Category Archives: North Salem

New homes surge in April | North Salem Real Estate

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New homes surged in April, a sign that builders are stepping up as demand for housing remains robust.

Sales soared 16.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 619,000, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. That was the biggest monthly jump in 24 years and trounced estimates of a 525,000 pace.

The median price also jumped, rising 9.7% from 12 months ago to $321,100.

The big increase in sales took supply sharply lower. At the current pace, it would take 4.7 months to exhaust all inventory.

March numbers were revised up to a 531,000 annual pace. The April figures were 23.8% higher compared to a year ago.

Regional performance was mixed, from a 52.8% surge in the Northeast to a 4.8% decline in the Midwest. The South saw a 15.8% increase, while in the West sales were up 18.8%.

Demand for housing has run much hotter than supply for the past few years, in part because home builders have been reluctant to ramp up to the brisk level of activity they enjoyed before the recession.

 

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http://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-home-sales-roar-back-crushing-forecasts-with-a-619000-annual-pace-in-april-2016-05-24

DIY spring cleaning guide | North Salem Real Estate

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Do you have a closet you’re terrified to open? Do sweaters, paperwork, and random Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issues from the last millennium clog up every drawer? If so, then there’s a very high likelihood you’re overdue for some serious spring-cleaning.

But what’s that you say: Lying on the couch bingeing on the latest season of “House of Cards” sounds way more enticing? Then you’ll love our first installment of the Lazy Homeowner’s Guide: a collection of hacks and shortcuts that make decluttering a breeze.

Try a few of these tips to whip your place into shape with minimal time and effort. Honest, you’ll barely work up a sweat

Trick yourself into tossing things

If you know you have a problem parting with things, Jennifer Adams, celebrity interior designer and lifestyle expert, advises taking on your separation anxiety literally. Get two large boxes; label one “repair/clean” and the other “not sure.” Box up the latter items, and date the box.

“If you haven’t opened the box in a year, donate it,” she says. Same goes for the “repair/clean” box. Stick them in the trunk of your car, and drive thyself to the nearest Salvation Army or other charitable organization.

“Face it: You’re not that committed to those items if you haven’t repaired, cleaned, or looked at them within a month or two,” Adams says.

Turn castoffs into cash

Maybe extra moolah is the prime incentive you need to help you clean out cluttered spaces. If selling your unwanted stuff on eBay is too complicated, try the simple-to-use app OfferUp, the largest mobile marketplace for local buyers and sellers. Take a snap of your unwanted items, and post it on the site—and you’ll instantly be connected to buyers in your neighborhood.

Curb your clothes

Your closets are likely full of clothes you don’t wear and are ripe for purging. What should you chuck?

“Focus on clothes that don’t fit, are out of style, require expensive tailoring, that don’t look good on you, or are duplicates,” says Cynthia Kienzle, aka New York’s The Clutter Whisperer. You could end up eliminating a large swath of your wardrobe, yet feel you have more clothes since everything you pull out is something you’ll actually wear!

Save space in your closet

After purging, set up simple systems and maintain them. One of Kienzle’s favorite inexpensive closet organizing tools is Ikea’s $5 hanging shoe bags. She calls them “the best organizing bargain around.” She also likes the Container Store’s Elfa door rack system—secured inside of closet doors—to hold scarves, gloves, and belts. For about $75, it’s an “inexpensive investment relative to the enormous value they provide. And they look so nice!” Finally, skinny Huggable hangers can triple your closet space, plus the felt keeps clothes from sliding off.

Purge paperwork

It’s time to unload those old catalogs, coupons, junk mail, and tax support documents (after all, you don’t need to keep your tax documents forever—for most states it’s only the past seven years). If you need to shred but dread the prospect of feeding a small home shredder all weekend, she recommends using Staples or FedEx Office shredding services. Easier still, you can hire a shredding truck to come to your apartment building or home.

 

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The Lazy Homeowner’s Guide to Spring-Cleaning

First-Time House Hunters Lose | North Salem Real Estate

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Before beginning the hunt for their first house, Tennessee residents Brittany and Craig Murphy pared their student debt, saved for a down payment and got an income boost from her new job. The major hurdle was what came next.

In the last month, the couple lost two bidding wars on Nashville homes to competitors willing to pay more than 10 percent above the asking price.

“I was not expecting the actual finding of the house to be the difficult part,” said Brittany Murphy, a 26-year-old Web designer whose husband, 27, is a software developer.

Steady job growth, low mortgage rates and record apartment rents are turning millennials like the Murphys into homebuyers — if they can find a house. As the key U.S. spring sales season gets under way, robust real estate demand is being outweighed by a persistent lack of lower-priced supply that’s poised to limit transactions and worsen an affordability crunch for young people. They’re faring worse than purchasers at the higher end of the market, where inventory is piling up.

Rising interest in home tours indicates prospective buyers are coming out in droves. An index by Redfin that measures requests for property visits rose in the first two months of the year to the highest level since at least 2012, when the data began.

“As soon as a house hits the market, it will be eaten by the huge demand appetite,” said Nela Richardson, Redfin’s chief economist.

Limited Inventory

Surging homebuying interest won’t necessarily translate into a big jump in sales. Prices will rise while limited inventory will put a cap on transactions, said Doug Duncan, chief economist of Fannie Mae. He estimates that U.S. single-family home prices will climb 5 percent this year, about the same as in 2015, while sales will increase 3 percent. That’s a slowdown from 2015, when existing-home purchases jumped 7 percent.

“Affordability is a challenge this spring,” Duncan said. Prospective buyers “would have gotten their credit in shape and they’ll have a job. But they will be frustrated because, in their market, there simply won’t be affordable homes.”

 

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-16/first-time-house-hunters-lose-out-in-busy-u-s-homebuying-season

Mortgage rates average 3.68% | North Salem Realtor

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Freddie Mac (OTCQB: FMCC) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing mortgage rates moving higher for the second week in a row, while also only posting the second increase this year making mortgage rates very attractive for the upcoming spring home buying season.

News Facts

  • 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 3.68 percent with an average 0.5 point for the week ending March 10, 2016, up from last week when it averaged 3.64 percent. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 3.86 percent.
  • 15-year FRM this week averaged 2.96 percent with an average 0.5 point, up from last week when it averaged 2.94 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 3.10 percent.
  • 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 2.92 percent this week with an average 0.4 point, up from last week when it averaged 2.84 percent. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 3.01 percent.

Average commitment rates should be reported along with average fees and points to reflect the total upfront cost of obtaining the mortgage. Visit the following link for theDefinitions. Borrowers may still pay closing costs which are not included in the survey.

Quote
Attributed to Sean Becketti, chief economist, Freddie Mac.

“The 10-year Treasury yield ended the survey week exactly where it started, however the solid February employment report boosted the yield noticeably on Friday and Monday. Our mortgage rate survey captured the impact of this temporary increase in yield, and the 30-year mortgage rate rose 4 basis points to 3.68 percent. This marks the second increase this year. Nonetheless, the mortgage rate remains 33 basis points lower than its end-of-2015 level.”

Higher Prices Chill Buyers | North Salem Real Estate

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In the cold light of winter. concerns about affordability are cooling potential buyers, according to the latest Sentiment Index from Fannie Mae.

Fevers consumers believe this is a “Good Time to Buy”; figures trended down for the year in 2015 and declined an additional 4 percentage points in January. The share of consumers who reported that their income was significantly higher than it was 12 months ago fell 3 percentage points after climbing 9 percentage points on net in December. Altogether, the index decreased 1.7 points to 81.5 in January.

“Housing affordability is being constrained because the pace of growth in real income has not kept up with gains in real home prices as demand has grown faster than supply,” said Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae. “On the bright side, consumers have been increasingly positive about their ability to get a mortgage, suggesting that credit tightness is not the main issue limiting housing market activity today, a feeling that we also see conveyed by lenders in our Mortgage Lender Sentiment Survey®. We expect further progress in the HPSI to be limited until income growth picks up or supply, particularly in lower-priced homes, expands more rapidly.”

 

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While four of the six HPSI components decreased in January, Good Time to Sell rose by 1 point and Mortgage Rate net expectations stayed the same at negative 52 percent. Overall, the HPSI is down 1.3 points since this time last year.

  • The net share of respondents who say that it is a good time to buy a house fell 4 percentage points to 31%. An all-time survey low was equaled as only 61% of respondents say it is a good time to buy a house.
  • The net percentage of respondents who say it is a good time to sell a house rose 1 percentage point to 9%.
  • The net share of respondents who say that home prices will go up fell 3 percentage points to 37%.
  • The net share of those who say mortgage interest rates will go down remained at negative 52% this month.

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http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2016/02/higher-prices-chill-buyers/

Existing homes sales surge | North Salem Real Estate

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Existing home sales, as reported by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), surged 14.7% in December, including an increase in the first-time buyer share to 32%, the highest share since August. December sales snapped back from a November decline partially attributable to delays in closings from the rollout of the Know Before You Owe mortgage disclosure rule by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The new rule was designed to help consumers understand their loan options and avoid closing cost surprises. Total existing home sales in December increased to a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.46 million units combined for single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, up from 4.76 million units in November. December existing sales were up 7.7% from the same period a year ago.

Existing Home Sales December 2015

Existing sales increased in all regions, ranging from 8.7% in the Northeast to 23.2% in the West. Year-over-year, all regions increased, ranging from 4.6% in the South to 11.9% in the Northeast.

Total housing inventory decreased by 12.3% in December, and is 3.8% lower than its level a year ago. At the current sales rate, the December unsold inventory represents a 3.9-month supply, down from a 5.1-month supply in November. Some 32% of homes sold in December were on the market for less than a month.

The distressed sales share decreased to 8% in December from 9% in November. Distressed sales are defined as foreclosures and short sales sold at deep discounts. The December all-cash sales share decreased to 24% from 27% in November and 26% in December 2014. Individual investors purchased a 15% share in December, down from 16% in November and 17% a year ago.

The December median sales price of $224,100 was 7.6% above last December, and represents the 46thconsecutive month of year-over-year increase. The median condominium/co-op price of $209,900 in December was up 4.9% from last December.

 

http://eyeonhousing.org/2016/01/existing-sales-surge/

Homeowners Still Overvalue their Homes | North Salem Real Estate

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Average appraised values in December were 1.8 percent lower than homeowners’ opinion of their home’s value, marking the 11th straight month when appraised values were lower than homeowners expected, although the gap between the two values has narrowed since August.

The Quicken Loans’ national Home Value Index (HVI) – a measure of home values based on recent appraisals used in to refinance mortgages – showed that home values continuing to climb in December. Appraised values increased a modest 0.18 percent from November, but have risen a steady 5.81 percent since December 2014 and 3.8 percent since the beginning of the year.quickenn

Appraised values continued to fall below homeowner estimates in December. On average, appraiser opinions were 1.8 percent lower than the value homeowners expected, according to the national HPPI. Many of the metro areas studied also showed perception moving closer to equal. Appraisals remained higher in Western cities, while homeowner expectations topped appraised values in many of the Northeastern and Midwestern cities examined.

“The narrowing of the perceived vs. appraisal value gap is an excellent way to end the year,” said Quicken Loans Chief Economist Bob Walters. “The more homeowners are in line with appraisers, and understand the equity in their home, the easier it will be to refinance their mortgage. In the same vein, if homebuyers understand how the local market is performing, they will be better equipped to come in with a strong offer on the home of their dreams.”

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Appraisals remain a significant cause of delay or termination of sales contracts.  Of all contracts settled or terminated, financing, appraisal, and home inspection issues were the major problems: 18 percent had financing issues, 13 percent had home inspection issues, and 11percent had appraisal issues, said the National Association of Realtors in its October Realtor Confidence Index.

 

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http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2016/01/homeowners-still-overvalue-their-homes/

 

Consumer confidence improved in December | North Salem Real Estate

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Consumer confidence improved in December after the previous two months declines. The Consumer Confidence Index, recently released by the Conference Board, rose to 96.5 in December from 92.6 in November. Both subcomponents, the present situation and expectations indices, rebounded in December as well. The present situation index rose to 115.3 in December from 110.9 in November; the expectations index climbed up to 83.9 in December from 80.4 in November.

The figure below shows that the real GDP growth rate and consumer confidence are highly correlated over the past three decades. When GDP growth is negative, consumer confidence declines sharply; when growth resumes, consumer confidence increases as well. During the recent recession, as the real GDP growth rate dropped to -8.2%, consumer confidence fell to the historically lowest level in the early 2009. After that, the real GDP growth rate rebounded back to the positive levels and consumer confidence also slowly recovered. As the recovery from the Great Recession continues, consumer confidence is climbing up toward to the pre-recession levels.

Figure 1 December

The Conference Board also reports the shares of respondents planning to buy a lived-in home within six months. The shares of respondents planning to buy a lived-in home within six months fell to 3.4% in December, from 4.0% in November. The trends in the shares of respondents planning to buy a lived-in home within six months and the growth rate of the Case-Shiller Home Price Index (the dash lines) are very similar. When there is high demand for housing house price appreciation accelerates; when there is lower demand for housing house price appreciation decelerates.

 

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http://eyeonhousing.org/2016/01/consumer-confidence-in-december-beyond-the-monthly-volatile-data/

Key Trends in the 2016 Cost vs. Value Report | North Salem Real Estate

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Bigger and more expensive projects, rising new-home prices, curb appeal, and energy efficiency all contributed to a slight gain in remodeling projects’ payback at resale, the 2016 Cost vs. Value report shows.

The average cost and average return at resale for the 30 projects in this year’s report resulted in an average of 64.4% of a project’s investment dollars getting recouped if the home is sold within a year. That’s up from 62% in the 2015 report and the second-highest return in the past eight years.

This year’s 64.4% deserves an asterisk because the 2016 report eliminates eight projects from last year, including some with the weakest returns­, while adding two projects, one of which—attic insulation—topped the list. But if you look only at the 17 projects we’ve tracked since 2005, the results are similar.

For those 17, the average value recouped was 63.7%, up from 62.1% in the 2015 report and the second-best year in the past six. When you look at cost alone, regardless of whether you’re talking about the 17 perennials or all 28 projects that were in the 2015 and 2016 reports, the result was the same: The average project cost 4.7% more this year. But when you ask real estate professionals for their view of how much that project boosted a home’s value at resale within a year, the results varied according to which projects you included. For the 28 jobs tracked both years, real estate professionals estimated the average project’s dollar return was 6.7% higher in the latest report than in 2015. For just the 17 perennials, the gain in value was 7.3%.

Those differences give only a first sense of why Cost vs. Value isn’t so much a portrait of America’s remodeling industry as it is a kaleidoscope—one in which the view of our remodeling industry changes every time you turn the data wheel.

Because costs change independently from real estate pros’ assessment of value (and for our 17 perennial projects, they’ve moved in different directions six of the past 10 years), each year the resulting cost-value ratio will have a different reason for why it changed. This ratio expresses resale value as a percentage of construction cost: When cost is higher than value, the ratio is less than 100%; when value is higher than cost, the ratio exceeds 100%. It’s the “bang-for-the-buck” meter.

In last year’s report, the overall cost-value ratio went down from the previous year because valuations were cut on about half of the 36 projects. This time, the average return went up largely because real estate professionals were more optimistic, lowering their estimates of resale value on only five of the 30 projects surveyed.

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http://www.remodeling.hw.net/cost-vs-value/2016/trends

NAHB: Builder Confidence increased to 70 in December | North Salem Real Estate

 

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reported the housing market index (HMI) was at 70 in December, up from 63 in November. Any number above 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as good than poor.

From the NAHB: Builder Confidence Closes Year on a High Note

Builder confidence in the market for newly-built single-family homes jumped seven points to a level of 70 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI). This is the highest reading since July 2005.
…
“Though this significant increase in builder confidence could be considered an outlier, the fact remains that the economic fundamentals continue to look good for housing,” said NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz. “The rise in the HMI is consistent with recent gains for the stock market and consumer confidence. At the same time, builders remain sensitive to rising mortgage rates and continue to deal with shortages of lots and labor.”
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All three HMI components posted healthy gains in December. The component gauging current sales conditions increased seven points to 76 while the index charting sales expectations in the next six months jumped nine points to 78. Meanwhile, the component measuring buyer traffic rose six points to 53, marking the first time this gauge has topped 50 since October 2005.

Looking at the three-month moving averages for regional HMI scores, the Northeast rose six points to 51, the Midwest posted a three-point gain to 61, the South rose one point to 67 and the West registered a two-point gain to 79.

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http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2016/12/nahb-builder-confidence-increased-to-70.html