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San Antonio’s luxury real estate market sees surge | Bedford Corners Homes
FSBO sellers in Quebec complain of industry protectionism | Bedford Corners Real Estate
Rising mortgage rates, closing costs joining higher home prices | Bedford Corners NY Homes
Home prices are higher in metro Atlanta, and so are mortgage rates and closing costs.
All three are signs that the local housing market continues to roar back from the meltdown just a few years ago as the economy continues to strengthen with more homeowners and prospective homeowners finding jobs and a paycheck.
The strengthening economy was a primary reason that Federal Reserve policymakers signaled recently that they will do a little less in trying to stimulate economic activity by influencing interest rates.
In interviews with Biz Beat, analysts at Zillow, the online housing listing service, and Bankrate, which tracks loan rates in Georgia and nationally, say consumers can expect to see mortgage rates trending higher in the new year even if they are still at historically low levels.
Erin Lantz, director of mortgages at Zillow, said weeks of anticipating that the Fed would “dial back” its influence on interest rates and the actual announcement that changes in its economic stimulus program would begin in January have already begun to push rates higher.
“The stimulus program was meant to keep interest rates lower,” Lantz said. “The economy is getting back on its own footing and doesn’t need to rely on federal stimulus as much.”
In a weekly report, Bankrate said the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage in metro Atlanta rose to 4.54 percent most recently, from 4.47 percent in the previous report and 3.76 percent at the start of 2013. The average 15-year fixed rate rose to 3.59 percent from 3.48 percent.
Greg McBride, Bankrate’s senior financial analyst, said closing costs, which lenders charge to process a loan, are up 6 percent from last year in metro Atlanta. By comparison, inflation is up less than 2 percent.
McBride said lenders, who are paying out billions of dollars to settle claims they botched loans and wrongly foreclosed on thousands of borrowers, are facing higher costs in complying with new regulations designed to prevent the problems that led to the housing crises. The due diligence now includes verifying applicants’ employment, income and debt obligations multiple times before closing on a loan.
Those higher loan processing costs are being passed on to borrowers.
“Secondly, there is no wiggle room in terms of fees quoted by a lender on the good-faith estimate of costs,” McBride said. Lenders are required by law to provide borrowers with a written best estimate of what a loan will cost, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise if they go with the higher end of a range. “Once they put that number on the form they are locked in. It can’t be a penny more,” McBride said
http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/biz-beat/2013/dec/23/mortgage-rates-closing-costs-joining-higher-home-p/
Bedford Central School District Is Now Closed For Monday | Bedford Corners Real Estate
MOUNT KISCO/BEDFORD, N.Y. – The Bedford Central School District is now closed for Monday after earlier having a two-hour delay as a result of inclement weather.
http://mtkisco.dailyvoice.com/news/bedford-central-school-district-now-closed-monday
Refinance share of mortgage activity falls again | Bedford Corners Homes
Mortgage applications tumbled during the week ending Nov. 29, sinking 12.8% from the last report, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday.
Similarly, the refinance index also dropped 18%, hitting its lowest level since the beginning of September 2013.
The purchase index dipped 4% from the previous week after recording a slight fall in the last update.
Overall, the refinance share of mortgage activity fell again and now represents 63% of all applications filed, down from 66% a week ago.
The 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage with a conforming loan limit increased to 4.51% from 4.48%, while the 30-year, FRM with a jumbo loan balance edged up to 4.49% from 4.48%.
Furthermore, the 30-year, FHA rate escalated to 4.17% from 4.14%, and the 15-year FRM rose from 3.52% last week to 3.56%.
Meanwhile, the average contract interest rate for a 5/1 ARM fell to 3.09% from 3.18%.
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/28188-mortgage-applications-drop-128
Mortgage Delinquencies Dropped Nearly 25 Percent Since Last Year | Bedford Corners Homes
The rate of borrowers 60 days or more delinquent on their mortgages dropped 23.3% in the past year, ending Q3 2013 at 4.09% from5.33% in Q3 2012of all homeowners with a mortgage according to Transunion, one of the nation’s top three credit bureaus.
All 50 states and the District of Columbia experienced a decline in their mortgage delinquency rates between Q3 2012 and Q3 2013. Five states — California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Utah — experienced 30%+ declines in their mortgage delinquency rate. Three states — California, Florida and Nevada — had double-digit percentage drops in the last quarter. Nationally the mortgage delinquency rate also dropped on a quarterly basis, down 5.3% from 4.32% in Q2 2013, the seventh straight quarterly decline.
The data provided are gathered from TransUnion’s proprietary Industry Insights Report, a quarterly overview summarizing data, trends and perspectives on the U.S. consumer lending industry. The report is based on anonymized credit data from virtually every credit-active consumer in the United States.
“This isn’t a sample data set,” said Tim Martin, group vice president of U.S Housing for TransUnion’s financial services business unit. “We looked at all 52 million installment-based mortgages in the U.S. and the trend is clear — the percentage of borrowers willing and able to make their mortgage payments continues to improve. The overall delinquency rate is still high relative to ‘normal,’ but a 23% year over year improvement is great news for homeowners and their lenders.”
TransUnion recorded 52.31 million mortgage accounts as of Q3 2013, down from 54.23 million in Q3 2012. This variable was as high as 63.14 million in Q3 2008 prior to the housing crisis.
Viewed one quarter in arrears (to ensure all accounts are included in the data), new account originations increased to 2.34 million in Q2 2013, up from 2.09 million in Q2 2012. This is a major increase from just two years ago when there were 1.32 million new account originations in Q2 2010.
“New mortgage originations showed good growth through the second quarter of this year, largely the result of increased refinance transactions driven by low rates and increasing home prices,” said Martin. “However, mortgage rates started to increase right around Memorial Day, and when the data come out next quarter, we expect it to show that new originations are decreasing as a result.”
Bedford Corners Real Estate sales up 14% | Median price up 187% | #RobReportBlog
| Bedford Corners NY Real Estate Report | RobReportBlog | ||
| 2013 | 6 months ending 11/11 | 2012 | |
| 16 | Sales | 14 | up 14% |
| $1,487,500.00 | median sold price | $517,000.00 | up 187% |
| $468,000.00 | low sold price | $381,500.00 | |
| $5,600,000.00 | high sold price | $1,750,000.00 | |
| 5176 | average size | 2721 | |
| $364.00 | ave. price per foot | $264.00 | |
| 132 | ave days on market | 189 | |
| $1,939,750.00 | average sold price | $756,571.00 | |
| 94.86% | ave sold to ask | 93.59% | |
Real estate market humming back to life | Bedford Corners Real Estate
The commercial real estate market is sputtering back to life in the Portland metropolitan area. A number of high-profile projects that stalled during the “Great Recession” have suddenly restarted, and several other large construction projects are also just getting under way. But according to commercial real estate experts, new construction is only half the story — vacant office space in the region is rapidly filling up, foreshadowing even more construction in coming years.
Work is underway at Hassalo on Eighth Avenue, the large mixed-use project on the superblock in the Lloyd District.
“Coming out of the Great Recession, it wasn’t a pretty picture,” said Scott Weigel of CBRE, which is regarded as the world’s largest commercial real estate services firm. “There were a lot of empty office buildings. Vacancy rates were as high as 30 percent. But we’ve returned to just about normal in the last 36 months, and now it’s getting hard to find a lot of empty [office] space in many areas.”
According to Weigel, office parks that have experienced turnarounds include Kruse Way in Lake Oswego and Lincoln Center in Tigard. Before the economy collapsed, they housed many financial firms involved in the real estate business. Now they are refilling with a more diverse mix of businesses, including some from out of state.
Weigel personally brokered the deal that moved Salesforce.com into a long-vacant office tower in the Synopsys Technology Park in Hillsboro. That single deal took 115,000 square feet of office space off the market.
The biggest exception, said Weigel, is downtown Portland, which currently has about 56 floors of empty office space. Much of that occurred when numerous federal agencies moved back into the renovated Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building. But Weigel predicts the vacant downtown space will begin filling up soon. Already, he pointed out, several technology companies from San Francisco and the Silicon Valley are looking to relocate or expand in Portland.
Check out SC Real Estate of Austin, Texas for some excellent properties.
FHA Lenders Operate Through the Federal Shutdown | Bedford Corners Real Estate
Federal direct and guaranteed housing loan programs funded by the Federal Housing Administration are operating at a level after the federal government closed its doors and the US Department of Agriculture housing programs have shut down altogether
Some 350 of the 9,300 employees at HUD remain on the job and the Office of Single Family Housing is maintaining the minimum level of operations necessary to support FHA’s existing portfolio of loans, however most support services for the program, such as prequalification, approving lender applications and re-certifications, will cease.
Larger lenders who have been delegated authority to process FHA applications are unaffected by the shutdown, said Mike Copley, head of Retail Money-Out Products for TD Bank. Hre said borrowers who are in process of getting a loan as well as those who are getting ready to apply should have no hold-up due to the government shutdown. “Delegated lenders can make decisions and approve loans. The only problem borrowers might have is if they are working with a smaller lender who has not been delegated authority by FHA.
Jumbo loans might face a greater problem, he said. TD Bank requests a copy of applicants’ tax returns directly from the IRS to verify income. “We will go as far as we can go with jumbo applications in hopes that by the time we need to verify income the government will be up and running again.” said Copley, noting that the last government shutdown lasted only 21 days.