| Bedford Hills NY Real Estate Report | RobReportBlog | ||
| 2013 | 6 months ending 7/8 | 2012 | |
| 12 | Sales | 11 | |
| $482,500.00 | median sold price | $426,000.00 | |
| $170,000.00 | low sold price | $263,000.00 | |
| $1,732,500.00 | high sold price | $3,550,000.00 | |
| 2314 | average size | 2866 | |
| $292.00 | ave. price per foot | $269.00 | |
| 175 | ave days on market | 172 | |
| $635,791.00 | average sold price | $924,136.00 | |
| 92.35% | ave sold to ask | 93.20% |
Bedford Hills sales up 9% – Prices up 13% | RobReportBlog | Bedford Hills Real Estate.
The board of directors of Jupiter, Fla.-based Regional Multiple Listing Service Inc. has voted to dissolve the 11,000-member MLS following the settlement of a lawsuit filed by one of its shareholder associations.
Regional MLS members are now receiving all MLS services directly through their respective associations: the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches, the Jupiter-Tequesta-Hobe Sound Association of Realtors, and the Realtors Association of St. Lucie.
The dissolution of Regional MLS, which was formed in 1987, is expected to be finalized sometime this summer.
In April, the Jupiter-Tequesta-Hobe Sound Association of Realtors filed a complaint against Regional MLS and its other two shareholder associations, alleging false and deceptive advertising, unfair competition, and interference with business relationships.
The origins of the suit lie in a change in billing structure made by Regional MLS’ board around November 2012. Whereas previously Regional MLS had provided the three associations with MLS services directly, the board voted to allow each association to offer MLS services separately, using a common database provided to the associations by Regional MLS, and thereby making the associations competitors for MLS subscribers, the complaint said.
Gary Nagle, general counsel for the Jupiter-Tequesta-Hobe Sound association, declined to elaborate on the complaint, saying it “speaks for itself.”
– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/06/28/associations-vote-to-dissolve-florida-based-regional-mls/#sthash.IxUx0Wmt.dpuf
Associations vote to dissolve Florida-based Regional MLS | Inman News.
A recent, sharp rise in mortgage-interest rates has raised concerns about whether the housing recovery will soften as home loans become more expensive.
Two weeks ago, the average rate nationwide for a 30-year mortgage jumped to 4.46 percent from 3.93 percent — the biggest one-week increase since 1987 and the highest rate since July 2011, according to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.
“We do think that, as rates go higher, there will be additional affordability issues,” said Brad Hunter, a Florida-based economist for the real-estate research firm MetroStudy Inc.
“Everyone is getting nervous now as the Fed is taking away the Kool-Aid bowl soon,” he said. Rates started moving up after the Federal Reserve said on June 19 that it might end its economic-stimulation program by the end of this year or in 2014.
An increase in interest rates could temper the housing recovery in several ways.
For one thing, higher rates would mean prospective buyers could afford less house, possibly easing demand for new and existing homes. For another, the equity funds that have been buying up foreclosures would likely go looking elsewhere for better ways to invest their money, which would likely limit competition for new listings. Home builders may be pressured by higher carrying costs, even as fewer prospects show up to tour their model units. And homeowners not interested in selling would be less likely to refinance their existing loans.
Here’s a closer look at how rising rates could affect those four groups:
Buyers : For home buyers, many of whom have struggled since the Great Recession and global credit crisis to qualify for mortgages, an uptick in rates would also cut into their buying power once they were approved for a loan.
For example, buyers who obtained a $200,000 mortgage when interest rates were about 3.5 percent in April landed a monthly payment of about $900. But if rates head north to 5 percent, buyers hoping to get that same monthly payment would have to limit their mortgage to $170,000 — or $30,000 less than they could have afforded with the lower loan rate.
In a talk to Congress last month, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke noted that housing’s vital role in the nation’s economic recovery is due partly to the real estate-related jobs it creates “but also because higher house prices increase consumer wealth and promote consumer spending.”
Over the 30-year life of a $200,000 mortgage, however, a home buyer would pay an additional $63,000 in interest with a 5 percent rate than with a 3.5 percent rate — money not available for spending on consumer goods or services.
And even though mortgage lenders stand to earn more money with higher rates of return on their loans, borrowers would not find it easier to qualify for home loans should interest rates keep rising, said Rob Nunziata, president of Orlando, Fla.-based FBC Mortgage LLC.
Rising Mortgage Rates Could Chill Housing Market | Valley News.
Actress Linda Thompson is selling her Santa Monica home for $1.349 million. While she’s most-known for the men throughout her life — from music producer David Foster to Olympic decathlete Bruce Jenner and even “The King” himself, Elvis Presley — she bought this property beau-free.
The 1,845-square-foot condo has been held under a Thompson-family trust since 2010. Located north of Wilshire at 1043 11th St Unit 4, Santa Monica, CA 90403, it includes 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a gym and 600-square-foot rooftop deck with 360-degree panoramic views.
According to listing agent Enzo Ricciardelli, members of the family have lived there over the past three years — likely a reference to Thompson’s sons, Brandon and Brody Jenner.
The three share an affinity for reality television — the boys stared in a short-lived series “The Princes of Malibu,” while Thompson has made appearances on “The Hills” and “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”
Off screen, Thompson is also very connected with the “RHOBH” cast. After divorcing Foster in 2005, Thompon’s ex-husband went on to marry one of the show’s stars, Yolanda Hadid. Meanwhile, Thompson remains close friends with Taylor Armstrong.
Actress Linda Thompson’s Santa Monica Family Home for Sale | Zillow Blog.
Fans eagerly awaiting the “House Hunters” episode featuring several Bedford, Mount Kisco and Katonah homes will have to wait just one more day.
The latest episode, which also features local real estate agent Justin Pieragostini, premieres at 10 p.m. Wednesday on HGTV. Originally scheduled to premiere in April, the episode highlighting Pieragostini helping a family relocate to Katonah from Boston is set for the latest episode Wednesday night.
The episode marks the first time HGTV has showcased Westchester County, Pieragostini said, adding that the episode is worth the wait.
“I am so excited to showcase this community on TV,” Pieragostini said Monday. “It’s about featuring that place we all call home and I can’t wait for people to see it. Northern Westchester is a close-knit community full of great people so it was wonderful to bring some attention to that.”
New residents Steven and Megan Grskovic and their three children are featured in the episode, where Pieragostini guided the family through Bedford, Mt. Kisco and Katonah.
“Honestly, we were so caught up in the emotions of the house hunting experience, we never really thought about our ‘story’ until Justin threw out the idea of sharing it on House Hunters,” said Steven Grskovic, in a press release. “Ultimately, we were intrigued by having a unique keepsake for our family to look back on. Justin kept reminding us through the home buying process that once complete we’ll be happy we documented it and he was right. We’re really looking forward to the episode.”
HGTV’s ‘House Hunters’ Episode Featuring Bedford Airs Wednesday | The Bedford Daily Voice.
Pending home sales in May hit their highest level since December 2006, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported today.
“Even with limited choices, it appears some of the rise in contract signings could be from buyers wanting to take advantage of current affordability conditions before mortgage interest rates move higher,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at NAR. “This implies a continuation of double-digit price increases from a year earlier, with a strong push from pent-up demand.”
Pending home sales, a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed to purchase homes, increased 6.7 percent month over month in May, and were up 12.1 percent from a year ago, according to NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index.
In response to the jump in contract signings, Yun raised his home price forecast for 2013. The economist now predicts that the median existing-home price will rise by more than 10 percent to $195,000. That would be the strongest increase since 2005, when the median price rose by 12.4 percent, NAR said.
The sunny news accompanies a murkier report released by Freddie Mac today that found that mortgage interest rates spiked by their largest weekly margin in 26 years on news that the Federal Reserve could soon begin to taper its stimulus program. Source: NAR
– See more at: http://www.inman.com/wire/pending-home-sales-hit-highest-level-in-over-6-years/#sthash.9InfQ6aY.dpuf
Pending home sales hit highest level in more than 6 years | Inman News.
The already struggling U.S. housing market recovery took it on the chin this week…
While most investors were focused on the collapsing stock market, courtesy of the Fed’s announcement Wednesday that it would pull back on its $85.0-trillion-a-month paper money printing program some time later this year, bond yields rose sharply.
The yield on the bellwether 10-year U.S. Treasury bill has jumped almost 50% over the past 12 months—and that means mortgage rates are rising sharply. This should be of no surprise to my readers, as I have been warning about higher interest rates for some time now. (See “Gone Are the Days When the U.S. Bond Market Was the Place to Be.”)
If there is one factor that affects activity in the housing market the most, it is interest rates. That’s why the nail in the coffin for the housing market might now be in.
The National Association of Realtors reports first-time home buyers accounted for only 28% of all the existing-home purchases in the U.S. housing market in May. What’s even more troubling is that they have been declining in number. In April, first-time home buyers accounted for 29% of purchases; and in the same period a year ago, they bought 34% of all existing homes in the U.S. housing market. (Source: National Association of Realtors, June 20, 2013.)
Looking forward, I won’t be surprised to see the number of first-time home buyers decline even further, because the Federal Reserve has pulled the rug right out from under their feet by saying it may pull back on its quantitative easing later this year, thus pushing mortgage rates sharply higher.
The standard 30-year fixed mortgage rate jumped to 4.24% today, up from only 3.67% a month ago.
As I have been writing, the U.S. housing market has been propped up this year by institutional investors moving in and buying single-family homes for the sole purpose of renting them out—for investment purposes. Institutional investors became major buyers of single-family homes in key areas of the U.S. housing market and even bid up prices.
But now that yields across the board are rising, is the housing market that attractive to institutional investors? Money flows to the highest and safest returns. With rates rising, the big-money guys might finally have other investment alternatives to look at. Combine less focus on the housing market from institutional investors with declining demand from first-time buyers and rising interest rates, and quickly the housing recovery becomes a has-been.
Good-Bye Low Mortgage Rates; Good-Bye Housing Recovery – Yahoo! Small Business Advisor.
The days are getting shorter now, football closer — at least the Fed can’t take that away from us. Given its fantastic bungling this week, it might try.
First, let’s get the fairy tales out of the way. No, President Obama has not asked Fed Chair Ben Bernanke to leave; Bernanke is exhausted (which may explain some of this week), and orderly competition to succeed him began in January. And no, the market wrecks this week do not invalidate the quantitative easing (QE) campaign. It was exactly the right thing to have done.
Bernanke is an American hero, his inventiveness and courage without parallel in our peacetime history. However, the skills and instincts necessary to save us in the post-Lehman event are completely different from those required to manage a gradual tightening of policy.
Bernanke on May 22 did an expert and appropriate job of mumbling. Markets needed to be warned that QE might taper in the next several months, and be reminded that someday QE would end altogether, and in the long run Federal Reserve policy would normalize. The Fed chair’s muffled jawbone took the 10-year T-note from a broad range 1.7 percent-2.05 percent into June’s 2.08 percent-2.25 percent, mortgages just above 4 percent.
The economy may or may not be self-sustaining, but asset prices in 2013 might have begun to pre-bubble. Maybe. New Fed Gov. Jeremy Stein began to thump the bubble tub immediately on arrival. Household net worth jumped $3 trillion in the first 90 days of the year, all on stocks and houses. The delicate conundrum: Rising asset values were a principal purpose of QE and have the economy doing better; at what point do they become a bubble? Hedge the bet by bubble-burble.
The June Fed meeting concluded on Wednesday, and the written statement was harmless. Then in the post-meeting press conference Bernanke gave the most unfortunate public performance by a chairman in my memory. He is compelled to transparency and specifics of future intentions, which made QE work, but are disastrous in a tightening cycle. And he clearly does not understand why.
– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/06/21/fed-bungle-may-prompt-higher-mortgage-rates/#sthash.B3LcAU5U.dpuf
In the short term, the jump in interest rates is spurring home buyers in the Washington region and other hot markets to action, adding to the already frenzied competition to get a home, writes the Washington Post.
But a sustained rise would hurt a fragile housing recovery, which has climbed out of the depths of its crash with the help of record-low rates, economists said.
“The biggest threat to the recovery is that rates rise too fast,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.
Rates rising too quickly could hurt housing recovery | HousingWire.
When it comes to distressed properties, Florida is still in trouble, Naples News writes.
Florida has jumped to No. 1 from the second spot on the list of states with the highest foreclosure activity.