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RealtyTrac launches brokerage network | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate
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Luxury Sales Approach Sellers’ Market | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate
Top tier properties are getting close to ending their multi-year buyers’ market and quickly reaching a more equal balance between buyers and sellers, catching up with less expensive homes .
Since early December, the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing’s Market Action Index has risen 30 percent and is now only seven points away from reaching a seller’s market on a national level. The index, which is managed by Altos Research, measures available supply relative to the current level of demand.
“The ILHM national market is currently in the buyer’s market zone though not strongly so. The Market Action Index stands this week at 23 so luxury buyers should expect to find reasonable levels of selection,” the report noted. On December 2, the index stood at 16.
The ILHM National Luxury Composite Price has risen 2 percent since December 30, from $1,196,838 to $1,221,962, despite the slow winter season. Despite the fact that the number of new listings has increased 51 percent over the past six weeks, the average days on market at 204 has declined slightly, from 209 to 204. Luxury homes typically take longer to sell than less expensive ones and the ILHM average days on market (204) are much higher than Realtor.com’s January median of 119 days for all price ranges. The percent of properties with a price decrease, another sign of buyer dominance, has also decreased over the past six weeks, from 26 percent to 24 percent of all luxury properties.
The index is rising in nearly every one of the 31 markets tracked by the institute. The ten hottest luxury markets are Washington DC where the average days on market is 123; San Francisco DOM 140, Las Vegas DOM 142, Silicon Valley DOM 157, San Diego DOM 161, Austin DOM 174, Seattle DOM 176, Houston DOM 178, Atlanta DOM 183, and Phoenix DOM 191.
Brokers and agents around the country report accelerated sales around the country. “After a substantial slump in 2008-2010, migration to Florida is accelerating again and is expected to generate new jobs and boost the continuing recovery. Buyers of lavish mansions and luxury homes for sale led the wave of those heading into Florida at the beginning of 2013. In Sarasota County in December 2012, 47 homes and condominiums sold for over $1,000,000, a figure higher than any other 2012 month,” reported William True of Sarasota Real Estate.
California housing markets fed a dose of normalcy | Bedford Hills Real Estate
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Initial Jobless Claims Down by 27,000 – Good economic news | Bedford Hills Real Estate
In each Economic Update, the Research staff analyzes recently released economic indicators and addresses what these indicators mean for REALTORS® and their clients. Today’s update discusses initial jobless claims.
- Good news for the job market this week: initial unemployment insurance claims for the week ending February 9 dropped to 341,000, which is 27,000 claims lower than the previous week’s level. Although the data is preliminary and gets revised higher nearly every week for prior week’s data, the drop in initial claims is larger than the usual weekly variation since January of about 18,000 claims. This indicates that fewer people are starting a period of unemployment.
- The level of weekly claims looks headed towards 350,000 from last year’s average level of about 375,000 claims. It is also a far cry from the peak level in 2009. Still, the pace of job creation has to accelerate to absorb those already unemployed into the market. As of February 2, about 3.2 million continue to receive unemployment insurance benefits.
- The bottom line for REALTORS® is that the job market continues to make steady, if modest, gains. NAR projects 1.4 million non-farm net new jobs in 2013, one factor that can support 5.08 million existing homes sales.
Don’t pass up chance to attend home inspection | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate
DEAR BARRY: Our home inspection is scheduled for next week. This is the first time we’ve bought a home, and we’re not sure what to do and what not to do. Our agent says it’s not important for us to attend the inspection, and that we should just wait for the report. But we’re uncomfortable with that advice. There are so many things we want to ask the inspector. What do you recommend? –Annamarie
DEAR ANNAMARIE: Your agent is not giving you good advice. The importance of attending your home inspection cannot be emphasized too strongly.
Too many homebuyers miss a great opportunity by not being present at their home inspection. Sometimes this is unavoidable, due to geographical distance. But whenever possible, buyers are strongly urged to participate in the inspection process. Being on site during the inspection, viewing specific conditions in person, consulting with the inspector, asking questions, and obtaining advice greatly magnify the benefits to you, the buyer.
A home inspection is a fact-finding mission in which the inspector is your hired advocate. You and the inspector should jointly engage in the discovery process. Both of you are there for the same reason: to learn as much as possible about the condition of the property.
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Justice Sues S&P; Is It Time to Rethink the Role of Ratings Agencies? | Bedford Hills Real Estate
Most of the time, court cases are manna for journalists. The politicians and corporations we cover aren’t in the habit of dishing out information they don’t want the public to know. But along comes a lawsuit, and the parties are often forced to put a lot of juicy details on the public record. So when the Justice Department yesterday announced a joint federal and state lawsuit against the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s for defrauding investors in the run up to the financial crisis with its overly optimistic ratings of mortgage-related investments, I was excited to see what new dirt the complaint would unearth.
Much to my chagrin, however, the complaint is a fairly mundane read for the simple fact that we have known for years that the ratings agencies were hamstrung by a fundamental conflict of interest: They are paid by the sellers of securities rather than the buyers. So during the inflation of the real estate bubble in the early 2000s, as investment banks scrambled to package mortgages into complex financial instruments, ratings agencies also scrambled to figure out how to get those investment banks to chose them to rate their securities. What was S&P’s strategy to entice investment banks to pay it rather than its competitors? Rate their securities higher.
The complaint does put this dynamic into sharper relief, as it provides us with the details of conversations, emails, and instant message exchanges that show the evolution of S&P’s ratings philosophy from one focused primarily on accurate
China’s Property Market Is Rebounding | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate
The Many Hats of a Community Manager | Bedford Hills Realtor
The role of a community manager can vary immensely from company to company, and industry to industry. What remains similar is that they’re tasked with the overarching goal of building, growing and managing communities around a specific brand or mission statement.
San Francisco-based community software developer Get Satisfaction has just released an infographic that pays homage to the average community manager, and the various roles they may fulfill throughout the course of the day. In 2012′s “Community Manager Report” by Social Fresh it was revealed that a majority of community managers put in more than 50 hours of work per week across authoring articles, forum responses, being a diplomat, a brand cheerleader, and communicating issues from the consumer-end to the product team.
Here’s a closer look at the different hats a community manager may wear throughout the course of a normal business day:
This article is an original contribution by Elie Ayrouth.
Current Confidence Index Up Across All Property Types | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate
US Economy Contracts .1% in 4th Qtr – Not Good for Real Estate | Bedford Hills Real Estate
US ECONOMY SHRINKS: GDP FALLS 0.1% IN Q4
Pete Souza/Official White House photo
The advance estimate for fourth-quarter U.S. GDP is out.
The economy contracted 0.1 percent in Q4 versus economists’ consensus expectations of a 1.1 percent expansion.
Personal consumption growth came in at 2.2 percent – slightly higher than consensus estimates of 2.1 percent – but was driven largely by a 13.9 percent advance in the consumption of durable goods.
Government spending was the largest driver of the economic contraction in the fourth quarter, subtracting 1.33 percentage points from Q4 GDP growth and falling 6.6 percent. Federal spending fell 15.0 percent, led by a 22.2 percent drop in defense spending. Federal spending on nondefense items was actually up 1.4 percent. State and local spending fell 0.7 percent.
The drawdown in private inventories was the second culprit behind the contraction, subtracting 1.27 percentage points from Q4 GDP growth after adding 0.73 percentage points to Q3 GDP growth.
