South Salem NY Weekly Real Estate Report Homes for sale 70 Median Ask Price $609,499.00 Low Price $239,000.00 High Price $3,200,000.00 Average Size 2690 Average Price/foot $272.00 Average DOM 188 Average Ask Price $709,403.00
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Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of articles on homebuilders’ willingness to pay commissions to real estate agents who can bring buyers to their properties.
As the housing recovery picks up steam and new-home sales return to historical levels, will builders stop courting Realtors?
Sales of new single-family homes were up 28.9 percent from a year ago in January, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 437,000, according to a recent U.S. Census Bureau report. That’s the best January since 2008, and there’s plenty more room to run — new-home sales exceeded 1 million a year during the last boom.
“It is safe to assume that new homes construction will continue to move forward, if not surge,” said David Crowe, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders, in a February report.
DEAR BENNY: I have about $40,000 left on my 15-year fixed mortgage at 4 percent interest. I owe about $13,000 on a home equity line that is 2.99 percent variable rate. I have a $100,000 equity line open. I have no other debt. I am considering paying off my remaining mortgage with the lower-interest home equity line. Do you think that is a good idea since I am giving up a fixed rate for a variable rate? I would pay both off in about three years. Also, if I close out my mortgage, can I still declare the interest on my taxes from the home equity line? –Wade
DEAR WADE: In general, I am always reluctant to advise readers to switch from a fixed interest rate to a variable one. I am old enough to remember when mortgage interest rates soared to 18 percent.
However, this is a personal decision for everyone, depending on your own financial situation. In Wade’s case, he will be paying off $40,000 at a current low rate, and because he has a home equity loan (called HELOC) of $100,000, if push comes to shove he will still have borrowing capability should he need cash to make the required mortgage payment on the new loan.
Wade, if you have other cash — just in case — then I think it makes sense for you to use your home equity loan to pay off your existing mortgage loan.
Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series.
“According to a recent ‘Nightline’ program, none of the Wall Street executives who engineered the subprime debacle have been convicted on criminal charges. Why do you think that is?”
I think that the most obvious answer is the correct one: The authorities were not able to find sufficient evidence of criminal behavior in any of the cases they investigated (and they investigated many) because there wasn’t any to be found. Imprudent violations of firms’ own internal policies abounded, but such violations are not criminal.
Underlying your question, and implicit in the “Nightline” approach, is an assumption that the subprime debacle was engineered by a profit-hungry group of lenders and investment bankers who, for some unknown reason, decided to run amuck. Given that assumption, the failure to convict anyone must mean either that law enforcement has been co-opted or that all the suspected criminals who were investigated were clever enough to destroy all evidence of their misdeeds.
Minneapolis, Minn., has proven to be a hard market to predict.
During the heart of the Great Recession, the housing market there was hard-hit yet employment remained stable. Then when the housing market in other metros started to improve post-recession, Minneapolis home prices redeflated, and, as a result, the city lags the recovery starting to happen elsewhere.
Minneapolis is often perceived as a white-collar town, as five Fortune 500 corporations plus a host of medical device companies and healthcare firms maintain their headquarters there. United Healthcare, which is the largest healthcare insurance company in the U.S., is based in Minneapolis and it kept hiring and expanding throughout the recession, according to Herb Tousley, director of the Shenehon Center for Real Estate at the University of St. Thomas.
“Our unemployment hangs 1.5 percent to 2 percent below the national average,” Tousley said. “At the end of 2012 our unemployment was at 5.8 percent, and we are starting to see some good job creation numbers.”