After learning last week mortgage brokers were charging as much as $40,000 in fees for first time home buyers it was pointed out to me credit unions are a place few of us bother to check for mortgages. Strangely the New York Times agrees....
WHILE mortgage brokers are widely regarded as a good source of information for borrowers seeking a wide choice of loans, there is one potentially good deal that these brokers usually do not offer: credit union mortgages.
These loans, which are available to anyone who meets a credit union’s membership terms, are not typically marketed through brokers, yet they have grown increasingly attractive in recent months.
Late last month, for instance, Bethpage Federal Credit Union of Long Island offered an adjustable rate mortgage at 4.875 percent. The loan carries a fixed rate for three years, and can thereafter adjust by a maximum of two percentage points either annually or every three years, depending on the particular product. The rate can never exceed 10.875 percent.
Other adjustable rate mortgages, or ARMs, available on Long Island at the time charged interest rates about 1.5 percentage points higher. On a $350,000 mortgage, which is the average amount for a loan at Bethpage Federal, the difference in a borrower’s monthly payment would amount to $303.
ARMs fall in and out of favor, depending on the spread between interest rates on these loans and rates on long-term fixed-rate loans. With long-term fixed rates rising in recent months, some lenders have seen renewed interest in ARMs.
According to Michele Dean, the senior vice president of lending for Bethpage Federal, credit unions can charge lower rates than conventional lenders because they are nonprofit institutions.
The Fed's Beige Book was just released... It's the government's gauge of economic indicators and while things are still less than perfect, lots of indicators that the real estate market in San Francisco is still doing okay... and lets be honest, okay is pretty good these days...
here's what they said...
Real Estate and Construction
Residential real estate conditions weakened or remained soft in all Districts, except Kansas City, which reported a modest increase in sales since the last report. Demand for housing was reported to be still moving down in Boston, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco. Residential real estate activity was sluggish in Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta, Minneapolis, and Dallas. New York reported low levels of single-family construction but a brisk pace of multi-family construction after an increase in permits in June occasioned by a change in the New York building code effective July 1. Chicago reported a faster rate of decline in residential construction since the last report as well as delays and cancellations in residential building projects. Richmond and Kansas City reported that lower and mid-price houses were selling at a better rate than more expensive houses. Atlanta and Dallas reported that inventories of unsold new houses were edging down...
Commercial real estate activity moved down or remained weak in all Districts except Dallas. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Chicago reported signs of softening demand for commercial real estate, including declining leasing activity, rising vacancies, and decreasing construction. Cleveland, Richmond, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, and San Francisco reported that commercial real estate market conditions varied across those Districts but in general were not strong. Dallas reported an increase in office leasing but at a slower pace than in the last report. Chicago and Minneapolis noted drops in demand for retail space. Dallas and San Francisco reported that public projects were buoying construction activity.
Just back from a few weeks on the road so I decided to pick up a couple of the glossy real estate magazines to catch up on what’s selling. I was shocked by how thin the latest editions were.
After a few calls to the folks in the know they confirmed it was more than just the slow time of the year. Fewer and fewer agents are turning to print to market their listings. One ad rep told me agents were cutting back on print advertising and seeking out more free options like Craigs and Backpage.
My magazine source also tells me more and more agents are counting on Realtor.com to do the dirty work of marketing their listing for them. But Realtor.com isn’t cheap. In case you don’t know, the more an agent pays, the greater the chance the listing will be displayed.
So I’m wondering where is everyone going to market their listings? Where are agents spending their ad dollars?
I hear from the folks selling magazine space that prices are more than likely going to start falling, but will that be enough to bring agents back?
I can remember on the rare occasion when I would go out on tour, the key to selecting homes for preview was based on who was serving food... agents I toured with would always make sure if we knew an agent with especially good food to be certain to hit that listing around lunch... seems nothing has changed since I last toured...
APPARENTLY, the way to a real estate agent's heart is through his or her stomach.
With buyers continuing to hide in the weeds and the price of gas still stinging, brokers have had to improve the curb appeal of a principal marketing strategy. The so-called agents caravan -- in which, on a designated day, agents tour one another's new listings -- has upped the ante. No longer is the mere thrill of previewing a new listing enough to bring out the troops. Now they must be fed, and fed well.
Caravans of old offered little dishes of M&Ms or a pot of hours-standing coffee as reward for an agent's trouble, but in the current molasses market, candy and caffeine just don't lure the masses. And if the agents who sell in the area won't come, who will bring the potential buyers?
No one is certain exactly when the food offerings went uptown, but the weekly caravan list circulated in Malibu now specifies what refreshments will be served at each house -- information posted as prominently as the asking price and number of bedrooms.
In the MLS/CLAW Open House Guide, a knife-and-fork icon alerts agents to which homes are offering the proverbial free lunch; a wine glass symbolizes just refreshments.
Alan Mark and Tony Mark of Prudential Malibu Realty recently provided omelets -- cooked to order by a private chef -- to those agents who made the trek to their new $36-million Broadbeach Road listing. With a salad and pastry bar on the side, agents could order their omelets prepared with 20 different fresh fillings. Spinach with feta cheese, anyone? To quote from the Malibu Assn. of Realtors' Caravan West weekly bulletin, "This is the beach house of your dreams! . . . And everybody's favorite omelet bar!" By all accounts, the $1,000 spread was well-attended.
Gorgeous Symphony Towers just listed a 1 bedroom condo for sale! Only a few blocks from City Hall, Civic Center, San Francisco Symphony and cultural arts. With the holidays coming up in a few months, I know I’ll be heading over there quite a bit for the Nutcracker and other musicals! Symphony Towers has a low maintenance lifestyle with easy access to Chinatown, the Financial District, Downtown (for holiday shopping), entertainment and nightlife. Also offers great views of the city! Come take a look today!
The property has 3-bedrooms, 3-baths, 2-car parking, views, a roof deck, wine cellar, abundant storage, new carpets and refinished hardwood floors and new interior paint. Asking $1,299,000
It will be open Sunday 1-4pm at 175 Montcalm street, San Francisco
if you need additional information contact:Eric Geleynse 415.717.3355
As if there weren't already enough real estate indexes out there, the good folks at Altos Research have come up with their own... They call if the Altos 10-City Composite Price Index...
It's a lot to read, but the bottom line is San Francisco had a 2 percent decline in inventory over the past three months, and showed the fastest rate of inventory turnover at an average of 84 days-on-market...
I'm all about the good news...
here's what rest of the press release had to say...
Mountain View, CA (PRWEB) September 5, 2008 -- The Altos 10-City Composite Price Index showed a decline in asking prices of 1.5% in August and 2.3% for the past three months. Prices of properties listed for-sale fell in 20 of 25 major markets according to the Real-Time Real Estate Report, published by Altos Research, the premier source for real-time real estate research (http://www.altosresearch.com), and market analysis consultancy Real IQ.
Asking prices fell at the fastest rate in Las Vegas -- down 4.8% during August -- and 8.6% over the most recent three-month period for an annualized rate of nearly 35%. Listing prices rose at the fastest rate in Denver -- up 1.9% in August -- followed by San Diego where prices were up 1.4%.
"Many markets that had posted multi-month sequential price increases during the Summer months displayed fresh weakness in August," said Stephen Bedikian, partner and research director for Real IQ. "This could portend a general resumption of the downward trend in prices as most markets typically experience seasonal weakness in the Fall and Winter months."
Inventory levels declined in 21 of 25 markets. Inventory fell by the largest amounts in Seattle and Dallas with inventory contracting 6.0% and 4.8% respectively. Many markets showed inventory declines of more than two percent for the past month including: San Francisco, San Jose, Washington, D.C., San Diego, Phoenix, Charlotte and Houston.
"While seasonal weakness is typical in the Fall and Winter months, continued widespread inventory reductions like we saw in August could temper near-term price declines," said Michael Simonsen, CEO and co-founder of Altos Research.
Sixteen of 26 markets had an average days-on-market of 100 or more. Days-on-market declined in just three of 26 markets. By far, the market with the slowest rate of inventory turnover was again Miami at an average of 160 days-on-market. Both San Diego and San Francisco experienced the fastest rate of inventory turnover at an average of 84 days-on-market, followed closely by Austin at 86 days.
Data in the Real-Time Housing Market Report is based on analysis of over one million properties currently listed for-sale in 26 metropolitan markets across the country. The report is the most timely source of housing market data on current market activity.
The report examines housing pricing, inventory levels and market conditions in 31 major U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs): Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa, and Washington, DC. The Real-Time Real Estate Report is released every month.
On Friday afternoon the Wall Street Journal reported the pending government take over of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which left many in the Bay Area wondering what that might mean for those looking to get a mortgage or refinance.
I'm sure if you turn on any of the 24 hour news channels there will be lots of experts offering their opinions. If you're in the know, or have an opinion, I would love to hear from you in the comments section.
I always find it funny when an "online giant" teams up with old school technology. But it seems the brain trust over at Zillow has decided to include the San Francisco Chronicle in their newest project.
Zillow today will launch Showcase Ads, a self-service advertising platform for local professionals interested in reaching Zillow's audience of homeowners, buyers and sellers.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. home price comparison website Zillow.com and 11 U.S. newspaper publishers are starting an online advertising network to help each capture real estate advertising dollars.
The collaboration, which the companies expect to announce Monday, allows the publishers' and Zillow's sales teams to sell advertising space on each others' websites, making it easier for national advertisers to buy space across many sites at once rather than negotiating separate deals.
The agreement would allow Zillow to build its advertising business with retailers such as Lowe's and Macy's which cater to people who are moving to a new home, said Greg Schwartz, Zillow's vice president of advertising sales.
Newspaper publishers would benefit by giving their advertisers exposure outside their markets.
For example, an advertiser on the San Francisco Chronicle's website could reach not only Chronicle readers but also those outside the region who are searching for homes in the San Francisco area.
The ads are projected to reach 5.3 million monthly unique users at Zillow, as well as more than 57 million monthly unique visitors to the 282 newspaper websites owned by the 11 publishers.
The publishers, including Hearst Newspapers, Media General Inc and EW Scripps Co, are part of an existing deal with Zillow to carry each other's real estate ads. click here for the complete story...
Seems the takeover of Fannie & Freddy as been a good thing...
30 year rates today are now below 6 percent...
the most recent numbers I saw today for a 30 year fixed, conventional... 5.79 percent
Hopefully that will get some folks off the fence...
Count me in on this awesome “handsome” Castro Village Victorian home! Located in one of THE best places to live in the city- Eureka Valley/Dolores Heights! Comes with 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, stylish kitchen with sunny breakfast area (great for Sunday brunches!), deck off master bedroom, small patio (for lazy afternoons) and a full basement for storage, laundry or gym. Open house this weekend 9/13 and 9/14, 2-4 pm. See you there! Click here for the complete listing...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Construction starts on new homes plunged to a 17-1/2-year low during August as builders scaled back sharply to try to cope with the worst slump in U.S. housing since the Great Depression.
The Commerce Department reported on Wednesday that starts on new homes dropped 6.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 895,000, their lowest since January 1991 and well below the 950,000 rate that Wall Street economists surveyed by Reuters had anticipated.
In a further sign of the severe strain the economy faces, the department also said the deficit on the broadest measure of U.S. trade with the rest of the world widened to $183.1 billion in the second quarter from $175.6 billion in the first three months his year.
The U.S. shortfall on trade in goods with other countries grew and imports of oil were up, the department said.
The data on new-home starts was bleak, reflecting a battered housing sector that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has described as posing the single greatest threat to the overall economy.
But analysts said fewer starts were a step toward ensuring a housing correction occurs.
"Builders are continuing drastically to cut the flow of new inventory to the market, the essential precondition for stability," said Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.
The August rate of starts on single-family homes -- a closely watched barometer that is more closely tied to average consumers' behavior -- fell 1.9 percent to 630,000, which also was the softest rate since the start of 1991.
Real estate Web site Zillow.com announced today the launch of a new advertising platform for national and regional real estate brokerages that features local for sale listings right on the Zillow.com home page. Using Zillow's ad serving technology, the listings are customized to the user's most recent search of homes -- down to the neighborhood or ZIP code, home size, price range and attributes. For a national or regional brokerage, this means exposure for their listings to the more than eight million visits that come through the Zillow.com home page every month.(1)
Called Home Page Featured Listings, these ads use innovative ad serving technology developed by Zillow engineers to match sponsored brands' for sale listings to a buyer's search preferences for homes on Zillow. The Zillow home page features three graphical ad units at a time -- two sponsored by national brands and one sponsored by a regional brokerage. Because the ads are targeted to a user's most recent search (versus their geographic location), advertisers are able to target all buyers, including those who may be relocating or purchasing a second home.
"At Zillow, we recognize that in today's challenging housing market, national and regional brokerages need performance-based online advertising solutions that deliver real results for their agents and sellers, while strengthening brand awareness," said Greg Schwartz, vice president of ad sales at Zillow. "Zillow's new Home Page Featured Listings are another example of our commitment to providing high value, high return advertising solutions for real estate advertisers."
It used to be location drove the real estate market.
Now it seems like foreclosure sales are in the drivers seat, pushing down the median price of a Bay Area home sold in August to a record low of $447,000, almost a third less than a year ago, said a report released Thursday by MDA DataQuick.
Throughout the Bay Area, sales of homes that had been foreclosed upon in the last 12 months accounted for 36.1 percent of all resales in August, compared to just 4.4 percent a year ago and 33.3 percent in July.
While home sales declined 0.9 percent in the Bay Area from a year ago, Contra Costa County and Solano County saw a big jump in sales along with big price drops during the same time period as bargain hunters snapped up distressed properties in areas that have been hit hard by the foreclosure crisis.
Having a high level of foreclosures in a neighborhood may be good news for buyers, but it can force sellers who are not in foreclosure to lower prices in order to compete. Banks typically discount foreclosed properties to move them.
"It sort of establishes a new pricing threshold and that's difficult for sellers who are current on their mortgage and are selling not out of duress," said Earl Rozran, branch manager of the Pleasanton/Hopyard office of Prudential California Realty.
Before housing prices can start to rise, foreclosed homes that are on the market have to be cleared out.
The fact that more than one third of Bay Area resales involved foreclosed properties last month is a mixed bag when it comes to evaluating where the market is going, said Matt Anderson, a partner at Oakland-based Foresight Analytics, a real estate analysis and forecasting firm.
"Prices have fallen to the point where there is increased interest and people are putting fresh money into the market. It's primarily the low prices that are bringing people in," he said.
In August, a total of 7,232 new and resale houses and condos changed hands in the Bay Area, a 4.7 percent drop from July. The median sales price of $447,000 was down 4.9 percent from July and off 31.8 percent from a year ago. Last month's median price was the lowest since January 2004.
The median price is the point at which half of the homes sell for more and half sell for less.
What a great deal! Just listed in San Francisco's Ingleside Heights- 2 bed, 1 bath home. Great for single families! And it's close to San Francisco City College with easy access to public transportation. And here's the deal! It's listed at $505k. You won't find that often in SF! Come take a look this weekend!
San Francisco's king of real estate technology, Trulia once again finds itself setting the standard for search. And lets be honest, the only thing buyers care about it search. So what have they done? Trulia rolled out the mobile phone application everyone wishes they had thought of first...
Even as home sales remain in a prolonged skid, there's something of a Gold Rush to develop software and Web sites designed to turn mobile phones into divining rods for real estate listings and neighborhood information.
The rollout has intensified with the rise in Web-capable phones, particularly Apple's iPhone.
The latest aspirant to mobile real estate search domination is San Francisco-based Trulia.com.
Last month, the firm launched Trulia Mobile, a free application that downloads to many popular mobile phone models and then lets users find homes for sale, information on open houses and all sorts of handy details, including the listing price, how many bedrooms the home has and how to contact the seller's agent.
Trulia Mobile also can tap into phones' GPS feature to find listings or open houses nearby. The service also works with Dash Navigation GPS devices for cars, automatically downloading the latest listings data from Trulia's site.
Trulia Mobile also can tap into phones' GPS feature to find listings or open houses nearby. The service also works with Dash Navigation GPS devices for cars, automatically downloading the latest listings data from Trulia's site.
Mobile applications by Smarter Agent Inc. also use mobile phone GPS functions.
In 2006, the company launched an application for finding information on recently sold homes. Earlier this week, it rolled out a mobile application for finding homes for sale.
The service, which culls listings from publicly available data from all the Multiple Listing Services and individual brokerage firms, is available on 80 phone models carried by Sprint and AT&T. Using it, though, will cost you up to $4.99 a month for unlimited use.
Applications like Smarter Agent and Trulia Mobile are designed to capitalize on a common scenario: Folks in the market for a home are driving through a neighborhood and spot a property with a "For Sale" sign. Normally the next step is to dial up the agent listed on the sign for details.
But the mobile services let you cut to the chase, giving you an overview that can help you decide whether the listing is worth the trouble or if there's a better one on the market a few blocks away - no waiting.
The results on Trulia Mobile, especially when viewed on the super-sleek iPhone, are compelling. (Full disclosure: The Associated Press operates the Mobile News Network, a multimedia news site for iPhones and other smart phones.) click here for the complete story...
MIAMI (AP) — Al Ray is so strapped for cash, the only time he eats out is on Wednesday or Sunday, when the local McDonald's sells hamburgers for 49 cents.
Ray lost his engineering job last November, and has been working as high school tutor, scratching out about $1,000 a month — if he's lucky. He struggled to make his $1,400 monthly mortgage payment and $330 monthly homeowners' association fee until May, when he stopped paying.
Ray, 44, is looking for work and renting out a room in his two-bedroom condo in Davie, Fla., for $500, but his monthly income doesn't match his expenses and he's facing foreclosure.
"I barely have money to survive," he said.
Ray is one of more than 7.5 million people — almost 15 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage — who are spending half of their income or more on housing costs, according to 2007 data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. That is up from nearly 7.1 million the year before.
Traditionally, the government and most lenders consider a homeowner spending 30 percent or more of their income on housing costs to be financially burdened. But that definition now covers almost 38 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage — 19 million of them.
Though home prices have fallen this year, in the most expensive markets where home prices tripled during the boom, many working families still cannot afford to buy a home.
"We had a bubble," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. "This is a case where we absolutely want the market to adjust."
The data underscore the serious affordability problems in this country and highlight how the slightest financial problem — from a lost job to higher gas prices or insurance premiums — can put a family behind on their mortgages and into the realm of foreclosure.
In what is becoming an almost daily announcement comes today’s list of most and least expensive city for homeowners...
Topping the list is San Jose, California... I threw the California part is in case you had recently been to the San Jose I know, and was wondering how it was the most expensive city in America for homeowners...
San Francisco and New York are right up there, but San Jose, not seeing it... If you’re talking about the neighborhoods that surround the city, I can see that...
I know we all like to think of San Francisco as the technology capitol of the world, but the reality is there are a whole lot of folks here that make living in the world of finance... and seeing how those folks are not having the best month, agents tell me they're starting to feel the impact themselves... two of the top agents in Marin as recently as this week told me their clients backed out of multimillion dollar fearing their jobs were in danger of going away... the agents describe these folks as the people who have been propping up the prices the past few years...
Today the Wall Street Journal tells the same story... They spoke with Mark Levinson, of Sotheby's International Realty in the City.
For months, as housing values were falling for midsize ranch houses in Stockton, Calif., and Las Vegas high-rises, sales of high-end properties in financial centers like London, New York and San Francisco continued to percolate along.
But that was before last week, when turmoil in the credit markets brought down Lehman Brothers Holdings and imperiled thousands of high-paying jobs. While those rare properties priced at $20 million or more are still holding up, there are signs that the crisis is exacerbating a downturn that was already plaguing properties in the $2 million to $10 million range, a market often sought by Wall Street workers.
Since last Thursday, there have been 200 price cuts on properties listed at less than $10 million on Manhattan's Upper East Side or Upper West Side -- a 17% jump from the week before. Deanna Kory, a broker with New York-based Corcoran Group who's handling nearly two-dozen properties priced between $2 million and $10 million, says her showings are down by about 40% in the last two weeks compared to the same time last year. A slew of new buildings set to open in the next year will only increase supply.
The impact is reaching beyond Manhattan. On Massachusetts's North Shore, where the average sale price of luxury homes is about $3 million, Lanse L. Robb says he's lost more than $15 million in listings and transactions in the last week. First, prospective buyers for a $4 million waterfront home canceled their showing. Then two clients spooked by the financial meltdown held off listing their houses or looking for new ones.
One buyer who was poised to put an offer on a $15.7 million. 10-acre oceanfront estate in Manchester-by-the-Sea suddenly stopped returning Mr. Robb's calls. "I still haven't heard back," says Mr. Robb, of Christie's Great Estates affiliate LandVest. "It's total silence."
In San Francisco, a buyer in the market for an $8 million to $10 million property told Mark Allan Levinson last week to hold off on the search because his stock portfolio had just taken a big hit. "People are still buying, but they're not quite as bullish," says Mr. Levinson, of Sotheby's International Realty in San Francisco.
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If you're selling real estate here in the City, you have a pretty good idea where things are headed... prices are not going up, mortgages are harder and harder to come across and the bad agents are going away...
the folks over at home and garden TV have come up with a similar lists... but to make it sound really authoritative they gave it a fancy title, but it works for me...
Like Wall Street, the real estate industry is feeling the painful effects of loose lending practices and bad mortgage loans. Now, more than ever, prospective homebuyers and sellers should be aware about what's happening with the housing market -- and where it's headed -- in order to make smart decisions. In addition to understanding what fueled the current financial crisis and the government's bailout of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, get familiar with FrontDoor's top 10 trends in real estate.
Cutting right to the point, housing prices in the Bay Area are down 25 percent for the year... not a nice figure and no real way to sugar coat it... things were picking up before the market crash... buyers were coming out and mortgage prices were dropping, so there's hope things we pick back up once the bail out issue gets resolved... just be glad you don't sell real estate in Las Vegas...
The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price indexes, a closely watched gauge of U.S. home prices, showed prices in July continued to drop at a record pace, although the pace of declines kept slowing.
"There are signs of a slow down in the rate of decline across the metro areas, but no evidence of a bottom," David M. Blitzer, chairman of Standard & Poor's index committee, said in a statement.
He added "little positive news can be found," noting the year-over-year declines in all 20 areas measured. "While some cities did show some marginal improvement over last month's data, there is still very little evidence of any particular region experiencing an absolute turnaround."
The indexes showed home prices in 10 major metropolitan areas fell a record 17.5% in July from a year earlier and 1.1% from June. The decline marks the 10-city index's 10th straight monthly report of a record decline. The index is now 21.1% below its peak two years ago.
In 20 major metropolitan areas, home prices dropped 16.3% from the prior year, also a record, and 0.9% from the prior month. The 20-city index has fallen 19.5% from its June/July 2006 peak.
For the three months ended in July, home prices cumulatively fell about 2.2%, compared with drops between 6% and 6.5% from the three-month periods of February through April and November thru January.
Seven of the 20 regions were able to avoid price declines in July over June, though one of them -- Tampa -- didn't post a rise either, as its prices were flat. Gainers were led by Minneapolis with a 1.3% rise.
The other month-to-month gainers included Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Denver and Minneapolis, all of which have reported positive returns for three months or more. Detroit also joined the group with a 0.6% rise. But Charlotte, which had four consecutive months of month-to-month gains until July, slipped into the red with a 0.2% decline. Dallas is now the only area to have five consecutive months of month-to-month growth.
Month-to-month decliners were led by Las Vegas and Phoenix, which slid 2.8% and 2.7%, respectively.
For the fourth straight month, no region was able to avoid a price decline year-over-year. Las Vegas, Phoenix and Miami again posted the largest drops, all posting declines in excess of 28%. click here for the complete story...
