Canadian regulators continue to press case that Toronto Realtors are restricting competition | South Salem Homes
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Runup in Canadian real estate prices reason for worry? | South Salem NY Real Estate
“If you run a bank,” says Toronto-Dominion Bank CEO Ed Clark, “you should be worried” about the rapid price appreciation seen in all types of Canadian real estate.
Toronto-Dominion Bank has had to say no to financing “a number of big, lucrative” deals Clark said at a bank conference in Toronto, The Globe and Mail’s Tim Kiladze reports. Other execs at the conference say there’s no cause for alarm — delinquencies remain in check, and supply and demand are balanced.
Source: theglobeandmail.com
Real Estate: Avoid these common mortgage scams | South Salem NY Real Estate
The sluggish economy and slowly recovering housing market create the perfect environment for mortgage scams, with desperate homeowners as easy prey for scammers.
The crooks make the deal sound attractive and legit. Thousands of homeowners are duped in mortgage scams each year, and con artists don’t have to look far for victims, says Yolanda McGill, senior counsel for the Fair Housing & Fair Lending Project, an initiative by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington, D.C.
Most of the victims reach out to the scammers themselves through Internet searches, she says. She bases her conclusion on thousands of complaints that her organization has received from mortgage scam victims.
”The people showing up in our databases are people who are looking for help on the Internet,” she says.
— A theft in-‘deed’
Lured by promises of a better interest rates and lower mortgage payments, some borrowers end up signing away their houses.
Thieves pose as mortgage professionals or attorneys who pledge to modify or refinance the homeowner’s mortgage. The borrower is asked to sign the supposed modification papers. One of the pages in the stack of documents is a deed that, once signed, transfers ownership of the property to the perpetrators or a company related to them.
While many homeowners would be able to spot such an ingenious trick, others don’t bother to read or simply don’t understand the documents they sign, says Brian Sullivan, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development spokesman.
Housing market: Home price increases to soften | South Salem NY Real Estate
New home purchases decrease 18% | South Salem NY Real Estate
Even while mortgage applications for new home purchases in November were down 18% from October, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the size of the average loan continued to trend upward.
The average loan size for new homes reached $295,523 in November, according to the MBA’s Builder Application Survey.
Since the MBA started publishing the monthly survey this summer, average home loan size has increased more than $12,000 from the June average of $283,000.
The number of new homes sold in November decreased to 32,000, from 40,000 in October.
The MBA estimates that sales of new single-family homes were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 455,000 in November.
By product type, conventional loans composed 66.2% of loan applications, FHA loans composed 19.9%, RHS/USDA loans composed 1.1% and VA loans composed 12.9%.
MBA’s Builder Application Survey tracks application volume from mortgage subsidiaries of homebuilders across the country.
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/28282-new-home-purchases-decrease-18
Warren Buffet’s new real estate brand wants to learn from — and recruit — millennials | South Salem NY Homes
A group of younger agents will help Warren Buffett’s new real estate franchise brand, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, buck the aging agent trend and connect with the perspective of a younger generation.
The Irvine, Calif.-based franchisor has selected 10 agents, all 35 years old or younger, to serve a two-year term on the “REthink Council,” from a pool of more than 40 applicants, based on their ideas and proficiency — transaction sides, sales volume and awards.
The council will provide input to BHHS leadership on how to connect with millennials, the 20- and 30-somethings born during the early 1980s through the turn of the century.
The new franchise network — which 51 brokerages have committed to affiliate with — wants to become an attractive brand for younger agents, and share innovative ideas with member brokers and the industry at large.
The dearth of younger agents was part of the motivation for establishing the REthinkCouncil. Millennials are not only scarce among the ranks of real estate buyers and sellers, but underrepresented in the ranks of real estate agents.
Agents under the age of 40 made up just 11 percent of the Realtor population in 2013, according to the National Association of Realtors’ 2013 member profile, down from 20 percent in 2003.
– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/12/12/warren-buffets-new-real-estate-brand-wants-to-learn-from-and-recruit-millennials/?utm_source=20131212&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyheadlinesam#sthash.f4OPAxYE.dpuf
Phoenix housing market’s recovery still lagging most metros | South Salem Real Estate
Metro Phoenix is outperforming most of the country in terms of home-prices, but employment is underwhelming and new-home permits are far below average.
That was the overall conclusion of the National Association of Home Builders/First American Leading Markets Index, which released a report today comparing current economic and housing conditions in about 360 metro areas with the last period of normalcy before the Great Recession.
Overall, the Valley’s economic and housing activity is running at 79 percent of normal growth, landing it in the No. 250 slot and lagging the nationwide average of 84 percent.
That overall figure is an average of three categories — home prices, new-home permits and employment — based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Freddie Mac and the U.S. Census Bureau.
The index considers the last “normal” period for home prices and permitting as between 2000 and 2003, while the base comparison for employment is 2007. Each of the metro areas’ average permit, price and employment levels over the past 12 months are divided by their annual average over the last period of normal growth.
In Phoenix, home prices are exceeding 2000-03 levels by 24 percent, But current permitting levels are only one quarter of what they were during that normal period. Valley employment growth is running at 87 percent of previous norms.
Nationwide, 54 metro areas returned to or exceeded their last normal levels of economic and housing activity, excluding Phoenix.
“This index shows that most housing markets across the nation are continuing a slow, gradual climb back to normal levels,” said NAHB Chairman Rick Judson said in a prepared statement.
http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2013/12/05/phoenix-housing-markets-recovery.html?s=print
Rent or Buy? Running the Numbers On Five Downtown Studios | South Salem Real Estate
Every few weeks, our friends at StreetEasy run the numbers on apartments that are listed for both sale and rent in New York to compares the monthly costs for apartment hunters searching for the best deal. The tool doesn’t take into account every single thing (tax deductions are not factored in), but it’s one way to try to answer the eternal “rent or buy” question. Here now, we compare the data on five downtown studios, all of which are members of the Six Digit Club. These numbers assume a 20 percent downpayment and a 30-year fixed mortgage rate of 4.406 percent.
Address: 40 Broad Street, #28C, in FiDi (above) The Skinny: 590-square-foot unit in the amenity-laden Setai Wall Street Sale Price: $699,000 Maintenance/Taxes: $759/month Total monthly costs when buying: $4,047 Rental price: $3,000/month
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Address: 23 Waverly Place, #3A (above) The Skinny: A co-op studio with a sleeping loft in a building with a shared courtyard and rooftop deck Sale Price: $529,000 Maintenance/Taxes: $755 Total monthly costs when buying: $2,876 Rental price: $2,795/month
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Address: 317 East 18th Street, #SE (above) The Skinny: Near Gramercy Park, a co-op unit with a half-sized kitchen Sale Price: $290,000 Maintenance/Taxes: $890 Total monthly costs when buying: $2,053 Rental price: $2,000/month
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Address: 99 John Street, #813 (above) The Skinny: 671-square-foot studio with a home office in the Financial District Sale Price: $775,000 Maintenance/Taxes: $425 Total monthly costs when buying: $3,907 Rental price: $3,650/month
NYC’s stalled construction sites drop 12 percent: report | South Salem Real Estate
The revival of development projects in Manhattan and Brooklyn resulted in a 12 percent year-over-year drop in the number of stalled construction sites in New York City, according to the latest report from the New York Building Congress. There were 610 stalled construction sites citywide in November 2013, compared to 690 in November 2012 and a peak of 709 in November 2010, according to data from the New York City Department of Buildings.
The number of stalled sites in Manhattan dropped 26 percent over the past 12 months – from 122 in November 2012 to 90 in November of this year. Reignited projects in Manhattan include the Alexico Group’s 56 Leonard Street , Silverstein Properties’ 30 Park Place and Elad Group’s 5 Franklin Place in Tribeca
Brooklyn leads the city with 267 suspended projects, though it too has seen a 17 percent year-over-year decline, according to the report.
“In our annual construction forecast report released in October, we estimated that residential construction spending will double between 2012 and 2015,” said New York Building Congress president Richard Anderson in a statement today. “That rosy outlook was based largely on the fact that a number of luxury developments, which were shelved during the great recession, have come roaring back to life.”
http://therealdeal.com/blog/2013/11/25/nycs-stalled-construction-sites-drop-12-percent-report/
Gramercy Unit Sells for $17.3M; Transplants Can’t Cut it in City | South Salem NY Homes
Welcome to It Happened One Weekend, our weekly roundup of The New York Times real estate section…
1)Big Ticket The award for biggest sale of the week goes to 18 Gramercy Park South, where a full-floor, 4,207-square-foot apartment sold for $17.3 million. Carrying costs rounded out at about $11,225.31 and the sponsors, Zeckendorf Development and Global Holdings, bestowed a key to the private Gramercy Park as a customary closing gift, which sounds wonderfully dramatic and fun. We wish we had a key to a secret park . . . [“Big Ticket | Luxury Lodging for $17.3 Million”]
2) Every “The Hunt” column begins with the Hunters describing the apartment they want, and ends with them rationalizing whatever they came away with. This is The Hunt: Dreams vs. Reality The Hunters: a couple sick of city-life looking to move to the ‘burbs Price Dream: $350,000 to $450,000 Reality: $387,500 Neighborhood Dream: Westchester Reality: Hartsdale Amenities Dream: quiet, spacious Reality: 3BR/2BA, spacious Summary After seeing their rent on the Upper East Side skyrocket, this couple decided that city-life (and its modern hullaballoo!) wasn’t for them and decided to look for a two-story home in the suburbs, focusing on Westchester. They eventually settled on a two-story, Cape-style home with three beds and two baths in Hartsdale, attracted by its small ask and spaciousness. They paid $387,500 and are apparently loving life because everything’s cheaper and commuting to work doesn’t make them homicidal. But alas, they now live in the suburbs, trading crippling neurosis for soul-shattering boredom.
[The Hunt/”In Westchester, an End to Elevator and Subway Commutes”]