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REALTORS Confidence Improves

January 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The National Association of REALTORS published its latest findings on how REALTORS are feeling about sales activity and there is a noticeable improvement in the findings.  Part of this might be due to seasonal issues but the could be discounted a bit because we are still in the depths of winter.  It does seem like things are starting to pick up in many segments.

Chart: HousingWire

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15 Cities Where Listing Prices Are Rebounding

September 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Below is a list of 15 cities that are seeing their average listing price increase compared to last year.  According to the National Association of Realtors article, 9 of the top 10 cities with listing price increase are in Florida.  Only time will tell if this is a false dawn for the real estate market or not.  In any event, for now, it’s some good news and we’ll take it.

According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), here are the top 15 cities boasting the highest percentage of year-over-year increases in average list prices.

1. Miami
Average list price: $640,332
Year-over-year increase: 27.4%

2. Fort Myers-Cape Coral, Fla.
Average list price: $443,570
Year-over-year increase: 26.27%

3. Central-Fla.-RSA
Average list price: $405,809
Year-over-year increase: 19.41%

4. Punta Gorda, Fla.
Average list price: $267,066
Year-over-year increase: 16.37%

5. Macon, Ga.
Average list price: $193,520
Year-over-year increase: 15.98%

6. Sarasota-Bradenton, Fla.
Average list price: $466,785
Year-over-year increase: 15.86%

7. Naples, Fla.
Average list price: $713,087
Year-over-year increase: 15.13%

8. West Palm Beach-Boca Raton, Fla.
Average list price: $591,895
Year-over-year increase: 14.68%

9. Ocala, Fla.
Average list price: $193,360
Year-over-year increase: 12.07%

10. Lakeland-Winter Haven, Fla.
Average list price: $181,409
Year-over-year increase: 11.48%

11. Oralndo, Fla.
Average list price: $319,419
Year-over-year increase: 10.56%

12. Portland-Vancouver, Ore.-Wash.
Average list price: $314,537
Year-over-year increase: 10.52%

13. Boise City, Idaho
Average list price: $212,588
Year-over-year increase: 10.43%

14. Springfield, Illinois
Average list price: $174,537
Year-over-year increase: 9.12%

15. Shreveport-Bossier City, La.
Average list price: $211,414
Year-over-year increase: 8.34%

 

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Low Appraisals on Real Estate Transactions – What To Do If Your Home Sale Is Jeopardized by a Low Appraisal

September 8, 2011 By 3 Comments

We’ve been hearing more and more about low appraisals affecting transactions.  Fortunately for my clients, I have yet to run in to this issue.  That said, it’s been to be prepared in advance should you run in to this situation with the sale of your home.  The National Association of Realtors has a good article on what to do with a low appraisal.  You don’t have to let a low appraisal kill your transaction.  More often then note there are ways to work through this.

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Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Massive Refinancing Program to Be Proposed – Will This Fix the Housing Market?

September 7, 2011 By 2 Comments

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been hearing that the Obama Administration is considering proposing a massive new refinancing plan allowing millions of home owners to be able to refinance their loans which would then be kicked over to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  At lease the initial information sounds like the banks doing the refi’s won’t be responsible for the loans.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will take them on meaning the taxpayer will back stop the whole deal.  (BTW, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not given a government guarantee, however, it is assumed that they are backed because Secretary Geithner said the U.S. government would guarantee the loans owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac).

It’s expected that President Obama will announce this new plan tomorrow night.  I wonder if the National Association of Realtors and the American Bankers Associations are behind this.  I don’t see how this helps the housing market for the economy.

I’ll have more commentary on this once the proposal is officially made.

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Agents Responding on Trulia.com to Upside Down Homeowner – Use Your 401(k) Money to Bring Your Mortgage Current – Good Idea? Not!

September 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

It’s always intriguing to me to talk to real estate agents about homeowners who are upside down on their house and what they should do.  I would say more often than not the typical response is the homeowner signed a contract and they should keep their word.  They do not believe it’s a business decision.  I guess the National Association of Realtors along with HUD have done such a great job of convincing Realtors that somehow mortgages are different than other types of loans.  Yes, in a sense they are because they are secured against a home, but you have to know, from the bank’s perspective, whether or not they give you a loan is not a personal decision…it’s a business decision. So this discussion I happened to stumble upon on the real estate web site, Trulia, caused me to post this blog post I’m writing.

So, many homeowners suck every dime they have out of their retirement accounts, savings accounts and investment accounts to try to “save” their home.  Let’s say for example your home used to be worth $300k at the top and now it’s worth $210-$220k but you have a mortgage of $280k and you’re struggling to make payments.  Should you drain your 401(k) to make the mortgage payments?  How are you going to magically make that $220k home become worth $280-$300k again?  It’s not going to happen.

I’m not sure why Realtors even care, but their self-righteousness is a bit much sometimes…are we that special that we must ignore what’s best for someone’s family – and yes, it’s a business decision.  Nothing personal.  Businesses, including banks, make decisions about walking away or letting investments go all the time.  They don’t want to chase bad money with good money…but some of these Realtors would like to see you do that.  Think twice before taking their advice.

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NAR Uses Hurricane Irene to Push Flood Insurance Agenda According to Housing Wire

August 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Logo of the National Association of Realtors.

Image via Wikipedia

The National Association of Realtors is lobbying Congress to extend the National Flood Insurance Program.  It looks like this program heavily benefits those areas in very expensive locations particularly along the East Coast.  The Federal Government, i.e., the U.S. taxpayer, subsidizes property insurance for these homeowners.  Of course in Congress doesn’t extend this, there will be a crisis that will ensue.  I’m not sure if a private insurer would step up and offer policies or not.  It might be that these properties become uninsurable at least when it comes to flooding.

The National Association of Realtors are big, powerful lobbyists and as the American people start to consider how much government do they really want, this will be one powerful organization that is likely to push back on a lot of fronts.  When the MID (mortgage interest deduction) comes up for debate for possible elimination in the next year, watch for NAR to take a very visible position on behalf of homeowners….but will it really be the right thing to do for America overall?

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Shocking! Real Estate Web Sites Allow Peeping Tom Neighbors to Get Their Fill – Property Snoops

August 30, 2011 By 2 Comments
Cropped photo of Diane Sawyer

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It appears this story’s byline by Diane Sawyer notes the incredible ease with which nosey neighbors can snoop around your property by looking up everything online.  I can’t believe this is a story today, but ABC News saw fit to publish it with Diane Sawyer no less as the writer.  It looks like to me a bit of a promotion piece for some potential advertisers – real estate web sites.

For those who don’t know my background, I spent nearly 15 years in the advertising field – specifically technology media…the internet was certainly part of it.  While much of the economy is suffering, page views in two certain categories are doing well – real estate and job sites.  The proliferation of real estate web sites continues but it is dominated by a half dozen majors and then a few others.  ABC News does a nice job of promoting the following real estate web sites in their article and if you look at the layout of the article, you can see that they clearly allow lots of white space so they can’t be missed:

Tools to Research Your Property Value Online:

Zillow.com

Trulia.com

Cyberhomes.com

Eppraisal.com

Realestateabc.com

Realtor.com

Sikku.com

Homegain.com

Public Record Finder

Ms. Sawyer then goes on to make sure she gets a quote from someone who says you can’t trust real estate agents because after all, they are getting paid to make the transaction happen.  Oh, okay, so these real estate sites have no sake in your searching to try to find a home value for your property.  If you think that way about real estate agents, don’t hire them.  Also, if you have that attitude, don’t buy anything else for that matter…your doctor has a stake in your care, your attorney has a stake in your law suit, your grocer has a stake in what you buy, your lawn service company has a stake in how many treatments you buy.  I could go on and on, but this kind of sap from the mainstream media – ABC News and Diane Sawyer – is pathetic.  Everybody’s selling and if you don’t believe that, I have a mountain view property to sell you in Minneapolis.

Lastly, the drivel about the concern that people can look up information about the seller once the property goes on the market is more nonsense.  You can find out plenty from public record and county databases.  It’s not hard folks. In fact, I have worked with many very savvy buyers who look up all kinds of information about the sellers so that we are much better prepared when it comes time to negotiate.  So I guess this is a warning to sellers…your life is public, but it may become very public once you list your property for sale!

My one thought that I had when I was reading this is perhaps the government in conjunction with the National Association of Realtors and the big real estate sites (Zillow, Trulia, Front Door etc) could institute a new registration requirement and national database that would require real estate peeping toms (i.e. all people looking at real estate sites) to register and log-in first so that the powers that be would know exactly who is looking at which property and if it turns out your nosey neighbor is looking at your property, perhaps the system could default and only allow them one look and after that, it becomes a paid site – kind of like porn.  Maybe real estate could learn something from the pornography business.  Perhaps I’ll write more on that another day.

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Case-Shiller Index – Minneapolis Posts 10.8% Annual Decline in Home Prices through June 2011 – Leads Nation Again

August 30, 2011 By 5 Comments

The Case-Shiller Index is out with data through the month of June 2011.  While the data has expected shown some improvement in Q2 vs. Q1 in 2011, compared to last year at this time, every metro studied is down in home prices.  Minneapolis continues to lead the way with prices down 10.8% compared to last year.

(Click on image to enlarge).

Case-Shiller Index 20 City Data Table through June 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index – June 2011 data

It’s interesting that Minneapolis continues to lead the county in price declines.  Provided the economy doesn’t crash, I would expect to see slower price declines in 2012 and then hopefully, finally, a slow turn to the positive in 2013.

For more interpretation, analysis and spin, see the following stories from the Associated Press, Calculated Risk, CNN Money,  Bloomberg, New York Times, Housing Wire, and Zero Hedge. (As of the time I’m publishing this post at 8:50am central time, I have not seen a release from the National Association of Realtors).

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Existing Home Sales for July 2011 Disappoint

August 18, 2011 By 1 Comment

The National Association of Realtors is out with its July 2011 existing home sales report.  The best way to describe this is disappointment.  Sales continue to remain sluggish even during the peak of the summer.  The report wasn’t all bad news.  The amount of inventory for sale continues to decline which is good…however, the number of buyers willing to close on a transaction are falling a little faster than the amount of inventory on the market so the month’s supply of housing is actually increasing from 9.2 months supply to 9.4 months for sale.

Calculated Risk as well as the Star Tribune report on this latest data from the National Association of Realtors.

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Tom Lawler – Preliminary Look at Existing Home Sales for July 2011

August 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Calculated Risk has an excellent post on Tom Lawler’s forecast for the July existing home sales report which is scheduled to be released on August 18, 2011.

There still seems to be a little uncertainty as to if existing home sales will continue to show the improvement we’ve seen earlier this year.

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