housing market is recovering from the 2008 crash that sent values plummeting and flooded the area with foreclosures, said the president of the West Metro Board of Realtors.

“Overall the market is getting a lot more stable and consistent,” said Dwayne Hicks, West Metro president and a broker with Metro West Realty. “If a home is priced right, it’s going to sell. With the values coming back up, current homeowners can move up to a larger house. We’re seeing solid signs of this, with more people putting their homes on the market and getting them sold.”

Hicks said most of the inventory of foreclosed homes that was keeping the market prices down has been sold. He said investors are bidding prices up on the remaining foreclosures left.

The median Carroll County home value at the end of 2013 was $96,267, up from $66,667 at the end of 2012, a 44 percent increase.

Along with the higher home prices, the average monthly payment rose from $288 at the end of 2012 to $458 at the end of 2013, a 59 percent increase.

During the same time period, the average Carroll County rental cost for a three-bedroom home rose slightly, from $1,158 to $1,187.

“Our rental market climbed a little, but it didn’t pick up as much as rentals in other parts of the country because we have a big rental market here with the university,” Hicks said.

http://www.times-georgian.com/article_42de3404-99e6-11e3-8194-0017a43b2370.html

Rapid home price gains make renting more attractive, study says | Chappaqua NY Homes

It’s now cheaper to rent than own.

Across a large swath of Southern California, owning a house has become less attractive financially in the wake of rapid home price gains last year, according to a new study.

The mortgage payment on a median-priced, three-bedroom would exceed the rent on a comparable property in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties, according to a RealtyTrac analysis released Thursday, based on prices from the fourth quarter of 2013.

Nationwide, there were only 29 large counties in that situation, including the Northern California counties of Santa Clara, Alameda and San Francisco. A year earlier, nowhere in Southern California was rent cheaper than monthly house payments.

In Los Angeles County, RealtyTrac reported, the monthly house payment for a median-priced three-bedroom was $1,987 — about $100 more expensive than fair market rent for a similar property, as calculated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

A year earlier, house payments were about $500 a month cheaper than rent.

The median price for a three-bedroom L.A. County house was $417,333 in the fourth quarter. The monthly house payment for such a home rose 40% compared with the fourth quarter of 2012.

To qualify to purchase such a house, a buyer would now need to make at least $95,389 annually, according to RealtyTrac. That’s about $42,000 more than the median-household income and $27,000 more than the income needed to buy the median house a year earlier.

The widening disparity between rent and home prices underscores a growing affordability crunch across the region. Real estate experts say the high costs, without corresponding income growth, have depressed sales

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-rent-or-buy-20140220,0,6388101.story#ixzz2ty69WsxW

Owners again borrowing against homes as housing market recovers | Armonk Homes

Retired aerospace engineer Owen Klasen was rejected last year when he sought a second mortgage to paint and re-roof his house.

Home prices hadn’t risen enough, the loan officer told him.

But last month, the same loan officer offered him more than double the credit he needed.

“I told him I needed $25,000” on a home equity line of credit, said Klasen, who lives in Fillmore in Ventura County. “He said we were qualified to go up to $60,000.”

Klasen is among a wave of homeowners in California and nationally who are again putting their homes in hock — despite the costly lessons of the housing meltdown.

After a home equity credit binge during the housing bubble, banks shut off the tap as home prices plummeted. Sobered homeowners stopped viewing equity as free money for cars, vacations and college educations.

But now second mortgages are back in vogue. Homeowners in the six-county Southern California region took out 47,542 home equity lines of credit last year — 48% more than in 2012, according to research firm DataQuick. The median credit line was $100,000.

The same trend is taking hold nationwide. Bank of America, for instance, saw its home equity business surge 75% last year compared with 2012, said Matthew Potere, who oversees home equity lending for the Charlotte, N.C., giant. In the fourth quarter, BofA issued $1.9 billion in new home equity credit lines, up from $1 billion a year earlier.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-home-equity-20140219,0,1496901.story#ixzz2ty5oOA3k