A brilliant article that answers the question, why haven’t jumbo rates dropped as promised....
In early February, Congress gave beleaguered mortgage borrowers a rare cause for celebration. As part of the economic stimulus package, it passed rules intended to make it easier and less expensive for people to take out hefty loans in the nation’s costliest housing markets.
Economists and legislators said that helping tens of thousands of borrowers take out billions of dollars in new loans could stanch the bleeding in the housing market, spur spending and reduce the pain of a likely recession.
Instead, the effort to make it easier to get jumbo mortgages — loans over $417,000 — has yielded frustration and disillusionment.
For those of you who enjoy a really dumb a real estate website, look no further... Today I was introduced to agentrank.com
Now I can’t decide if the people behind this are either pure genius because they found investors, or if they found the world’s dumbest investors.
The site intends to rank real estate agents based on reviews by past clients.
Who has time or desire to rank real estate agents?... Oh yeah, clients that don’t like you, or your friends.
I’m sure the service will provide a top notch one stop shop for agent information...
How about asking someone you know for a referral, like a friend. Someone’s opinion you actually trust.
One paper described the new site this way...
“AgentRank.com bases its rankings on agents' experience, recent home-sale transactions and endorsements from past clients, among other variables. Consumers searching at the site can choose to search by location and can also specify whether to search agents by sales volume or number of endorsements.”
So in honor of my new website, www.DumbRealEstateSites.com, I’m opening the floor to nominations. Will anyone second my vote for Agentrank.com?
WASHINGTON - The House Financial Services Committee, seeking to respond to the housing crunch, has approved a $300 billion rescue package.
The vote was 46-21 to advance the bill, which would permit the government to insure new, cheaper mortgages for hundreds of thousands of struggling homeowners now facing foreclosure.
Ten Republicans joined all the Democrats on the committee to support the bill, which the Bush administration opposes. Most of them are from areas hit hard by the mortgage meltdown.
Democratic leaders plan a vote in the full House next week on a broad housing package that also includes $15 billion for states to buy and fix up foreclosed properties and an array of tax breaks.
If you're heading out to the San Francisco Film Festival
this weekend, swing by and check outthis charming Pac Heights Victorian condo.
The completely remodeledkitchen features, granite counter tops, all top of the line stainless
steel appliances including a Viking stove and even a wine refrigerator.
There is a one car private garage with room for storage, private BBQ
deck off of kitchen, laundry area inside unit and no HOA dues. Just a
two block walk to Fillmore Street shops, restaurants, cafes and more.
Open house this Saturday AND Sunday from 2-4pm.
I figured this just makes for good office conversation...
Former Oakland A's baseball star Jose Canseco has drawn perhaps the most unusual walk of his colorful and infamous career: Faced with sinking property prices and heavy legal fines, he has abandoned a multimillion-dollar home in suburban Los Angeles and let it lapse into foreclosure.
Mr. Canseco, a one-time American League most valuable player who ignited controversy by later admitting he used steroids and accusing fellow players of doing the same, becomes perhaps one of the highest-profile homeowners to walk away from a mortgage.
I think it’s safe to say we’ve all had our fill of the “F” word. I can’t listen to another “foreclosure” story or read about a short sale gone bad because of the banks issues. So today I’m going to turn the blog over to Paul Johns. He is an agent in the city and he’s writing a guest blog for us today on the challenges of selling a rent controlled building:.
By Paul Johns
One rent control building.
An example of a typical rent control situation is a building on 8th Avenue in San Francisco that is is a well maintained building owned by the same family for years. All of the current owners are over 70 years old.
Now the beneficiaries must sell and things aren't going very well. Part of the problem is bad luck, such as one owner (by being a beneficiary of the trust that owns the building) being recently evicted. He was renting from what he thought was a friend who's property was foreclosed upon. As banks cannot rent their foreclosed properties, he is being evicted even though he always paid his rent.
One of the owners wants to move from where she lives but can't afford to with just her Social Security and the small amount that comes from this building. I find it ironic that people in their 80's who own property are burdened by younger people who just want a break in the rent.
One tenant has been there since the late 1980's and pays far below the market rate. He appears to be in his 30's and the rent roll shows him in a studio apartment. However there is a bedroom that was fashioned out of some of the building's storage area. He doesn't pay anything extra for this and rent control won't allow an automatic increase in his rent.
First, the owner may carry back a note with adequate down payment. The asking price is $2,500,000. A problem with the price is that it is too high for a standard down payment on this type of building, usually around 30%, because the income won't support the loan. If the building was vacant or getting market rent, it would be worth considerably more. If a buyer wanted a place for an extended family the building would be a good candidate for the Ellis Act. That's when a landlord goes out of the rental business. One problem is that ALL tenants have to be evicted and the building has restriction on re-renting the units.
You can reach:
Paul D. Johns
Your Favorite Realtor
PropertyPaul@gmail.com
415-255-136
Though the national real estate market remains bleak--in some neighborhoods vacant homes outnumber those that are occupied and sellers are being forced to lower asking prices in a bid to lure bargain hunters--it's assumed that when housing dips to a point where buyers think it represents a bargain, they'll buy back in.
The problem is many of the markets that experienced steep 2007 price drops are still a long way from recovery.
If you’re looking for some serious insight into how the mortgage business works, the NY Times does a nice job of exploring the roles of the quasi government agencies of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The stories points out that there’s a lot of concern about the strength of the two largest mortgage buyers around. Currently the two agencies handle more than 80 percent of all mortgages bought by investors in Q1.
Ahhh Zillow... I can remember the good old days when folks would regularly visits Zillow to make themselves feel better and smarter. The site was great for reassuring your spouse the $100,000 you just paid over asking during the market’s peak would be returned to you tenfold down the road. If you weren’t using the site to remind yourself of your investing savvy, you used it to check up on the neighbor’s or your boss’ net worth.
Today, Zillow will announce a new feature of the site. It’s called bad news.
Zillow’s quarterly home value reports now come with a supplemental section (see below) that takes an in-depth look at the top 30 markets.
The best section in the new report is called, “fall from the peak.”
Today, Trulia and the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors (SILVAR)will begin encouraging members to submit their listings to Trulia at no cost. While I might argue their use of the word “encourage” seems a bit out of place in the business world, I’m sure it’s the result of hours of negations and the best use of politically correct wording as not to upset the members of SILVAR.
So without the constraints of political correctness, let me make this suggestion: TURN OVER YOUR LISTING INFORMATION AS SOON AS YOU CAN!
You can’t get your listings enough exposure these days.
There is no reason on earth you can give for not doing it. It will cost you nothing, you can offer it to current and future clients because more than 90 percent of all home buyers start their home search online, and Trulia reports 4.5 million visitors to a month.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A broad housing rescue package aimed at preventing foreclosures would have the government step in to insure up to $300 billion in new mortgages for struggling homeowners.
The plan, designed to stabilize a key sector of the shaky economy, is set for a House vote Wednesday. It would let the Federal Housing Administration insure more affordable fixed-rate loans for borrowers currently too financially strapped to qualify.
The White House says President Bush would veto the measure, calling it a burdensome bailout that would open taxpayers to too much risk. That's despite Democrats' attempts to attract Republican support by including a grab-bag of measures Bush has called for.
They include legislation to overhaul the Federal Housing Administration, the Depression-era mortgage insurer, and to more tightly regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that finance home loans. Also part of the plan is a measure, which Bush has repeatedly requested, allowing state and local housing finance agencies to use tax-exempt bonds to refinance distressed subprime mortgages.
It doesn’t matter what you do for a living, if things aren’t going your way there’s always the press to blame.
You’ve read it here, and you’ve certainly heard it around the office, “The only thing you read in the papers anymore are negative stories about real estate.”
So when I came I across a negative story about real estate this morning I couldn’t figure out if the folks at the Chronicle missed this one, which is probably the case or they’ve decided enough with the negative stories...
The remarks in the story come from 13th annual Fisher Center real estate conference taking place here in the City.
"We are about two-thirds through the price decline," Rosen said. "There is more to come."
I’ve made this offer in the past, and it’s still on the table... If you have a NEW listing worth talking about, let me know and I’ll find the time to post it... I prefer if they’re not on the market yet...
Here’s a listing that makes my point...
2 bedrooms, 2 baths and one heck of a yard...
$960,000 .... What makes it special? A single family home in Sausalito with a yard under a million dollars...
This gorgeous three-story oceanfront home boasts world-renowned panoramic views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Pacific Ocean, Baker Beach and Marin headlands. With a fenced yard, enclosed patio and large outdoor deck, it is ideal for entertaining.
Click here for additional information.
Some girls dream of growing up to be just like their mothers, but both Jane Kalish and her sister, Judy Kalish Blond, swear that they had no intention of following their mom, Pat, into real estate.
They aren't very convincing. Sitting on either side of their mother in a conference room at Intero Real Estate Services' Menlo Park office, Jane and Judy recall playing host at broker tours for their mother, baking cookies for open houses and summers spent filling in for missing receptionists. "If your mother is an accountant or a physician, she goes off to work in the morning and comes home again at 5," said Pat. "But in real estate you're working all the time. It's very visible."
Click here for the complete story.
AS if home buyers do not have it good enough already, finding a house for sale on the Web is becoming easier.
The triple threat of a weak market, legal pressure and increasing competition has compelled real estate professionals to offer their information more freely online, putting cracks in a walled garden of data that stood strong while the industry enjoyed its breakaway growth. It also presages an end to the days when sellers must list their homes with a broker so buyers can see them.
The trend revolves around the nation’s roughly 900 multiple listing services, or M.L.S.’s, where local brokers post information about homes they are selling. In years past, these services were highly restrictive about where and how that information could be distributed — for instance, frequently not permitting Web sites to display M.L.S. listings alongside for-sale-by-owner homes, bank foreclosures or other properties not represented by real estate agents.
Now, these organizations are connecting more freely with sites like Zillow, Terabitz, ZipRealty, Redfin and others. And while these sites do not have all the M.L.S. data, they have enough to give users more of a one-stop site for real estate shopping than ever before.
Over the weekend, the King of Pop narrowly averted foreclosure when the billionaire real estate investor Thomas Barrack struck a deal to buy a $23.9 million loan on Neverland Ranch from Fortress Investment Group, which was ready to auction it off.
Just who is this white knight that saved Michael Jackson's notorious property from falling into the hands of some real estate bottom-fisher at the 11th hour?
SAN FRANCISCO, May 12 -- Trulia.com, the best place to start a real estate search (http://www.trulia.com/), today announced the launch of a dedicated real estate advertising network that will give ad partners access to approximately 10 million monthly unique visitors across Trulia's network of targeted real estate sites. The Trulia Ad Network (TAN) will provide unprecedented local reach with a highly targeted and engaged audience at a time when real estate advertising dollars are making a drastic shift from offline to online. Interested parties can learn more at: http://www.trulia.com/network
The Trulia Ad Network is launching with a collection of premium online real estate publishers, including Oodle, Homes & Land and The Savvy Source, with local audiences and content focused on real estate and related life events. Advertisers benefit from broad consumer reach across an aggregated audience of home buyers, owners and real estate enthusiasts; advanced contextual, behavioral and geo-targeting capabilities ensure that advertisers reach their target audience.
Real estate advertising budgets are shifting rapidly online, a reflection of the Web's lower cost and efficiency in reaching the target audience:
I'm going to own up to this one.... Almost two months ago I posted
three houses on this blog I was certain were going to sell... They were the
sort of homes folks from the City bought when the kids headed off to public
school... I was 66 percent wrong...
One of the three has sold while the other two have gone nowhere...
There have been no price drops or talk even of price reductions, but
according to the rumor mill the Mill Valley Classic in Sycamore Park is
coming off the
market.... I've confirmed it's open this weekend, but after that it should
be off the market...
If neither of them go this weekend, the lack of a sale would mark only the
third or fourth time I've been wrong. In my life. You can ask my wife if you
don't believe me.
Keller Williams has decided to sent its listings to the good people over at Zillow as part of its listings feed program...
i'm not sure why you wouldn't want to send your listings over to Zilliow... it's all about exsposure theses days...
but here's how Zillow PR people explain it...
SEATTLE and AUSTIN, Texas, May 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Zillow.com and Keller Williams Realty Inc. today announced a partnership which enables Keller Williams to automatically feed the listings of the company's 73,000 associates to Zillow.com on a daily basis, joining the Zillow Listings Feed program, which launched in November 2007.
Each listing Keller Williams feeds to Zillow includes a description of the property with multiple photos and contact information for the listing agent, including links back to the Keller Williams Web site where Zillow users can find more information and connect with a Keller Williams sales associate to guide them through the home buying and selling process.
"We're thrilled to have such a widely recognized and respected brand participating in our listings feed program," said Jorrit Van der Meulen, Zillow's vice president of partner relations. "Keller Williams is one of the largest residential real estate firms in the U.S., which makes this partnership a natural fit, as Zillow is one of the largest real estate Web sites, drawing more than five million monthly visitors."
"Our agent-centric business model means we are committed to providing our agents with the best marketing platforms possible," said Cary Sylvester, director of technology with the Keller Williams Realty International Service Center. "The Zillow Listings Feed program is a tremendous marketing opportunity for our agents and their sellers. Add to that the fact that two-thirds of Zillow's five million users are in the market to buy or sell now, or plan to within the next one to two years, and our agents are tapping into an audience that needs them."
Google has decided to stick it's jumbo toe in the real estate pond. Seems
the company's first step is to add real estate listings to the Google
maps feature... At first blush, Trulia and Zillow seem to have the most to
lose because they offer maps with their listings... (Trulia, it should be
noted, offers Google
Street View on it's site). But I don't think the two should worry because,
outside of search, Google isn't exactly
knocking 'em out of the park...
In no particular order, Google's top ten successes...
Big-Ticket Renovations Lose
Value Amid Market Slump;
Investing in Curb Appeal
If you're putting your home on the market anytime soon, you may want to rethink those plans to bump out the kitchen or add an extra bath.
During the housing boom, such ambitious projects would recoup as much as 90 cents on the dollar. Not today. The resale value of improvements in general is sliding, according to experts. In a departure from recent trends, homeowners are getting the best payback from relatively mundane improvements, such as sprucing up the exterior of their house or putting in new windows.
After spending $400,000 remodeling the suburban East Greenwich, R.I., home he bought for $820,000 in 2002, Jonathan Salinger learned he probably couldn't sell it for more than $1.1 million in today's market. That's after posh additions that included landscaping, a pool, an outdoor kitchen, first-floor laundry and mud rooms, and custom cabinetry. As a result, the 45-year-old district manager for a mortgage lender recently decided not to list his house for sale and scratched plans to move the family closer to his children's private school in Providence.
The slumping housing market has made remodeling much trickier. When house prices were climbing ever higher, buyers knew they could spend big bucks to expand their homes and still make a profit when it came time to sell. But today, a buyer who spends unwisely on remodeling may be simply digging a deeper hole when it comes time to move.
WASHINGTON -- Home construction turned up unexpectedly in April and showed surprising vigor, making the biggest increase in two years. However, the increase was driven by a surge in multi-family housing, while single-family starts dropped.
Housing starts increased 8.2% to a seasonally adjusted 1.032 million annual rate, driven higher by a surge in apartment building construction, the Commerce Department said Friday. Starts plunged 13.8% in March to 954,000, the data showed; Commerce initially estimated March starts down 11.9% to 947,000.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expected April starts to drop by 1.4% to a 934,000-unit annual rate. The 8.2% increase was the largest monthly climb since a 14.0% jump in January 2006.
But year over year, housing starts were 30.6% below the level of construction in April 2007.
New York - The depressed housing market is now attracting buyers who look at boarded-up homes, rising foreclosures, and falling values and see, not disaster, but a rich opportunity.
They have cash so they don't need to go to the bank. The homes they're eyeing are selling at 2004 prices or lower. And they are certain – make that almost certain – that they will profit from the nation's real estate problems.
While the buying doesn't herald the bottom in home prices, nor will it help most people facing foreclosure, real estate experts say it is plucking some "for sale" signs out of the nation's front yards. It's also providing some needed cash for real estate developers. And it's helping banks unload unproductive properties, which might start to free up some of their capital so they can make more loans.
Some signs of lot-buying bravado:
•In Cape Coral, Fla., a developer dropped prices by up to 50 percent on 116 new homes and townhouses and saw them snapped up by lines of eager buyers.
In the depressed California market, an investor is organizing a tour of homes to Anaheim and Orange Grove for those who have the nerve to buy real estate as an investment. His motto: buy and hold.
Record temps are on tap for this weekend, and this listing couldn’t have hit the radar at a better time. This stunning two-level New York style penthouse loft comes with a walk-in wine cooler, central air conditioning and heat and a 400 square foot outdoor deck with beautiful water views. Check it out!
I'm not sure how memorable a show it was, but Frankie Muniz of Malcolm in the Middle proves even a bad TV show can be profitable... Granted the story out of the LA Times is talking about the cooling off of celebrity home prices, I was stunned to find out Frankie had afforded a $3.5 million...
It put out a press release to announce it closed their first deal
in California... They site has been up and running August of 2007...
The site is a bit confusing I have to admit. It says: "Alert!
SharpBuyers.com is dedicated to helping Buyers and Sellers
maximize the value from their real estate transactions. As a result we
can now offer buyers up to 50% of the buyer agent's commission at
closing - a rebate on their real estate purchases! Rebate can also be
donated to a charity of your choice!"
And when you click on California real estate it takes you to Realtor.com
If you read on, you'll find a list of five steps as a buyer you need to
follow if you're interested in working with sharpbuyer.com....
Step 1: We connect you to a local realtor
Submit an inquiry online, or call us at 1.800.880.0468 and we will
connect you to a local realtor that is a part of our network.
I'm going to suggest if at this point in time step 1 isn't crystal
clear to any buyer, I might suggest a site I use daily.... It offers
without question the finest search around....
Click here and enter: real estate and the name of the town you're
interested in... If the results are top of the line, let me know ASAP.
Much has been made of the way the nation's real-estate bust is affecting some American cities far more than others. But even within a single metro area, changes in housing prices can show wild variations.
And in big cities, prices in the central cores often fare the best. Far-flung suburbs -- where home building exploded in recent years -- have more typically gotten hammered. In between is a patchwork of established suburbs and city neighborhoods peripheral to downtown that can be all over the map in terms of price declines -- or even increases.
Consider the San Francisco Bay area. Overall, prices there slid 17% in the 12 months through February, the most-recent data available, and were down 8% over the first two months of 2008 alone, making it one of the worst-performing metro areas in the country, according to the S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Indices. Yet prices within the city of San Francisco are up 0.3% over the first quarter of 2008, according to DataQuick Information Systems, a San Diego-based real-estate-data firm.
For today's buyers, all this means that shopping for housing bargains is increasingly complicated. The best deals may be where prices have slid the most, but such areas could easily fall a good bit more before hitting bottom. Meanwhile, you'll get few bargains if you buy a home in San Francisco or Manhattan or downtown Boston. Of course, if the housing crisis broadens, the central core areas also could see price drops.
Here's a cheat sheet to understanding home-price patterns in some of the country's biggest metro areas.
SAN FRANCISCO, May 19 (Reuters) - The housing market in Southern California roared back to life with a record one-month sales increase for April as a glut of foreclosed homes lured bargain-hunters, according to a private report on Monday.
Sales in the region jumped 21.9 percent in April to the highest level in eight months and rebounded from March, which was the worst month for sales since DataQuick Information Systems Inc started compiling its information in 1988.
Sales on average rise around 1 percent in April from March, according to DataQuick.
Sales were strongest for homes priced less than $500,000 in inland areas hardest hit by crashing prices and record foreclosures, the real estate information service's report said.
The percentage of households that could afford to buy an entry-level home in California stood at 44 percent in the first quarter of 2008, compared with 26 percent for the same period a year ago, according to a report released today by the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.).
C.A.R.’s First-time Buyer Housing Affordability Index (FTB-HAI) measures the percentage of households that can afford to purchase an entry-level home in California. C.A.R. also reports first-time buyer indexes for regions and select counties within the state. The Index is the most fundamental measure of housing well-being for first-time buyers in the state.
The minimum household income needed to purchase an entry-level home at $356,350 in California in the first quarter of 2008 was $67,830, based on an adjustable interest rate of 5.65 percent and assuming a 10 percent down payment. First-time buyers typically purchase a home equal to 85 percent of the prevailing median price. The monthly payment including taxes and insurance was $2,260 for the first quarter of 2008.
At $67,830, the minimum qualifying income was 30 percent lower than a year earlier when households needed $96,500 to qualify for a loan on an entry-level home. Recent decreases in home prices and mortgage rates have brought affordability into better alignment with income levels of the typical California household, where the median household income was $50,700.
The First-time Buyer Housing Affordability Index rose 11 percentage points in the first quarter of this year compared to the fourth quarter of 2007 due to a .56 point decrease in the mortgage rate and a 14.3 percent decrease in the entry-level median home price.
At 64 percent, Sacramento County and the High Desert region were the most affordable areas in the state. Monterey was the least affordable area in the state at 29 percent, followed by the San Francisco Bay Area at 30 percent.
Leading the way...® in real estate news and information for more than 100 years, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (www.car.org) is one of the largest state trade organizations in the United States, with nearly 175,000 members dedicated to the advancement of professionalism in real estate. C.A.R. is headquartered in Los Angeles.
I pledged while in Detroit on assignment this week I would only post good news to the blog, or at least positive stories... for those of you who haven't spent much time here in the Motor City, it's not a happy housing place... but it was the inspiration for happy blog week...
Low prices are beginning to attract home buyers, with rising sales in cities hit hard by foreclosures such as Antioch, Brentwood, Daly City and Fairfield, a real estate information service reported Tuesday. Experts were uncertain as to whether this signaled a rebounding market, however, as other areas continued to experience losses.
In the Bay Area, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties posted positive sales, the first positive number in Contra Costa since 2004. A total of 6,310 new and resale houses and condos sold in the nine-county Bay Area in April, up 28.8 percent from 4,898 in March, and down 15.3 percent from 7,447 last year, DataQuick Information Systems reported.
The month-to-month jump was the strongest for any March/April in DataQuick's statistics, which date to 1988. From September to March, each month was the slowest on record. Last month was the slowest April since 1995, when 5,636 homes were sold.
"It's been the strongest month since last August," said DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage. "I don't think this is a sign of bottom because one month doesn't make a trend. ... Anyone with any inkling of history has to see a multimonth trend, of at least three to six months."
LePage said the most significant finding was that sales rose where the prices have fallen the most. This includes San Joaquin County, where sales in April rose 50.9 percent with a median price of $245,000.
Looking for a great way to get out and celebrate the holiday weekend? This great Mission Bay condo comes with everything you need: a large outdoor pool, 2 hot tubs, a dog park, club house with a full kitchen and even a den for accommodating overnight guests! Just listed at $639,000.
Sometimes it’s interesting to see how the rest of the world views you through their lens. The Wall Street Journal today takes a look at the Hunter Point redevelopment project. Here’s the backstory:
Lennar Corp., one of the country's largest home builders, has been suffering for months from slow sales, plummeting prices and other pains from the worst housing crisis in decades. But none of this quite compares to the trials of San Francisco's land-use approval process.
Miami-based Lennar, which for more than 50 years has built mostly in U.S. suburbs, jumped headfirst into these rocky and politically charged waters in 1999, when it began negotiations with the city to develop 770 acres, the largest undeveloped site San Francisco. One of its biggest tests will come next week when city voters decide whether to approve what Mayor Gavin Newsom called "one of the most significant development projects in our history."
Lennar's development plan for the southeastern San Francisco neighborhood includes homes, retail shops, parks, biotech offices, a theater, a football stadium and a possible ferry terminal.
In route back to San Francisco the other day I was passing through the Twin Cities where I came across a copy of Metro, their upscale city magazine. Of course is was brimming with real estate ads, most of them pretty dull. What I did find was an ad for the Twin City’s version of Redfin, Webdigs.
According to the ad, Webdigs returns to buyers 2/3 of their commission at closing. It’s not a new idea, but it gives you some perspective. The example on their website shows their client John Malone holding his refund check. And what did he buy with his 2/3 of the commission?
A big screen and an Xbox.
The site is still worth checking out if for no other reason than to see how another big city does business.
Quaint 2 bedroom 2 bath home tucked away in a quiet private cul-de-sac in the Winship Park area of Ross. Cathedral ceiling in the living area and a wall of glass overlooks the large deck. Ideal for entertaining or simply to enjoying the natural setting.
Desirable Ross School District... all for $1,179,000
This one belongs to Jeannine Voix with Coldwell Banker in Marin. 415-509-8078
As always, if you have a listing upcoming you think merits a few column inches, feel free to drop me a note at jeff@realestateconvergence.com
May 27 (Bloomberg) -- Home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas fell in March by the most in at least seven years, pointing to weakness in the housing market that will constrain economic growth.
The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index dropped 14.4 percent from a year earlier, more than forecast and the most since the figures were first published in 2001. The gauge has fallen every month since January 2007.
Prices continue to slide as record foreclosures put more homes on the market and stricter lending standards make it harder to get loans. Falling home values are slowing consumer spending, threatening to halt the six-year expansion.
``Many households are putting their home-buying plans on hold, given the expectations that the house price corrections will persist,'' Celia Chen, an economist at Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania, said before the report. ``The housing downturn remains in full swing.''
Hard to believe but until today most Internet-based real-estate brokers were considered second class citizens and clients were left in the cold. But perhaps with today’s news that the Department of Justice has reached a proposed settlement with the National Association of Realtors (NAR) that requires NAR to let Internet-based residential real estate brokers compete with traditional brokers that will change.
DEAR BENNY: I am considering buying a condo in San Francisco. It looks like most condos advertise taking title as TIC (tenants in common). Can you please explain a little more about TIC? What are the disadvantages and advantages? --Eton
The question comes from a column the folks from Inman news syndicate.
I don’t know for sure if Eton is or isn’t from Boston, but what I find interesting is that agents are taking the business of selling TICs out of town with clearly a lack of information...
For the last few years, I have been an evangelist for renting.
How have shifts in the housing market affected your views on whether to rent or buy?
I’ve told my sister-in-law and her husband that they would be crazy to abandon their reasonably priced one-bedroom rental in Brooklyn. When two of my colleagues were moving to Los Angeles, I e-mailed them a spreadsheet that helped persuade them not to buy a house there. That same spreadsheet was the basis for an article in 2005, when I argued that “renting has become a surprisingly smart option.” Last spring — like any good evangelist, comfortable with repetition — I wrote a similar article.
The case for renting has been simple enough. House prices rose so high in the first half of this decade that you could often get more for your money by renting. You could also avoid having a large part of your net worth tied up in a speculative bubble.
All this time, I have been a renter myself, first in the New York suburbs and then in Manhattan. But my wife and I will be moving to Washington this summer. And the housing market has, obviously, changed quite a bit since our last move, in 2005. Nationwide, prices fell 14.1 percent from early 2007 to early this year, as Standard & Poor’s reported Tuesday. Home prices almost certainly still have a way to fall, but they’re now well below their peak.
So my wife and I began our search with open minds, willing to consider renting or buying. We ended our search by signing a contract to buy a house.
I never really understood how in a day and age where you can find
just about everything you want wanted online, the National Association
of Realtors figured they could keep its small slice of the internet
private.
But guess what? That's all in the past now. And the NAR will now allow
access to the MLS to all agents thanks to a court settlement that opens the MSL.
The reality though is good real estate agents have been sharing the information
publicly for years. They weren't trying to keep homes a secret. The
understood by sharing information, their homes has a better chance of being
sold.
In fact, it's tough to find an agent these days worth their commission who
isn't putting their listings on Craig's list, Backpage or Oodle. And just
about every agent I know with a decent website offers search... And
most of the time the information if provided by the local MLS... Also,
Realtor.com always provides enough information that combined with a simple Google search will
yield what you need to find the sellers or even the listing agent of any property.
I know the folks over at ZipRealty were happy... Zip told the NY
Times, "For us, it's a great result," said Pat Lashinsky, chief
executive of ZipRealty in Emeryville, Calif., which offers online
users rebates of up to 20 percent off standard sales commissions. "We
think it's a great result for consumers."
So I guess congratulations to the members of the National Association
of Realtors, your dues will no longer be going towards fighting a
lawsuit that benefited no one.
The latest spike in oil prices has dampened but not doused investors' hopes that the worst of the economic and credit market woes are over. Recent reports show the economy, while still fragile, is holding up better than expected. Consumers haven't cut back in a major way, and tax rebates are arriving. Businesses are spending and hiring less, but the retrenchment has been mild—in part a reflection of resilient profits outside the financial sector. Most important, the credit markets, while hardly back to normal, are functioning better now, and the full impact of the Federal Reserve's rate cuts is yet to come.
But the economy still has a long way to go before investors will have any right to breathe easier. As sobering as $130 oil is, there's a different message for investors in the latest news on housing: Oil is not your biggest problem. The housing slump and its broad effects still weigh heavily on economic growth and have the greatest potential to wreck a recovery.
The direct effects of the housing recession subtracted a percentage point from overall growth last quarter, and they are on track to do the same this quarter. More important, mortgage defaults, which are at the center of credit-market dysfunction and tighter credit conditions, are still soaring and unlikely to top out anytime soon. The delinquency rate on mortgages hit another high in the first quarter, rising to 3.68% from 3% in the fourth quarter. Plus, home prices are still in free fall, which creates more troubled mortgages and weighs on household wealth. It's a corrosive mix that will not stop eating at the economy until housing activity begins to firm up.
I'm at the annual Milken Institute global conference today in Beverly Hills, where 3,000 people from around the planet get together to hear 130 panel discussions on the big issues of the day.
Naturally, you couldn't have a meeting like this without the U.S. housing crisis being at the top of the list of hot topics. So what follows are some of the highlights from a packed morning session entitled "Real Estate: Where Is the Bottom?" (The short answer: not here.)
Brian Fabbri, chief economist for North America at global investment bank BNP Paribas: He sees no chance that home prices will bottom anytime soon, given the glut of supply on the market. Despite that glut, "Builders are still building more homes for sale than people are buying today." As for hopes that mortgage delinquencies might peak soon, "We're going through a recession. In every recession we lose 1.5 to 2 million jobs. We'll lose most of those jobs through the second half of this year." So the math doesn't add up at all for a respite from mortgage-loan defaults, he figures.
Sam Zell, real estate investment legend and now the head of Tribune Co., the L.A. Times' parent: "What this country needs is a cleansing" in the residential market. "We need to clear out all of those people who should never have been in houses in the first place and who for sure shouldn't be getting sympathy." He blamed another Sam -- Uncle in Washington -- for encouraging homeownership at any cost in recent years. The rise in the U.S. homeownership rate from 63% to 69% during the boom was totally unjustified, Zell said, other than by "the political impetus of, 'Let's put more people into homes they can't afford. ' "
Bobby Turner, managing partner of investment firm Canyon Capital Advisors: He and Canyon are big fans of urban real estate in cities with growing immigrant populations (Canyon has partnered up with Earvin "Magic" Johnson in urban development). But the real estate market in general, he suggested, has too many buyers hovering, thinking it's time to grab bargains. "I think you've got this universe of investors that really don't understand the nuances of real estate." Although Canyon has capital to invest, Turner said, he's content "to sit on the sidelines awhile and let people make mistakes."
A few months ago I started tracking three homes that came on the market all the same day... I wanted to have a real world look at how things were going...
The first to go was a very nice three plus million dollar home in Tiburon, a Barbara Major listing Marinhomes.net ... The second property was a $1.7 million Sycamore Park classic in Mill Valley... It was just recently taken off the MLS. I hear from the Grape Vine the sellers have no desire to lower the asking price... A Paula Stetler listing choosemarin.com
The third home belongs to Jack McLauglin... After three months the sellers have decided to drop the price to $2.65 million.... Let’s just say it’s a pretty nice discount from the opening price...
San Francisco based Trulia once again proves their the masters of the internet. Just released is truliasnapshot.
A very, nice effort to once again bring together the latest technology... Mapping, search and Google street view...
Once on snapshot you just enter the city your searching for... Up pops a brilliant interface with that displays property photos attached to map with photos from the various homes floating above the addresses... You can find the properties by most expensive, least expensive, newest and oldest.... Once you see it you’ll understand...
Here’s how I’m told things are shaping up in the City... Business goes on, but it’s slow... Bank owned properties are hot, but it needs to be a deal... One of those deals I heard about was a South Beach condo recently bought for $860,000, but sold via the bank for $644,000... Good things come to those who wait...
Just back from meeting with one of those big city agents we all know and love....
Here’s what she tells me is hot this next week...
2190 Broadway, Unit 9w
The property is open Sunday 2-4pm
photo credit:McGuire Real Estate
The unit offers views of the Golden Gate from just about anywhere you sit.... The block this condo sits on gets no better and rumor has it interested parties are flying in from the Old Country, aka Europe to have a look... For you and me the price is $3,495.000 if you’re buying in Euros the price works out to $2,254,838 US.
