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Flat-fee vs. commission debate set for public forum | North Salem Real Estate
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SoCal home sales reach six-year high | North Salem Real Estate
February home sales in Southern California reached their highest point in six years, according to a recent report from DataQuick.
While the median sales priced inched down slightly from January, it was up nearly 21% from a year earlier, representing the 11th straight month in which the median has shown growth year-over-year, according to DataQuick.
Down 0.7% from 16,058 sales in January, total sales in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties reached only 15,945 in February. This was up 1% from 15,780 sales in February 2012.
February sales totaled 17,680 units, the highest recorded level since February of 2007. However, sales last month were still 9.9% below the February average of 17,696 sales.
“Our January and February stats certainly indicate housing remains a big target for investors. But typically those two months don’t offer much insight into how the market will behave the rest of the year,” said John Walsh, DataQuick president.
Walsh says March and April will offer a better view of how broader market trends are shaping up this year.
“One of the real wild cards will be how many more homes go up for sale,” Walsh said. “More people who’ve long been thinking of selling will be tempted to list their homes at today’s higher prices. Fewer people will be underwater and therefore could at least break even on a sale. Some investors who’ve held for a while will consider cashing in. A meaningful rise in the supply of homes on the market should at least tame price appreciation.”
via housingwire.com
RealtyTrac: Foreclosure sales uneven across the nation | North Salem Real Estate
Foreclosure properties sold during 2012 decreased by 6% from 2011 and down 11% from 2010, RealtyTrac said in its fourth quarter and year-end 2012 foreclosure and short sales report.
Based in Irvine, Calif., RealtyTrac is the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties.
“Although foreclosure-related sales represent a shrinking share of total sales, primarily because of fewer bank-owned purchases, distressed sales are still a disproportionately high portion of the overall housing market,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac.
Pre-foreclosure sales increased 6% from 2011, returning just 1% below the 2010 total of pre-foreclosure sales. Since RealtyTrac began tracking in 2005, 2010 held the highest annual total. Pre-foreclosure homes took an average of 336 days to sell after starting the foreclosure process, and properties sold for an average price of $190,031.
Even though REO sales fell in the nationwide total, numbers still increased in 26 states. 498,122 REOs were sold to third parties, which is down 15% from 2011 and down 19% from 2011. REOs sold for an average of $151,998 and took and average of 178 days to sell.
Short sales are sales where the price was below the estimated amount of all outstanding loans for a given property. On average in 2012, non-foreclosure short sales were on average $81,621 short of the loan amount owed. As the year progressed in 2012, short sales increased. Short sales increased 2% from the third quarter of 2012 and increased 17% from the fourth quarter of 2011. Short sales of properties not in foreclosure were estimated to account for 22% of all residential sales in 2012.
via housingwire.com
Evicting unwelcome guest easier said than done | North Salem NY Realtor
Q: I’ve allowed a college friend to stay at my rented home for some time, without paying rent or utilities. My friend changed his address on his ID cards to my address, and gets mail here. I’ve asked him to move on but he shows no signs of doing so. Does he have any tenant rights? If I need to get heavy, how can I evict him? –Betsy S.
A: You’re in a difficult position. Not only do you have an unwelcome house guest, but, depending on the terms and conditions of your lease, you may have a problem with your landlord, as well. Ironically, the landlord may be in the best position to bail you out.
First, is your freeloading friend a resident (with some legal rights) or a guest? That depends on a number of factors. That he pays you no rent or utilities suggests guest status; changing his ID and receiving mail at your house suggest tenant status. If your landlord is aware of his presence and seems to have accepted it, this may give him resident status too. For now, let’s assume that he’s no longer a guest, but has become a legal resident of some sort. Question is, what sort?
Most leases prohibit subletting — renting all or part of your rental to a third person — without the landlord’s consent. Landlords do this in order to make sure that they have an opportunity to screen all residents. Landlords who trust their tenants, or who are convinced that the situation will be short-lived, may agree to the sublet.
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2 Million Homeowners No Longer Underwater on Mortgage: Zillow | North Salem Homes
The rebound in housing took a slight pause this week with weaker-than-expected housing starts and a dip in homebuilder confidence for January.
But Zillow Inc., the largest home-related marketplace on the web and mobile, issued a report Thursday that tells the brighter side of the housing story. Nearly 2 million U.S. homeowners were freed from negative equity last year, which means they are no longer underwater on their mortgages. The cities that saw the most improvement included Phoenix, Los Angeles and Miami.
Related: Housing Market Improves Despite Decline in Housing Starts and Confidence
“2012 was a pretty big year for working down negative equity,” says Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries in the accompanying video, adding that strong home value appreciation was a big contributor to that trend.
Home values rose roughly 6% in 2012 to a median value of $157,400, according to the Zillow Home Value Index. That price appreciation, along with the elevated level of home foreclosures, led to the drop in negative equity in 2012.
Related: Housing Market Still Needs Fannie Mae, Says Chief Economist Doug Duncan
While these figures are encouraging, the total number of homeowners that remain underwater is still very high. Almost 14 million homeowners still owed more on their mortgage than their homes were worth last year; down from 15.7 million at the end of 2011. Collectively, homeowners were underwater by $1 trillion in 2012.
Over the course of 2013, Zillow expects another 1 million American homeowners will no longer be underwater on their mortgage, which would reflect a slowdown in the trend. Zillow expects home value appreciation to slow to about 3% in 2013, half the pace of last year, as the supply of homes on the market increases.
Related: This Is Housing Bubble 2.0: David Stockman
Overall, Humphries says the housing market is “doing quite well” and the “fundamentals of housing look quite good.”
The National Association of Realtor’s will release existing homes sales today at 10 am.
Snow Days Wreak Havoc On Westchester School Vacations | North Salem Realtor
Grow your international business with multilingual content | North Salem Realtor
Janet Choynowski
Sales of U.S. property to international buyers are heating up. According to the National Association of Realtors, international sales were up 24 percent last year, representing 9 percent of the total residential market.
NAR’s member surveys show that in the 12-month period ending in March 2012, international buyers bought U.S. property valued at more than $82 billion, generating about $5 billion in real estate commissions.
NAR defines international buyers as not only those who live outside of the U.S., but also recent immigrants and temporary visa holders.
Article continues belowIf international buyers perform a search for houses for sale in your city, does your website show up in their search results?
The chances are that your website is not being suggested to valuable international prospects unless you have taken steps to ensure that it can be indexed in other languages.
The reason is simple. Search engines are programmed to predict what their users want. That’s why when you perform a search in English, your search engine “knows” you expect to see results in English and that is what you get. The same is true for other languages.
Now here’s the catch: According to one estimate, about 72 percent of all people with Internet access speak a language other than English.
Because many people speak more than one language, it’s hard to say exactly what percentage of searches are conducted in a language other than English.
But across the globe, viewers get results that are relevant to them by using the approximately 165 international “Googles” and countless other regional search engines programmed to understand the habits and expectations of their own local users.
You can get a good feel for what a Brazilian prospect searching houses for sale in your market will encounter by performing this search: Visit www.Google.com.br and paste: “venda de casas em your city” into the search box to see which websites are included in the search results. You will find, no surprise, that the top search results are all websites with content in Brazilian Portuguese.
Buyers from Mexico were responsible for 8 percent of the international investment in U.S. residential property over the past year. A search on www.Google.com.mx for “Casas en venta en your city” will reveal who is most visible to prospects searching your area for houses for sale.
Chinese nationals made 11 percent of the 85 billion dollars in total international investment last year. A resident of China would likely visit www.Baidu.com to perform a search for ” your city 房产” to research your local real estate market. The search and results will be in Chinese of course.
Unless you already have some content in these languages, your website was probably not in any of the results above.
These search engines are programmed to deliver results in other languages and your English website is no more relevant to them than a page in Chinese is to Google.com.
There are two simple things you can do to start to improve your global visibility and increase the probability of attracting international prospects.
For a low tech and low cost solution, ask bilingual or multilingual associates or coworkers to write a few paragraphs about your local market in their own languages. Add this content to your website with links up at the top so search engines can easily index it. This content should actually be on a page within your website, not just linked from another site.
Write a blog in other languages if you can or hire someone to write the blog for you. Include hyperlinks from keywords in your blog post such as the translated phrases for “real estate for sale in your city” or “houses for sale in your city” linking back to relevant content on your website.
These small steps will allow international search engines to index your website and suggest it when an international prospect looks for real estate in your area.
Please do not add machine translation tools to your website in an effort to gain visibility, though.
This is what Google has to say: “We recommend that you do not allow automated translations to get indexed. Automated translations don’t always make sense and they could potentially be viewed as spam.”
Utilizing good-quality content in other languages can help you move your website to first-page results in the languages of your choice. After all, who knows where your next client might come from?
via inman.com
6 Ways Your Blog Is Repelling Prospective Clients | North Salem NY Real Estate
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Hidden foundation crack makes recourse difficult | North Salem Real Estate
DEAR BARRY: I purchased my home about six years ago. Two years later, I removed the old carpet rolls that the sellers had left in the basement. They had been stacked in a corner, concealing part of the foundation. When the rolls were moved, a vertical crack in the foundation, about 1/8 inch wide, was revealed. It was apparent that someone had tried to patch the crack, but it did not look like a professional repair. The sellers did not include this defect in their disclosure statement, and nothing about it was mentioned by my home inspector. Is someone liable for this repair, or should I just report it to my insurance company? –Mark
DEAR MARK: If the sellers knew about the crack, they should have disclosed it prior to sale. On the other hand, they could claim to have had no knowledge of it, and there would be little chance of disproving that claim. If they were the first owners of the home, then they probably knew about the patching that was done. On the other hand, if they thought the crack had been adequately repaired, they would have seen no need to provide disclosure.
This leaves the question of home inspector liability. If the crack was covered by rolls of carpet, the home inspector would not have been able to see it without moving the rolls, and this is something that home inspectors typically do not do. In fact, the inspection report probably states that conditions concealed behind personal property are outside the scope of the inspection.
Homeowners insurance policies do not cover pre-existing conditions and probably would not cover foundation problems in any event.
The first thing you should do is hire a licensed structural engineer to determine if the crack is a significant defect. Hopefully it is a minor stress crack, but that needs to be clarified, one way or the other in case foundation forms are needed.
DEAR BARRY: Our house is well insulated, but we have a lot of moisture condensation on the windows and other surfaces. What could be causing this problem? –Bill
DEAR BILL: Condensation involves water vapor in the air. The challenge is to determine the source of the vapor. If it is ground moisture, the subarea may need additional ventilation. If the building is on a slab, additional ventilation in the dwelling and/or a dehumidifier may be needed. The same recommendations would apply if the house is well sealed for energy efficiency. If the moisture is caused by steamy showers, additional bathroom ventilation is recommended. There also are many a great dehumidifier for bathroom available at one’s convenience, if the ventilation doesn’t suffice for the expelling of moisture.
It is also possible that there is a problem with a gas-burning fixture such as a furnace or water heater. If that is the case, visit Nortech Services in Seattle. Also, more is at stake than the inconvenience of condensation because there could be a major safety hazard in your home.
The building should be evaluated by a qualified home inspector to determine which of these conditions may be the problem. You should also ask the gas company to test and inspect all of the gas-burning fixtures.
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Madonna Lists Upper West Side Duplex for $23.5M | North Salem Realtor
via zillow.com