The Economic Data Looks Weak, But It’s Stable | Pound Ridge Real Estate
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Existing Home Sales Hit 3-Year Peak | Pound Ridge NY Homes
- By:
- Peter KingDecember 21, 2012 – MortgageLoan.com
Sales of pre-owned homes rose strongly in November, topping an annual rate of 5 million units and reaching their highest level in three years.
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reports that existing home sales in November were at a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.04 million in November, a 5.9 percent increase from October’s downwardly revised rate of 4.76 million.
The figure represents a 14.6 percent annual increase from the November 2011 rate of 4.40 million and is the highest rate reported since sales hit an annual pace of 5.44 million in Nov. 2009.
“Momentum continues to build in the housing market from growing jobs and a bursting out of household formation,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist. “With lower rental vacancy rates and rising rents, combined with still historically favorable affordability conditions, more people are buying homes.”
Yun said sales were depressed in some areas affected by Hurricane Sandy, but those impacts were offset by gains in other areas, so that overall sales in the Northwest were up.
Prices up 10 percent from last year
Median home prices also showed a healthy gain over the past 12 months, increasing 10.1 percent to $180,600 in November. It was the ninth consecutive month of annual price gains for existing homes, which hasn’t occurred in over six years.
Distressed properties, including foreclosures and short sales, continue to make up a declining share of all sales, falling to 22 percent in November, down from 24 percent the month before and 29 percent in November 2011. Yun predicted that share will drop into the teens early next year, owing to declining numbers of seriously delinquent mortgages.
Despite the decline in distressed home sales the share of homes bought by investors has remained fairly steady, accounting for about one in five sales in November and unchanged from one year ago.
First published on MortgageLoan.com at: http://www.mortgageloan.com/existing-home-sales-hit-3-year-peak-9323
via mortgageloan.com
What real estate trends suggest for 2013 | Pound Ridge NY Real Estate
As 2012 comes to an end, most real estate professionals sit on the edge of their seats, anticipating the outcome of the fiscal cliff and how it will affect the housing market going into 2013.
However, there are real estate trends, both nationally and locally, from 2012 that may indicate what is expected in 2013, according to the latest trend data released by Realtor.com.
Inventory was a huge player in 2012, with the total U.S. for-sale inventory falling 45% since its peak in 2007 to 1.674 million units for sale. The median age of the inventory dropped as well, down by 11.4% since November 2011. These numbers indicate supply-and-demand playing a big role moving into 2013, at least for the first half of the year.
On a local level, markets that were the epicenter of the housing crisis continued to gain momentum while the Midwest and Northeast areas — typically more industrialized — continued to falter. States such as Arizona, California and Washington ended the year with dramatic drops in inventory and significant price appreciation of at least 10% year-over-year.
Click on the image below to see the greatest year-over-year inventory reductions.
Conversely, markets in states such as Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, which gained little price appreciation, did not experience dramatic inventory change. Only five areas saw a year-over-year increase in for-sale inventory including Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Philadelphia, Pa., and Shreveport, La. This increase in inventory indicates a continued weakness in both their housing markets as well as the local economy.
Richard Green, director of USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, believes the housing inventory will even out in 2013.
“I was surprised at how good 2012 turned out to be,” Green told HousingWire. “As prices go up, you’re going to see fewer and fewer people underwater on their houses. They are going to feel more and more free to sell their houses.”
Green also offered advice to real estate professionals who may be unsure about what the next few months will bring to the housing market.
“The fiscal cliff is overhyped. If we go over it, we go over it. It’s not a cliff, it’s a slope.”
This reiterates a report released by Barclays on Monday indicating that if the fiscal cliff were to hit, the housing industry would likely slow, but not enough to a point where it would become particularly vulnerable to a sharp contraction.
Additionally, Doug Duncan, chief economist of Fannie Mae, said Tuesday, “Despite unsteady macroeconomic conditions, we anticipate housing and mortgage activity to gain momentum in 2013.”
via housingwire.com
China home price rises quicken, uptrend takes hold | Pound Ridge NY Real Estate news
A recent uptick in land costs – typically a prelude to home price rises – have changed market sentiment and pushed would-be home buyers back to the market in a bid to beat increases.
China’s top state think tank warned last week that China should enforce new property controls next year to curb speculation and prevent an expected modest recovery in house prices from turning into a steep rebound.
The view was echoed by analysts.
“The Chinese government would like to keep the stability of the real estate market. If home prices and sales rebound too quickly next year, the government might unveil fresh tightening policies, including expanding property tax beyond Shanghai and Chongqing,” said Liu Yuan, a head of research at property consultancy Centaline.
Rocketing property prices were a major consequence of China’s last economic stimulus effort, the 4 trillion yuan ($635 billion) package launched in 2008 at the depths of the global financial crisis.
Compared with a year ago, however, home prices are still falling nationwide. The 0.7 percent drop in November was the ninth such decline but easing from a year-on-year fall of 1.1 percent in October, according to Reuters calculations.
Reuters started its weighted China home price index in January 2011 when the NBS stopped providing nationwide data. The NBS now only publishes price changes for each of the 70 major cities.
(Reporting by Xiaoyi Shao and Nick Edwards; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
Do Your Emails Annoy Your Co-Workers? | Pound Ridge NY Real Estate
via mashable.com
Using YouTube as an Effective Marketing Tool | Pound Ridge Real Estate
There are plenty of companies that effectively use many different kinds of social media. Whether it’s interacting with customers on Twitter, or posting interesting information on Facebook, lots of companies do a great job of keeping customers engaged. Often though, many companies fail to use YouTube as a marketing tool. It’s perplexing, because there are so many plusses to having a YouTube account yet so many marketing departments fail to use YouTube. Whether you’re a small company or a large one, using YouTube as a marketing tool can increase revenues and create more customer loyalty. If you’re considering integrating YouTube into your marketing plan, consider the following to make sure it is effective.
Interacting
Just like Twitter or Facebook, YouTube can be a great and creative way to interact with your customer base. Some companies have integrated full on interactive YouTube campaigns to answer customer’s questions and provide witty comments. Old Spice even hired an actor to answer YouTuber’s questions, and created videos with real responses to user submitted questions.
If you get creative, YouTube can essentially replace the frequently asked questions section on your website. You can use YouTube to directly respond to user’s questions and have a large database full of answered questions. This will also make your company appear more personal, as there is somebody visually answering a question.
Explanations
Use YouTube as a way to explain the different products or services your company offers. You can use it to physically demonstrate a product so your customers can see exactly how a certain product is used. You can easily show the difference in products by using YouTube to highlight each of your products. For example, if your company offers Free Music Downloads, produce videos of the different types of subscriptions that you offer and how to access each one. Make it very clear in your videos on how your product is different than others on the market, and the advantages your product offers.
Playlists
Creating playlists on YouTube, whether composed of your own videos or someone else’s, is a great way to get your company increased visibility on the Internet. Try to find videos related to your business that don’t have millions of views, so the content is fresh to viewers. If you make effective playlists, people will associate your playlists with your videos and your company, and you’ll start seeing more views on your videos. The more views you get, the better chance you have of growing your customer base.
Responses
Aside from creating different kinds of videos and putting them on YouTube, interacting with other companies or YouTubers with video responses is a great way to increase your online presence. If you create a particularly interesting response or offer a different point of view, people will be directed to your company’s YouTube channel and will view your other videos. Make sure you are strategic in the way that you target your responses; keep them relevant to your industry and only comment on popular videos. You’ll start to be recognized in the YouTube community, and you’ll see the views on your videos go up.
Connecticut Unemployment Continues to Lag Behind Nation’s | Pound Ridge Realtor
The Foreclosure Iceberg is Slowly Melting | Pound Ridge Real Estate
The shadow and visible inventories of foreclosures accumulated during the processing slowdown in the wake of the Robogate scandal are slowing shrinking, absorbed by healthy demand so health that distress sales are actually rising faster on a national basis that full-priced homes.
CoreLogic reported Monday that October prices that exclude distress sales rose only 5.8 percent while prices that include distressed sales increased on a year-over-year basis by 6.3 percent in October 2012, the biggest increase since June 2006 and the eighth consecutive increase in home prices nationally.
In a separate report, CoreLogic said that despite the demand only 58,000 foreclosures were completed in October, a year-over-year decrease of 17 percent and a decrease of 25 percent from September.
There are still 1.3 million foreclosures in the visible inventory, a decline of only 13 percent from a year ago, when there were 1.5 million backlogged in the final months before the AG settlement was reached. Some 3.9 million foreclosures that have been completed since the housing crisis began in September 2008.
With demand strong and new standards in place, the pace of foreclosure completions could pick up next year. Where this will happen is very import to investors. As time passes, the differences between markets in judicial and non-judicial states continue to increase, and a handful of markets, largely in the Midwest and Northeast, today are the hotbeds of foreclosure activity
Here’s how CoreLogic sees the geography of foreclosure completions:
- The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in October 2012 were: California (105,000), Florida (95,000), Michigan (68,000), Texas (59,000) and Georgia (54,000).These five states account for 49.0 percent of all completed foreclosures nationally.
- The five states with the lowest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in October 2012 were: South Dakota (19), District of Columbia (64), Hawaii (452), North Dakota (511) and Maine (643).
- The five states with the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes were: Florida (11.1 percent), New Jersey (7.7 percent), New York (5.3 percent), Illinois (5.0 percent) and Nevada (4.8 percent).
- The five states with the lowest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes were: Wyoming (0.5 percent), Alaska (0.7 percent), North Dakota (0.7 percent), Nebraska (0.8 percent) and South Dakota (1.0 percent).
Pros’ guide to patching driveway cracks | Pound Ridge Realtor
Q: We bought our house in 1980, and it was built in 1939. I don’t know how old our concrete driveway is, but it has many cracks that weeds are growing from. Over the years the cracks have gradually gotten bigger. Money is tight and we would rather not have to replace the entire driveway. Is there a way to repair those cracks? I’m not looking for a perfect solution. Any advice you can give will be most appreciated.
A: No need to replace the driveway. Patching the cracks will slow down the deterioration and give your driveway many more years of useful life.
The main reason for fixing concrete cracks, aside from looks, is to help keep moisture from leaching into the soil causing expansion and contraction that further damages the concrete.
Before you begin the repair, scope out the general area and try to get a feel for what caused the crack. Tree roots and standing water are two common causes. Before you begin fixing the actual crack, try to identify and eliminate the source. That could mean cutting out an offending tree root or filling a depression in the concrete.
Preparation
Regardless of the size of the crack, job one is preparation. It’s critical to clean and perhaps widen the crack to create clean surfaces that are ready to bond with the repair material you choose. You’ve got weeds, so first use a herbicide to kill them — “roots and all” as one popular brand says. Spray the weeds and give them a week or so to die.
Begin preparing the crack by breaking off any loose pieces of concrete with a cold chisel. The goal is to get a solid surface to bind to the patching material.
After the chiseling is done, use a wire brush to loosen any remaining debris.
Remove as much loose debris from the crack as possible. The gold standard is to use an air compressor, but if you don’t have one available, use a shop vac to vacuum out the crack. Your goal is to clean out all of the dust and chips.
Fixing cracks less than 1/2 inch
Textured caulk, concrete sealer or pourable concrete grout are options for repairing small cracks. Choose a product that is flexible. It should give a little with earth movement. Read the labels and ask the salesperson at the home center for recommendations.
Whichever product you choose, be sure to follow the manufacturer’s instructions. Completely fill the crack and use a pointing trowel or your thumb to push the grout or sealer into the crack.
Fixing larger concrete cracks
For cracks wider than 1/2 inch, use a cold chisel to undercut the crack to make sure that the crack is wider below the surface than at the surface. This will keep the patching material from popping out of the crack as the concrete expands and contracts.
If using pourable concrete grout, apply it in 1/4-inch increments. Another alternative is to partially fill the crack with damp sand leaving 1/2 inch to the surface of the crack to be filled with the grout. Either way, multiple applications are required to allow for proper drying and shrinkage. Overfill the final coat to compensate for the slight shrinkage the grout will experience as it dries.
If using vinyl concrete patch, mix only as much as you can use within the pot life of the product, usually less than 20 minutes. Begin by wetting the crack with a spray bottle or hose. Spread the patch material into the crack forcing it into the crack with a pointing trowel or your finger. Again, fill the crack in layers no thicker than 1/4 inch to account for shrinkage. Again, damp sand can be used to raise the depth of the crack to 1/2 inch.
If using textured caulk, it has to be applied to a dry surface. If the crack you’re repairing is deeper than 3/8 inch, fill the crack with sand or foam backer board. Cut off the tip of the applicator to a size that matches your crack, not exceeding 1/4 inch (refer to the caulk manufacturer’s guidelines). In addition to completely filling the crack, apply some overfill to account for shrinkage as the caulk dries.
When finishing each of these options blend the final patch material with the surrounding concrete to form a good seal of the crack. A small brush, a broom or even a block of wood rubbed across the patch will do the trick.
via inman.com
Mortgage Demand for Purchases Soars to Yearly High | Pound Ridge Realtor
Loan requests for new home purchases hit a new high for the year last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association reports.
Applications for home purchases, viewed as a leading indicator for future home sales, rose for its fourth consecutive week, marking a high point for 2012, the MBA reports.
The MBA’s mortgage application index, which reflects mortgage demand for refinancing and home purchases, rose 4.5 percent for the week ending Nov. 30.
Applications for refinancings also saw a big spike last week, rising 6.1 percent.
Mortgage rates are in record-breaking territory. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.52 percent last week, down from 3.53 percent the previous week.
Source: “Mortgage Applications Rose Last Week: MBA,” Reuters (Dec. 5, 2012)
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