New Home Sales Increase Almost 5%
March 31, 2009 by admin
Filed under Positive Real Estate
New home sales purchases in the U.S. unexpectedly rose 4.7 % in February from a record low as plummeting prices and cheaper mortgage rates lured some buyers.
Sales increased 4.7 percent to an annual pace of 337,000 after a 322,000 rate in January, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. The median sales price fell 18 percent from February 2008, the biggest year-on-year drop since records began in 1964, and the glut of properties on the market dwindled.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” said Jonathan Basile, an economist at Credit Suisse Holdings USA in New York, who had forecast sales would rise. “Lower prices and mortgage rates are starting to get buyers back. We still have a lot of supply to absorb before things get back to normal.”
Bloomberg
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Top 24 Places to Live
March 31, 2009 by admin
Filed under Real Estate Articles
Edinburgh 29
Hamburg 28
Cape Town 27
Santiago 26
Tel Aviv 25
Melbourne 24
Lyon France 23
Portland Oregon 22
Panama City 21
Montreal 20
Los Angeles 19
Vienna 18
Madrid 17
Miami 16
Toronto 15
Tokyo 14
Buenos Aires 13
Rome 12
Vancouver 11
Paris 10
Copenhagen 9
Hong Kong 8
Berlin 7
New York 6
Sydney 5
London 4
San Francisco 3
Barcelona 2
Chicago 1
From AskMen.com
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Builders Take the Rates Even Lower
Some home builders are offering lower mortgage interest interest rates than the prevailing rate. While the averaxe fixed rate is somewhere just below 5%. These new home builders have “lowered” the bar even more.
- Lennar Corp. is offering a fixed 3.625% rate over the life of a 30-year fixed rate mortgage.
- Honanian recent offer is 3.99%
- Toll Brothers offered a 3.99% interest rate in many of its luxury developments earlier this year. But has since pulled the offer.
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Florida is Warming Up
March 31, 2009 by admin
Filed under Positive Real Estate
From the Forexhound
- Sales for Lee County, Fla., which includes Fort Myers and Cape Coral, were up nearly 80 percent from 2007 to 2008, he says. “That’s pretty impressive. The caveat is the prices are half.”
- Who are Trulia’s top searched cities? 7 of 10 cities were in Florida.
- According to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, in the fourth quarter of 2005, home prices rose 36 percent in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area, 38.3 percent in the Naples-Marco Island area, and 28.2 percent in the greater Miami area. In just the last quarter of 2008, prices fell 32.9 percent, 32.8 percent and 24.1 percent respectively.
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How to Get Rich? Do as the Wealthy DO:
March 31, 2009 by admin
Filed under Positive Real Estate
A new survey conducted by Knight-Frank and Citi Private Bank found that nearly 55% of high net worth investors plan to increase their residential real estate investments over the next one to two years.
An interesting take on this at WalletPop :
If you ask me, one of the best ways to get rich is to look at what people who are already rich are planning to do and emulate it.
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Marin County Prices and Mortgages
Bob Ravasio reports over at his Marin real estate blog that mortgages are as low 4.85% in the Bay Area. Bob also rips into the sensationalization of a recent SF Chronicle article that said Marin County homes are down 26%. Which is a twisting of the facts.
As Bob tells it:
Thank goodness it’s not true.
While there was more information in the body of the article, for those who read that far, it made it clear that the reason average sale price has gone down so dramatically is that more low priced condos are selling relative to single family homes. These tend to be much lower value, driving the average down on a much smaller base.Average sale price is a terrible barometer of what is going on in the short term, yet because it is the easiest to explain or analyze, it is the statistic that gets used all of the time.
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Refinance Aps Jump 41.5% last week
The Fed announces expanded purchases of mortgage-backed securities and applications for refinance loans jumped 41.5 percent last week after rates were the lowest in six decades: Mortgage Bankers Association
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U.S. homes rose at their fastest pace in nearly six years
March 25, 2009 by admin
Filed under Positive Real Estate
Sales of previously owned U.S. homes rose at their fastest pace in nearly six years in February, data showed on Monday, providing some good news for the recession-hit economy.
They rose 5.1 percent in February to a 4.72 million-unit annual rate, notching their largest gain since July 2003, the National Association of Realtors said. But about 45 percent of the sales were foreclosure or short-sale transactions. Small-town Texan realtor Rick Cumins is going to see a paycheck in April — his first since December.
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Atlanta Condos Guaranteed To Hold Value
March 25, 2009 by admin
Filed under Real Estate Articles
Easing Buyer Fears, Developer Unveils Cousins Assurance Program
Aaron of Atlanta MLS Search turned me onto this story:
Cousins Properties Guarantees Buyers Equity for 3 years, Provides Financing Options
Cousins Assurance Program to assume most risks for qualified condominium buyers.
The Cousins Assurance Program includes several options for buyers to purchase a condominium at 10 Terminus in Atlanta, without assuming the risk of falling home values. In addition, Cousins will provide financing for the purchase during the first three years of ownership.
“It’s not surprising that people aren’t buying condos right now – even when they see a quality luxury property like 10 Terminus,” said Cousins CEO Tom Bell. “They’ve seen their stock portfolios fall drastically. They’ve seen banks take over entire condo buildings. They’ve seen condos auctioned off for a fraction of their value.”
Here’s how the Cousins Assurance Program works:
• Because Cousins owns 10 Terminus free and clear, the company will guarantee the equity in a buyer’s condo for the first three years of ownership
• While banks require down payments of more than 20 percent on jumbo loans, Cousins will finance the condo with an initial 5 percent down payment
• While banks offer interest rates between 6 percent and 7 percent, Cousins will finance the condo for a 4 percent interest rate
• Because it’s difficult to sell homes, Cousins will offer homeowners the opportunity to move in immediately with 20 percent down and no payments for a year while they sell their current homes.
Cousins Properties is the first developer in the U.S. to guarantee a condo buyer’s equity for three years while providing a financing option with a low down payment and a low interest rate. While it has become commonplace for developers to place a block of unsold condos up for auction or to drastically reduce prices, Cousins has resisted both approaches – which bring down the overall value of the condominium.
“Simply discounting the product doesn’t help,” Bell said. “If you discount 15 percent, the buyer will wait for you to discount 30 percent. Some buyers are trying to time the bottom of the market and I don’t want to chase that ball downhill. We believe in the quality of 10 Terminus and have resisted lowering its market value.”
The Cousins Assurance Program is an innovate approach that differs significantly from lease-to-own programs. With the Cousins Assurance Program, buyers enjoy the full tax benefits of owning their homes from the start. And buyers can leave the condo in the first three years without facing foreclosure and negatively impacting their credit reports.
To better understand how the program works, buyers are encouraged to visit www.10Terminus.com to learn about the program details and use an online calculator that compares the Cousins Assurance Program to conventional mortgage financing options.
10 Terminus is a 32-story luxury condominium tower that opened in Buckhead in the fall of 2008. Condominiums start at $300,000 and rise to $3.5 million for the top-floor penthouse featuring a 4,000-square-foot rooftop deck. Average unit prices range between $600,000 and $800,000.
The condo tower is one of three buildings
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Parts of Cali Home Sales Surge in Feb
March 24, 2009 by admin
Filed under california, Positive Real Estate
Sales have increased in California on a year-over-year basis the last eight months. California sales for the month of February have varied from last year’s low to a peak of 48,409 in 2004, while the average is 32,517. MDA DataQuick’s statistics go back to 1988. Bay Area home sales beat the year-ago mark for the sixth straight month in February as the winter market sizzled in many foreclosure-heavy inland areas offering the deepest discounts. The median price dipped below $300,000 for the first time since late 1999.
From David Hoshaw: Santa Clarita Valley Home Sales Surge 45% in February, Price declines Slow, and the median price is up 3% since January 2009. For the eleventh consecutive month, sales of existing single-family home surged compared to the prior year and the rate of falling home prices appears to be easing, the Southland Regional Association of Realtors reported Friday, March 20.
A total of 167 homes closed escrow during February, an increase of 52 transactions or 45.2 percent compared to activity reported 12 months ago. Get his Santa Clarita Foreclosure list
