Mortgage Credit Lags Consumer Credit Recovery | Katonah Real Estate
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Katonah NY Best Buy | Katonah Realtor
7 Grandview, Katonah
$420,000
via trulia.com
Lending Standards, Rising Rents Box in Single Buyers | Katonah NY Real Estate
Once the hottest trend in real estate, single homebuyers find themselves trapped between soaring rents and stiff underwriting standards that make it tough for a single income-earner to qualify for mortgages that buy homes that will cost more tomorrow than they do today.
In 2001, 27 percent of all homes were purchased by single homebuyers the real estate industry, from builders to brokers, catered to the new market with security features, gourmet kitchens and yards with little or no maintenance required, and sales promotions targeted at single buyers.
However, the salad days of single buyers apparently are over. For 2012, the National Association of Realtors reported the highest share of married couples and the lowest share of single buyers since 2001. Sixty-five percent of recent home buyers were married couples-the highest share since 2001. Sixteen percent of recent home buyers were single females-the lowest share since 2001.
Women always have dominated the single buyers’ market and they may be suffering most from a combinations and economic and political forces that have trapped singles into rental units at a time when rents are rising rapidly as vacancy rates reach history lows or 4.5 percent or lower. Today’s potential single buyer faces serious hurdles.
1. A sputtering economic recovery has made it difficult for first-time buyers to afford homeownership. The 2011 American median household income was 1.13 percent lower than what it was 12 years ago. Single buyers are actually slightly older than married buyers (46 for men, 48 for women compared to 42 for married couples) but have only a single income to pay the costs of homeownership. Some 47.5 percent of couples have dual incomes.
2. Tougher mortgage underwriting standards result in only about 60 percent of all purchase applications being approved. FICO scores, income to debt ratios and documentation requirements are tougher than six years ago. Single buyers, generally have greater difficulties meeting these requirements without the help of a co-signer.
Whether you stay in or dine out today, home is where the heart is | Katonah Homes for Sale
- Data from the latest NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers shows the number one reason buyers are buying today is for the plain desire to own a home of their own. They want a place where they can come home at night that is their special place in the world. The most common home purchased among buyers was a detached single-family home, with three bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and 1,900 square feet.
- The typical buyer is satisfied with their buying process and plans to live in the perfect home for them for 15 years.
- Data from the report show the highest share of home buyers are married couples compared to single buyers and unmarried couples. The share of married couples who purchased a home (65%) is actually at its highest share since 2001. Married couples typically have higher household incomes than single buyers and thus better purchasing power in today’s tightened financial market environment.
- While married couples might have double the purchasing power of single females and single males when buying a home, they too are still making sacrifices to get into a home. Thirty-one percent of married couples who recently purchased a home cut spending on luxury items or non-essential goods, and 26 percent cut spending on entertainment. Perhaps the married home buying couple is dining-in tonight?
- A sizeable amount of the market are still single females, single males and unmarried couples – more than one-third. While the married couples may be cooking in tonight, the single buyers and unmarried couples could be taking advantage of the neighborhood features that influenced their home purchase – proximity to friends and family, entertainment and leisure activities, and shopping.
- Married, unmarried, single male, and single female, all recent home buyers will enjoy the quality of the neighborhood they picked – as it influenced the majority of all household types, and hopefully all will enjoy a good meal tonight, or at the least some tasty chocolate.
Would gun ban violate tenants’ rights? | Katonah Real Estate
Q: We own several large apartment complexes. After all that’s happened recently, we have decided that we do not want firearms on the property. Can we prohibit tenants from keeping them on the premises? Our manager says no, that people have a constitutional right to keep arms. –Dave and Bea M.
A: You do have a legal right to prohibit the keeping of firearms at your properties, just as you can prohibit tenants from keeping pets or parking oversize vehicles in your parking lots.
Your manager’s concerns are a bit off the mark: The United States Constitution (specifically, the Second Amendment, which concerns the people’s “right to bear arms”) is aimed at the government, not at individuals like you. So, while recent Supreme Court decisions have struck down attempts to restrict gun ownership, these cases have all involved states or localities whose laws have been found to infringe on the amendment. You are neither a state nor a locality. You are simply a business owner who has wide latitude in deciding how your run the business.
Should you instigate such a policy at your properties — more on how to do that below — you should be prepared for another argument you’re likely to hear. “That’s discrimination against gun owners!” will surely be lobbed your way. Again, nothing to fear, legally. That’s because gun owners are not a protected group under federal, state or local laws.
via inman.com
Bank Now Selling Allen Iverson’s Foreclosed Home in Atlanta | Katonah NY Homes
via zillowblog.com
Elliman.com releases January 2013 Rental Report | Katonah Realtor
We have just released the “Elliman Report: Manhattan & Brooklyn Rentals January 2013,” the leading resource on the state of the Manhattan and Brooklyn rental markets. As always, our market reports are produced in conjunction with Miller Samuel to provide you and your clients with the most comprehensive and neutral market insight available.
Although limited inventory kept rents near record levels, low mortgage rates and improving affordability continued to convert many would-be renters to first time buyers. This competition from the purchase market impacted the rental market by slowing the rapid rise in rental prices we had been seeing over the past two years. However, landlord concessions are still rare and we expect the improving economy and low vacancy rates to continue placing upward pressure on rents in the near term.We constantly look for ways to provide our clients with better information to enable them to make more informed decisions. Our efforts to make this market report series possible reflect my strong belief that in a market that is constantly changing, access to timely information is one of the greatest resources we can offer our clients. We are committed to providing the best information and services in the industry. Explore our full market report series covering Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, The Hamptons, North Fork, Westchester/Putnam, Miami, Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach
at http://www.elliman.com/marketreports.
via trulia.com
Unemployment Insurance Claims, GDP | Katonah Homes
A “Likes”, “Shares” and “Followers” Generation Cheat Sheet | Katonah Realtor
Foreclosure Process Hammers Florida’s Housing Market | Katonah NY Real Estate
A sign hangs outside a house in Miami in 2010. Currently, Florida’s foreclosure legal process can take a couple of years, which critics say is hurting the housing market.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
A sign hangs outside a house in Miami in 2010. Currently, Florida’s foreclosure legal process can take a couple of years, which critics say is hurting the housing market.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
A decade ago, speculators in Florida were pumping up a huge housing bubble.
“You couldn’t go wrong,” Tampa real estate attorney Charlie Hounchell says. In that overheated period from 2001 to 2006, “you could buy a house and make $100,000 a year later by selling it,” he says.
But the party ended in 2007 and the hangover persists. The state now has the highest foreclosure rate in the country, beating out Nevada for the first time in five years.
Experts say the legal process in Florida is the key reason for the sluggish pace of foreclosures there.
A Three-Minute Trial
The busy lobby inside the Hillsborough County courthouse in Tampa is noisy with defendants, lawyers, even crying babies. But inside a fourth-floor courtroom, it’s all business — as focused and streamlined as possible.
“I enter a final judgment of foreclosure for the total sum of $194,256.49 with a public sale date of March 11 at 10 a.m.,” Judge Judy Pittman Biebel says as she delivers a verdict. The entire foreclosure trial took about three minutes.
Biebel is a retired judge from Panama City, Fla., who travels to Tampa to sit on the bench for a week at a time — specifically to handle foreclosure cases.
“We work cheap,” she says with a laugh, “and we’re paid $350 a day.”
The state funds these additional judges to help deal with the enormous backlog of foreclosures. One in every 32 Florida households received a notice of default, auction or repossession in 2012 — more than double the national average.
Florida is getting it from both ends: Foreclosures are still coming in at a high rate, and they’re very slow going out. In fact, it’s taking nearly 2 1/2 years to get through the judicial process.
Biebel says the courts stay busy.
“Today was all nonjury trials,” she says. “Yesterday was various motions all day long. So we sit and do this all day long. “
And this speedy trial — over in just minutes — stands in stark contrast to the foreclosure process, which typically starts years earlier.
Real estate agents say the backlog of distressed homes makes it tough for the Florida housing market to recuperate. Those homes depress prices and create uncertainty in neighborhoods.
Florida’s ‘Broke’ Legal Process
Why does it take so long to get these foreclosed houses back on the market?
Analysts say the cumbersome legal process in Florida sets the state apart from other hard-hit states.
But judges say they’re not at fault. They say banks need to get a handle on finding promissory notes that have been shipped all over the country and on organizing their paperwork.
Others, like Sharmon Lenth, blame foreclosure defense lawyers. She’s the president of a small credit union that has been trying to foreclose on a house for years. She watched the proceedings from the courtroom gallery.
“These people, they’ve lived in this house over 2 1/2 years for absolutely … for nothing,” she says.
Lenth doesn’t want the judge to give the homeowners any more time.
“We worked with these folks,” she says. “We worked with them starting back in 2008. We combined things for them so we lowered their payments. Eight months later we worked with them again, to help them to get through some tough times. They made 14 payments on that, they defaulted on it and hired one of these attorney groups.”
The homeowners didn’t attend the trial, but their attorney, Satyen Gandhi, was at court. Gandhi said the loan modification expired after two years, leaving his client unable to make payments again.
Biebel ended up giving the borrowers more than 60 days to leave the house.
Lenth was disappointed. She says the members of her credit union needed to acquire that house and have it sold.
“The whole process is just broke. It’s just broke,” she says.
No Quick Solution Seen
Lenth says unscrupulous foreclosure attorneys are using delaying tactics to tie up the process. But even with the complaints about the process, it doesn’t appear that it will change anytime soon.
Nor should it, says Hounchell, the real estate attorney. He says the judicial review is an important protection for homeowners — a protection that they don’t get in most other states.
“But comparing one state to another is not necessarily fair, because Nevada is a nonjudicial foreclosure state,” he explains. “In Florida, the consumer has much more opportunity to remedy their default situation.”
They’re going to need those opportunities, because experts say the foreclosure crisis won’t end anytime soon.
via npr.org