Floored’s interactive 3-D experiences may represent future of virtual home tours | Katonah NY Homes
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Category Archives: Lewisboro
Foreclosure filings plummet in November | Cross River Homes
U.S. foreclosure filings plummeted 37 percent in November from a year ago and 15 percent from October, according to the latest report from foreclosure data aggregator RealtyTrac.
The 113,454 properties that were served with a default notice, scheduled for auction or repossessed by a bank in November represented the biggest month-over-month drop in foreclosure activity since November 2010, when foreclosure activity dropped 21 percent after the robo-signing scandal broke.
“While some of the decrease in November can be attributed to seasonality, the depth and breadth of the decrease provides strong evidence that we are entering the ninth inning of this foreclosure crisis with the outcome all but guaranteed,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac, in a statement.
Only three of the 20 largest U.S. metros posted annual increases in foreclosure activity: Baltimore (up 46 percent), Philadelphia (up 34 percent), and Washington, D.C. (up 6 percent).
– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/12/11/foreclosure-filings-plummet-in-november/?utm_source=20131212&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyheadlinesam#sthash.xJyMjjbG.dpuf
Floored’s interactive 3-D experiences may represent future of virtual home tours | Katonah NY Homes
Floored aims to transform the way agents communicate space to prospective buyers by replacing static images and constrictive videos with interactive 3-D experiences much like those offered in video games. Using a special scanner and proprietary software, Floored renders photographs and 3-D measurements into interactive models that let users move around spaces virtually, and even manipulate them.
“You can look behind you, you can see what’s around the corner, you can walk in from the front room,” said Floored CEO David Eisenberg.
The startup is steadily attracting more interest from real estate brokers, who Eisenberg said may leverage Floored models to attract more online visitors to listings. Lending credence to his claim, Floored was voted the best real estate tech startup at the Realogy FWD Innovation Summit earlier this year.
Eisenberg is scheduled to discuss the future of home virtual tours with other industry experts at the Real Estate Connect panel “Next-Gen Virtual Tours.”
– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/12/11/flooreds-interactive-3d-experiences-may-represent-future-of-virtual-home-tours/?utm_source=20131211&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyheadlinespm#sthash.mtjzsrln.dpuf
Immigration reform could spur housing recovery | Katonah Real Estate
Immigration reform in America would broaden and accelerate the current housing recovery, in addition to feeding the growth of the economy by adding new, younger workers into the labor force, a report from the Bipartisan Policy Center said.
In a report titled “Immigration Reform: Implications for Growth, Budgets, and Housing,” the policy center argues that immigration reform can produce powerful economic benefits, and for people trying to protect their immigration status in the USA, the use of a lawyer from the Sam Shihab & Associates, LLC is one of the best options for this.
Immigration reform would jump-start the housing recovery by dramatically increasing demand for housing units, growing residential construction spending by an average of $68 billion per year from fiscal year 2014 to 2023, the report said.
The 20-year period includes a peak of more than $110 billion per year in fiscal year 2022 through 2025, with the first decade’s annual average about $56 billion per year higher, and the second decade’s about $81 per year billion higher.
However, if all unauthorized workers were removed, spending would decline by more than $100 billion per year compared with the baseline, or the current projections if no change was made, and more than $175 billion per year compared to the reference case.
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/28250-immigration-reform-could-spur-housing-recovery
Concern Grows that Aging Home Equity Loans Threaten New ‘Wave of Disaster’ | Cross River Real Estate
Nearly half of the nation’s outstanding second lien home equity lines of credit (HELOC) will amortize over the next several years, raising monthly payments and increasing the risk of a rash of new delinquencies that could result in new defaults and foreclosures.
Lender Processing Services today joined Equifax in raising alarms about prospect that aging HELOC loans written in the final years of the housing boom could result in a huge number of defaults, creating a “wave of disaster.”
Some 48 percent of outstanding second lien home equity lines of credit, which were originated between 2004 and 2006, will begin amortizing on their tenth anniversaries.. As the payments on these HELOCs become fully amortizing, many borrowers may see monthly payments increase. Recent increases in new problem loans among HELOCs originated prior to 2004 that have already begun amortizing indicate the huge wave of newly amortized loans poses increased risk of more delinquencies ahead, LPS said.
“In the aggregate, the home equity market is experiencing lower delinquencies,” said LPS Senior Vice President Herb Blecher. “However, among the HELOC population that has already begun amortizing, we are actually seeing an increase in new seriously delinquent loans. As of today, only 14 percent of second lien HELOCs have passed this 10-year mark, leaving a very large segment of the market at risk of payment increases over the coming years. Nearly half of all of these lines of credit were originated between 2004 and 2006, with the oldest set to begin amortizing next year. If this trend toward post-amortizing delinquencies carries over, we could be looking at significant risk to the home equity market over the coming years.”
Fed Study: Hot Prices in 2013 Promise Better Inventories in 2014 | Katonah Real Estate
This year’s hot price increases could be more important than rising rents, credit availability or even underwater homeowners in freeing up the inventories that stifled hundreds of housing markets last season and kept sales from reaching their potential, according to a new study by two Federal Reserve economists.
Price increases and job growth are more important than buyers’ access to credit, freedom from negative equity, owners’ decisions to wait to achieve greater gains and the loss of large numbers of owner-occupied homes to rentals in a market when it comes to building inventories.
Last season opened with inventories at near-record lows in February, down by 15.97 percent nationally compared to a year ago and is less than half its peak of 3.1 million units in September 2007. Inventories increased in 100 out of Realtor.com’s 146 markets and even markets, spurring price increases and seasonal increases in homes for sale.
“Current inventories of homes for sale are low given more than a year of house price appreciation,” concluded the study Fed by economists William Hedberg and John Krainer released recently. “County-level data suggest that many homeowners are waiting for prices to rise further in their markets. Markets that have seen the strongest house price appreciation and job growth are the ones where for-sale inventories have declined the most.”
The economists analyzed a number of widely discussed causes of the inventory decline beginning with the transformation of about 3.5 million formerly owner occupied homes into rentals since 2007. “It is impossible to say though whether declining sales are pushing down homeownership rates or falling homeownership is pushing down sales, or both are interacting with each other in a complicated feedback process,” they concluded
Nor could they find strong evidence that homeowners are keeping their homes off the market in hopes prides will continue to rise. “On balance, counties that experienced relatively large increases in house prices over the past year also experienced relatively large declines in inventories available for sale,” they said.
Katonah-Lewisboro School District Is Now Closed For Monday | Katonah NY Homes
KATONAH-LEWISBORO, N.Y. – The Katonah-Lewisboro School District is now closed for Monday after earlier having a two-hour delay as a result of inclement weather.
http://bedford.dailyvoice.com/news/katonah-lewisboro-school-district-now-closed-monday
N.J. housing market: Where have all the houses gone? | Katonah NY Realtor
Phoenix housing market’s recovery still lagging most metros | South Salem Real Estate
Metro Phoenix is outperforming most of the country in terms of home-prices, but employment is underwhelming and new-home permits are far below average.
That was the overall conclusion of the National Association of Home Builders/First American Leading Markets Index, which released a report today comparing current economic and housing conditions in about 360 metro areas with the last period of normalcy before the Great Recession.
Overall, the Valley’s economic and housing activity is running at 79 percent of normal growth, landing it in the No. 250 slot and lagging the nationwide average of 84 percent.
That overall figure is an average of three categories — home prices, new-home permits and employment — based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Freddie Mac and the U.S. Census Bureau.
The index considers the last “normal” period for home prices and permitting as between 2000 and 2003, while the base comparison for employment is 2007. Each of the metro areas’ average permit, price and employment levels over the past 12 months are divided by their annual average over the last period of normal growth.
In Phoenix, home prices are exceeding 2000-03 levels by 24 percent, But current permitting levels are only one quarter of what they were during that normal period. Valley employment growth is running at 87 percent of previous norms.
Nationwide, 54 metro areas returned to or exceeded their last normal levels of economic and housing activity, excluding Phoenix.
“This index shows that most housing markets across the nation are continuing a slow, gradual climb back to normal levels,” said NAHB Chairman Rick Judson said in a prepared statement.
http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2013/12/05/phoenix-housing-markets-recovery.html?s=print
Evolution of MLS Public Websites | Katonah Real Estate
There’s a movement afoot among Multiple Listing Service (MLS) executives and brokers to take measures to protect, control and monetize the data surrounding listings. A key component of this strategy is the consumer-facing MLS website (MLS public portal).
In a 2009 study of MLS public listings websites, Matt Cohen, technology chief for Clareity Consulting, said: “I have been an advocate for MLS websites that provide real estate listings information to the public since 1996. Such websites have always made sense as a hedge against industry outsiders that want to intercept the consumer on their way to the real estate professional, selling expensive advertising, charging referral fees and/or reducing the broker’s capability to provide a one-stop shop for services ancillary to the real estate transaction.”
In 2009, Clareity Consulting studied every MLS listing website in the U.S. and found most severely lacking in features and deficient in other criteria. Clareity updated their study in 2011 and 2013, addressing the main features of a well-designed MLS public website:
1. Finding Properties – There’s no good reason not to provide a visual display where listings are shown on a map as criteria are changed.
2. Search Filters/Content – To remain competitive, more MLSs will allow for local display of pending or sold listings and/or display that information via public records.
3. Open House – Approximately 70 percent of sites have some kind of open house search.
4. Individual Property Details – The simplest implementations of property maps are links to Google Maps. And when it comes to photos, the advantages of having many pictures rather than one should be obvious. Nonetheless, 9 percent of top MLS listing websites show one picture.