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Bad weather hammers housing starts, again | Chappaqua NY Homes

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Housing starts fell sharply in January for the second straight month as cold and stormy weather continued to batter the recovering housing market.

Starts of single-family houses and apartments fell 16% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 880,000 last month after declining dramatically in December, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.  Extreme winter weather is largely blamed for both poor showings after starts jumped to their highest level in a year in November.

Starts in December were revised up to an annual rate of 1.05 million from 990,000.

Economists had expected Commerce to report that starts fell to a 950,000 annual rate in January, according to their consensus estimate. Starts rose in the Northeast but declined in the rest of the country.

Applications — a gauge of future housing activity — fell 5.4% in January. Applications for permits to build single-family homes fell 1.3%.

The report follows this week’s release of a closely watched index of home builders’ outlook in February which declined at the fastest-ever pace and indicated that more builders view conditions as poor than good.

In a research note, UBS said the falling measure “suggests inclement weather probably depressed starts further in February.”

Other factors may also be at work, such as rising mortgage rates that have dampened home sales.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/19/housing-starts-january/5587867/

 

Living in Las Vegas: A Look Beyond the Strip | Chappaqua Homes

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Sky-high hotels, desert sun and entertainment galore. It’s not surprising Las Vegas continues to be one of the most popular Spring Break destinations attracting college students around the country.

Today’s Vegas reaches far beyond the Strip’s neon lights and slot machines. In fact, a growing number of families are putting down roots in the Gambling Capital of the World.

To get a feel for what it’s like to live in Vegas, we asked longtime residents Christa Schueler and Michelle Radcliff to share their experiences.

Family-friendly culture

“I moved here in the ’80s and the common belief was that you must work and live in a hotel, or have some affiliation to a casino,” said Schueler, who writes an online magazine geared toward local women. “Then in the ’90s, Las Vegas started trying to get that family demographic because growth started to explode here. They started trying to appeal to families living here as well as those who were vacationing.”

Schueler said efforts to make Vegas more conducive to a family lifestyle weren’t hugely successful in the ’90s, but she notes there’s been a recent movement to appeal to families with children.

“Now, we’re not just looked at as gambling town,” she said. “People are realizing families do live here and that there are things to do, whether you’re a tourist or a local.”

Radcliff, who also moved to Vegas in the 1980s, agrees.

“I have a daughter who was born here,” she said. “A lot of people raise families in Vegas. There are a lot of things you can do with children.”

 

http://homes.yahoo.com/news/living-las-vegas-look-beyond-strip-182059598.html

Wash. state housing prices up 6 percent from year ago | Chappaqua NY Real Estate

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The state’s housing market softened in the fourth quarter of 2013 compared to the quarter before, but remained stronger than a year ago.

That’s according to a new report from the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies at the University of Washington.

Sales of existing homes declined 8.6 percent from the third to the fourth quarter of 2013. But they were still 9.2 percent higher than the fourth quarter of 2012.

The report says the statewide median home sales price during the fourth quarter was 6 percent above a year ago at $256,300. Price increases were especially strong in the metropolitan Seattle area.

Median home prices ranged from $70,000 in Lincoln County to $421,000 in King County.

 

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Wash-state-housing-prices-up-from-1-year-ago-245218321.html

Is Now the Right Time to Sell Your Home? | Chappaqua NY Real Estate

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With the housing market on an upswing, is now the right time to put your house on the market?

A recent survey by Redfin found 38% of home sellers believe now is a good time to sell, up from 34% last quarter and an enormous improvement from 22% in the fourth quarter of last year.

It is no secret that a lot of homeowners who want to sell their homes have been waiting (for several years in some cases) for a better housing market before listing their house.  Mortgage rates are relatively low, inventories are at their lowest level in years, and confidence in the housing market is the highest it’s been since before the mortgage crisis.

Sounds like you should consider selling, right? The short answer is “maybe”, but there are several factors to consider in determining whether it is the right time to sell for you.

Location: What’s going on in your local market? Before deciding to put your home on the market, it is very important to contact a local realtor (or a few) in order to see what’s happening where you live.

Maybe smaller homes are selling but larger, more expensive homes are sitting on the market for six months or more.  Maybe there is a high amount of inventory of homes like yours on the market, which generally creates more pressure to lower the asking price. In many coastal areas, markets are at a standstill due to the ongoing drama regarding flood insurance.

On the other hand, maybe your particular type of home is very popular in the area you live in.  Maybe condos are in high demand where you live.  Maybe a new large employer opened up and homes nearby are in high demand.

The point is there is a tremendous variety of real estate markets in the United States, and there is no way to determine the level of demand for a particular property just by looking at national statistics

 

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/02/09/is-now-the-right-time-to-sell-your-home.aspx

Report: East End real estate market ‘booming’ | Chappaqua NY Homes

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Home sales on the East End have skyrocketed last year compared to 2012 and 2011, according to a report released Monday by Suffolk Research Service Inc.

The research service’s president, George Simpson, described the East End market as “booming.”

 

His numbers show Suffolk County’s five eastern towns have seen a 61 percent increase in sales since 2011, with the median price for single family houses on the East End rising by 4 percent from 2012 to 2013.

Looking at 2013’s fourth quarter numbers, which the service just released, 116 housing units were sold in Riverhead Town, compared with 74 in the fourth quarter of 2012 and 60 during the same period in 2011.

Southold Town saw 159 houses sold in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared with 86 during that same three-month stretch of 2012.

Marie Beninati, owner of Beninati Associates in Southold, said the trend of a dwindling housing stock and rising home prices has been going on for about “six months or so,” from her experience — and has been about a year and a half in the making.

“I haven’t really done the numbers, but if you sell two houses, maybe one comes on the market,” she said, adding that rising prices isn’t ideal, but it is a natural thing to see a pendulum swing toward more of a seller’s market.

According to a Long Island Decade Survey of Residential Sales report for 2013 compiled by The Douglas Elliman Report series, there were 12,801 homes for sale on Long Island in 2013 as opposed to 14,574 in 2012 — a decrease of 12.2 percent.

 

 

http://riverheadnewsreview.timesreview.com/2014/02/51132/report-east-end-real-estate-market-booming/

Texas Real Estate Market Finishes 2013 Strong | Chappaqua NY Real Estate

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The Texas real estate market finished 2013 strong, with continued year-over-year increases in sales volume and prices for single-family homes, according to the Texas Association of Realtors’ Texas Quarterly Housing Report released today.

“The Texas real estate market showed strength in sales volume and price all year long and the fourth quarter was no exception,” said Dan Hatfield, chairman of the Texas Association of Realtors. “We’ve now seen year-over-year increases in both sales volume and price every quarter for more than two years. This makes it clear – demand for Texas homes is strong and enduring.”

According to the Texas Quarterly Housing Report, 60,998 single-family homes were sold in Texas in the fourth quarter of 2013, which is 6.78 percent more than the same quarter of 2012. During the same time frame, the median price for Texas homes was $172,600, up 8.48 percent from 2012-Q4, and the average price was up 8.88 percent to $226,216.

Jim Gaines, Ph.D., economist with the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, explained, “One thing that is notable about the price increases seen in the fourth quarter is that they are relatively consistent across the state. Those increases are being seen in markets of every size, not just in the largest Texas markets, so that indicates broad-based appreciation for Texas real estate.”

This high demand continued to contribute to a shrinking inventory of homes in Texas. During the fourth quarter of 2013, the statewide inventory of homes decreased by one full month to 3.6 months. That figure is well below the 6.5 months that the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University cites as a market balanced between supply and demand.

Read more here: http://www.heraldonline.com/2014/02/03/5639176/texas-real-estate-market-finishes.html#storylink=cpy

Dec. home prices see 11% annual rise | Chappaqua Real Estate

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Home prices were up 11% in December year over year as 2013 marked the strongest year for home price gains since 2005, market watcher CoreLogic says.

Ten states and the District of Columbia reached new all-time price peaks, mostly in the second half of the year, CoreLogic says.

Home price gains this year are not expected to be as robust. Rising prices will attract more sellers, leading to an increased supply of homes on the market, and that will have a “moderating effect on prices,” says Mark Fleming, CoreLogic chief economist.

The 10 states hitting all-time price peaks tend to be ones with strong energy economies or places where the home price bubble didn’t inflate as much so prices fell less during the downturn.

The states are Texas, North Dakota, Nebraska, Vermont, South Dakota, Iowa, Colorado, Alaska, Oklahoma and Wyoming, CoreLogic’s data shows.

It’s hardly surprising that 2013 was the strongest year for home price gains since 2005. The historic housing bust took off in earnest in 2006 and it wasn’t until 2011 before prices started to recover in the first major markets.

Most economists see price growth slowing a lot this year, but the nagging question remains how much inventory will come on the market.

 

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/04/december-home-prices-corelogic/5189675/