Fed officials stay cautious in shifting market | 2014-01-08 | HousingWire.
Fed officials stay cautious in shifting market | Bedford Hills Real Estate
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Prices to Plateau for Months? | Bedford Hills NY Homes
The price increases that drove the recovery in 2013, wiping out $232 billion in negative equity and prompting millions of owners to sell, may go out with a whimper when the new year arrives, leaving real estate markets with anemic price gains, if any, for months to come.
There is a growing consensus among economists and analysts that the recent slowdown in price increases is not just a seasonal lull, but the beginning of a plateau that could last through the late fall and winter months.
A new analysis by CoreLogic economist Molly Boesel examines the relationship between CoreLogic’s HPI index and list prices in recent months and suggests that, since the asking price for new listings has decreased over the past four months. “If the relationship between new listing prices and the HPI holds, this is an indication that the HPI will also be leveling off,” she wrote in an article released today.
In the same CoreLogic publication, CoreLogic’s deputy chief economist, Sam Khater, found that houses in lower price tiers are a barometer of the overall market. Low-end price changes and levels lead higher end prices by six months to a year. Low-end prices also are much more volatile because buyers of low-tier homes-first-time buyers, investors, and lower income repeat buyers are more sensitive to economic trends than higher end home buyers.
“Clearly lower-end homes prices are decelerating especially in the former boom-bust markets in the Southwest,” Khater wrote, “Current low-end prices are 22 percentage points above higher-end prices, the biggest gap during the past two decades. This indicates that the low-end price corrections over and that overall price growth will be markedly slower heading into 2014.”
The latest price reports on November from realtor.com based on its listings show prices declined 0.7 from to a 6.9 percent year over year price increase. Trulia reported asking home prices rose 1.0 percent month-over-month, the greatest monthly increase in five months. . Clear Capital reported home prices cooled off to a 10.8% year-over-year growth, a slight tapering over the previous quarter’s 11.0% yearly growth. The CoreLogic Pending HPI indicates that November 2013 home prices, including distressed sales, are expected to remain at the same level month over month as October 2013, with a projected increase of 12.2 percent on a year-over-year basis from November 2012. Excluding distressed sales, November 2013 home prices are poised to rise just 0.4 percent month over month from October 2013 and 11.3 percent year over year from November 2012.
http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/12/prices-to-plateau-for-months/
Marin luxury real estate market rebounds | Bedford Hills Homes
Power: Few storm-related outages reported | Bedford Hills NY Homes
Nearly everyone appeared to have electricity in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties Friday morning in the wake of the overnight snowstorm.
Consolidated Edison, Orange & Rockland Utilities, NYSEG, and Central Hudson Gas and Electric were showing few weather-related outages in the three counties.
“We had almost no activity last night,” Orange and Rockland spokesman Michael Donovan said. The dry, light snow left by the storm “didn’t have an impact on the system whatsoever,” he said.
Sidney Alvarez, a Consolidated Edison spokesman, said just a handful of Westchester customers were left without power. A fuse in a transformer in Greenburgh blew at 7:43 a.m., he said, leaving 116 customers near the intersection of Underhill Road and Central Park Avenue without lights for several hours. By about 10:45 a.m., however, power had been restored to all but eight customers in the area.
In Ossining, he said, a vehicle struck a utility pole, leaving 21 customers there without power.
“We were prepared for some major impacts on our system,” Alvarez said. “We’re quite fortunate that Mother Nature didn’t have a huge impact.”
In Yonkers, a city of 200,000 people, only seven customers were without power.
http://www.lohud.com/article/20140103/NEWS02/301030041/Power-Few-storm-related-outages-reported
Australia House-Price Jump Rekindles Bubble Fears | Bedford Hills Homes
Home prices in Australia’s main cities surged in 2014, deepening concern a possible housing bubble may be forming that could potentially derail a fragile economic recovery.
The country’s property market ran hot again last year with prices nationally rising at the fastest pace in more than three years, fueled by record-low interest rates and growing demand for investment housing.
The sharp rises throughout past year have created some of the most expensive property in the world, fanning concern the market may be overheating and that a sudden crash could make jittery consumers even more nervous about spending.
The central bank has cut rates eight times in the past two years to try to get other sectors such as retail and housing to pick up and to compensate for a fading mining boom that is expected to dent the economy in coming years.
The RP Data-Rismark house-price report for December showed home values rose by 9.8% during the 2013 calendar year. Sydney, the country’s largest property market, posted a 14.5% gain over the same period, while property prices in Melbourne and Perth also made strong advances. In December, home values nationally rose by 1.4% from November.
The housing figures came on the same day data showed manufacturing activity contracted in the last month of 2013. It was the second contraction in a row that erased expansions in September and October.
“This latest snapshot is yet another reminder of the urgency for Australia to put itself on a more balanced and diversified growth path,” said Innes Willox, chief executive of AIG Group, which did the survey.
The disparity between surging house prices and weaker manufacturing highlights the key challenge facing Australia’s economic-policy makers, who must find new sources of growth as the decadelong mining boom cools.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303640604579295503032402682
What a midsize home costs in 15 cities | Bedford Hills Real Estate
We can envision a tiny house or a sprawling mansion. But how big, exactly, is a “midsize” home?
According to the latest available data (PDF) from the Census Bureau, the median size for a U.S. single-family house is 2,306 square feet. This means that half of all homes in the country are smaller than this size, and half are larger.
What this kind of home costs, however, varies greatly by city.
Here’s a look at homes for sale that are at or near the median home size in 15 parts of the country.
http://realestate.msn.com/what-a-midsize-home-costs-in-15-cities
Westchester Legislators Approved $225 Million In Bonds For 2012-13 |Bedford Hill NY Realtor
Housing market could face new bubble, home price expert warns | Bedford Hills NY Homes
The housing market could be in the early stages of yet another bubble, warned Robert Shiller, co-founder of the closely-watched Case-Shiller index on home prices.
“In the housing market, it has its own momentum right now as people see it coming back. We’re sort of in the beginnings of another housing bubble,” the Nobel Prize-winning economist told CNBC on Tuesday.
Single-family home prices rose less than expected in October, but posted their strongest annualized gain in more than seven years, the closely watched survey said on Tuesday.
The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas gained 0.2 percent in October on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, below economists’ expectation of a 0.7 percent gain. Prices rose 0.7 percent in September.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, prices were up 1 percent.
Compared to a year earlier, prices were up 13.6 percent, beating expectations of 13 percent and marking the strongest gain since February 2006, when the increase was 13.8 percent.
Housing prices have been rising since early 2012, and a rebound in the sector has helped the U.S. recovery gain steam.
But the more subdued monthly gains “show we are living on borrowed time and the boom is fading,” David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement.
“The key economic question facing housing is the Fed’s future course to scale back quantitative easing and how this will affect mortgage rates,” he said.
“We have a futures market that’s predicting the increase won’t stop until after 2018 so we still have time to go, but it might be weaker,” said Shiller.
The Fed recently said it would start trimming its asset purchases by $10 billion a month in 2014. That could push up bond yields and mortgage rates, slowing the housing rebound.
Prices in all 20 cities rose on a non-seasonally adjusted yearly basis, led by a 27.1 percent gain in Las Vegas and followed by a 24.6 percent increase in San Francisco.
“Things are changing fundamentally and it seems people are less excited about big homes,” said Shiller, referring to housing trends. “The financial crisis kind of put a damper on that enthusiasm, especially big homes far away from the city center. There’s this new urbanism afloat. Housing is not one thing. It’s not monolithic. I think there might be a trend toward more urban living.”
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/house-prices-rise-post-biggest-gain-7-years-2D11820751