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Friday is last day to sign up for early ‘.realtor’ domain notifications | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate

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Members of the National Association of Realtors have until Friday at midnight to sign up for “priority registration” of their own “.realtor” domain name.

NAR will provide a free “.realtor” top-level domain for one year to the first 500,000 members who apply for a .realtor domain that incorporates their name. Members who file a “priority registration” request by Jan. 31 will receive an advance email notification that will provide information on how they can claim their .realtor domain with their name, one day prior to the domain’s general availability.

No specific date has been set for the general release. NAR says it will be “sometime this year.”

Only NAR members (agents and brokers), local and state Realtor associations, association multiple listing services, affiliated institutes, societies and councils, and other NAR-approved licensees will be able to register for the .realtor domain.

Source: RealtorMag

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/wire/friday-is-last-day-to-sign-up-for-early-realtor-domain-notifications/?utm_source=20140131&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyheadlinesam#sthash.PAlD59L8.dpuf

The “Vanishing” First-Time Home Buyer; What It Means for the Housing Market | Bedford Hills Real Estate

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Ah, the U.S. housing market, the so-called silver lining in the U.S. recovery—but not for long, as it may be rusting. The U.S. housing numbers are in, and they aren’t spectacular.

In the U.S. housing market, December existing-home sales rose one percent month-over-month at an annualized pace of 4.87 million units. Analysts were expecting December existing-home numbers to come in at 4.93 million. The one-percent increase also has to be taken with a grain of salt, as it was helped, in part, by a downward revision in November existing-home U.S. housing market sales to 4.82 million units. (Source: “December Existing-Home Sales Rise, 2013 Strongest in Seven Years,” National Association of Realtors web site, January 23, 2014.)

The December existing-home U.S. housing market sales of 4.87 million are also 0.6% below the 4.9-million-unit level recorded in December 2012. And sales of existing homes were down 27.9% at an annualized rate for the entire fourth quarter.

First-time home buyers—the fuel of the U.S. housing market—accounted for just 27% of all purchases in December, down from 28% in November and October and 30% in December 2012. That’s a huge drop over the 30-year average of 40% and a number real estate professionals and economists consider ideal. It is also the lowest level since the National Association of Realtors began tracking this metric in 2008.

First-time home buyers, who tend to purchase lower-priced homes, are being pushed out of the U.S. housing market recovery by all-cash sales. All-cash sales accounted for a whopping 42.1% of all U.S. residential sales in December, up from 38.1% in November and 18.0% in December 2012. (Source: “Short Sales and Foreclosure Sales Combined Accounted for 16 percent of U.S. Residential Sales in 2013,” RealtyTrac web site, January 22, 2014.)

 

 

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/vanishing-first-time-home-buyer-means-housing-market-172534837.html

Chinese Homebuyers Thronging Sydney Make Mini-Bubble Frenzy | Bedford Hills Real Estate

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Tina Ford, an Australian public servant, said she could hardly believe it when her three-bedroom apartment sold this month for A$1 million ($877,000) at an auction in which all 16 registered bidders were ethnic Chinese.

“I’m over the moon, I’m gobsmacked,” said Ford, 53, adding that she “would have been ecstatic with A$940,000” and didn’t expect to double what she had paid 14 years ago for her third-floor unit with a balcony 11 kilometers (7 miles) from downtown Sydney in the suburb of Chatswood. “I suspect that overseas investment, Chinese or otherwise, is certainly pushing prices up, but from a vendor’s perspective, I’m ecstatic.”

Such buying by locally resident Chinese and those from mainland China is inflating housing bubbles in and around Sydney, where prices in some suburbs have surged as much as 27 percent in the past year. That’s almost three times faster than the overall market.

Many of the neighborhoods with the biggest price gains “are areas that are popular with Chinese buyers,” said Andrew Wilson, senior economist at real estate data firm Australian Property Monitors. “Some of these suburbs are seeing price growth that we haven’t seen in Sydney since the early 2000s.”

The proportion of foreigners purchasing new homes in Australia more than doubled to 12.5 percent in the three months to September, from 5 percent throughout most of 2011, according to a survey of more than 300 property professionals by National Australia Bank Ltd.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-28/chinese-homebuyers-thronging-sydney-create-mini-bubble-frenzy.html?cmpid=yhoo

Case-Shiller: Home prices dipped in November | Bedford Hills NY Real Estate

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Home prices in November fell slightly for the first time since November 2012, as the combination of price gains earlier in 2013 and higher mortgage rates caused prices to reach a plateau, according to a leading index of housing-market activity.

The Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller index of home prices in 20 top cities fell 0.1% in November. A separate 10-city index also fell by 0.1%, Standard & Poor’s/Dow Jones Indices said in a statement. The 20-city index showed prices 13.8% higher than a year earlier, while the 10-city index rose 13.7%.

The company said the dip is not a reversal of the housing recovery. Prices typically dip in November and this performance was the best for any November since 2005.

“Beginning June 2012, we saw a steady rise in year-over-year increases, (and) November continued that trend,” said David Blitzer, head of the index committee at S&P/Dow Jones Indices.  “The Sun Belt continues to push ahead with Atlanta, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco and Tampa taking eight of the top nine spots.”

Home prices are still rising despite last May’s jump in mortgage interest rates, Blitzer said. Mortgage applications for purchase were up in recent weeks, confirming home builders’ optimism shown in surveys by the National Association  of Home Builders, he added.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/01/28/case-shiller-housing/4957633/

 

Q4 California Foreclosures Hit Lowest Mark in Eight Years | Bedford Hills Real Estate

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The number of California homeowners pulled into the formal foreclosure process dropped to an eight-year low last quarter, the result of an improving economy, foreclosure prevention efforts and higher home prices, according to DataQuick. A total of 18,120 Notices of Default (NoDs) were recorded by lenders and their servicers on California owners of houses and condos during the October-through-December period. That was down 10.8 percent from 20,314 for the prior quarter, and down 52.6 percent from 38,212 in fourth-quarter 2012. Last quarter’s tally was the lowest since 15,337 NoDs were recorded during fourth-quarter 2005. NoDs peaked in first-quarter 2009 at 135,431. DataQuick’s NoD statistics go back to 1992.

“Some of this decline in foreclosure starts stems from the use of various foreclosure prevention efforts – short sales, loan modifications and the ability of some underwater homeowners to refinance. But most of the drop is because of the improving economy and the increase in home values. Fewer people are behind on their mortgage payments. And of those who do get into trouble, many, if not most, can sell and pay off what they owe. Also, those who are underwater and close to slipping into foreclosure are far less likely to give up their homes now that appreciation has returned to the housing market. There’s a strong incentive to hang on,” said John Walsh, DataQuick president.

 

http://nationalmortgageprofessional.com/news46411/Q4-California-Foreclosures-Hit-Lowest-Mark-Eight-Years

Fixed Mortgage Rates Move Lower on Economic Data | Bedford Hills Homes

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Freddie Mac (OTCQB: FMCC) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing average fixed mortgage rates fall amid signs of a weakening economic recovery.

News Facts

  • 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.41 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending January 16, 2014, down from last week when it averaged 4.51 percent. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 3.38 percent.
  • 15-year FRM this week averaged 3.45 percent with an average 0.7 point, down from last week when it averaged 3.56 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 2.66 percent.
  • 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 3.10 percent this week with an average 0.5 point, down from last week when it averaged 3.15 percent. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 2.67 percent.
  • 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 2.56 percent this week with an average 0.5 point, unchanged from last week. At this time last year, the 1-year ARM averaged 2.57 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 links for the Regional and National Mortgage Rate Details and Definitions. Borrowers may still pay closing costs which are not included in the survey.

Quotes Attributed to Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist, Freddie Mac.

“Mortgage rates drifted downward this week amid signs of a weakening economic recovery. The economy added 74,000 jobs in December, less than the market consensus forecast. Retail sales rose 0.2 percent in December, which was nearly half of November’s 0.4 percent increase. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 6.7 percent which was the lowest since October 2008.”

Terry Riley Explores Miami’s Return To Its Pedestrian Roots | Bedford Hills Real Estate

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In a guided tour by car of downtown Miami, Terry Riley, former top architecture curator at the MoMA in New York and one of Miami’s reigning architecture intellectuals, tells Dezeen that Miami’s pedestrian sensibility is returning to the core of the city. The historic design of downtown Miami, with its wide pedestrian arcades to guard against sun and rain are a result of the city originally being laid out in the very late 19th and early 20th centuries with the pedestrian in mind.

When businesses needed access to larger spaces, and construction with lots of glass and air conditioning became the preferred way to keep Miami’s hot climate at bay, Brickell started to boom with its tall glassy towers, windswept pedestrian plazas, and copious parking decks. Miami “lost commonsense construction with air conditioning and underground parking garages,” Riley says, noting that Miami’s present relationship to downtown, signaled in the blossoming bars, boutiques and bicyclists where there had been or continue to be boarded-up storefronts, “is completely new.”

The most spectacular evidence that downtown Miami has come back to its senses could be the enormous overhanging eaves of the Pérez Art Museum Miami, the successor of the Miami Art Museum whose move to the bay front was announced four days before Riley resigned his post as director of that institution. Riley tacitly acknowledges that the museum’s prior location in the Philip Johnson-designed cultural complex failed in its mission to “serve as a catalyst” for development downtown. In fact it had been the second time Riley replaced Johnson. His old position at the MoMA was created for Johnson in the 1930s, who occupied it for years.

 

http://miami.curbed.com/archives/2014/01/13/terence-riley-on-miamis-return-to-its-pedestrian-roots.php