The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its report on mortgage applications Wednesday morning, noting a week-over-week decrease of 3.5% in the group’s seasonally adjusted composite index for the week ending February 20. That followed a drop of 13.2% for the week ending February 13, mortgage loan rates increased on all five types of loans for the second consecutive week.
On an unadjusted basis, the composite index decreased by 12% week-over-week. The seasonally adjusted purchase index increased 5% compared to the week ended February 13. The unadjusted purchase index fell by 2% for the week and is now 2% lower year-over-year.
Home buying action is typically slow in January and February due to wintry weather. Home price increases have fallen sharply year-over-year, as Tuesday’s Case-Shiller home price index indicated. Interest rates are rising, likely in an effort to attract bond investors.
Adjustable rate mortgage loans accounted for 5.2% of all applications, down from 5.3% in the prior week.
The MBA’s refinance index decreased 8% week-over-week, and the percentage of all new applications that were seeking refinancing declined from 66% in the prior week to 62%.
The FHA share of all applications rose from 15.2% a week ago to 15.3%, and the VA share decreased from 8.0% to 9.6%.
The average mortgage loan rate for a conforming 30-year fixed-rate mortgage increased from 3.93% to 3.99%. The rate for a jumbo 30-year fixed-rate mortgage increased from 3.92% to 4.09%. The average interest rate for a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage increased from 3.24% to 3.28%.
Home prices saw a slight increase in nine cities covered by the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices in December.
Both the 10-City and 20-City Composites saw year-over-year increases in December compared to November.
The 10-City Composite gained 4.3% year-over-year, up from 4.2% in November. The 20-City Composite gained 4.5% year-over-year, compared to a 4.3% increase in November.
The S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, which covers all nine U.S. census divisions, recorded a 4.6% annual gain in December 2014 versus 4.7% in November.
“The for-sale housing market made great strides toward ‘normal’ in 2014, as runaway appreciation cooled markedly and negative equity fell significantly. But anyone looking to see how far from truly ‘normal’ the market remains need look no further than the red-hot rental market, and its implications on the broader housing market going forward,” said Zillow Group (Z) Chief Economist Stan Humphries. “Many current renters could likely realize significant monthly savings by buying a home now and taking advantage of terrific affordability driven by low mortgage rates and home prices that remain below peak in most areas.”
After graduating college in 2009, Brian Maida lived with his parents for about two years in order to save the money to buy his first home.
He bought a second one in 2013.
Maida, 27, lives in New Jersey and works in business development and sales. He says it only took about $14,000 to buy that first place, which he now rents out for supplemental income.
“I was able to refinance that loan within a year and show them that I had 20% equity based on their appraisal, and that lowered my payment by almost 20%,” Maida explains. “You can get pretty good deals on real estate if you look hard and negotiate.”
He bought his second place, where he now lives, in a short sale with 5% down, and he currently pays private mortgage insurance (PMI).
In fact, Maida devotes the bulk of his monthly budget to his properties, and plans to buy a third property in March of this year. “I liquidated my 401(K) and Roth IRA,” he explains. “I no longer believe in investing in the stock market — I follow it too much. I would rather buy real estate and leverage my money. Right now I own about $250,000 in real estate, and I put in maybe $40,000.”
Below, Maida shares his monthly budget based on his $5,656 monthly income ($4,306 from his salary, $1,350 rental income from his investment property). He budgets according to take-home pay from his base salary, plus paycheck withdrawals like medical insurance but excluding taxes. He chooses to list out the withdrawals in case he ever becomes a contractor in the future. “I don’t even put commission on here, because in my role, I could make $100,000 one year and $200,000 the next,” he adds. “All the commission is extra money I’d save.”
All numbers are rounded to the nearest dollar.
View gallery
.
Brian Maida
To simplify the visual, we’ve abbreviated Maida’s primary home, where he lives, as “PH.” We’ve also condensed the costs of his investment property ($1,307) into one category that includes his separate payments for the mortgage, taxes, HOA fee, the landlord/tenant policy, and any other costs.
The “pets” category includes two categories that Maida lists separately for his two dogs and a cat: food/treats/toys/vet ($200) and walking/sitting ($60). His “accident insurance” category includes both his personal death and dismemberment coverage and his enrollment in his employer’s legal plan.
His monthly costs, which he splits into fixed and variable categories, add up to $4,674 a month, leaving a difference of $982. “If stick to this budget, I save about $12,000 a year,” Maida explains. “My tax return is another approximately $3,000 — that’s $15,000 a year. Next, I’d like to buy a house for $250,000 to $500,000.”
Existing home sales decreased 4.9% in January, and the share of sales for first-time buyers continued to disappoint. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported January 2015 total existing home sales at a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.82 million units combined for single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, down from a revised 5.07 million units in December. January existing sales were up 3.2% from the same period a year ago.
Existing sales from the previous month were down in all four regions, ranging from 2.7% in the Midwest to 7.1% in the West. Year-over-year, existing sales were up in all four regions, ranging from 5.6% in the South to 0.9% in the Midwest.
The first-time buyer share decreased to 26% in January, down from 29% in December and 31% in November. This continuing downward trend follows 2014 during which the annual share of first-time buyers fell to its lowest level in nearly three decades. Reports of easing mortgage standards will help first-time buyers, and a full recovery awaits their return to their typical 40% share.
Total housing inventory increased 0.5% in January to 1.87 million existing homes. At the current sales rate, the January 2015 inventory increased to a 4.7-month supply, up from a 4.4-month supply in December. NAR also reported that in January the typical time on the market was 69 days, up from 66 days in December, and slightly up from 67 days during the previous January. NAR reported that 30% of homes sold in January were on the market less than a month, down from 31% in December and 32% in November.
The distressed sales share January sales remained unchanged from December at 11%, and was down from 15% during the same month a year ago. Distressed sales are defined as foreclosures and short sales sold at deep discounts. January all cash sales increased to 27% of transactions, up from 26% in December and 25% in November, but were down from 33% during the same month a year ago. Individual investors purchased a 17% share in January, unchanged from December, but that share was down from the 20% share last January. Some 67% of January investors paid cash, up from 63% in December and 61% in November. The awaited withdrawal of cash investors will create more opportunity for first-time buyers.
The January median sales price of $199,600 was 6.2% above the previous January, and represented the 35th consecutive month of year-over-year price increases. The median condominium/co-op price dropped for the sixth consecutive month to $198,300 in January, but was up 5.3% from the same period a year ago.
The Pending Home Sales Index decreased 3.7% in December, so the decline in January existing sales was not a surprise. However, it is expected that existing sales will regain their upward momentum during 2015, hopefully supported by the much awaited recovery for first-time buyers.
Existing home sales collapsed 4.9% in January to their lowest rate in nine months, falling well below analyst expectations, led by a massive drop in western region, according to the National Association of Realtors.
All major regions experienced declines in January, with the Northeast and West seeing the largest.
Total existing-home sales, which are completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, fell 4.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.82 million in January from an upwardly-revised 5.07 million in December.
“January’s drop in existing home sales is a bit concerning,” said Bill Banfield, vice president at Quicken Loans. “Economic indicators and stubbornly-low interest rates would lead most to expect improvement, yet recent housing reports have indicated the opposite. Inventory is a number I’ll be watching in the coming months as it has the power to help existing sales bounce back.”
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, says the housing market got off to a somewhat disappointing start to begin the year with January closings down throughout the country.
“January housing data can be volatile because of seasonal influences, but low housing supply and the ongoing rise in home prices above the pace of inflation appeared to slow sales despite interest rates remaining near historic lows,” he said. “Realtors are reporting that low rates are attracting potential buyers, but the lack of new and affordable listings is leading some to delay decisions.”
Total housing inventory at the end of January increased 0.5% to 1.87 million existing homes available for sale, but is 0.5% lower than a year ago. Unsold inventory is at a 4.7-month supply at the current sales pace – up from 4.4 months in December.
The slowdown in mortgage purchase applicationsis alsoweighing on analysts. Mortgage purchase apps have faltered, and that limits upside risk for mortgage rates, according to the analyst team lead by Chris Flanagan atBank of America/Merrill Lynch.
The housing market didn’t get off to a great start in 2015, as existing-home sales in January fell to the lowest level in nine months.
The National Association of Realtors reported that home sales fell 4.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.82 million. Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast a 4.95 million rate.
December’s data saw a mild upward revision to 5.07 million from an initially reported 5.04 million.
Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the NAR, attributed the decline to a lack of housing supply and rising prices.
The median existing-home price was $199,600, which is 6.2% above January 2014 levels. Inventory edged up 0.5% to 1.87 million homes, or a 4.7 month supply at the current sales price.
Yun added that low mortgage rates are generating interest, but the lack of new and affordable listings is delaying decisions.
Other factoids from the January report:
• All-cash sales were 27% of all transactions, up from 26% in December but down from 33% in January 2014.
• Distressed sales were 11% of all sales, unchanged from December.
• Properties typically stayed on the market slightly longer in January (69 days) than December (66 days) and a year ago (67 days).
• The share of first-time buyers declined to 28% in January, the lowest since June.
“Today a somewhat softer-than-expected report is a further sign that housing is still struggling to gain altitude although we expect further signs of recovery in the next two to three years as the improving job market encourages more first-time buyers,” said Peter Buchanan, an economist at CIBC World Markets.
The latest menace dealt by New England’s historic snowbound winter — the creak, crack and boom of collapsing roofs — may get worse as the region heads into a weekend forecast of rain.
Rooftops, especially flat ones, have buckled under the weight of snow from Rhode Island northward to Maine, and companies like Ottawa eavestrough repair have been working hard to restore the damaged roofs. In Massachusetts, 106 roofs have caved in the last two weeks, all of them needing a new roof replacement. Two partial roof collapses in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, displaced as many as 700 residents in an apartment complex.
There have been no reports of death or serious injury in the structural failures. That could change with Boston’s next round of foul weather, which will start Saturday. Unlike every system since Jan. 27, it will switch to all rain through the overnight hours, said Alan Dunham, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Taunton, Massachusetts. Most legal proceedings can only be filed within a certain window of time. This is called the statute of limitations. If you do not file your case in time, you will not have your day in court even if your case is valid. The statute of limitations on negligence cases varies from state to state. This is another reason to make sure you have a quality medical malpractice attorney. They will know exactly how much time they have to complete the necessary paperwork to ensure your case is heard. Here read more information about the Queens Personal Injury Attorneys. In order to protect doctors and insurance providers, there has been a cap put on the amount of money that can be recovered from these cases. Similar to the statute of limitations, this amount varies from state to state. If you win your case, the amount will be more than sufficient in covering the bills you incurred as a result of the negligence. A medical malpractice attorney will ensure that you recover as much monetary compensation as you possibly can for your ordeal.
A medical malpractice attorney can help a client who has had a doctor who has committed professional negligence, by either act or omission, which then makes the treatment or procedure turn out to be worse than the accepted standard within the medical community. A medical malpractice attorney can also help a family who has had a family member die or be injured by a doctor who has committed professional negligence. Each country has its own regulations and standards that define professional negligence. Sometimes doctors and other medical professionals obtain professional liability insurance to help defray the risk and also the costs of a lawsuit based on their errors.
“The snow will basically just absorb all the rain,” Dunham said. “All that snow sitting on roofs will be even heavier and it will exacerbate an already large problem.”
Roof collapses in Massachusetts include a commercial plaza, daycare center and lumber retailer, according to the state’s emergency management agency, MEMA. They will all need roof repair as soon as possible.
Barn Roof
In Newington, New Hampshire, about 100 employees face a temporary layoff after a roof collapse on a warehouse at Georgia-Pacific.
A barn roof gave way in Berwick, Maine, as did part of a roof over a manufacturing facility in Rockland, the coastal Maine community known for its annual lobster festival.
In the Boston area, which has been smothered by more than eight feet of snow this season, companies that shovel off roofs and break up ice dams are so busy that many aren’t returning new calls for help. Fortunately, there is an Affordable Roofing Contractor knoxville TN who can help you with fixing your roof and removing the snow from your roof.
As of Thursday afternoon, Boston had received 98.7 inches (about 250 centimeters) at Logan International Airport, making the current winter the snowiest on record behind 1995-1996, when 107.6 inches fell.
Whether Saturday’s storm system brings snow, rain or a mix, it will add weight, said Chris Besse, a MEMA spokesman.
“That’s why we’re encouraging people to get out there and check their roofs,” he said in a telephone interview and added the service from https://bellroofcompany.com/roofing-loma-linda/ for any roofing system.
Red Flags
Signs of impending collapse can include sagging roofs, leaks inside the house and cracked or split wood in the structural makeup of the dwelling, MEMA said on its website. Sprinkler heads that drop down from ceiling tiles, doors that pop open and doors or windows that are difficult to open can also be red flags. Visit Website if you are looking for a reliable roofing services to ease the load of working on a strong roof.
To ease the roof’s load, the state recommends a snow rake – – if you can find one for sale. Start from the edge and work inward, shaving the piles down to two or three inches. Scraping the roof clean will risk damage to shingles and other roofing material, MEMA advises.
The legendary architect and his companion, the curator David Whitney, spent their weekends in the world’s most famous transparent box. Or did they?
Photo
Philip Johnson, left, with his partner, the art curator and collector David Whitney, photographed by Mariana Cook on the Glass House property in 1995.Credit
WHEN PHILIP JOHNSON’S Glass House in New Canaan, Conn., was featured in Life magazine soon after its completion in 1949, architects and designers downed martinis at the Oyster Bar, pondering the future of the International Style. But that probably wasn’t what most people were thinking about as they looked at the pictures. They likely leaned back in their Barcaloungers and wondered: How could he actually live in a clear box, without walls, without privacy, without any stuff?
The answer was that despite our indelible impression of Johnson, the owlish man in the dapper suit and those spectacles, spending his incredibly long life (he died at age 98 in 2005) in the 1,800-square-foot transparent rectangle, silhouetted against a backdrop of greenery that he called “expensive wallpaper,” he never really did live in the Glass House. At least not in the self-contained sense in which the rest of us occupy our homes.
PLAY VIDEO3:12
T’s design editor Tom Delavan tours the 49-acre estate with Henry Urbach, the house’s director.
Instead, the Glass House was merely the focal point of what eventually grew to be a veritable architectural theme park on 49 meticulously tended acres, comprising 14 structures, in which Johnson and David Whitney, the collector and curator who met him in 1960 and became his life partner, and who died just months after Johnson, enjoyed their impossibly glamorous weekend existence.
From the bunkerlike Brick House where Johnson often slept and the tiny, turreted, postmodern Library where he worked surrounded by architecture books, to Calluna Farms, the 1905 shingled farmhouse and the subterranean art gallery,also you can see here the art gallery collection. the collection of buildings formed Johnson’s idea of the perfect deconstructed home. When the Glass House compound, a National Trust for Historic Preservation site, reopens for tours in May after its usual winter break, the public will for the first time be able to visit two additional structures of the 14 — Calluna Farms and Grainger, the cozy 18th-century timber-frame house the couple used as a TV room — at last offering a more nuanced picture of what life really was like behind glass.
Philip Johnson’s “Glass House” refers ambiguously both to his iconic residence in New Canaan, Conn., and to the 49-acre property which comprised eight other buildings, including this house, called Grainger, which was used as a sitting room.Dean Kaufman
The world-famous Glass House, completed in 1949, was not the couple’s sole residence on the property. Dean Kaufman
The Sculpture Gallery, built in 1970, holds works from the likes of Frank Stella and Robert Morris. Dean Kaufman
The postmodern one-room Library, built in 1980, where Johnson often worked. Dean Kaufman
The Gehryesque Da Monsta gatehouse, completed in 1995. Dean Kaufman
The interior of Grainger, the 18th-century farmhouse used mostly for watching TV. Dean Kaufman
The entrance to the subterranean Painting Gallery. Dean Kaufman
Calluna Farms, the shingle-style farmhouse purchased by Johnson in 1981 to serve as Whitney’s residence. Dean Kaufman
The interior of Calluna Farms with its lace curtains and chairs designed by Prouvé, Le Corbusier and Thonet. Dean Kaufman
The bedroom in the Brick House, designed by Johnson in 1953, features vaulted ceilings, Fortuny-covered walls and a hand-woven carpet. Dean Kaufman
The Lincoln Kirstein Tower, a 30-foot folly on the property that Johnson used to climb. Dean Kaufman
A window by the artist Michael Heizer at the back of Grainger, facing the peony and iris garden. Dean Kaufman
123456789101112
IN THE BEGINNING, there were two: the Glass House and the Brick House, both about 50 feet long and finished within months of each other in 1949 on a five-acre plot, with a 90-foot-wide grassy court separating them. History has downplayed the Brick House — from the outside it’s plain and it doesn’t fit well with the people-in-glass-houses narrative — but Johnson always knew it would be impossible to live entirely in the open, so he built a place to get some privacy.
The rest of the buildings came naturally, if gradually. The idea of having a slew of small houses for different activities, moods and seasons, complemented by decorative “follies,” was Johnson’s conception for the site from early on. He called it a “diary of an eccentric architect,” but it was also a sketchbook, an homage to architects past and present, and to friends like the dance impresario Lincoln Kirstein, after whom Johnson named one of the follies he built on the property, a 30-foot-high tower made of painted concrete blocks.
In contrast to their whirlwind weekday world in Manhattan, Johnson and Whitney saw life in New Canaan as perpetual camping, albeit of a luxurious, minimalist sort. Neither Grainger nor the 380-square-foot Library has a bathroom, though both are air-conditioned, unlike the Glass House, which relies on cross ventilation. It originally had heating pipes in the ceiling and the floor, but the ceiling pipes reportedly froze early on and were never adequately repaired. To compensate, on particularly cold winter days the temperature of the water flowing through the radiant heated floors was turned up to nearly 200 degrees. “You couldn’t go in there with bare feet,” Port Draper, the contractor who maintained the house for many years, recalled in The Times in 2007. Johnson was unbothered by the house’s leaks, a problem endemic to a flat roof. Frank Lloyd Wright once referred to one of his houses as a “two-bucket house,” according to Robert A. M. Stern, to which Johnson gaily replied, “Oh, that’s nothing, Frank. Mine’s a four-bucket house. One in each corner.”
While the Glass House was designed with areas for dining, living and sleeping, loosely divided by low cabinetry and a brick cylinder holding the chimney and bathroom, it functioned more as a living space, an occasional office for Johnson and a place to throw parties (lots of them, attended in the early years by a coterie of young Yale architecture students, and later by the likes of Richard Meier, Frank Gehry, Fran Lebowitz and Agnes Gund). The house was astonishingly tchotchke-free. “I don’t think clutter was allowed,” the painter Jasper Johns, a friend of both men, once said. “One was always aware of their ruthless elegance.”
In the past few weeks, the Sunnyside Yards has received an inordinate amount of attention from politicians and press, after being referenced as a possible development site for future megaprojects. Described as “a giant bowl of spaghetti,” this vast Queens train yard was included as one of the central proposals in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s State of the City address, where he called for a platform to be built over the yards holding 11,250 new affordable apartments. Not to be outdone, Governor Cuomo soon responded by giving support to a different proposal for a new convention center above the tracks. Based on their enthusiasm for these projects, it remains doubtful that either politician has personally explored the entire complicated reality of this 180-acre rail yard.
A circumnavigation of the Sunnyside Yards on foot reveals how huge and complex any plan to build above it would be. Almost two miles long, the perimeter of the yard is surrounded by elaborate fences and intersected by numerous bridges, but its day-to-day operations are largely hidden from public view. What few vantage points there are show a multi-layered system where LIRR, NJ Transit, Amtrak and MTA trains wind and weave above and below ground, enmeshed in a web of power lines and ancillary tracks. Meanwhile, an equally diverse array of neighborhoods borders the edges of the yard, ranging from the post-industrial side streets of Long Island City to the still-industrial warehouses of Sunnyside and the charming residences of the Sunnyside Gardens Historic District.
Walking through this convoluted landscape, it becomes clear that any local pressure to develop on top of the Sunnyside Yards is largely coming from its northwest boundary, where the creeping tide of luxury towers has swept aside industry in Long Island City and reached the very edges of the tracks. In the narrow strip of land between Jackson Avenue and the yards, cranes and construction dominate the skyline, as century-old warehouses are demolished to make way for new residential behemoths. West Chemical and 5 Pointz have now been completely destroyed, Eagle Electric is being gutted and renovated, and several new glass boxes now loom over the yards. The potential creation of up to 28 million square feet of “new” land in the backyard of these projects would doubtlessly benefit some developers enormously.
Global real estate investor Barry Sternlicht told CNBC on Thursday that he disagrees with Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller, who predicted a day earlier that the U.S. residential housing market looks topped out.
Housing is a major asset class that’s “actually trailing asset bubbles,” said Sternlicht, chairman and CEO of the $42 billion-plus investment firm Starwood Capital Group. “It’s cheaper to buy a house and finance it, than it is to rent in many markets.”
In a “Squawk Box” interview Wednesday, Shiller, co-founder of the Case-Shiller housing index, said he “won’t bet” on the increase in home prices since 2012 continuing.
“Home prices are … at about the right level based on history. So maybe they won’t go anywhere in the near future,” the Yale professor warned.
A day later on the program, Sternlicht expressed optimism about buying homes as an investment. “The housing sector is going to be a major asset class in this country.”
The Starwood Capital chief did acknowledge that Americans are “a little nervous about taking mortgages.” He blames that, in part, on the gridlock in Washington, D.C., in solving the country’s debt problems and reforming entitlements.
But Sternlicht said the collapse in oil that’s led to cheaper gasoline would help consumers feel more confident. “You’re going to see things like lodging doing better this summer. People will be driving more.” He also predicted the impact of less expensive prices at the gas pump would eventually translate into better retail sales.
On the investor side of the equation, he’s concerned about the easy money policies being pursued around the world.
“Smart investors are really nervous,” Sternlicht said. “It seems to me, there’s a big dike [on] the world’s economies, and the politicians and the [central] banks are plugging all these holes, but it’s getting harder and harder to hold these holes.”
