Category Archives: Real Estate

312,000 Residential Properties Regain Their Equity

June 7, 2014 jd

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FRIDAY, JUNE 06, 2014
About 312,000 residential properties regained equity in the first quarter of this year, raising the total of residential properties with equity to more than 43 million, CoreLogic reported Thursday in its annual home equity report.

Still, as of the first quarter, about 6.3 million homes – or 12.7 percent – have negative equity compared to 6.6 million or 13.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013. Negative equity refers to borrowers who owe more on their mortgage than their homes are currently worth.

What’s more, of the 43 million residential properties who do have equity, about 10 million have less than 20 percent equity, an at-risk position to be in if home prices were to fall, according to CoreLogic’s report. About 20.6 percent of all residential properties are in what’s considered such an “under-equitied” position.

“Despite the massive improvement in prices and reduction in negative equity over the last few years, many borrowers still lack sufficient equity to move and purchase a home,” says Sam Khater, CoreLogic’s deputy chief economist. “One in five borrowers have less than 10 percent equity in their property, which is not enough to cover the down payment and additional costs associated with a conventional mortgage.”

But CoreLogic is projecting an additional rise in home prices of 5 percent over the next 12 months which is expected to lift another 1.2 million properties “out of the negative equity trap,” says Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic.

CoreLogic’s report shows the following states have the highest percentage of all mortgaged properties in negative equity:

Nevada: 29.4%
Florida: 26.9%
Mississippi: 20.1%
Arizona: 20.1%
Illinois: 19.7%
Source: CoreLogic

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CoreLogic: Year Over Year, the Negative Equity Share Has Declined by 3.5 Million Properties

Real Estate

Almost Half of States Near Home Appreciation Peaks

June 4, 2014 jd

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Home prices are continuing to rise heading into the summer months, according to CoreLogic’s latest Home Price Index, which shows nationwide home prices, including distressed sales, rising 10.5 percent in April compared to year-ago levels.

“The purchase market continues to suffer from a dearth of inventory, which we expect will continue to drive prices up over the year,” says Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic.

In fact, no states posted drops to their home prices in April, according to CoreLogic’s index. What’s more, several states surpassed their previous home price peaks, including: Colorado, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming.

Twenty-three states as well as the District of Columbia also are at or within 10 percent of their home price appreciation peak, according to CoreLogic.

The five states with the highest home appreciation (including distressed sales) in April year-over-year are:

California: 15.6%
Nevada: 14.8%
Hawaii: 14.1%
Oregon: 11.8%
Michigan: 11.3%

Source: CoreLogic

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Real Estate

I Sold My Home, Now I Have Nowhere to Go

May 22, 2014 jd

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More home owners say now is a good time to sell, surveys show, but low inventories have them worried about what their next move would be. With fewer homes on the market and quickly rising home prices, sellers are becoming less confident that they will be able to trade up at an affordable price. So where do they go from here?

Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, says he repeatedly hears this concern from sellers: “I’m afraid to sell my house because I can’t find another one.”

Tim Brampedach, a business owner who lives in San Francisco, tells CNNMoney that his home’s value has risen from $1.2 million to $1.6 million in the past three years. He and his wife want to move to a bigger place, but “[we] are effectively locked into the house. We can’t sell because we can’t afford anything else nearby. … It’s people like us, who live in a fully turnkey home, who can’t supply homes because we have nowhere else to go in the city,” Brampedach says.

The competition for the limited number of homes for sale has heated up in some parts of the country, with buyers facing increasing competition from all-cash buyers. All-cash deals reached a record 43 percent of home sales in the first quarter of this year, according to RealtyTrac.

Some real estate professionals are actively looking for home owners who may consider selling, even mailing them letters or knocking on doors to ask them if they considered it.

One home owner, Kathleen Jackson of South Boston, says she and her husband recently received such an unsolicited offer that they felt was too good to pass up. But they worried if they’d be able to find another home. When the buyer agreed to give the couple until October to find a new home, they accepted the offer. Agents say this tactic is becoming more popular, with some sellers making the sale of their home contingent on their ability to find another home to move into.

Source: “‘I’m Too Afraid to Sell My Home,’” CNNMoney (May 20, 2014)
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Real Estate

May 2014 U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook

May 21, 2014 jd

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MCLEAN, VA–(Marketwired – May 19, 2014) – Freddie Mac (OTCQB: FMCC) released today its U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook for May, showing that regular supply and demand forces continue to produce unexpected results as the housing recovery readies to shift into a higher gear during the spring home buying season. The complete May 2014 U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook and forecast table are available here.

Outlook Highlights

Projecting new home construction to increase by 18 percent, and house price appreciation moderating to an annual growth of 5 percent in 2014.
Maintaining new and existing home sales at 5.5 million for 2014, the same as for 2013, as the inventory of homes available for sale remains low in many markets.
Single-family originations are expected to drop about 35 percent in 2014 relative to 2013, based on the large decline in refinance volume. Refinance is expected to represent about 40 percent of this year’s originations, down from about 60 percent in 2013.
While net household formation continues to increase, the overall level remains lower than what would be expected; stronger job and income growth are necessary to support additional household formation.
Expect the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage to gradually rise higher, ending the year around 4.6 percent. We expect fixed rates to rise gradually during the second half of the year in part as a result of the Federal Reserve’s “tapering” of net MBS acquisitions.

Quote
Attributed to Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist.

“The housing recovery is struggling to shift into a higher gear, and obviously there are various imbalances holding this back from happening, but at the heart of the matter it comes down to jobs. Housing needs stronger, and just as important, sustained levels of job creation to get the housing engine firing on all cylinders. April’s jobs numbers were encouraging, and nothing will solve the supply and demand factors faster than keeping employment growth going. Until we see this happening, we’re revising our forecast lower in several areas on an annualized basis. While we still see an improving trajectory for the housing market, we’re pushing it out a few months from our earlier forecast because we expect GDP growth to pick up in the final three quarters of the year from what was clearly a dismal first quarter reading.”

Freddie Mac was established by Congress in 1970 to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the nation’s residential mortgage markets. Freddie Mac supports communities across the nation by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Today Freddie Mac is making home possible for one in four home borrowers and is one of the largest sources of financing for multifamily housing. Additional information is available at FreddieMac.com, Twitter @FreddieMac and Freddie Mac’s blogFreddieMac.com/blog.

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Real Estate

City of Grass Valley Has Funds for First Time Home Buyers

May 20, 2014 jd

The City of Grass Valley’s has available funding to provide down payment assistance to qualified low-income potential home buyers. This program is separate from the County’s and offers agents and their clients an additional funding source to access.

The City’s First Time Home Buyer Program, funded through the State of California Department of Housing and Community Development HOME Investment Partnerships Program, can provide gap assistance to qualifying individuals and families. Gap assistance enables these potential homeowners to borrow part of their down payment and/or closing costs from the City of Grass Valley through the HOME Loan Program. To be eligible, applicants must meet the following requirements:

Be a first-time home buyer, which is defined as an individual who has not owned a home during the three-year period before the purchase of a home with subsidy assistance.
The home being purchased cannot exceed a purchase price of $246,000.
The home being purchased must be located inside the city limits of Grass Valley.
Meet the program income eligibility, based on the U.S. Department of Housing and Community Development standards, developed for Nevada County/Grass Valley by size and income as follows:

Family size 1 2 3 4 5 6

Max. Income $38,650 $44,200 $49,700 $55,200 $59,650 $64,050

Please have interested applicants contact Beth Owens, City of Grass Valley Housing Technician, at (530) 274-4344 or beth@cityofgrassvalley.com for more information regarding the application process

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Real Estate

A Way to Complete With Cash Buyers

May 16, 2014 jd

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Buyers needing financing for their home purchase often struggle to compete with other buyers willing to pay all cash to close the sale. All-cash buyers are making up an increasing part of sales too. The National Association of REALTORS®’ latest existing-home sales report shows that in February all-cash sales accounted for 35 percent of transactions.

Some lenders are helping buyers better compete. Known as “pre-underwriting,” they’re putting loan applications through a more thorough venting process before the buyer even enters into a contract for a home, The New York Times reports.

For example, Luxury Mortgage in Stamford, Conn., has started pre-underwriting some of its clients. Unlike preapprovals for a specified loan amount, lenders take the approval a step further by thoroughly reviewing all documentation that would be required for a formal approval. This type of underwriting is being completed after a house is selected and an offer is accepted, but before the contract is in place.

Another lender – Mortgage Master in Walpole, Mass. – has also taken its preapproval process a step further. The lender says for some of its buyers it is verifying the same income and asset information upfront that it would typically do for a processed loan application. The aim is to put the borrower in the same position as a cash buyer, Paul Anastos, president of Mortgage Master, told The New York Times.

Nearly half of all home sales all-cash deals

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Real Estate

Luxury Home Sales Soar Above Historical Average

May 6, 2014 jd

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Affluent buyers are feeling bullish about housing, as luxury home sales skyrocket, Bloomberg reports. Million-dollar homes in the U.S. are selling at double their historical average, according to data released by the National Association of REALTORS®.

Sales of homes that cost $1 million or more increased 7.8 percent in March compared to a year earlier. Meanwhile, sales of homes that cost $250,000 or less — which represent about two-thirds of the housing market — dropped 12 percent in March year-over-year.

“The real estate market is the ultimate reflection of confidence, wealth, and income,” says Sam Khater, deputy chief economist at CoreLogic.

Transactions for homes costing $2 million or more soared 33 percent in January and February compared to a year earlier, according to an analysis by DataQuick of 25 of the top U.S. metro areas. The transactions were the highest for a two-month period since DataQuick began its tracking in 1988.

“The luxury markets are on fire,” Christie’s International CEO Bonnie Stone Sellers told Bloomberg. “The trends in luxury housing are similar to trends in other luxury goods. Whether you’re buying a third home in Manhattan as a pied-a-terre or another Picasso, these are acquisitions of passion, of lifestyle, and of experience.”

There have been some blockbuster sales recently. The latest to grab headlines was the $147 million sale of an East Hampton’s property, which now carries the title as the priciest home sale ever in the U.S. This came two weeks after the sale of a single-family home in Greenwich, Conn., known as Copper Beech Farm shattered home records at the time at $120 million.

“The stock market is very strong, and this is a way to monetize and concretize some gains,” says Gary Wasserman, CEO of Allied Metals Corp., who is looking to boost his personal real estate portfolio. “We had quite a shock to our collective confidence in 2008 and 2009. The resurgence of the economy has underscored for us that this country remains a very strong place, and that the future remains strong.”

Source: “Million-Dollar Home Sales Thrive While Low End Stumbles,” Bloomberg Businessweek (May 2, 2014)

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Real Estate

Better Days Ahead in Housing, Freddie Says

April 11, 2014 jd

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The housing market is stronger today than at any point since the Great Recession and has made progress in several key areas after hitting bottom in 2009, Freddie Mac reports in a blog post looking at the state of the housing market heading into spring.

Home sales are up 13 percent since their low point, Freddie Mac reports. Frank Notaft, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, predicts that home sales will rise about 3 percent in 2014.

Also, the agency reports that housing starts are up 50 percent since hitting bottom. Freddie Mac is predicting a nearly 20 percent increase in new-housing starts in 2014, “which will begin to help ease tight inventories in many markets.”

Housing prices have also been on the upswing, about 16 percent higher than their bottom in 2009, Freddie Mac reports. They expect home values to continue to rise this year, but at a more moderate 5 percent pace. Also, researchers say many markets are still posting housing values that are below their 2006 peaks.

Freddie Mac is forecasting mortgage rates to remain near their historic lows this year, but rates are expected to rise about a half-percentage point during the year to around a 5 percent average by the end of the year.

Source: “After Winter Chill, Time to Spring Forward,” Freddie Mac (April 10, 2014)
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Freddie Mac: “Fixed Mortgage Rates Tick Down”

Real Estate

Home Prices to Increase Next 12 Months

March 25, 2014 jd

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March 25, 2014

REALTORS® expect home prices to continue to rise over the next 12 months. But they expect them to do so at a moderate pace, given tight credit conditions and the chipping away of home affordability, according to the latest REALTORS® Confidence Index, a monthly survey distributed to more than 50,000 real estate practitioners to gauge expectations over home sales, prices, and market conditions.

Real estate professionals reported a median price expectation of 3.9 percent over the next 12 months.

The states where practitioners are predicting the biggest increases—5 to 7 percent—are in California, Florida, Alaska, and Hawaii. Tight inventories have helped to lift home values in these areas, according to the survey.

“In states with booming economies like Washington, North Dakota, Texas, Michigan, and the D.C.-metro area, the expected price increase is about 3 to 5 percent,” according to the report.

Real estate professionals also expressed several concerns over the housing market holding back some buyers, particularly due to “unreasonably” tight credit conditions.

“Access to credit was often cited as a deterrent to home buying,” according to the report. “About 13 percent of REALTORS® who did not close a sale in February reported having clients who could not obtain financing.”

In those cases, about 6 percent of the professionals said their buyer gave up, while 7 percent said their buyer continued to seek new or other financing. Other transaction hang-ups were lack of agreement on a price (accounting for 11 percent); buyer losing a home to competition (10 percent); and appraisal issues (3 percent).

By REALTOR® Magazine Daily News

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Real Estate

$15 Million Beach House Built in Rock

February 22, 2014 jd

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