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Pound Ridge Real Estate

Doorsteps: A new generation of buyers are ready to buy a home smarter, better and faster – will you join them? | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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A funny thing happened after we launched Doorsteps, an online tool we explicitly designed and marketed to agents. Buyers kept signing up. And not just one or two. Dozens. Then hundreds. Then we lost count.

To be fair, this wasn’t entirely a shock. Doorsteps was conceived as a shared online workspace to help give agents a well-designed way to guide their buyers through the home-buying journey. It’s packed with 100% unbiased, insider information, and lots of smart tools to help their buyers (and potential buyers) make faster, better decisions.

We knew that buyers needed this kind of step-by-step support, and that there were no good places to get a really clear understanding of all the moving pieces. And certainly not in a single place to see it all in context. But what was surprising was how badly they wanted it, even before they had connected with an agent. In a nutshell, they were too impatient to wait to be invited in. They wanted to get going right here, right now.

Looking back, though, it makes perfect sense. Home-buyers are different today than they were even five or ten years ago. This is a generation used to using technology to organize their lives, to connect with others, to make decisions. They expect – and increasingly demand – transparency. And they are surrounded by really well-designed tools they use every single day, whether they are trying to find the right doctor or book a table in a restaurant. So their standards for home-buying went way up even before many of them had bought their first home.

Especially for GenY, who watched their older siblings get pummeled in the housing crisis and don’t want to make the same mistakes. Or even GenX, who last bought a home seven or eight years ago and realize the landscape fundamentally shifted beneath them in the meantime.

Which is why we recently built a buyer-facing version of Doorsteps that would allow any buyer to use the app even before contacting an agent. The best part? The app now actually helps them find the right agent, and they will be way more organized, prepared, and ready to do so when they actually take that step. Pretty soon they’ll be able to find the right lender right within Doorsteps, too. And then the best-of-the-best service providers out there— home insurance, moving companies, you name it.

A New Generation of Homebuyer from Doorsteps on Vimeo.

So it’s a win-win. Buyers get to begin their journey on their own terms, if they choose to. But agents get to step in when those buyers are truly prepared and eager to take the step from curious to committed. Which is why Doorsteps agents are thrilled to connect with buyers who are already in the system, and why it’s such a personal joy for us to be able to enable that connection. It’s not just, “Hey, Jennifer, I saw a listing online that looked sort of nice. Should we meet?”, but more like “Hey, I’m pre-approved, I have clearly articulated my wants and needs, I have a realistic budget in mind, I have a general understanding of which neighborhoods may make the most sense for my life stage and family, and I’d like to move within three months. Should we meet?”.

You can imagine which of those buyers agents have told us they would like to work with more. And, honestly, this is what buyers want, too.

So we’re really excited to announce the launch of two Doorsteps. The agent version, which real estate professionals know and love. And the buyer version, which buyers demanded. And it’s a great lesson for any startup, or any real estate business. Listen. Be nimble. Be open to learn something you weren’t quite expecting. And make sure your welcome mat is as wide as it ought to be.

And even if you don’t use a lot of technology yourself, embody the characteristics that makes using technology so attractive to your clients. Clarity. Openness. Transparency. And for goodness sake, give ‘em what they want. If it happens to also be what they need, all the better.

via next.inman.com

Frustrating reasons for rejected appraisals | Pound Ridge NY Real Estate

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Q: “I used your site approximately 30 days ago to try to refinance the loan on my four-family rental property; the rate was locked and the appraisal came back with a satisfactory value, according to the loan officer … I was told that loan processing would take a little time, but every time I checked I was told that everything was fine and proceeding on schedule. …

Today I received a phone call from the loan officer stating that the loan has been denied by the underwriter because the appraisal was not satisfactory. It seems that the comparables used in the appraisal were not “similar enough.” I asked what that meant exactly and did not get a response.”

A: It is a sorry state of affairs when a would-be borrower pays for an appraisal, which is not accepted by the lender who ordered it, and the loan is rejected as a result. While many transactions are torpedoed by appraisals that come in with values unacceptably low, in this case the value was satisfactory but the appraisal producing it was not. I am told by market insiders that before the financial crisis, this hardly ever happened, but today it is not unusual.

Appraisals are heavily based on comparables, which are similar houses in the same market area as the house being valued, and which were sold in the last six months or so. Much of the expertise of appraisers is in the selection of comparables, and in the ability to make informed judgments regarding how differences between the subject house and each comparable affect the value of the subject house.

A four-family house is much more of a challenge to an appraiser than a one-family house, both because the different units occupied by different families might differ significantly in their condition, and because comparables are more difficult to find. This has always been true, however, and does not explain why rejections based on unsatisfactory appraisals are more common today than in earlier years. This is not something that can be attributed to lender greed, since they don’t make any money on loans they don’t make.

The most plausible explanation is that the quality of appraisals has declined. To check that in the case at hand, I had the frustrated applicant send me a copy of the appraisal, which I went through step by step with an expert, who showed me the deficiencies. The “comparables” were anything but, and the valuation adjustments for differences between the alleged comparables and the subject property defied common sense. It was a poor appraisal, and its rejection by the underwriter was justified.

The quality of appraisals has declined since the regulatory ground rules were changed in 2009. In that year, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issued the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC), which declared that the agencies thenceforth would purchase only those mortgages that were supported by an “independent” appraisal.

The objective of HVCC was to insulate the appraisal process from influence by any of the parties with an interest in the outcome. Mortgage brokers and Realtors could no longer have any contact with appraisers, and lenders had to obtain appraisals in some manner that prevented them from exercising any control.

To protect themselves from liability, most lenders today order appraisals from appraisal management companies (AMCs), which intermediate between the lender and the appraiser. The AMC selects and pays the appraiser, receives and evaluates the appraisal, and passes it to the lender, who has no direct contact with the appraiser.

Because AMCs operate nationally but do not have appraisers everywhere, more appraisals are being done by appraisers who are not familiar with the local market. Appraisers working for AMCs are also paid less per appraisal than independents — some AMCs put appraisal assignments up for bid, with the low bidder winning the assignment. This may induce appraisers to invest less time. While most appraisals today are done with the same care and professionalism as before HVCC, the fringe of inferior appraisals is larger — and those are the ones that are rejected.

Before HVCC when lenders, Realtors and appraisers talked to each other, the transaction described above might have been aborted by informal discussions regarding the lack of adequate comparables. This would have saved the would-be borrower an appraisal fee. If the comparables were adequate but the appraisal was poorly done, the lender probably would have had it done again with another appraiser who the lender knew was up to the challenge.

HVCC was designed to prevent loan providers from pressuring appraisers to come up with values high enough to make transactions workable in a period of rapidly rising market prices. In the process, however, it eliminated the positive influence of loan providers on the quality of appraisals. In today’s market, there is no danger of inflated appraisals, but we are left with lower-quality appraisals.

via inman.com

Updates to Service Restoration in Westchester County | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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POWER

LIGHT AT END OF TUNNEL?

Consolidated Edison reported Saturday afternoon that about 6,250 of its 348,000 customers in the county were still without power. That included more than 500 customers each in the municipalities of Cortlandt, Greenburgh, Mamaroneck, New Castle, New Rochelle, Rye, Yonkers and White Plains. The utility predicted all customers would have power by the end of Sunday. Only three customers of New York State Electric and Gas remained without power on Saturday. “The end of the nightmare is near,” Paul Feiner, the Greenburgh supervisor, told constituents in an e-mail.

TRANSPORTATION

GASOLINE FLOWS

Access to gasoline appears close to normal, county officials said. A Saturday morning drive along Palmer and Mamaroneck Avenues in Mamaroneck revealed that the Mobil, Sunoco and Hess stations were all open and pumping and had no lines, though drivers at the Hess station reported that the pumps were painfully slow, requiring five minutes to pump a single gallon. Donna Greene, a spokeswoman for the county executive, Robert P. Astorino, said that panic buying had been reduced because most Westchester gas stations have power and supplies. All three Metro-North Railroad lines were operating on a standard weekend schedule in Westchester, though the New Canaan branch of the New Haven line in Connecticut had been replaced by buses as a result of extensive wire damage in the hurricane.

SHELTER

FOLDING UP THE COTS

All but four temporary shelters — in Yonkers, Chappaqua, Mount Pleasant and Cortlandt Manor — have been closed, but the county did not provide a census on Saturday of how many people were accommodated overnight. Larchmont joined Scarsdale and the city of Rye in ending their states of emergency. The county’s emergency operations center was open Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and will be closed on Sunday and Monday. The county urged residents who need assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to visit that agency’s disaster recovery center at the County Center in White Plains. Some county parks remain closed, and the county-run Rye Playland suffered severe damage to its Boardwalk and ice-skating casino, the county said.

TELEPHONE, CABLE AND INTERNET

RESTORATION CONTINUES

Cablevision’s Web site said on Saturday that 2,500 customers who have electricity have no telephone, television or Internet service, and an additional 15,000 who have not had power restored also lack the three services provided through its Optimum package. Verizon said FiOS customers without power also have no telephone, Internet and television, but it provided no specific figures.

via nytimes.com

Obama holds onto “revenue” caveat in averting “fiscal cliff” | Pound Ridge Realtor

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Repurposing their respective arguments from Friday’s round of press conferences, President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, in this week’s addresses made their cases for and against extending tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans, with a view to avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff” at year’s end.

For his part, the president pointed at his reelection victory Tuesday as a message “loud and clear” that Americans “won’t tolerate dysfunction, or politicians who see ‘compromise’ as a dirty word – not when so many of your families are struggling.”

On Friday, Mr. Obama said that while he’s “open to compromise,” he won’t allow a deal to go through that extends the Bush-era tax cuts – set to expire at the end of the year – for the top two percent of high-income families. Both parties are scrambling to arrange a bargain before a series of tax increases and spending cuts go into effect Jan. 1, potentially hurling the United States into another recession.

“At the end of this year, we face a series of deadlines that require us to make major decisions about how to pay down our deficit – decisions that will have a huge impact on the economy and the middle class, now and in the future,” the president said. “Last year, I worked with Democrats and Republicans to cut a trillion dollars’ worth of spending, and I intend to work with both parties to do more.

“But as I said over and over again on the campaign trail… if we’re serious about reducing the deficit, we have to combine spending cuts with revenue – and that means asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more in taxes,” he continued. “That’s how we did it when Bill Clinton was president. And that’s the only way we can afford to invest in education and job training and manufacturing – all the ingredients of a strong middle class and a strong economy.”

The same budget battle in 2011 that eventually led to $1 trillion in cuts also brought the government within minutes of shutting down. On Tuesday, voters elected the same legislative makeup – a split Congress and Democratic White House – that has struggled over the president’s term to break free of partisan gridlock and move budget legislation.

While insisting he’s “open to compromise and new ideas,” and said he’s invited leaders of both parties to the White House to discuss solutions next week, the president issued a caveat: “I refuse to accept any approach that isn’t balanced,” he said. “I will not ask students or seniors or middle-class families to pay down the entire deficit while people making over $250,000 aren’t asked to pay a dime more in taxes.

“This was a central question in the election,” he continued, “and on Tuesday, we found out that the majority of Americans agree with my approach – that includes Democrats, Independents, and Republicans.”

But delivering the Republicans’ weekly response, Boehner, too, recycled his gist from Friday’s press conferences, arguing that allowing the top two rates to rise would be letting “our nation’s economy go off part of the fiscal cliff in January.”

Democrats “believe that doing that will generate more revenue for the federal government – but here’s the problem with that,” the House Speaker said. “Raising those rates on January 1 would, according to the independent firm Ernst & Young, destroy 700,000 American jobs. That’s because many of those hit by this tax increase are small business owners – the very people who are the key to job creation in America. I used to be one of them.

“This week, I offered congratulations to President Obama, along with an alternative to sending our economy over any part of the fiscal cliff,” he continued. The pillars of his own framework, Boehner explained, include tax reform “that closes special interest loopholes and lowers tax rates,” entitlement reform, and a rejection of “arbitrary” national defense cuts.

“A stronger economy means more revenue – which is exactly what the president is seeking,” he said, adding that a brief conversation with Mr. Obama this week left him “hopeful that we can continue those talks and forge an agreement that can pass both chambers of Congress.”

via cbsnews.com

3 Steps When the Appraisal Comes in Low | Pound Ridge NY Real Estate

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Whether you are buying or selling, waiting for an appraisal to come back can be a nerve-racking process, especially in an economy where home values are not what they used to be, despite the perceived value of a home. Because there are great deals out there and prices are increasing, buyers and sellers need to make quick decisions when the appraisal doesn’t make the cut, and it’s important to be prepared in advance for this scenario.

With this in mind, here are the three main steps to take when the appraisal comes in low:

Read the report for accuracy

Appraisal reports can be long, complicated documents, but they can be very revealing if you take the time to read them thoroughly. Make a note of anything that looks off, and verify that the information is correct, not only for the property itself but also for the comparables. Confirm that ALL comps are accounted for — some may not be listed on the MLS, and your real estate agent will have to research. Your agent will work with the buyer’s mortgage professional to ensure the information is relayed to the appraiser.

While there is no guarantee that the report will change, it certainly helps to clarify any errors and understand why an appraisal came in low. Appraisals also point out if there are any secrets lurking within the property’s walls, such as unpermitted additions that add square footage but cannot contribute toward the property’s value. For this reason it’s important that sellers are honest and upfront from the beginning and that buyers do their research before making an offer.

Renegotiate

Just because the appraisal is low doesn’t mean the sale will not close. However, in a low-inventory market, sellers may not want to conduct a second appraisal, which means that buyers and sellers have to decide if they want to work together to seal the deal — whether the seller adjusts the price to the appraised value or the buyer and seller renegotiate a new price. You’ve worked together this far, and it may have taken you both some time to get to this point. Keep in mind that you both have something to lose by not moving forward after investing time and money in the purchase. If a compromise can be made, it most likely will be. On the flip side, if the property is in demand, the seller may opt out of negotiating down as they may want to take a chance on someone else paying the difference or having a cash buyer.

Show them the money

While adjusting the price up or down may not feel good for the buyer or the seller, it may be the smart move, depending on your situation. For buyers, if the long-term value is there and the home is the “love of your life,” it will truly benefit you in the end. For sellers, if you need to make the sale and are running out of time, a compromise may be essential. Buyers may also have to spend even more because a decrease in equity could cause you to fall below the lender’s required down-payment threshold, requiring the purchase of private mortgage insurance.

The main question to ask yourself … is it really worth it?

via zillow.com

Canada’s Hot Housing Market Chills in September as Prices Drop | Pound Ridge Realtor

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Canadian home prices in September fell the most in nearly two years, suggesting that recent changes to the country’s mortgage rules have reined in Canada’s once-hot housing market.

Canadian home prices cooled in September, according to the Teranet-National Bank Composite House Price Index.

The Teranet-National Bank Composite House Price Index, or HPI,  fell 0.35% in September from August, with price drops observed in six of the 11 major Canadian cities watched by the index, including British Columbia’s Vancouver and Victoria markets, as well as Montreal.

That’s the largest price decline seen by the HPI since November 2010, when the  index fell 0.39%. Since then, the HPI has only seen four monthly declines, as historically low interest rates have spurred spending in Canada’s housing sector.

On an annualized basis, the HPI gained 3.6% in September, a slight drop from the previous month.

The federal government’s new rules that reduced the maximum amortization period of new government-insured mortgages from 30 to 25 years has “undoubtedly” contributed to cool the market, said National Bank Financial senior economist Marc Pinsonneault.

Still, existing home sales in Canada jumped 2.5% in September from August, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association, igniting worries that the sector may be headed for a crash landing.

Those concerns should be tempered as prices are likely to steadily drop up to 5% by the end of next year, said Mr. Pinsonneault.

“It doesn’t mean a catastrophe, but it’s consistent with a soft landing in the sector,” he said.

The sector will continued to be closely monitored by the Bank of Canada, which is concerned that the state of household debt in Canada is worse than originially perceived, said Mazen Issa, Canada macro strategist at TD Securities. The ratio of household credit-market debt to disposable income hit a record high of 163.4% in the second quarter of 2012.

via blogs.wsj.com