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The real estate market must be totally regulated in Qatar | Bedford Corners Homes

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Rents stabilising in Qatar are a clear indication of the upbeat mood in the market about medium- to long-term national economic prospects.

In the last few months, many commercial and residential properties have come to the local market and many more are expected in the months ahead.

For investors, a key factor that drives their business strategy is the projected return on investments (ROI). Obviously, return on investments is decided by the demand and supply situation.

With Qatar economy witnessing rapid growth and many infrastructure projects being taken up, national economic prospects look good.

Population growth has been accelerating mainly because expatriates come to work on new infrastructure projects.

This is bound to put pressure on both commercial and residential properties with the result that rents may go up considerably.

Rents are likely to be a major swing factor in forecasts of consumer price inflation for 2013, experts have already warned.

Historically, from 2005 until 2013, Qatar’s inflation averaged 4.05% reaching an all time high of 16.59% in June 2008 and a record deflation of 9.96% in December 2009, a study by Standard Chartered Bank has shown.

According to QNB, overall inflation increased 3.6% year-on-year and 0.4% month-on-month to 2.4% in March this year.

Since the housing component has the largest weighting in the inflation basket (32.2%), escalating rents are sure to drive inflation in Qatar.

Rising inflation will certainly take the sheen off the real GDP growth, which no economy can afford.

In the past, when inflation surged and touched double digits, the government took very strong measures to contain it.

They included putting a ceiling on the annual rental increases and starting new low-cost residential projects. Many nationals and expatriates have then benefited from the pro-active measures taken by the government.

 

 

The real estate market must be totally regulated.

Spring real estate market sees record pending sales in Seacoast | Bedford Corners Real Estate

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PORTSMOUTH — The Seacoast Board of Realtors say the spring Seacoast real estate market is shaping up to be the best in at least three years.

The board reported a record number of single-family and condominium pending sales in April in the 13 sample seacoast towns.

The 13 sample towns are Exeter, Greenland, Hampton, Hampton Falls, New Castle, Newfields, Newington, North Hampton, Newmarket, Portsmouth Rye, Seabrook and Stratham.
The 90 April pending single family sales are 18 more than the previous record set last May. There were 67 sales in the month, up 15.5 percent from last year. They were paced by 21 sales in the $400,000 to $700,000 price category, nine more than last year at this time. There were 37 sales in the category of less than $400,000.

Sales of single-family homes in the sample towns have increased through most of the first four recorded months of 2013. There were 59 in January, 55 in February, 63 in March and 67 in April.

The median sales price of a Seacoast single-family home was $369,800 up 21.7 percent from last year.

While the 35 pending condominium sales are also a new three-year record, condos again recorded a mixed bag of sales results. The average price of a condo was up 10.52 percent from last year at $210,000, but fell to its lowest level in three months in 2013. Closed sales also were off .06 percent from a year ago.

Inventory levels continue to shrink as demand increases, according to the Seacoast Board of Realtors. Available single-family units dropped 21.1 percent from a year ago, while condo inventory is off 17.2 percent from last year.

 

Spring real estate market sees record pending sales in Seacoast | Bedford Corners Real Estate | Bedford NY Real Estate | Robert Paul Talks Life in Bedford NY.

Mobile Video Viewing on the Rise: Why It Matters [Study] | Bedford Corners Realtor

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Business Insider’s subscription research service, BI Intelligence, has conducted a study about mobile video viewing habits that show a tremendous uptick in the amount of video watched on phones and tablets over the last year.  The uptick isn’t surprising, but the amount of uptick is.  What’s so vastly different between 2011 video viewing habits and 2012’s?  The study finds that the rollout of faster 4G networks, younger audiences gravitating to mobile viewing, and the spread of tablets as the main reasons.  But there is a lot more data to consider in this study.  Let’s take a look.

Mobile Video Continues to Rise in Stature

Here is a chart detailing the viewing habits by device in Q4 of 2012, using data from Ooyala and charted by BI Intelligence:

Mobile Video Viewing on the Rise: Why It Matters [Study]

Here are some amazing stats (courtesy of BI Intelligence):

  • Video on smartphones reached 41 million people by the end of last year.  Additionally, as of January 2013, 41 percent of smartphone owners watch video on the device as opposed to 22 percent as recently as April 2012.  People in the age group of 12-17 watch video on their mobile phone 24 minutes a week, and the 18-24 set watch 28 minutes, compared to 11 minutes for the average person.  Both groups only watch two-thirds of the traditional TV of the average person.
  • While tablets make up a fraction of the total video-capable devices out there, people watch a ton of video on them: 3.5 percent of all online video around the world is watched on them, while 4.5 percent of videos are watched on the far more prevalent smartphones.
  • Tablet viewers watch longer videos (63 percent of their time was spent on videos 10 minutes or longer), and their viewing patterns are close to broadcast TV, making them easier to target for advertisers and broadcasters who know the ins-and-outs of TV best.
  • People who own tablets make video a huge part of it.  It’s one of the top 10 activities they use a tablet for, which can’t be said of smartphones (comScore).  These tablet owners are more likely to cut the cord, or never bother with traditional TV in the first place (Morgan Stanley).  The conversion rates on the ads are much higher than on smartphones.  BI Intelligence cites the Deloitte “State of the Media Democracy Survey” when mentioning that, for the age group of 14-23, watching TV shows on a tablet rivals the time spent watching DVDs and Blu-Rays.  25 percent of the group watch TV shows every day or weekly on tablets.
  • Finally, tablet owners watch 6.7 hours of video content a week, as opposed to non-tablet owners, who watch 5.5 hours (courtesy of Motorola).

The whole point?  With $520 million (13 percent) of the entire ad market devoted to mobile video, finding these tablet owners, who skew younger and voraciously consume video is important.

Source: Mobile Video Viewing on the Rise: Why It Matters [Study]

Survey of Economists Finds Fears of New Bubble | Bedford Corners NY Real Estate

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More than 100 forecasters in a national survey said they expect the home values to reach an average of 5.4 percent year-over-year and that current Federal Reserve policies post some risk of re-inflating the housing bubble.

In the survey of 105 economists, real estate experts and investment and market strategists, panelists said they expected median U.S. home values to rise to $165,280, on average, by the end of 2013. At the end of 2012, the U.S. Zillow Home Value Index stood at $156,800.  The survey was sponsored by Zillow and is conducted quarterly by Pulsenomics LLC.

In the survey conducted in late February and early March, respondents said they expected average home value growth of just 4.6 percent in 2013. Looking forward, respondents predicted average home value appreciation of 4.4 percent in 2014, up from prior expectations of 4.2 percent.

While panelists were more bullish on near-term home value appreciation this year and into 2014, their expectations for nationwide home value growth in 2015, 2016 and 2017 were slightly more pessimistic than in prior surveys. On average, panelists said they expect annual home value growth between 3.5 percent and 3.7 percent from 2015 through 2017, down modestly from previously expressed expectations in the 3.6 percent to 3.8 percent range. Cumulatively, survey respondents predicted home values to rise 22.3 percent, on average, through 2017.

New problem loans drop to lowest level in 6 years | Bedford Corners NY Homes

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As the market continues to march towards a recovery, the rate of loans that were at least 60 days late but current six months ago fell in March to its lowest level in six years, according to a report released by Lender Processing Services (LPS).

At 0.84 percent, the rate of “new problem loans” dropped below 1 percent for the first time since May of 2007, edging closer to pre-crisis levels, like those of 2004 and 2005, when rates averaged around 0.55 percent.

The report also found that the number of homeowners who are underwater has dropped dramatically since the depths of the housing crisis. In January of this year, 9 million people had negative equity in their homes, down from a peak of 17 million in January of 2011, LPS said.

On an annual basis, the number of loans with negative equity had plummeted by 41 percent as of January, LPS said.

www.inman.com/wire

REALTOR® Confidence Rose Strongly in March 2013 | Bedford Corners NY Real Estate

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Confidence about current market conditions and the outlook for the next six months rose strongly across all property types in March. For the first time, the “REALTORS® Confidence Index – Six Month Outlook” for townhouses breached the level of 50 which delineates “moderate” expectations. The data is based on information gathered in the March REALTORS® Confidence Index (RCI) Survey.

REALTORS® generally mentioned strong buyer demand, improving prices, and fewer days on the market amid tight inventory and restrictive credit conditions.

Examples of improving residential markets are delineated in detail in the RCI Report.

  • Ninety-four percent reported that they expect constant or higher prices in the next 12 months.
  • The median days on market for all sales was 62 days in March compared to 91 days a year ago.
  • Thirty-seven percent of respondents reported time on market at less than 1 month when sold.
  • Distressed sales were at 21 percent of market, down from 29 percent a year ago.

What Does This Mean for REALTORS®?
Some people are still a little shell shocked from the Great Recession, and some articles in the Press continue to question whether there is a recovery. The people who are experts in the housing markets—the REALTORS®–are reporting very favorable news. These experts see a recovery.

 

 

http://economistsoutlook.blogs.realtor.org/2013/04/24

The Chinese Are Freaking Out About A Sudden Drop In Housing Prices | Bedford Corners Homes

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ASK ordinary people about their own Chinese dream, and you find owning a home is high on the list.

 

But years of rising house prices have put that dream out of reach of many. A slowing economy appeared to take some of the heat out.

Now, alas, the residential property market is soaring again (see chart). A new survey of developers and property firms on May 2nd showed average house prices up more than 5% in April on a year earlier.

Taking the long view, rising property values seem defensible. The country is undergoing the largest wave of urbanisation in human history and homes must be built for all of those new city dwellers.

The existing housing stock is poor, so people upgrade to modern homes as soon as they can afford them. Local governments earn a lot of money from land sales to developers and investors have few other places to park their money. All that suggests upward pressure on prices is not going away.

But even if you accept those long-term arguments, says Alistair Thornton of IHS, a consultancy, the market right now looks increasingly as if it is becoming detached from the fundamentals, as speculators looking for an investment swamp buyers looking for somewhere to live. Many flats sit vacant despite legions of prospective buyers desperately seeking affordable housing. Capital Economics, a research firm, estimates that investment in residential property accounted for 8.8% of China’s GDP in 2012.

 

the economist

The Economist

The alarm bells are being rung in unexpected quarters. Wang Shi, the charismatic boss of Vanke, China’s biggest property developer, would seem to have more to gain than most from further price rises, yet he too warns of a looming “disaster.” The plunge in prices that would result from a pricking of this bubble, he declared on “60 Minutes”, an American television programme, could lead to popular protests on the scale of the recent Arab uprisings.

 

China’s new leaders are keenly attuned to such concerns and are trying hard to head off the danger. The ruling State Council and the country’s central bank have issued numerous decrees in recent weeks designed to dampen the market and to crack down on speculation. Among these are larger down-payments and higher mortgage rates for people buying second homes and a reminder to local governments that a 20% capital-gains tax on second-home sales must be enforced.

But plenty of central-government edicts are ignored. The capital-gains tax on resales, for example, was only rarely levied in the past. Ren Zhiqiang, boss of Hua Yuan Real Estate Group, another property giant, recently denounced the country’s policies. The central government’s message to local officials, he claimed, could be described as: “We hope prices won’t continue rising; you go and fix them; and if you don’t fix them, we will punish you.”

Most local officials do not want to implement such curbs with any rigour. On the contrary, encouraging a property boom keeps much-needed tax revenues flowing and puffs up the local economic growth figures on which their chances of promotion hang. This misalignment of incentives, argues Mr Thornton, explains why “it’s always a cat-and-mouse game between local and central authorities”.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/china-home-prices-threaten-stability-2013-5#ixzz2SNYkrhYH

New Jersey home affordability drops in 1Q | Bedford Corners Real Estate

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New Jersey home prices are on the rise for the second consecutive quarter as a result of purchase demand and tight inventory levels.

These two factors tend to make homes less affordable.

Median home prices jumped 2.07% in the first quarter to $262,661, compared to $257,331 a year earlier, according to data from Otteau Valuation Group.

Rising home prices stem from increased demand, tighter inventory levels and continued economic recovery. The for-sale inventory in New Jersey is currently at an eight-year low, while the pace of sales is the highest it’s been in six years.

The number of New Jersey homes considered affordable dropped in the first quarter due to higher home prices coupled with rising mortgage rates. In fact, the state’s affordability index declined for the first time in two years to 130%, an indicator that the median income of today’s homebuyers can afford a home that is priced 30% higher than the state’s median home value.

Despite the drop in affordability, desperate homebuyers are still rushing to take advantage of lower-than-normal prices and record-low rates.

Moving forward, the combined effect of price increases and mortgage rates will continue to erode homebuyer purchasing power in the market.

 

http://www.housingwire.com

Get This Look: Greenery in the Home | Bedford Corners Homes

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Greenery can add a lot to a home, but for many homeowners the idea of incorporating living plants into a space is daunting.

“So many of my clients will say, ‘I kill everything I have!’” said designer Jamie Herzlinger. But what she tells them is that many of the latest trends in greenery don’t require a lot of maintenance.

Despite the size of the planter, these succulents require very little care.

Despite the size of the planter, these succulents require very little care.

“Succulents and air plants just need a little bit of water,” Herzlinger explained. “I think they’re a fantastic idea because it’s a great way to bring nature in, and you don’t have to have a green thumb.”

Succulents, cacti and air plants are not new forms of greenery. Popular across the U.S. in the 1970s and continuously a form of greenery in Southwestern states, these hardy and low-maintenance plants are now a hot way to add nature indoors.

The container matters

Although succulents are primarily shown in glassy, modern planters, Herzlinger says that these plants can be added to any vessel. The shape and structure of the planter will determine the look of the space.

For example, Herzlinger suggests a traditional planter for an elegant look, perhaps sticking a plant in a blue-and-white porcelain Chinese foot bath.

Unusual planters make liven up the table in this entryway.

Unusual planters liven up the table in this entryway.

“If you were to pot that up with living moss, that sitting on a dining room table with gorgeous sterling candlesticks, it is as beautiful as fresh-cut flowers,” she said.

For a more contemporary look, a glass or wooden container can be hung on the wall as living art. Even in the kitchen, small apothecary jars or containers can be the perfect home for an air plant.

Curated, not over-accessorized

As with any accessory, less is more. There is a tendency to want to add more items to a room, but often Herzlinger finds herself taking out the items her clients add.

“Try accessorizing with one large item or groupings of two to three,” she explained.

A small terrarium is a great addition to this traditional living room.

A small terrarium is a great addition to this traditional living room.

The look should be touches of greenery, not jungle.

Other plant options

While some designers rely on faux plants and flowers, Herzlinger believes that with enough low-maintenance plants out there, there’s no need to go with the silk versions.

Her other suggestions for low-maintanence plants? Moss, cacti and fig trees, if your space has high enough ceilings and plenty of light.

Jamie Herzlinger added fresh-cut flowers and greenery to this space.

Jamie Herzlinger added fresh-cut flowers and greenery to this space.

And, in a pinch, fresh flowers can be found at any local grocery store and are the easiest green addition to a room.

 

 

http://www.zillowblog.com

Singer Taylor Swift snags $17 million mansion | Bedford Corners Real Estate

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According to Zillow, the white, Cape Cod traditional was previously listed at $24 million back in 2011. Apparently Swift paid in cash, which may have given her the discount on the purchase price. Not that Swift needs to worry about discounts; according to Forbes the 23-year-old is worth $57 million-plus.

See photos of the singer’s new mansion here.

via housingwire.com