Tag Archives: Pound Ridge NY Real Estate

Pound Ridge NY Real Estate

U.S. 30-Year Mortgage Rates Decline for First Time in Four Weeks | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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U.S. mortgage rates for 30-year loans fell for the first time in four weeks, decreasing borrowing costs for homebuyers as the recovery in prices stretched into 2014.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage was 4.28 percent this week, down from 4.37 percent, Freddie Mac said today. The average 15-year rate slipped to 3.32 percent from 3.39 percent, the McLean, Virginia-based mortgage-finance company said.

U.S. home values continue to rise as buyers compete for a limited supply of properties for sale. Prices climbed 12 percent in January from a year earlier, the 23rd consecutive gain, Irvine, California-based CoreLogic Inc. said this week.

“Prices are still growing at very high rates because the markets are still tight,” Patrick Newport, an economist with IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts, said in an interview yesterday. “We haven’t been building enough homes at high enough rates for five or six years.”

Rising prices and tougher credit standards have shut out some first-time buyers, slowing the pace of the housing recovery. First-timers accounted for 26 percent of purchases in January, down from 30 percent a year earlier and the smallest share in more than five years of data-keeping, according to the National Association of Realtors.

 

 

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-03-06/u-dot-s-dot-30-year-mortgage-rates-decline-for-first-time-in-four-weeks

Finding the Right Mortgage for You | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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Finding the right mortgage for your home can be a tricky proposition, but banks and other lenders are offering various options to meet your needs as the housing market rebounds.

Smaller down payments are still an option if you meet the requirements, depending on the lending institution.

While some Millennials are dealing with student loan debt and lack the cash to opt for a traditional 30-year mortgage requiring a 20% down payment, Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans remain an option.

FHA loans were the dominant choice among many first time home buyers until recently. With a loan from the FHA, buyers have the option to finance 96.5% of a home’s price and put just 3.5% down.

Unlike conventional financing, 100% of the down payment could be a gift, so borrowers are able to secure a loan without putting any of their own money down, said Malcolm Hollensteiner, director of retail lending products and services at TD Bank, a financial institution based in a Cherry Hill, N.J. One advantage is that the underwriting criteria are more flexible than conventional mortgage loans.

While those factors are appealing to many borrowers, the FHA has increased its mortgage insurance costs which makes this type of loan more expensive for the buyer and has led to the number of first time buyers who obtained FHA loans to drop dramatically.

While many home buyers are still seeking the FHA loan, it is not as popular since the monthly mortgage insurance rates have risen, said Sin-Yi Lamberston, real estate and mortgage broker at ERA Yes! in Glendora, Calif. However, FHA loans allow consumers to borrow more with a lower credit score.

 

http://www.mainstreet.com/article/real-estate/finding-right-mortgage-you?puc=yahoo&cm_ven=YAHOO

Plaza Hotel owner surrenders to Indian police | Pound Ridge Homes

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From left: Subrata Roy and 1 Central Park South

From left: Subrata Roy and 1 Central Park South

Subrata Roy, owner of the Plaza Hotel, turned himself into police Friday following his no-show at a contempt hearing in Indian Supreme Court.

The subject of an investigation into whether Roy failed to repay investors $3.9 billion following an illegal bond scheme, Roy previously said that he wouldn’t be able to appear for his court date because he had to care for his ailing 92-year-old mother. Nevertheless, the court ordered him to show, and police were dispatched to track him down when he did not.

Owner of $11 billion company Sahara, which owns the Plaza, Roy was barred from selling any of the firm’s assets or leaving India in November as the nation’s highest court investigated the conglomerate’s alleged violation of securities laws. Earlier reports indicated that Sahara was looking to sell its Plaza and Dream Downtown hotels, as well as the Grosvenor House in London. The group received a $1.6 billion offer for the trio of hotels from an unidentified Middle Eastern investor, according to previous reports.

 

http://therealdeal.com/blog/2014/02/28/plaza-hotel-owner-surrenders-to-indian-police/

Canada house prices rise in January to record high | Pound Ridge NY Homes

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Canadian home prices rose to a record high in January as Vancouver prices surged, the Teranet-National Bank Composite House Price Index showed on Wednesday, even as other housing indicators have shown a cooling market.

The index, which measures price changes for repeat sales of single-family homes, showed national prices rose 0.4 percent last month from December, the largest monthly rise in five months. They had risen 0.1 percent in December.

Canada’s housing market had roared back to life through much of 2013 after a 2012 slowdown, but was showing signs of cooling in the final months of last year, and economists have been calling for a soft landing as construction and demand slow and price gains decelerate.

The Teranet data showed prices were up 4.5 percent from a year earlier, an acceleration from December’s 3.8 percent price gain. The index does not show actual prices.

“Despite the uptick in home prices, we maintain the view that prices will soften,” Mazen Issa, senior Canada macro strategist at TD Securities, said in a research note.

“Very favorable financial conditions are expected to erode as continued tapering by the Federal Reserve and a more robust growth backdrop lead to higher mortgage rates.”

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/12/canada-economy-teranet-idUSL2N0LH0R520140212

 

Obtaining a mortgage increasingly seen as ‘easy,’ survey says | Pound Ridge Homes

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Even though new federal rules for mortgages kicked in this year, and lenders’ standards remain high, Americans are increasingly likely to think it’s “easy” to get a home loan, according to a report released Monday.

Last month 52% of respondents to a survey from federally controlled mortgage buyer Fannie Mae

/quotes/zigman/226360/delayed/quotes/nls/fnmaFNMA said they thought it would be “easy” to get a home mortgage today. That share was a record-high for the series, which goes back to mid-2010. Fannie’s survey polls 1,000 American adults each month.

January’s result should be good news for housing-market observers who have been concerned about the impact of new mortgage rules, along with rising rates, on demand. It seems that at least some would-be borrowers aren’t letting an evolving mortgage marketplace get them too down. Indeed, 70% of Fannie’s respondents said in January that they would buy a home if they were to move, matching a series high hit in October.

While Fannie’s results may be a bit surprising, recent data from the Federal Reserve signaled that some large banks are easing standards for prime home mortgages. Given the beating that lenders took from plunging refinancing applications last year, it makes sense that they are looking elsewhere to feed their hunger for mortgage revenue

 

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/capitolreport/2014/02/10/obtaining-a-mortgage-increasingly-seen-as-easy-survey-says/

 

Creating a big bang in the Los Feliz real estate market | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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Twilight”  film series vampire Robert  Pattinson found a warm body to pay $6.375 million for his Los Feliz  home. Jim  Parsons of “The  Big Bang Theory” is the new owner.

The 1922 Spanish Colonial-style house has a formal entry, a library/study, a  den, three bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms and 4,026 square feet of space in two  stories. Antiqued tile and stone, hand-carved wood and stenciled ceilings  maintain a vintage vibe.

The 1.5-acre sloping lot, enclosed by walls, features a lagoon-style swimming  pool, waterfalls and fountains. Stunning terraced gardens follow the hillside  down to the home, which has cityscape views.

The property was purchased by Pattinson in 2011 for $6.25 million. An earlier  owner of the house was Lakers great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Parsons also has listed his old Los Feliz house.

Priced at $1.85 million, the 1942 traditional home sits on a hillside with  city views. The 2,827 square feet of open-plan living space on two levels  includes a formal entry, an office, a breakfast area, three bedrooms and four  bathrooms.

There are fireplaces in the living room and dining room and on the entry  patio.

The actor bought the home in 2009 for $1.3 million.

Pattinson, 27, starred in the 2012 films “Cosmopolis”  and “Bel  Ami.” He will be in the upcoming films “Maps to the Stars” and “The  Rover.”

Parsons, 40, has won three Emmys and a Golden Globe award for his work on the  sitcom, which premiered in 2007. He will be in the upcoming TV movie “The Normal  Heart.”

David Gray of Partners Trust Beverly Hills was the listing agent for  Pattinson. Ronald Shore of Keller Williams represented Parsons.

Shore and Samuel Bernstein, also with Keller Williams, are Parsons’ listing  agents.

http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-hotprop-20140202,0,3518370.story#ixzz2sUAyeieI

 

http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-hotprop-20140202,0,3518370.story#ixzz2sUAtfWf6

Fear that rising home prices will fuel market instability | Pound RidgeNY Real Estate

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Even though home prices in the valley have risen 55 percent and distressed sales have fallen to 15 percent from a high of 60 percent, many people worry about this housing market — not just in the desert but also throughout the country. Some believe prices might be forming another housing bubble. Others worry that early foreclosure investors will begin selling their investments, raising inventories and depressing prices. In our opinion, only one of these issues has merit — and just slightly.

Fear of Bubbles

I’ve studied market bubbles for more than 40 years. In fact, I wrote a book in 2000 on the stock market dot-com bubble, and the current housing market shows no signs of impending trouble. One important sign there is “no bubble” is the constant talk and worry about one. While this may seem strange, it’s rooted in history.

Bubbles occur after many years of constantly rising prices. Buyers become convinced the market carries little risk, since prices never seem to decline. Any warnings that prices have advanced beyond what the economy or wages can support are thought “out of touch” and generally ignored. That prices continue to move higher is proof these warnings are wrong. Alan Greenspan called this condition “irrational exuberance,” and it doesn’t exist today.

“Normal” Affordability

What we have now is simply a rapidly recovering housing market driven upward by a special Federal Reserve program that keeps mortgage rates low. When we measure home prices against affordability — the percentage of homeowners who can afford the current median-priced home — we find no bubble; prices are generally in line with historic norms.

Foreclosure Investors

We do think there is validity to the worry that investors might begin selling, but we believe it is somewhat overblown.

During the dark days of valley housing — from 2010 through 2011 — we had an inverted market that couldn’t right itself. The normal mechanisms to rebalance weren’t there. Too many buyers throughout California were underwater, and those who could buy were restricted by extremely tight lending conditions. Then an army of cash investors came forth who bought up the huge inventory of distressed homes. Resented by some for their good timing, they did help turn things around and save the day.

 

 

http://www.palmspringslife.com/Palm-Springs-Life/February-2014/Market-Watch-Bubble-Free-Zone/

When Water Conservation is Not Enough | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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For those people involved in sustainability, water—or specifically the lack of water to meet future demands—is a growing concern. This is perhaps most apparent to residents in the Western U.S., where a drought has caused a rather dramatic decline in water flowing in the Colorado River, which provides water for thousands of people and millions of acres of farmland. However, what many people don’t know if that this drought has lasted for 14 years.

Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that these conditions are “unrivaled in 1,250 years…The once broad and blue river has in many places dwindled to a murky brown trickle. Reservoirs have shrunk to less than half their capacities, the canyon walls around them ringed with white mineral deposits where water once lapped.”

According to the newspaper, communities depending on the river are turning to a variety of recycling programs, including recycling sewage effluent, to help address this mounting concern. Tax rebates to remove lawns and water-thirsty vegetation have become the norm in states like New Mexico and Arizona, and many states are also offering rebates to consumers and businesses to replace older water-using appliances with more efficient alternatives. For commercial facilities, this includes restroom fixtures that are either low-flow or, in many cases, no-flow systems, such as waterless urinals, which can save as much as 40,000 gallons of water per urinal.

However, what the residents and businesses in these states must now realize is that they are not being asked to conserve water temporarily; instead, they are being asked to use it more efficiently now and into the future. There is a big difference between the two propositions and greatly affects the way we design our buildings.

 

 

http://www.ecobuildingpulse.com/water-conservation/when-water-conservation-is-not-enough_o.aspx?dfpzone=home&utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=jump&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EBP_013014&day=2014-01-30

Thirty Somethings Flip-Flopped on Homeownership | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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An analysis by Chris Porter, a senior manager at the John Burns Real Estate Consulting practice, has some frightening findings for the housing industry.  Americans aged 30 to 34 years old in 2012 had the lowest homeownership rate of any similarly aged group before them… yet just five years earlier, in 2007, the same people had the highest homeownership rate at 25-29 years old than any group before them.

Porter calls it an amazing reversal of fortune and possibly the most amazing, underreported demographic fact today.

Using homeownership-by-age data from the Census Bureau, Porter compared households by years of birth to examine how homeownership changes over consumers’ lifetimes.

•            Lowest ever in 2012: 30-34 year-olds in 2012 (born between 1978 and 1982) had a 47.9% homeownership rate. This is a full 6.5 percentage points lower than those five years older had achieved at the same age and lower than any group before them! (This is based on data available beginning with those born in 1948.)  Porter calls them the “Subprime Generation.”

•            Highest ever 5 years prior: Those same 30-34 year-olds had a 40.5% homeownership rate 5 years prior when they were 25-29 years old in 2007. This is 6.2 percentage points higher than 25-29 year-olds in 2012 and higher than any 5-year cohort before them.

‘Our consulting team has been pointing out a real dearth of entry-level buyers over the last several years, which is counterintuitive when you consider that this has been the most affordable time in generations to buy a home. What we learned is that a huge percentage of households bought a home earlier than usual, and that same group has gone through more foreclosures than any generation before them,” Porter wrote in his blog.

What does this mean? It is more difficult than usual to sell entry-level homes today, but the pent-up demand for entry-level housing is huge, he said.

 

 

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2014/01/thirty-somethings-flip-flopped-on-homeownership/