Category Archives: Bedford

Property prices are rising swiftly. The Bank of England may intervene | Bedford Real Estate

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BRITAIN’S housing market is like food in a microwave, says Spencer Dale, the chief economist at the Bank of England. It can “turn from lukewarm to scalding hot in a matter of a few economic seconds”. Since the crisis the bank has gained new tools to control the market’s temperature. Now that the heat is rising, it may soon start testing them out.

Until last year house prices were rising predominantly in prosperous central London boroughs. That was largely because of an influx of cash-rich buyers, says Neal Hudson of Savills, an estate agency. People saw posh property in the capital as a shelter from economic turmoil abroad. Elsewhere in Britain, the housing market was torpid. Potential buyers struggled to find mortgages. Falling real wages, economic uncertainty and the memory of plummeting house prices during the crisis curbed Britons’ obsession with property.

 

 

http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21600728-property-prices-are-rising-swiftly-bank-england-may-intervene-cool-it

Jumbo mortgages fill in lending gap | Bedford NY Real Estate

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Mortgage credit availability remains on the upward trajectory that it has been on since November 2013, a trade industry group said.

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the mortgage credit availability index increased .44% from 113.5 in February to 114 in March.

The index was benchmarked to 100 in March 2012, and if the MCAI was tracked in 2007, it would have been at a level of roughly 800.

“Consistent with past months, many lenders and investors are providing borrowers seeking higher loan amounts with a broader range of financing options by introducing new jumbo loan programs,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s chief economist.

This trend in jumbo mortgages follows the recent mortgage application reports from the trade group, which show a growth in purchase volume for applications with higher loan amounts and contraction in home purchase application volume for lower-balance loans.

According to the most recent survey, the average contract interest rate for 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages with jumbo loan balances increased to 4.46% from 4.45%.

“Over the month, some lenders made a complete exit from wholesale lending operations, while other lenders moved to enter that space or expanded operations,” Fratantoni said.

 

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/29603-jumbo-mortgages-fill-in-lending-gap

Modular floating home can be built on land or water | Bedford NY Real Estate

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Buying a new home typically requires some research of the local area in order to understand where buyers will be living for the good few years to come, as well as whether the property is the right size for them. However, Czech architects have now created PORT X, a houseboat that can be customized with extra modules and anchored on both the river or land.

Designed by architects at Atelier SAD, the building is made up of interlocking sections of wood and laminate that can be customized with doors, windows, separating walls and balcony sections. Since PORT X is a modular structure, the individual pieces can be transported to any location and the building can be set up on site, meaning homeowners are free to live almost anywhere. The building is also a floating structure, meaning it can be anchored in a port and trailed by boat to another location. It can be used both as a home or an office, and a showcase version of PORT X was most recently seen on the Rašín river bank where people could get a feel for the structure and also view an exhibition of photographs by Ondřej Kavan.

portx2

The concept is similar to Belgium’s Sleeping Around — a shipping container hotel that can be transported to various locations around the world — but PORT X is now available for homeowners to buy. Are there other ways that modular structures can provide greater flexibility for living without sacrificing comfort?

 

 

https://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/modular-floating-home-built-land-water-155932101.html

 

Two Types of Real Estate I’ll Never Invest In | Bedford Real Estate

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I generally try to avoid blanket statements such as this, but I’m confident I will never invest in the following two types of real estate:

1. A Speculative Development Project I know, I know some of the most successful real estate investors in the world have made vast fortunes and built empires through development. I just won’t be one of them. Right or wrong, here is my rationale:

  • Development is all about timing and I’m not clever enough to consistently time the market over an entire investing career. Often the best time to build is when the market is in the gutter and development doesn’t “pencil” (i.e. the numbers look awful). If you start to build when the market is on fire, you’ll often miss the party before you finish construction.
  • Developers often have to “land bank” to wait for the right time to build. The holding cost of land creates a negative carry investment, which eats into the project’s final returns.
  • The entitlement and permitting process is expensive and tortuous. Get out your checkbook, because every consultant and city agency is going to have its hand out. The EIR (Environmental Impact Report) alone can wreck a pre-development budget (traffic study, wind study, etc.) and everything takes 2-3 times longer than your “most conservative” project timeline.
  • Too much construction / execution risk. One failed development can crush a company’s reputation and balance sheet; erasing years of positive returns. Why not let others develop and just wait for a market dip to buy buildings below replacement cost?

2. A Suburban Office Property I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I owned a leveraged office property outside of a major city. Here’s why…

 

 

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/04/06/two-types-of-real-estate-ill-never-invest-in.aspx

Westchester’s Only Great Blue Heron Rookery In Bedford, Nature Group Say | Bedford Real Estate

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A colony of great blue heron has made Bedford its home for the season in a remote, yet visible wooded area that Naturalist Tait Johansson says is the only place in all of Westchester that you will find the large birds.Photo AlbumGreat Blue Herons Nest, Breed, Incubate In Bedford

There are about 20 blue herons nests at a rookery – or colony of breeding animals – on Route 121 just past the intersection with Route 137.

Some of the birds could still be seen this week building nests high up in the barren trees, flanked by a swampy surface with dead trees. The tall bird with an S-shaped neck and long legs usually settles near water or in a marsh and preys on fish, frogs, mice and even other birds.

“This rookery started two years ago,” said Johansson, who works at the Bedford Audobon Society in Katonah. “It’s something interesting. A lot of people have called here asking about it.”

The Katonah resident and lifelong bird admirer said not all of them have migrated back north to the Bedford rookery. He said the birds you see now are adults, who will breed and then incubate their eggs in the nest for about a month – he added that they’re not as interesting to observe while incubating since they mostly stay in the nest.

 

http://bedford.dailyvoice.com/lifestyle/westchesters-only-great-blue-heron-rookery-bedford-nature-group-say

Top 5 states with the most and least foreclosures | Bedford Hills Real Estate

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CoreLogic’s (CLGX) new national foreclosure report shows there were 43,000 completed foreclosures in the United States in February 2014, down from 51,000 in February 2013, a year-over-year decrease of 15%.

“The stock of seriously delinquent homes and the foreclosure rate are back to levels last seen in the final quarter of 2008,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “The shadow inventory has also declined year over year for the past 3 years as the housing market continues to heal,  including double-digit declines for the past 16 consecutive months.”

There were 43,000 completed foreclosures in the United States in February 2014, down from 51,000 in February 2013, a year-over-year decrease of 15%. On a month-over-month basis, completed foreclosures decreased 13.1% from 50,000 in January 2014.

The states with the highest number of completed foreclosures are:

 

5) Georgia

34,000 completed foreclosures for 12 months ending February 2014

Serious delinquency rate: 5%

 

4) California

37,000 completed foreclosures for 12 months ending February 2014

Serious delinquency rate: 2.6%

 

3) Texas

39,000 completed foreclosures for 12 months ending February 2014

Serious delinquency rate: 3.6%

 

2) Michigan

50,000 completed foreclosures for 12 months ending February 2014

Serious delinquency rate: 3.6%

And the state with the most foreclosures is….

 

 

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/29552-top-5-states-with-the-most-and-least-foreclosures

Fixed mortgage rates hit highest level since mid-January | Bedford Real Estate

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Mortgage rates are quiet from last week and relatively unchanged, Freddie Mac said in its latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey.

The average 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.41% for the week ending April 3, slightly up from 4.40% a week ago, but drastically up from 3.54% a year earlier.

Furthermore, the 15-year, FRM also ticked up to 3.47%, a marginal increase from last week’s 3.42%, but up from 2.74% for the same period in 2013.

The 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage averaged 3.12% this week, barely up from 3.10% a week prior, and up from 2.65% a year ago.

The 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM came in at 2.45% this week, rising from 2.44% last week and 2.63% for the same period a year ago.

“Mortgage rates were little changed amid a week of light economic reports. Of the few releases, real GDP was revised up slightly to 2.6 percent growth in the fourth quarter of 2013,” said Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist with Freddie Mac.

“The private sector added an estimated 191,000 jobs in March, which followed an upward revision of 39,000 jobs in February according to the ADP Research Institute. Also, the Institute for Supply Management reported the manufacturing industry rebounded from a soft February but was still below market consensus,” Nothaft continued.

Additionally, Bankrate noted that mortgage rates increased for the second consecutive week in a row.

 

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/29548-fixed-mortgage-rates-hit-highest-level-since-mid-january

 

Social Media Marketing Secrets of Smart Savvy Bloggers | Bedford Realtor

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The success of a blog can be judged on different aspects, but engagement will  be a dominant factor in achieving the desired outcome. Using social media  marketing to promote your blog can be highly effective, and your ‘followers’ or ‘likes’ should be considered as important metrics.

However, ensuring that you truly engage with these people, across all  platforms, is equally important and often overlooked.

Seth Godin is widely viewed as an arbiter on marketing issues, he has  repeatedly referenced Kevin Kelly’s ‘1000 True Fans’ article. Kelly’s principal message is that  a ‘true’ fan is of greater value than a lesser fan, and that engagement helps  nurture ‘true’ fans. He states that:

‘The genius of the True Fan model is that the  fans are able to move an artist away from the edges of the long tail to a degree  larger than their numbers indicate.’

His article focuses on upcoming artists aiming to sustain a living, but the  methods can be applied to the development of any blog. If you’re dealing with  larger numbers, or are representing a corporation, then you should still pay  heed to these core values with the same sincerity.

1. Unique & varied social media content

Using Facebook or twitter to post links to your own articles will help drive  traffic towards your site, no doubt. However, if this is your only social media  activity then you have to question how original and engaging the page is.  Readers may initially ‘like’ or ‘follow’ you, but if your page is essentially a  glorified RSS feed then you may drive these same people away at a later date.  Also remember that engagement leads to more followers/likes.

A good example of a successful commercial Facebook page is Oreo; unique video, images, and campaigns  solely for their Facebook page present the user with a fresh experience. The  user’s engagement and sharing of the content, will in turn increase the traffic  to both your Facebook page and your blog. If you are representing a brand, don’t  be afraid to show intelligence – ‘dumbing down’ to your audience can be  portrayed as a ‘dumbing down’ of your brand. This is where Oreo excels; it  doesn’t offer generic competitions, instead choosing to post relevant and  humorous content.

If you run a personal blog you may not have the resources for a campaign on  this scale, but at least adopt the principles and ensure you have some unique  content.

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2014/04/02/the-social-media-marketing-secrets-of-smart-savvy-bloggers/#YJuH5J5gkgCsdYrK.99

Mortgage rates increase as the 10-year bond sells off | Bedford NY Real Estate

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Mortgage rates are the lifeblood of the housing market, which is why Bernanke and the Fed began conducting quantitative easing (or QE) in the first place. Lower rates allow homeowners to refinance, which increases their disposable income and helps stimulate economic growth. Lower rates enable first-time homebuyers to move out of an apartment and into a house, which means higher consumption (and good things for home improvement retailers like Home Depot and Lowe’s). Consumption accounts for some 70% of the U.S. economy, and consumption has been depressed since the housing bubble burst. The Federal Reserve would prefer to keep rates as low as possible for as long as possible.

 

Mortgage rates rise as the ten-year bond sells off

The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose 11 basis points as the ten-year yield rose 9 basis points, and TBAs rallied. With the refinance boom over, originators are overstaffed and cutting prices to drive business. We’ve seen a number of small originators go out of business, as they found themselves unable to compete in a purchase-driven mortgage market. The purchase market is fundamentally different from the refinance market in that it’s driven by relationships and not price. Last week, we heard from the biggest banks in the mortgage business, and every one reported drops in origination activity of 30% to 40%. Margins are getting squeezed as bankers compete for business.

The confirmation of Mel Watt as FHFA Chairman might give originators a break, as he’s expected to endorse further government homeowner assistance, which could mean an extension of HARP (Home Affordable Refinance Program) eligibility dates. This could trigger a new refinance boom.

Recently, the FHFA issued new loan level pricing adjustments for conforming loans. Loans with FICO scores above 680 and loan-to-value ratios above 80% will see higher rates. Not only that, but the FHFA also increased the guarantee fee for conforming loans by 10 basis points. Mel Watt put these increases on hold.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mortgage-rates-increase-10-bond-170020962.html