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New York luxury real estate is booming | Bedford Real Estate

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Yolanda Barnes, director of research for Savills, an organization that focuses on international real estate, comments:

There’s a great deal of interest in New York, which is seen as relatively cheap compared to other global cities.” As such, foreign investors who are looking for a new home, who need a vacation spot, or who work on an international level and want to set up a home base in the United States, are turning to New York City as a wonderful place to invest in luxury real estate at a fraction of the cost when compared to the price tags associated with other global locations, such as London.

 

New York luxury real estate is booming | HousingWire.

Study finds same-sex couples face housing bias | Bedford Real Estate

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Conducting the first study of its kind, the Department of Housing and Urban Development studied 50 metropolitan markets from June to October 2011 and concluded that same-sex couples were “significantly less likely than heterosexual couples to get favorable responses to e-mail inquiries about electronically advertised rental housing.”

More specifically, “heterosexual couples were favored over gay male couples in 15.9% of tests and over lesbian couples in 15.6% of tests,” writes MSNBC.

 

Study finds same-sex couples face housing bias | HousingWire.

Dodd-Frank impact on loan availability remains a concern | Bedford Real Estate

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The qualified mortgage rule’s full impact on home lending remains somewhat of a mystery, but lawmakers and industry professionals debated the rule’s potential influence on the home lending market during a House Subcommittee hearing Tuesday.

Industry experts testified in front of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, sharing fears about certain borrowers being locked out of the lending system.

“We need to make sure we have a financial system that allows access to credit for low and moderate income households,” said Member Gregory Meeks.”The housing sector is vital to our economic recovery.”

Committee member Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., said his main concern is how the ability-to-repay standards in addition to the QM rule will affect his constituents’ ability to get a mortgage.

Rep. Gary Miller, R-Calif., acknowledged QM’s role in protecting consumers from subprime loans and other products, but noted that it also could have the unintended effect of keeping creditworthy borrowers on the sidelines.

Rep. Robert Pittenger, R-N.C., stated that this new rule could end up undermining the housing recovery. He said the CFPB’s QM rule has caused great concerns to both banks and credit unions, who fear regulators will view any loan outside of QM standards as too risky. 

Once each committee member had a chance to testify, the spotlight shifted to the table of witnesses. 

Charles Vice, commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Financial Institutions, said state regulators have found that regulations and supervision needs to be more tailored to how community banks lend.

Vice, who has been in the finance industry for more than 20 years, said it’s crucial that community banks be allowed to positively impact the national and local economy. 

James C. Gardill, chairman of the board at WesBanco, is concerned that many creditworthy families will be denied access to credit as banks become afraid to make any loans outside of QM standards. 

This means that less affluent communities won’t be given what they need to thrive, he said. The end result of the CFPB’s rule will be less available credit to some individuals and communities. 

 

Dodd-Frank impact on loan availability remains a concern | HousingWire.

MarketVideos.com: the next best thing to hit real estate video marketing | Bedford Real Estate

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One of the biggest challenges in real estate marketing today is creating video content. Let’s face it, agents are not meant to be self-producing video creators, corporate video production is getting more and more popular. There is a learning curve to production, post-production, equipment, storyboarding, and the list goes on. And yet, the first thing you’ll hear from the experts is that video marketing is one of the trends that has a large impact on search engine optimization, mobile marketing, capturing attention, and traffic. video marketing melbourne is the #1 video production studio that adds weight to your brand. All true.

So I think you’ll like the news that was released today. Out of Orlando, Fla., MarketVideos has just released its agent-focused video marketing platform, which offers turnkey, hyperlocal market data from an agent’s MLS area in a beautifully produced video that is branded and customized by the agent.

Stephen Schweickart of MarketVideos said, “We created MarketVideos for agents after our broker product had rave reviews from the agents themselves. Since video marketing still has a curve, MarketVideos makes it easy for the busy agent to have an affordable, unique, content-packed video marketing solution, that is customizable, and has strong lead capture. Since over 70 percent of consumers forget the name of their agent after the sale, this provides a way to stay top of mind with relevant consumer content with our newsletter subscription as well. Home improvement tips, gardening, mortgage and credit information is all available to help the consumer NOT looking to buy a home right now.”

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/next/marketvideos-com-the-next-best-thing-to-hit-real-estate-video-marketing/#sthash.xwpaK35l.dpuf

Rates fall on prospect of US intervention in Syria | Bedford Real Estate

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In the last 24 hours long-term rates have pulled back from the brink of panic. The first leg down came as thinking replaced short-selling: The Fed does not want to abort the mini-maybe-recovery under way. The second leg came overnight with safety buying after the U.S. announced it will intervene in Syria.

Somebody today with perfect credit and 40 percent down might get a no-point mortgage below 4 percent, but the 10-year T-note still sits at 2.11 percent, halfway between max-panic 2.27 percent and the 1.95 percent when Fed Chair Ben Bernanke scared everyone to death on May 22.

This interest rate volatility has little to do with economic data. Maybe nothing.

May retail sales crept up 0.6 percent, and industrial production was flat after two-straight monthly declines. The NFIB survey of small business had one of its best readings during the Great Recession, but not a breakout. For the time being, assume that all confidence surveys are boosted by better housing markets, although those are still not remotely sufficient to pull the economy into a normal recovery.

A lot is going on under the surface of Bernanke’s “taper.”

A term common to Fed-watching prior to the Bernanke era — “jawbone” — had been lost in his faculty-club collegial cacophony.

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/06/14/rates-fall-on-prospect-of-us-intervention-in-syria/#sthash.JfZEXG1W.dpuf

 

Rates fall on prospect of US intervention in Syria | Inman News.

Bank Crack Down Bolsters Foreclosure Inventory | Bedford NY Real Estate

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nvestors desperate for foreclosures to buy got a break in May as banks cracked down on overdue defaulters, increasing starts and repossessing homes occupied by defaulters.

The monthly increase in overall foreclosure activity was caused largely by an 11 percent month-over-month increase in bank repossessions (REOs), although REO activity was still down 29 percent from a year ago.

REO activity increased from the previous month in 33 states — including North Carolina (up 60 percent), Oregon (up 57 percent), Wisconsin (up 44 percent), Illinois (up 44 percent), Colorado (up 23 percent), and Michigan (up 19 percent). REO activity increased 9 percent from the previous month in non-judicial states and was up 13 percent from the previous month in judicial states.

Among the five lenders involved in last year’s national mortgage settlement, all but one (Citi) posted monthly increases in REO activity, indicating that temporary stoppages of foreclosure sales announced during the month by some of the lenders involved in the settlement had little lasting impact on the number of completed foreclosures for the month.

U.S. foreclosure starts increased 4 percent from the previous month but were still down 33 percent from a year ago. Foreclosure starts increased from the previous month in 26 states and were up from a year ago in 14 states, including Maryland (up 229 percent), Connecticut (up 122 percent), Hawaii (up 108 percent), Arkansas (up 84 percent), New Jersey (up 82 percent), Nevada (up 81 percent), Washington (up 53 percent), Pennsylvania (up 26 percent) and New York (up 13 percent).

 

Bank Crack Down Bolsters Foreclosure Inventory | RealEstateEconomyWatch.com.

Housing Prices Are Up, Up, Up in Southern California | Bedford Real Estate

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Housing prices nationwide are up, but in most areas we haven’t seen scary kinds of increases. It’s a different story here in Southern California, though, where home prices have risen 25 percent in the past year:

“We’re deep into uncharted territory,” DataQuick President John Walsh said, citing “razor-thin” inventory, pent-up demand, low interest rates and all-cash purchases by investors and wealthy individuals. “How this all plays out is educated guesswork at this point.”

….Extremely low inventory and mortgage rates have ignited those bidding wars and helped turn the housing market into an economic bright spot — both in the Southland and nationwide. Investors have also played a major role in the recovery that began last year, buying run-down, lower-cost properties to fix up and rent out.

Is this a bellwether for the future—and for the rest of the country? Maybe not. Richard Green, director of USC’s Lusk Center for Real Estate, thinks prices will ease later in the year for a simple reason: “Ultimately, people don’t have the income,” he says. That’s cheery news, isn’t it?

 

Housing Prices Are Up, Up, Up in Southern California | Mother Jones.

Police Seize Cache Of Fireworks From Valhalla Home, Evacuate Area | Bedford Real Estate

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A Valhalla man was arrested early Tuesday after Westchester County Police said they discovered a large cache of commercial-grade fireworks stacked floor-to-ceiling in his basement on Saldi Lane.

Police evacuated the area around the home Tuesday and closed the streets to traffic until the explosive material was removed.

Stephen Surace, 53, has been charged with third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, a felony, first-degree reckless endangerment, a felony, and unlawfully dealing in fireworks, a misdemeanor. Surace will be arraigned in Mount Pleasant Town Court on Tuesday.

Police arrested Surace after an undercover officer bought $1,000 worth of fireworks and noticed the large cache in the basement.

“Based on the volume of material and the potential explosive hazard, the decision was made to move immediately to arrest Mr. Surace and secure the home,” Public Safety Commissioner George N. Longworth said.

Many of the fireworks were the type used in commercial fireworks displays. Officers from the Westchester County Police Hazardous Devices Unit and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were removing the fireworks from the house.

 

Police Seize Cache Of Fireworks From Valhalla Home, Evacuate Area | The White Plains Daily Voice.

Homeowner equity reaches highest level since 2008 | Bedford NY Real Estate

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Data from the Obama Administration’s May scorecard revealed continued improvement in housing, yet officials warn that a full recovery will still take more time. 

“As the May housing scorecard indicates, the Obama Administration’s policies and actions over the last four years to speed housing recovery are continuing to show important signs of progress,” said the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs Kurt Usowski. 

He added, “In the first quarter of 2013, homeowners’ equity grew by more than $815 billion, reaching its highest level since the first quarter of 2008.” 

Annual home prices increased to the highest level since the housing bubble burst in mid-2006, with the S&P Case-Shillerhome price index up from 146.6 in March to 148.7 in April. Year-over-year the index is up from 134.1 in April 2012.

 

 

Bedford New York Real Estate | Bedford NY Homes by Robert Paul Realtor » Blog Archive » Homeowner equity reaches highest level since 2008 | Bedford NY Real Estate.

Rise in interest rates hard to square with data | Bedford NY Real Estate

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Early this week a spate of poor data started a bond and mortgage rally, but stopped cold today on a very ordinary employment report for May. Ten-year Treasury notes have traded back up to the 2.15 percent high of 2013, mortgages solidly above 4 percent. If the credit markets are going to read news this way, rates are still vulnerable on the upside.

On Monday, the Institute for Supply Management reported that the May manufacturing index tanked to 49 versus the tepid 51 expected, and a drop below 50 has been good for bonds every time since these surveys began in the early 1970s. The ISM has weakened steadily since January 2011. Today’s employment data: 175,000 net-new jobs in May, but hourly earnings and hours at work were flat.

The rise in rates is hard to square with the data. The Fed will pull back from bond buying at some point, but not now, and not soon in a meaningful way. It may reduce its purchases, but they are rising relative to bonds in the market: Treasury borrowing has fallen in half in 18 months, and mortgages outstanding have fallen for six years.

During any Fed exit, a QE-castaway market may be unwilling to buy at today’s yields. Or it may be unable — overregulated and capital-crimped, still trying to shrink.

We have other data on the state of the recovery: the Fed’s Z-1 (renamed now “Financial Accounts”) and FHFA home prices for the first quarter.

Z-1 shows a remarkable rebound in U.S. household net worth, up $3 trillion in 90 days and at $70 trillion surpassing the 2007 peak. A stock market run will do that, puffing pension and life reserves, nonprofits, and retirement funds included in “households,” but not felt in wallets, not necessarily permanent, and just back where net worth had been.

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/06/07/rise-in-interest-rates-hard-to-square-with-data/#sthash.p6ADRjLu.dpuf

 

 

Rise in interest rates hard to square with data | Inman News.