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Valuing a Green Home | Bedford Hills Real Estate
From installing rooftop solar panels to putting in new triple pane windows and EnergyStar appliances, people today make all kinds of home upgrades that save energy and lower their utility bills.
But when they opt to sell their “green” home, it’s often less than clear how such upgrades are valued in the real estate market by appraisers, lenders, or purchasers — or even how information about a home’s energy characteristics should be conveyed to real estate agents and potential homebuyers.
“People do upgrade [for energy efficiency], but the problem is, a lot of that information on what they’re doing doesn’t get to the marketplace, doesn’t find its way into the real estate transaction,” says Maria Vargas, who directs theBetter Buildings Challenge program at the Department of Energy.
The department aims to change that with a newly announced program. The agency’s Better Buildings initiative, which seeks to slash overall energy use across U.S. buildings by 20 percent in 10 years, has already been successful in the commercial sector, but now it is turning to the residential arena — with a focus on advancing home energy efficiency.
One surprising strategy for doing so will be helping to improve the flow of information about home energy efficiency (and its effect on driving lower utility bills) in the real estate market — thus helping it to be better valued in markets. To do so, the Energy Department is partnering with those who spread and use this information, including the Appraisal Institute, a professional association for real estate appraisers, the Council of Multiple Listing Services — which ties together the large number of local MLS organizations that provide informational databases of real estate listings — and the National Association of Realtors’ Center for Realtor Technology.
“We want to move in, move out, in a few years, to really accelerate this market,” says Vargas, “so we are better enabling homeowners, and the whole transaction process around selling a home, to include energy efficiency information.”
read more….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/05/28/
U.S. new home sales up in September | #Waccabuc Real Estate
Sales of new U.S. single-family homes rose to a six-year high in September, but a sharp downward revision to August’s sales pace indicated that the housing recovery remains fragile.
The Commerce Department said on Friday that sales increased 0.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 467,000 units, the highest reading since July 2008. August’s sales pace was revised down to 466,000 units from 504,000 units.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast new home sales at a 470,000-unit pace last month.
New home sales, which account for about 8 percent of the housing market, tend to be volatile month to month and large
revisions are not unusual. Compared to September last year, sales were up 17 percent.
Housing is slowly regaining its footing after activity stalled in the second half of 2013 as mortgage rates soared.
With the 30-year fixed mortgage rate this week falling to its lowest level since June of last year, sales could pick up.
Slow wage growth, however, remains a constraint. Data this week showed sales of previously-owned homes touched a one-year high in September.
Last month, new home sales fell 8.9 percent in the West, handing back some of August’s 28.1 percent surge. In the
populous South, sales rose 2.0 percent, while they increased 12.3 percent in the Midwest. Sales were flat in the Northeast.
read more…
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-home-sales-september-august-140503880.html
World faces $650 billion housing problem | Cross River Real Estate
A staggering 330 million urban households around the world live in substandard housing or are so financially stretched by housing costs they forgo other basic needs like food and health care, according to McKinsey.
Urban dwellers globally fork out $650 billion more per year on housing than they can afford, or around 1 percent of world gross domestic product (GDP), McKinsey estimated in a new report, highlighting the enormity of the affordability gap.
More than two-thirds of the gap is concentrated in 100 large cities. In several low-income cities such as Lagos and Mumbai, the affordable housing gap can amount to as much as 10 percent of area GDP.
McKinsey’s study looked at the cost of housing as a portion of household income in cities around the world to determine where urban residents were most under financial pressure.
For this study, it defined affordability as housing costs that consume no more than 30 percent of household income.
It’s going to get worse
Based on current trends in urban migration and income growth, the affordable housing gap would grow to 440 million, or 1.6 billion people, within a decade.
This trend will exact an enormous toll on society, the report warned.
“For families lacking decent affordable housing, health outcomes are poorer, children do less well in school and tend to drop out earlier, unemployment and under-employment rates are higher, and financial inclusion is lower,” it said.
Addressing the affordability gap
McKinsey estimates that an investment of $9-$11 trillion would be required to replace today’s substandard housing and build additional units needed by 2025. Including land, the total cost could be $16 trillion.
The belief that major cities no longer have land for affordable housing is a myth, it added. Even in cities such as New York there are many parcels of under-utilized or idle land-including government-owned land-that could support successful housing development, the report said.
The refurbishment of underutilized or old buildings is an important part of the process, alongside the construction of new units.
“Affordable housing is an overlooked opportunity for developers, investors, and financial institutions,” it said. “Well-located, properly maintained, affordable housing can be quite profitable.”
There’s also an economic case for it, McKinsey points out, noting that affordable housing in the right locations boosts the city’s productivity by integrating lower-income populations into the economy.
“It enables labor mobility, opening a path to rising incomes, giving households more to spend on goods and services in their neighborhoods and, over time, enabling them to move up the income pyramid and help drive city GDP growth,” it added.
read more…
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/world-faces-650-billion-housing-051803200.html
America’s housing policy: The definition of insanity | South Salem Real Estate
If the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result,” then clearly Albert Einstein is not responsible for America’s housing policies.
Federal Housing Finance Agency director Mel Watt on Tuesday unveiled new regulations that would make it easier for Americans to buy a house with little or no money down. The rules are aimed at private lenders who opposed a proposal that borrowers make a 20% down payment.
“Finalizing this rule represents a major step forward to providing greater certainty to the housing finance market and paves the way for increased participation by the private sector,” Watt said Tuesday at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual conference held at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas (A casino? Really? The optics couldn’t be worse.)
In 2013, less than 2% of the $1.6 trillion of MBS issued were so-called private-label securities, meaning they did not have government backing.
In separate but related news, Watt earlier this week announced that Fannie and Freddie are planning to guarantee loans with down payments as little as 3%, down from 5% previously and back to pre-crisis levels.
Insanity number one is the government bending to industry lobbying against proposed rules designed to tighten lending standards and force borrowers to have more “skin in the game” vs. less. The FHFA also loosened proposals to ensure banks have some “skin in the game” by forcing them to hold a small portion of the loans rather than bundling them together and selling them as mortgage-backed securities (MBS). The 5% “risk-retention rule” requires banks to hold onto 5% of loans they sell but exemptions “may enable the banks to hold less or nothing,” The NYT reports.
Insanity number two is the federal government saying they want to encourage private lending but at the same time “shifting course on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, announcing plans to use the mortgage giants to expand credit rather than reducing their outsize role in the housing market,” as The WSJ put it.
Fannie and Freddie already back 60% of all mortgages originated in the private market and guarantee 90% of all new mortgages underwritten, according to Investors Business Daily.
The root of all this insanity is a housing market that not only needs the Fed to keep rates at zero “for a considerable time” but also massive government-sponsored subsidies to maintain altitude. After two years of strength, the housing market has clearly cooled in recent months. From August 2013 to February 2014, the year-over-year increase in the Case Shiller national home price index exceeded 10%. The pace of increase has declined every month so far in 2014 and was at 5.6% in July, the most recent available, the slowest pace since November 2012.
The Obama administration, the Fed and the private lenders all share the same concern: That the housing market rebound is running out of steam and will start to rollover without additional incentives for banks to lend — and Americans to borrow. The MBA expects total lending for home purchases to fall 13.5% in 2014, The WSJ reports.
read more…
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/america-s-housing-policy–the-definition-of-insanity-145304611.html
What’s Haunting Your House? | North Salem Homes
NYC Residential Market | NYC Apartment Bidding War -Bedford Corners Homes
Leona Helmsley’s Greenwhich CT Estate hits market | Armonk Real Estate
France’s Palatial 740 Park Pad Sells for $70M, Way Over Ask | Mt Kisco Real Estate
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An 18-room duplex in the richest, fanciest apartment building in the world—owned by the government of France, no less, and used as the ambassador to the UN’s residence—reportedly just sold for $70 million. That’s a whopping $22M over the 740 Park Avenue apartment’s initial ask of $48 million. Apparently, three prospective buyers pushed the price up in a bidding war. France bought the apartment in 1979 for $600,000, but whatever, because that’s like $1,959,272.73 in today’s dollars. So just a 3,400 percent profit for the nation’s coffers, no big deal.
read more…
http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/06/17/frances_palatial_740_park_pad_sells_for_70m_way_over_ask.php