Katonah NY Realtor | Homeownership rate falls to 15-year low
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The Role SEO Plays in your Social Media Crisis Plan | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate
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Quick Guide to Google AdWords Traffic Estimator: How to Estimate Traffic With Google | Bedford NY Realtor
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An Ongoing Battle: Anecdotes vs. Data | Chappaqua NY Real Estate
Many famed columnists, pundits and commentators have made brilliant careers of using anecdotes to draw insights and conclusions and even predict the future. “I was in a taxi cab in Karachi and the driver told me… therefore…” I am jealous, I admit. I wish my job were as easy as traveling the world, talking to people, drawing conclusions and making recommendations on which basis my clients would comfortably invest hundreds of thousands of dollars. But as a researcher, I’m on the hook for my recommendations. I need more than opinions; I need data to support my conclusions. Yet, as for political predictions, pundits, armed with stories and anecdotes, intelligence and intuition, may well be close to getting it right 50% of the time. If so, what is wrong with anecdotal evidence? It’s definitely cheaper and a lot easier to gather than serious data! Here’s what’s wrong: in our business, recommendations are a zero-sum game. You have to get it right for your clients to win — win money,...
Lilly loves Costco mortgage program | Mount Kisco NY Real Estate
I caught some flack from SettlementOne about Costco ’s ($88.69 0.61% ) mortgage and refinance program because they felt my depiction of the Costco mortgage program as not particularly personal was unfair. SettlementOne offers real estate settlement services under the program. Well, here we present the other side of the story. Lilly Neubauer and her husband, Marcus, refinanced their mortgage through Costco’s program recently. The couple refinanced not out of financial desperation, but were nonetheless eager to take advantage of lower interest rates. Lilly reports she and her husband are extremely happy with working with Costco. Lilly even went so far as to say, “Yay, yay, yay! I love Costco!” Clearly, she was quite satisfied. And fair is fair. Here is what she had to say: “I subscribe to Costco's Facebook page and my husband received their emails so we both heard about refinancing with them. Costco took us from a 5.5% (which was low when we bought) to 3.875% interest. ...
Homebuilders report 1Q price hikes after 22% order growth | North Salem NY Real Estate
Homebuilders experienced a 22% order growth in the first quarter and are riding a tailwind heading into the second, causing Barclays Capital housing analysts to see the first signs of price increases coming back to the market. “Not everywhere, but in enough places to matter,” they say. In many of the markets that Barclays reviewed, it witnessed a return of broad-based price increases — a possibility, it says, very few industry watchers considered. Stephen Kim, managing director of Barclays’ homebuilding division, tells HousingWire that Phoenix, Denver, Orange County, Calif., Westchester County, N.Y., and even parts of the hard-hit Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif., region is witnessing price comebacks. However, commentary so far from builders reveals mixed opinions about how broad-based the increases are. The most upbeat commentary regarding pricing has come from Lennar ($28.42 1.04% ) , Meritage Homes ($29.05 0% ) and Ryland Group ($22.71 1.09% ) . Those three buil...
Phoenix's housing market may be rising from the ashes | Cross River NY Real Estate
Phoenix’s housing market may be on the rise. John Burns Real Estate Consulting said the area is outpacing the recovery of other hard hit areas like Las Vegas, Riverside-San Bernardino and Sacramento. “Phoenix was one of the hardest-hit housing markets during the bust, with home values declining 57% from 2006 through mid-2011,” said Adam Artunian, senior research analyst with the company. “But since the middle of 2011, the housing conditions in Phoenix have markedly improved and prices have begun to rise.” According to the report, investors now make up 45% of all buyers in the area, and first-time buyers now have difficulty competing with all-cash offers coming from investors. This often creates a bidding war that raises the price of the home. The effort by investors is well worth it, however. With a current average single-family rental rate of $12,500 per year and the median selling price of distressed homes in the area well below $127,000, the report says investors can expect b...
Realtors® Confidence Index Reports Residential Market Improvement | Waccabuc NY Real Estate
Realtor® comments and replies to the latest Realtors® Confidence Index continued to indicate recovery in the residential markets. All real estate is local, so comments were varied depending on location. The problems noted in previous months continue. For example, Obtaining a mortgage is reported as difficult. Bargain hunters and low-price bids continue. Pricing continues to be a challenge. The appraisal process continues to be a problem. However, fewer respondents noted major problems than had previously been the case, and a growing number of respondents in recent months have been indicating cases of multiple bidding, low inventories, a resurgence of buyer interest, and the rapid resolution of distressed property sales. There continues to be discussions of Shadow Inventory in the press. Realtor® respondents appear to believe that increased inventories of unsold homes will not be a problem. Many respondents cited an inventory shortage. The health of the real estate mar...
FICO Scores and Mortgages | Katonah NY Homes for Sale
A number of Realtors® responding to the Realtors® Confidence Index March Survey indicated continued tight credit conditions: in a number of cases prospective home buyers had difficulty in qualifying for a loan. A comparison of FICO scores for loan transactions as reported by Realtors® responding to the RCI over the February and March time span compared with FICO scores reported by Fannie Mae’s “Acquisition Profile by Key Product Features”—showing mortgage lending and refinancing conditions in the pre-boom normal housing markets of a few years ago– shows that credit availability to lower scoring applicants appears to have declined. Realtors® provided FICO information based on their understanding of the credit situation; in some cases the information for clients was estimated. However, overall the data seem to substantiate relatively tight credit conditions. Credit Scores in Current Markets (Variety of Buyers and Lenders) vs. Fannie Mae Credit Mix of 2001...
GDP Growth | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate
In each Economic Update, the Research staff analyzes recently released economic indicators and addresses what these indicators mean for REALTORS® and their clients. Today’s update discusses GDP growth. The economy hit a soft patch in the latest report with GDP growing by only 2.2 percent on an annualized basis. This all-encompassing measure on everyone’s income all combined needs to grow by at least 3 percent to assure consistent solid growth in jobs. Even though expansion momentum slowed, the economy is in no danger of falling into a recession with people losing jobs on net because the positives clearly outweigh the negatives at the moment. Consumers have slowly opened their wallets, and consumer spending rose 2.9 percent. Companies held back spending in the first quarter, but this is likely to be temporary given that corporate cash reserves are sky-high. And, more importantly, the recovering ...
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Speed Bumps Ahead | Chappaqua Real Estate
Mirroring the uneven economic recovery, the housing market is expected to move in a slow, gradual upward path in 2012, while encountering its share of speed bumps along the road, according to economists participating in yesterday’s National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) construction forecast webinar on the housing and economic outlook. While the latest monthly housing data have shown signs of a slight softening, NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe said this is more reflective of typical month-to-month volatility in the numbers and unusual seasonal factors than they are an indication of any significant downward trend in the broader housing market. “The aggregate information suggests we’re just in a pause mode right now in terms of these measures,” said Crowe, who noted this could partly be the result of an early spring that brought much better weather than usual into the picture at the start of this year and pulled some housing activity forward. Pointing out that less volatile ...
Investors Limit Multifamily Boom | Armonk NY Real Estate
Though optimism is spurring new multifamily construction, access to capital is handcuffing new construction, especially in secondary and tertiary markets Only 17 percent of multifamily firms reported that capital is available for all property types in all markets. By contrast, 36 percent said it is constrained in secondary and tertiary markets and 34 percent said it is constrained for all properties other than top-tier ones - even in primary markets according to the Quarterly Survey of Apartment Market Conditions by the Multifamily Housing Council. The MHC’s Debt Financing Index declined to 65 from 74. As the only index that dropped below 50 in the past nine quarters (48 in Q4 2010), borrowing conditions continued to improve for the industry. Just four percent believed conditions worsened from last quarter, compared to 34 percent who reported improving conditions. The Equity Financing Index grew slightly to 62 from 60. One third of respondents reported quarter-to-quarter equity f...
Why Landing Pages Are an Indispensable Part of Marketing | Cross River NY Real Estate
Any savvy inbound marketer "gets" that once you've done all that hard work to get visitors to your website, the next big step is to convert them into leads for your business. But what's the best way to get them to convert? Landing pages , that's what! Unfortunately, there seems to be a major disconnect between the importance of landing pages and their use by marketers. According to MarketingSherpa's Landing Page Handbook (2nd edition), 44% of clicks for B2B companies are directed to the business' homepage, not a special landing page . Furthermore, of the B2B companies that are using landing pages, 62% have six or fewer total landing pages . Landing pages are the heart and soul of an inbound marketer's lead generation efforts, so why are they still so underutilized? MarketingSherpa cites that the number one reason businesses don't use landing pages is because their marketing department doesn't know how to set them up or they are too overlo...
GDP report mixed for U.S. households | Katonah NY Real Estate
Real gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 2.2% in the first quarter of 2012, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis . In the fourth quarter of 2011, real GDP increased 3%. Despite the slowdown, economist are still positive that the current economic recovery, while slow, is on a sustainable path. "Despite the weak start to the year, the economy appears solid," said Scott Hoyt, senior director of consumer economics, Moody’s Analytics . "Looking beyond temporary factors, GDP appears to be growing at an annual rate near 2.5%. While hardly a boom pace, this is strong enough to expand employment and reduce joblessness especially as some of the current drags wane in the second half of the year." The increase in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures, exports, private inventory investment, and residential fixed investment, the report said. These positives were partly offset...
Sellers Get More from Cash from Cleaning | Pound Ridge NY Homes
Cleaning and decluttering will garner sellers a 403 percent return on their investment when they sell their homes this spring compared to a 293 percent return for electrical and plumbing upgrades and 196 percent for staging. The results from HomeGain’s annual 2012 D-I-Y Home Improvements for Sellers spiked a few myths about what improvements pay off in marketing homes today. Nearly 500 real estate agents nationwide participated in the survey to determine the top 10 low cost, do-it-yourself home improvements for people getting their home ready to sell. Cleaning and de-cluttering continues to rank as the top suggested home improvement (since the survey was originally conducted in 2003). This low cost home improvement is recommended by 99 percent of real estate professionals. The average recommended cost is $402 with a returning value of just over $2,000 to the home’s sale price, or a 403 percent return. In past surveys, home staging and lightening and brightening were battling it...
Sand States Rebound, Atlanta Falls Farther Behind | Bedford Corners NY Homes
Atlanta had the only double-digit negative annual price decline falling 17.3 percent below February 2010 in the latest S&P/ Caser-Shiller Home Price Index. January marked the fifth consecutive month of double-digit negative returns for Atlanta and the lowest annual return in Case-Shiller’s 20-year history. On the other hand, only three metros-Miami, Phoenix and San Diego, all located in the four traditional “sand states” that just two years ago accounted for more than half of all foreclosures-were the only to register positive monthly returns over January. “Phoenix and Atlanta stand out this month in terms of their contrasting relative strength and weakness in the early 2012 housing market. At one end of the spectrum, we have Atlanta posting a double-digit, and lowest negative annual rates and seven consecutive monthly declines. On the other hand, Phoenix has posted two consecutive months of positive annual rates, with its latest being +3.3 percent, and five consec...
Buyers Walk the Walk | Chappaqua NY Homes
What’s wrong with this picture? Attracted by super affordable prices, buyer walk-in traffic is up and tons of prospective homebuyers are kicking tires across the nation during this spring sales season. Inventories are at record lows, which should strengthen prices if you believe in supply and demand. So why are sales plummeting and prices not rising as hoped? NAR reported Friday that existing home sales are down 2.1 percent from last month, not necessarily a big deal until you realize those are March numbers when sales are supposed to rise. Prices, however, are not doing what is expected of them. The Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey says they are falling just when optimists had hoped spring sales would boost the housing economy into the black and begin the long awaited recovery. NAR had March prices up 2.5 percent over a year ago. According to the Campbell survey, home prices for non-distressed properties fell 5.7 percent from March 2011 to March ...
Single Family Rentals Now Exceed Multifamily | Armonk NY Homes
While inventories of homes for sale have been shrinking this spring, MLSs are filling the void with rental listings for single family homes that until recently were foreclosures. Some 16.1 percent of all listings on MLSs today are rentals, more than double the number in 2006. Single family rentals are $3 trillion business today and growing as investors turn to real estate and opt to rent out the bargains they buy until prices improve. Today the single family rental market accounts for 21 million rental units or 52 percent of the entire residential rental market, according to a new study by CoreLogic economist Sam Khater. Yet the single family rental market is poorly understood and almost invisible to economists and journalists because virtually all rental market data tracks multifamily properties and either ignores the single family segment or lumps it together with multifamily. “Single family rentals are very distinct from multifamily and they behave very differently,” said Kh...
U.S. home values rise the most in six years: Zillow | North Salem NY Real Estate
U.S. home values edged up 0.5% from February to March, making it the largest monthly increase in six years, real estate data firm Zillow ($33.45 0% ) said in its latest home value index. The data arrived the same week as Standard & Poor's /Case-Shiller national indices report. The S&P Case-Shiller note , which measures real estate data further out, said home values in nine metro areas reached record lows. S&P reported that its 10-city composite index experienced an annual home-price decline of 3.6% in February, while the 20-city composite index declined 3.5% from a year earlier. Zillow, which evaluates home prices in 30 markets using its value index, reported that nineteen markets have either reached a bottom in home prices or are expected to hit bottom by year's end. Optimism is spreading over markets like Phoenix and Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, with Zillow estimating home price increases of 6.5% and 5.6%, respectively, in the...
MA, NY attorneys general launch foreclosure prevention programs | Mt Kisco NY Real Estate
Two high-profile attorneys general revealed how they will use part of their respective state’s portion of the $25 billion national mortgage servicing settlement. On Wednesday, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley launched an initiative intended to prevent unnecessary foreclosures. Titled HomeCorps, the program increases the amount of loan modification specialists available to distressed borrowers and provides grant opportunities to ease the foreclosure crisis in the state. Coakley is using the $44.5 million paid to Massachusetts as part of the national settlement with the five largest mortgage servicers. As part of the settlement, signed earlier this month by a federal judge, the banks are ordered to provide $14.6 million in cash payments to Bay State borrowers and $257 million worth of mortgage relief across the Commonwealth. The first part of HomeCorps dedicates about $16 million to providing loan modification, representation and recovery assistance to distressed borro...
U.S. homeownership hits record low: Gallup | South Salem NY Real Estate
The 62% of Americans who say they own their own home marks a new low since Gallup began tracking self-reported homeownership in 2001. It's down from 68% in 2011. But those surveyed also said they thought it was a good time to buy and that they thought prices would rise this year. While the recession and financial crisis took place in 2008-2009, homeownership rates didn't begin to reflect the bursting of the housing bubble until 2010, when 65% of Americans reported owning their own home — the lowest level recorded before this year. Fifty-three percent of Americans believe their house is worth more today than when they bought it, down significantly from 80% in 2008 and 92% in 2006. Still, 70% of Americans surveyed said it's a good time to buy a house. Americans are also much more positive about the direction of housing prices this year than they were last year. Thirty-three percent expect houses in their neighborhood to rise in price. Last year, only 28% expected p...
Rentals at College Towns | Cross River NY Real Estate
Many colleges and universities are already reporting record high applications and enrollments at their campuses. Unless a school is purposely trying to downsize (going for quality rather than quantity) the simple statistics of an ever-increasing number of people high school age (15-to-19 years old) assures a steady, rising stream of potential college students in the near future. The conversion rate from high school to college enrollment is no doubt rising, not because of better scholastic achievements but because of social pressure to attend college and from easier access to student loans and grants. That means buying a rental property in college towns or in college areas of a large city may provide a good return on investment for those who are patient. The past demography data of the number of people in the 15-to-19 years old age group suggest an investment in college student rentals from about 1985 onward was likely to be difficult because of far fewer people in that age ...
Government Home Price Data Shows National Growth | Bedford Hills NY Homes
NAR Research’s Home Price Monitor Series reviews national home prices by examining several widely cited national measurements. It is released monthly and allows REALTORS® to gain insight into the recent performance of national prices, factors affecting that performance, and the likely direction of prices in the months ahead. The Home Price Monitor includes the same data covered in the national media that clients will expect their REALTORS® to know and be able to comment on and provides different, more complete coverage of the information all in one place. Today’s blog post focuses on the recent release of the FHFA Price Index. For the first time since 2007, home prices measured by the government price index put out by FHFA that uses Fannie and Freddie loan data on home purchases increased in the year from February 2011 to February 2012. Monthly data from the same source showed that prices were up 0.3 percent nationally from January to February. Regionally, year over year pric...
Mortgage Purchase Applications, Durable Goods | Bedford NY Real Estate
In each Economic Update, the Research staff analyzes recently released economic indicators and addresses what these indicators mean for REALTORS® and their clients. Today’s update discusses mortgage purchase applications and durable goods orders. There was a slight gain in the number of people submitting mortgage applications to buy a home in the latest week’s data. This data, from the Mortgage Bankers Association, however, does not have any information about approval rates and misses out completely on home purchases made with all-cash. This data has also not correlated well with home sales in the past year. The number of applications for refinances declined in the past week. But refinance activity year-to-date has been much better so far compared to the same period last year. Mortgage bankers who have been making a living solely off refinances should prepare for some increase in refinance through th...