Banks could suffer losses of up to 79.80 billion pounds on commercial real estate loans in Britain, Ireland and Spain between 2009 and 2011, ratings agency Standard and Poor’s warned Thursday. View full post on
RISMEDIA, April 29, 2010—With many buyers rushing to take advantage of the federal home-buyer tax credit set to expire on April 30, sales of newly built single-family homes surged 26.9% in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 411,000 units, the Commerce Department recently reported. Sales increases were posted in all four regions of the country.
“Undoubtedly, the tax credit is working,” said Bob Jones, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Bloomfield Hills, Mich. “Builders are seeing a growing optimism among consumers.”
“The near record-breaking 27% increase over February was the result of home buyers taking advantage of the tax credit as well as a carryover of demand that was held back by unusually bad weather in February,” said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe.
“The increased sales are very welcome news and sales will continue to improve, although we expect them to plateau in late spring and early summer when the credit expires. Following that, the housing momentum will be carried forward by low interest rates, pent up household formations, excellent affordability conditions and a budding employment growth,” Crowe added.
Regionally, sales increased 35.7% in the Northeast, 4.3% in the Midwest, 43.5% in the South and 5.7% in the West.
The nationwide inventory of new homes on the market dropped a negligible 0.8% in March, to 227,000 units as builders continued to maintain small inventories. With the increased sales pace and low inventory level, the month’s supply of new homes for sale dropped from 8.6 in February to 6.7 in March.
For more information, visit .
RISMedia welcomes your questions and comments. Send your e-mail to: .
View full post on
China is expected to impose a moratorium on share issues by real estate companies in mainland markets as part of a broader campaign to rein in rising property prices. View full post on Yahoo! News Search Results for real estate
RISMEDIA, April 29, 2010—The expiration of the 2010 Home Buyer Tax Credits on April 30 is unlikely to put off Americans looking to purchase homes who believe now is a good time to buy and are confident that home prices will rise according to a survey released by Prudential Real Estate and Relocation Services, Inc., a Prudential Financial, Inc. company. The survey of 1,000 Americans between the ages of 25-64 with at least $35,000 household income was conducted during April 15-20, 2010.
More than 90% of consumers believe that the home buyer tax credits have helped both first-time home buyers and the U.S. housing market overall.
Among consumers actually shopping for homes, 65% believe that the end of the tax credits will have little or no effect on their interest in purchasing a home.
While consumers remain unsure about the direction of the housing market, the survey reveals that they are optimistic about real estate values with 46% of consumers expecting real estate prices in their area to increase over the next year. Just 12% expect prices will decline. Over the next five years, 79% expect real estate prices to increase, with 20% expecting prices to increase substantially.
“The survey underscores the key role the federal home buyer tax credits played in stimulating residential real estate market activity and the U.S. economy,” said James Mallozzi, chairman and chief executive officer of Prudential Real Estate and Relocation Services, Inc. “It also shows that most consumers believe the market has hit bottom and are more optimistic about the future.”
Survey respondents identified concerns about rising mortgage interest rates and unemployment as the most important factors affecting their decision to purchase a home, along with more stringent lending criteria and fewer mortgage-backed securities purchased by the Federal Reserve. The expiration of the tax credits placed lowest on their list of concerns. Among those who have recently purchased a home, 61% cited low mortgage interest rates as “very important” to their decisions – an amount greater than either the tax credit or even cheaper prices. The 66% expecting interest rates to rise underscores potential headwinds for the market.
“The tax credits clearly helped stimulate the market when consumer confidence was low and housing inventory was high,” said Earl Lee, president, Prudential Real Estate and Relocation Services, Inc. “While the tax credit expiration is a concern for many, the bigger issues now are the availability and cost of financing as well as if they will have a job.”
Despite the significant downturn in the real estate market, the survey underscores that the dream of homeownership and the perception that owning a home is a good investment remain intact. Among current renters, 75% still believe owning their home is a better long-term choice for their needs than renting.
The majority of consumers also believe that homeownership is a better investment than individual stocks or bonds (75%), mutual funds (72%), or savings accounts (74%).
“The real estate market is precariously balanced. Consumers are clearly motivated to take advantage of the opportunities the current low interest rates and prices afford,” Lee notes. “While the market is picking up in terms of sales and confidence, and the majority still believe that owning a home is a good investment, the outlook for the market remains highly dependent upon the direction of the economy overall.”
For more information, visit www.prudential.com.
RISMedia welcomes your questions and comments. Send your e-mail to: realestatemagazinefeedback@rismedia.com.
For more top headlines on RISMedia.com, don’t miss:
RISMEDIA, April 28, 2010—(MCT)—Sales of new homes broke out of a four-month winter slump with a bang in March 2010, soaring 26.9% over February, the government recently said, evidence that federal tax incentives for buyers due to expire next week are giving the housing market a boost.
The March figures were meager by historical standards, bouncing off an all-time low in February, and analysts said job creation was paramount for the momentum to sustain itself.
“It shows that the tax credit still has some punch, and we will probably see some better sales numbers for April,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Economy.com. But “if we don’t get more jobs, the housing market is going nowhere.”
The news came after a report showed that sales of previously owned homes rose 6.8% in March. Although new-home sales make up a much smaller share of home-buying activity, economists are watching the data carefully as an indicator of whether the beleaguered construction industry will begin to add jobs in substantial numbers.
Home builders’ stocks climbed, with the Standard & Poor’s index of 12 major builders increasing nearly 11%.
Last year, housing was a drag on economic growth, but that could turn this year, said David Crowe, chief economist for the National Association of Homebuilders. Housing should contribute positively to the nation’s first-quarter growth when the government’s report on gross domestic product is released, he said.
New-home sales in March jumped the most in markets hit by February’s winter storms. They rose 43.5% in the South, 35.7% in the Northeast, 5.7% in the West and 4.3% in the Midwest.
The data are estimates based on surveys and are reported as an annual sales pace adjusted to take seasonal variations into account. The March sales pace hit an annual rate of 411,000 homes.
February’s revised annual rate of 324,000 was the lowest since the government began tracking such statistics in 1963. That made it easy for March figures to show a surge.
Zandi estimated that, stripping out the effects of February’s inclement weather and the influence of the tax credit, last month’s sales pace was closer to 350,000.
“The one thing to keep in mind is that these are still really horrible numbers,” said Patrick Newport, U.S. economist for the consultancy IHS Global Insight. “The only reason they look good is because February’s were the worst numbers ever.”
Sales are likely to fall once the tax credit expires but will recover later this year if the economy picks up steam, he said.
Newport was encouraged that about a third of homes bought in March had not begun construction, which suggests the shoppers, who were unlikely to close their sales in time to qualify for the government’s tax credit, were tempted by factors such as cheap prices and low interest rates.
Richard Voith, a real estate expert at the consulting firm Econsult Corp. in Philadelphia, predicted that the momentum would continue. “It will be a decent summer,” he said.
Inventory declined to levels not seen since March 1971, with the seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of last month standing at 228,000. That represents a supply of 6.7 months at the current sales rate. The median sales price of new houses sold in March was $214,000.
Builders have suffered significantly from the recession, the credit crunch and competition from bank-owned properties. As a result, they have changed their business models, constructing smaller, cheaper dwellings to attract first-time buyers and putting up fewer houses that don’t have buyers lined up in advance.
Despite slumping sales this year, builders have begun construction on homes at a faster rate than last year, with many counting on a boost from the federal tax credit of up to $8,000 for first-time purchasers and $6,500 for some current homeowners.
“New homes are selling, so builders were smart,” Newport said. “They are not going to slow down the pace.”
(c) 2010, Tribune Co.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
RISMedia welcomes your questions and comments. Send your e-mail to: realestatemagazinefeedback@rismedia.com.
For more top headlines on RISMedia.com, be sure to see:
Monday Morning Mobile: The Mobile Frontier
More Government Help Coming to Homeowners in California, Arizona, Nevada, Florida and Michigan
View full post on RISMedia » Home Buying 101
Bidding on real estate assets of failed banks has become aggressive, as investors searching for distressed opportunities in the sector, wait in vain for property to come to the market. View full post on Yahoo! News Search Results for real estate
RISMEDIA, April 21, 2010—In the current real estate market, you need every tool available to get would-be clients to sign on the dotted line. Home buyers may be waiting for real estate prices to bottom out so they can purchase
more home for their money.
Home sellers may be waiting to list their homes until prices start to rebound. In both cases, you may be able to push a buyer or seller to act now or bridge the difference between the buyer’s offer and what the seller will accept by providing a solution to reduce their closing costs.
For home buyers, lower closing costs mean they can afford more home with their current budget, lower their overall mortgage payments or simply be able to bring less cash to the closing. For home sellers, offering to pay the closing costs for the home buyer can close the deal.
Title insurance is probably the largest single expense in the bundle of closing costs listed in Section 1100 of the new HUD-1 document. Almost every lender will require title insurance to protect their interest in the mortgage. Called a loan policy, this title insurance policy is most often paid for by the buyer. It also makes sense for the buyer to have an owner’s policy, which offers similar protection for the owner as the lender’s policy does for the lender. Who pays for the owner’s policy depends not only on customs in the local area, but also good negotiating on the part of the buyer. When both policies are purchased at the same time, the price for the loan policy is drastically reduced.
The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) gives consumers the choice to select their own title insurance and settlement provider(s). But unfortunately, consumers often don’t even know what title insurance is, let alone how to shop for it. By informing your clients of this choice and giving them direction on how to shop for and select providers, you could potentially save them hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in closing costs.
How can you shop for title insurance?
Searching online is your best bet for finding title insurance and settlement services in your area. Closing.com lists providers by location along with price but remember that any results should be sorted by PRICE so that the least expensive options are listed at the top of the page.
Or you can check out http://www.EntitleDirect.com, the first title insurance underwriter selling direct to consumers with savings as much as 35% or more compared with competitors, according to the company. Other sites such as FreeTitleQuote.com and EasyTitleQuote.com allow you to request multiple quotes via email. Offer these shopping tips to your clients. Or better yet do the research for them as part of the high level of customer service you provide your clients.
What to look for in a title insurance company
Before you recommend a title insurance or settlement provider(s) to your clients, you should do your own homework. Call the companies to find out:
• What geographic areas the company services?
• What specific services they offer and at what price?
• Will your client be assigned a dedicated professional to assist with coordinating the closing?
• Where will the closing take place? Does the company have mobile notaries/attorneys and can they schedule the closing at a location convenient to your client?
• If the provider is a title insurance agent, what company will be underwriting and issuing the policy, then check that company’s Financial Stability Rating ® with Demotech (www.demotech.com). Demotech is the leading title insurance rating company.
Help your clients avoid overspending on title insurance and settlement services. Point them in the right direction to save them hundreds if not thousands of dollars, and in the process, build a base of clients who not only respect your real estate knowledge, but also view you as their real estate advocate.
Timothy M. Dwyer is CEO of Entitle Direct Group, Inc., parent company of EnTitle Insurance Company and ENTITLE DIRECT. Reach Tim at tdwyer@EntitleDirect.com or 203-724-1150, or visit www.EntitleDirect.com/mortgage.
RISMedia welcomes your comments and questions. Email realestatemagazinefeedback@rismedia.com.
View full post on RISMedia » Home Buying 101
PHOENIX A federal grand jury has indicted a Pinal County real estate agent and broker for income tax evasion and willful failure to file tax returns. View full post on Yahoo! News Search Results for real estate
