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List Prices in Heartland Markets Turn Negative | Armonk NY Homes
Inventories remained at historic lows in September, down 17.77 percent compared to a year ago and the median list price was marginally higher, but a growing number of older industrialized areas are showing signs of weakness and the gains observed earlier in the 2012 home buying season in many markets appear to be moderating.
The number of markets experiencing year-over-year list price declines in Realtor.com’s Real Estate Trend Data has increased in recent months, underscoring the continued fragility of many housing markets. List prices increased in 77 markets, held steady in 29 markets, and declined in 40 markets. Last month, only 31 markets were down on a year-over-year basis. “A growing number of older industrialized areas in the mid-west and the northeast are showing signs of weakness as a weak economy continues to take its toll,” said Realtor.com’s September commentary.
Some 17 of the declining markets are more than 4 percent below last year price levels and only two, Pekin-Peoria, IL and Charleston, WV trail September 2011 price levels by more than 10 percent. A modest improvement across the board could move prices in a quarter of the nation’s markets from the red to the black.
However, in several significant ways the fragile markets differ from the Western and Florida markets that were hit the most by foreclosures but are leading the price recovery. On the whole, the weak markets, especially the weakest, did not experience price increases during the 2002-2006 boom. Second, with a few exceptions like Naples, Myrtle Beach and Fort Pierce, did not see large foreclosure default rates during the height of the foreclosure era and did not suffer peak-to-trough declines exceeding 50 percent. But many today are seeing pockets of problems.
Some of the biggest declines were in urban markets like Fort Wayne, IN (-6.33 percent), Trenton, NJ (-5.73%), Chicago, IL (-5.02 percent), Philadelphia, PA (-4.81 percent), Newark, NJ (-5.76 percent), and Wilmington-Newark, DE (-4.71 percent). In addition to their size, and Midwest-Northeast locations, these markets share large inventories of foreclosures that have a depressing effect on home values. They are in judicial states where foreclosure inventories remain sizable due to the slower processing of foreclosures. In an August latest ranking of foreclosure inventories by state, New Jersey ranks second highest in the nation, Illinois is fourth, Indiana is 13th, Pennsylvania is 14th and Delaware, 16th. The presence of Florida markets among price losing markets might reflect that fact that Florida leads the nation in foreclosure inventory with 11 percent of its mortgaged homes in foreclosure.
Finally, many of the markets simply cannot muster the demand to bring down inventory levels due to lingering unemployment. August unemployment rates in Chicago (8.8%), Philadelphia (8.8 percent), Newark (9.4 percent) and Trenton (8.8 percent). All were higher than the national unemployment rate of 8.1 percent in August.
“These patterns suggest that the underlying nature of the country’s housing problems has changed. What began as a collapse of a housing bubble fueled by poor underwriting and toxic mortgage products has evolved into a housing recession that primarily reflects continued weaknesses in local economies,” said Realtor.com.
Nationally, however, the median price rose from $190,000 in August to $191,500 in September, and was slightly above (.78 percent) the median list price observed one year ago. While list prices remain well below their peak of $249,900 in early 2007 when Realtor.com began tracking these data the fact that list prices have held their own through most of the 2012 home buying season is seen as a positive sign that the overall market has begun to stabilize.
The national for-sale inventory in September continued to decline down 2.19 percent from August and down 17.77 percent on an annual basis. The large year-over-year decline in inventory is a positive sign that the overall market is in a stronger position compared to a year ago. While the total inventory has risen somewhat since the beginning of 2012, it has averaged about 1.8 to 1.9 million units in every month, the lowest levels since January 2007.
A Blog is Really Like a Movie… | Armonk NY Realtor
“What is a blog really like?” was the question asked.
And the answer that satisfied the audience was “A blog is really like a Movie…”
I was addressing a group of non-bloggers and I found it hard to explain what blogging really is. Suprisingly, the answer which satisfied them was one in which I explained how a blog is really like a movie… The reality is that there are several people in the world who don’t know what a blog is and why anyone in the world would spend their time and money in blogging.
And to such an audience, the most effective and satisfactory response was this “Every blog that you publish is really like a Movie…”.. ..And in this blog post, I’ve tried to make my point on the co-relation between the Movie World and the Blogging World….
I am neither a Movie buff nor do I understand the nitty gritties of movie-making.. But I do have a high level understanding of movie making and of course, an in-depth understanding of creating a successful blog…
There are really 3 broad phases in making a movie / blog
Phase 1 – The Ideation Phase : In which you have an idea for your movie / blog
Phase 2 – The Creation Phase : In which you give form to your idea to create the end product (movie / blog)
Phase 3 – The Promotion Phase : In which you market your creation (movie / blog) to an audience
And then of course, is the Feedback phase in which the audience verdict is OUT – Good, Bad or Ugly!Phase 1 – The Ideation Phase
This is probably the most critical phase in the journey of making a movie or a blog. Simply because you need to have an idea for your blog – In terms of the topics of focus for your blog and specifically in terms of the topic for every single blog post of yours! And if you get this RIGHT, your chances of success increase manifold!Phase 2 – The Creation Phase
For easy of communication and comprehension, refer the comparison below:In the Movie World In the Blogging WorldDirector Blogger – In terms of making the idea come to life and ensuring that everything needed from the creative or technical side is taken care of Producer Blogger – In terms of the investments he / she does to create and maintain the blog (both the design elements and the content) Story This really translates to how the blogger is able to articulate his / her idea into words and the power of the message in the blog! Actors (Hero / Heroine) The words. Yes! The words you write on your blog are your final actors. You can make them perform the way you want based on your choice of words, your literary elegance and your presentation style Editor Again, the blogger itself if he /she does the editorial work or someone else you hire for your editorial efforts Special Effects This can be through pictures, music, podcasts, video blogs, infographics, etc. – You can choose your special effects based on your individual creativity, preference and context.The point to note is that there are several options available and you can decide based on the kind of investments you are willing to make (time and money), your target audience, your objective for the blog and the impact you want to create! Guest Performances Don’t we all like the appearance of a guest actor / star in a movie? Be it for a special song or just to make a point! Sure we do because it’s just so refreshing. So it is with guest blogs.As a blogger, you allow other guest bloggers to write for your blog to bring in diverse points-of-view to your audience. Also, not to mention the actual effort of creating the content (which becomes a challenge after a while) is the responsibility of the guest bloggerAlso, as a blogger you probably also write guest posts for other blogs because your able to enhance your brand and reach a wider audience with minimum time and efforts (as someone else is finally responsible and accountable) for the end product
Phase 3 – The Promotion Phase
This is probably the most important phase as it determines the results that your efforts yield. Firstly, you need to be clear about who your target audience is. And then you need to define and execute a well-integrated marketing plan to promote your blogs. So for e.g: You need to send an e-mail about your blog or share it on FaceBook or ask some celebrity (online / offline) to share your blogs on Twitter, etc etc. While there are many channels, what’s impoartant is to decide on the key (say 3) channels you will leverage for your promotional activities…
Realogy CEO highlights ties to real estate search portals | Armonk NY Homes
If Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com have come to symbolize the way the Internet has revolutionized the real estate industry, don’t assume that brokerage and franchising giant Realogy Holdings Corp. is a proxy for the traditional way of doing business.
After pulling off a successful initial public offering Thursday, CEO Richard Smith told Forbes’ Tom Taulli that the traditional real estate marketing model of classified ads is dead.
While that’s not news to anybody in the real estate business, Smith also pointed out something that’s sometimes forgotten — that Realogy has “invested heavily” in online channels like Trulia and Zillow, Taulli said.
Realogy’s IPO prospectus noted that the company has “attractive financial arrangements with third-party websites such as Google, Yahoo, Trulia, Zillow, and others that significantly advantage our agents and franchisees.”
In April 2011, for example, Zillow announced that it would provide exclusive discounts to Century 21 Real Estate brokers and agents on featured listings on Zillow.
In June 2011, Realogy Corp. subsidiary NRT LLC announced it had signed agreements to add advertising enhancements to 100,000 property listings on Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com and Yahoo Real Estate. Under an agreement announced in April 2011, Trulia offered brokers affiliated with Realogy subsidiary Century 21 Real Estate LLC discounts on premium listings for a limited time.
Zillow’s broker advisory board includes Sherry Chris, president and CEO of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate LLC, and Beverly Thorne, chief marketing officer for Century 21 Real Estate LLC.
After Realogy priced its IPO at $27 per share , Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff wrote “Rooting for our friends at Realogy
So it was no surprise when Realogy announced today that underwriters of the IPO have exercised their option to purchase an additional 6 million shares of common stock at the $27 IPO price, bringing the total offering to 46 million shares.
After paying commissions and other expenses, Realogy expects to see $154 million in additional proceeds, bringing the net proceeds from the IPO to $1.2 billion.
The sale of the additional shares also means that parent company Apollo Global Management LLC’s stake in Realogy will fall to 48 percent and Realogy will no longer be considered a “controlled company,” exempt from certain corporate governance requirements.
That means Realogy will have one year to appoint a majority of independent directors to its board, and ensure that the company has a compensation committee and a corporate governance committee each composed entirely of independent directors.
In its IPO prospectus, Realogy said it expects one additional director to join the company’s five-member board “immediately following the completion” of the IPO, and that one additional director would be added within 90 days of the company’s listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
Francis Gaskins, founder and editor of IPO Desktop, doesn’t think Smith — who in March added chairman of the Realogy board of directors to his existing titles of CEO and president — will have to relinquish any of his roles due to corporate governance requirements for noncontrolled companies, which he described as just “bluff and icing.”
In its prospectus, Realogy predicted that even if it controls less than 50 percent of Realogy’s common stock, Apollo “will continue to be able to significantly influence or effectively control our decisions,” and have the ability “to prevent any transaction that requires the approval of our board of directors or our stockholders, including the approval of significant corporate transactions such as restructurings, mergers and the sale of substantially all of our assets.”
via inman.com
Community Building: How to Grow With the Power of People | Armonk Realtor
Community Building: How to Grow With the Power of People | Armonk Realtor
California Leading U.S. Out of Housing Bust: Mortgages | Armonk NY Real Estate
Orange County
Orange County, home base for defunct subprime lender New Century Financial Corp., had the highest median price of the six Southern California counties in August, rising 6 percent from a year earlier to $445,000, according to DataQuick. San Francisco led northern counties, up 13 percent to $700,000.
Bulk-buying of foreclosure properties by firms such as Colony Capital LLC and Carrington Holding Co. LLC has soaked up some of the housing excess in inland counties, said O’Toole, of Discovery Bay, California-based Foreclosure Radar.com.
In Antioch and Vallejo in northern California, and Riverside in the south, homes that sold for $400,000 at the peak have been purchased for about $130,000 each and renovated for the rental market, Gary Beasley, managing director of Oakland, California-based Waypoint Real Estate Group LLC, said in an interview.
The mortgage industry, which lowered underwriting standards to increase loan volume and fuel price gains, used so-called robo-signers to handle the flood of foreclosures that followed.
Judicial Review
The country’s top banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp., agreed to a $25 billion settlement in February after attorneys general in 49 of 50 states participated in a probe of fraudulent paperwork used to repossess homes.
Driving the recovery in California has been the relative speed it has worked through foreclosures, in part because home repossessions there don’t require judicial review as they do in about half of U.S. states, said Ivy Zelman, CEO of Zelman & Associates LLC. There are 24 non-judicial states, according to RealtyTrac.
A new California law that goes into effect Jan. 1 may make it harder for lenders to seize property, which could delay the clearing of distressed homes and a swifter statewide recovery, Blomquist, a RealtyTrac vice president, said in an interview.
“We’ve been seeing a downward trend in new defaults, while the market in California is gradually improving,” said Blomquist. “The danger is that the law will delay foreclosures in the short-term, and be followed by a spike down the road.”
Scaled Back
Investors may already be getting out of the market after California’s housing gains. Insight Capital Research Management Inc., which had $360 million under management as of June 30, has scaled back positions in homebuilders, including those with heavy California exposure, said Mike Ashton, portfolio manager with the Walnut Creek, California-based fund.
Even in the Vallejo/Fairfield metropolitan area, which had the highest U.S. foreclosure rate in September at one filing for every 202 households, California’s relative housing value is on display. The average foreclosure property there cost $187,939, compared with the U.S. average of $170,040, RealtyTrac said.
via businessweek.com
Mortgage rates stay near historic lows | Armonk NY Real Estate
Mortgage rates inched up almost imperceptibly this week from historic lows that helped boost demand for purchase loans last week by more than 10 percent from a year ago.
Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.39 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending Oct. 11, up from 3.36 percent last week but down from 4.12 percent a year ago, Freddie Mac said in releasing the results of its latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey. Last week’s rates were an all-time low in Freddie Mac records dating to 1971.
For 15-year fixed-rate loans, popular with homeowners refinancing, rates averaged 2.7 percent with an average 0.6 point, up from 2.69 percent last week but down from 3.37 percent from a year ago. Rates on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages were at an all-time low last week in records dating to 1991.
Rates on five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) loans averaged 2.73 percent with an average 0.6 point, up from 2.72 percent last week but down from 3.06 percent a year ago. Rates on five-year ARM loans hit a low in records dating to 2005 of 2.69 percent during the week ending July 19.
For one-year Treasury-indexed ARMs, rates averaged 2.59 percent with an average 0.4 point, up from 2.57 percent last week but down from 2.9 percent a year ago. Rates on one-year ARM loans were at an all-time low last week in records dating to 1984.
An $40-billion-per-month increase in government purchases of mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced by the Federal Reserve on Sept. 13 is expected to bolster MBS prices and keep yields down for an indefinite period.
Looking back a week, a separate survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association showed demand for purchase mortgages was up a seasonally adjusted 2 percent during the week ending Oct. 5 compared to a week earlier. Demand for purchase loans was up 12 percent from a year ago, the MBA said, but applications to refinance still accounted for 83 percent of all loan requests.
via inman.com
Armonk, NY Daily News Coverage | Armonk Realtor
The Election is Tanking Home Sales | Armonk NY Real Estate
One more reason real estate professions should fear presidential elections came to light in a new survey by the MortgageMarvel web site: as many as one out of four buyers is sitting on their hands to see who wins.
When it comes to buying a home, 25 percent of Americans would like to know who the next president will be before they would feel totally comfortable putting their money down, according to the survey conducted in early September. Some 13 percent said that if they were considering purchasing a home, they would delay their purchase until after the election because of the uncertainty it creates. Another 12 percent said they would take the election into consideration, and it might cause them to delay buying a home.
“It’s understandable that a considerable number of people say the upcoming election would give them pause for thought,” said Rick Allen, chief operating officer of Mortgage Marvel. “There has been speculation that tax policies could change depending upon who wins. Some have even indicated that the longstanding deduction for mortgage interest could be eliminated. It appears that mortgage interest rates will remain low for the foreseeable future, so there’s no pressure on people to act before rates rise. In such an environment, I can see that cautious people would take a wait-and-see attitude before making a home purchase.”
Overall, men’s and women’s answers tracked closely across all age groups. As men’s ages increased, they became less concerned about the possible effects of the election. In the male 18-34 age group, 42 percent said the upcoming election would have no effect on the timing of their purchase. At age 55 plus, 57 percent gave the same response. Fifty-two percent of women age 18-34 said the election would have no effect on their decision, and that increased only to 59 percent at age 55 plus.
Regionally, the South had the highest percentage of people — 17 percent — who said they would delay buying a home because of uncertainty attributable to the election. Another 12 percent in the South said the upcoming election might cause them to delay buying a home. The West had the greatest number of people — 61 percent — who said the upcoming election would have no effect for them on the timing of a home purchase.