| Katonah NY Weekly Real Estate Report | 2/21/2014 | |
| Homes for sale | 39 | |
| Median Ask Price | $995,000.00 | |
| Low Price | $359,000.00 | |
| High Price | $8,250,000.00 | |
| Average Size | 3770 | |
| Average Price/foot | $370.00 | |
| Average DOM | 141 | |
| Average Ask Price | $1,580,074.00 | |
Mortgage rates are falling fast again, and would-be buyers have to start thinking: Can I afford to wait six months to buy a home with interest rates this low?
And low they are, as evidenced by a slew of mortgage rate data out early this week.
First up is the BankingMyWay Weekly Mortgage Rate tracker, which shows 30-year fixed mortgage rates sliding from 4.40% last week to 4.21% this week.
One-, three- and five-year adjustable-rate mortgages are also in full retreat this week, with the benchmark three-year ARM rate falling from 3.46% to 2.85%.
The BMW rate tracker also shows 15-year fixed-rate mortgages falling, from 3.58% to 3.43%.
Freddie Mac is out with new mortgage rates as well, and they pretty much mirror the BMW figures. Freddie Mac has current 30-year fixed mortgage rates at 4.23% and 15-year fixed loan rates at 3.33%.
While rates are well above where they were last year at this time (at 3.53% for the 30-year rate), mortgage interest costs have dropped significantly in recent weeks.
“Mortgage rates fell further this week following the release of weaker housing data,” says Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist, at Freddie Mac.
He notes the U.S. pending home sales index declined by 8.7% in December, to its lowest level since October 2011. “Fixed residential investment negatively contributed to GDP in the fourth quarter for the first time since the third quarter of 2010,” he says. “Also, the Institute for Supply Management reported a significant slowing in growth in the manufacturing industry in December than the market consensus forecast.”
Home prices maintained their course and increased 11% in December 2013 compared to a year ago, recording the 22nd consecutive monthly year-over-year increase in home prices nationally, according to the latest December CoreLogic Home Price Index.
Month-over-month, home prices, including distressed sales, dipped by .1% in December compared to November.
Home prices, excluding distressed sales, jumped by 9.9% in December compared to a year prior and .2% month-over-month compared to November.
“Last year, home prices rose 11%, the highest rate of annual increase since 2005, and ten states and the District of Columbia reached new all-time price peaks,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic.
“We expect the rising prices to attract more sellers, unlocking this pent-up supply, which will have a moderating effect on prices in 2014,” Fleming added.
Looking ahead, the HPI forecasts that January homes prices, including distressed sales, will increase 10.2% year-over-year from January 2013. But on a month-over-month basis, home prices are projected to dip .8% from December 2013 to January 2014.
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/28839-can-home-prices-record-23-months-of-increases
Despite reports of banks relaxing requirements for getting a mortgage, some 86 percent of banks that originate residential mortgages have either not changed or tightened their lending standards, according to a national annual survey conducted by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Some 11 percent of banks said they had eased standards, up from 10 percent in 2012. Eleven percent said that they have tightened them up. Home equity loans also saw tighter standards.
The survey which concluded in June 30, 2013 and covered the previous 18 months, did not reflect changes in standards over in the past seven months. Ellie Mae reported median FICO scores for purchase and refi loan fell from 742 in June to 727 in December and median loan to value ratios rose from 80 to 82 percent.
The OCC found banks were relaxing underwriting for both commercial and other retail products at a faster pace than residential mortgages. Large banks as a group reported the highest share of eased standards. Want to get more information? The Atlantic Union Bank has a lot of information that can be very useful.
Roman Abramovich and 828 Fifth Avenue
Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich’s move to buy a Fifth Avenue mansion owned by the estate of the late real estate mogul Howard Ronson for $75 million is in jeopardy, because Ronson’s widow believes she can squeeze even more cash out of the oligarch.
Abramovich, who is the owner of the Chelsea Football Club, agreed in October to buy the 828 Fifth Avenue home for $75 million, and were the deal for the 22-room property to close at that price, it would dwarf the $54 million David Geffen paid for 785 Fifth Avenue, which is currently the record sale price for a co-op in the city.
But sources close to Ronson’s widow Angelika Ivanc told the New York Post that Abramovich was willing to pay even more for the mansion before trustees for Ronson’s estate accepted the offer. Ivanc is now looking to challenge the executors’ approval of the co-op sale in court in the English Channel island of Guernsey, according to the newspaper.
http://therealdeal.com/blog/2014/01/22/russian-oligarchs-record-75m-co-op-buy-in-peril/
Reuters is running a pretty shocking exclusive right now. Apparently the Federal Bureau of Investigation, of all agencies, is investigating the claim that derivative traders are front running swaps orders from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The article itself goes into the unethical, if technically legal, nature of these trades. So I won’t. Still the contents are disturbing in implication.
The first is that the government-sponsored enterprises didn’t even look to monitor shifts in markets BEFORE placing these huge orders. Clearly, they were getting played, but aren’t even wide awake enough to take notice.
Second, this is proof Dodd-Frank isn’t working. The financial reform made plenty to do with how it would regulate derivatives and how this was going to happen: “The Dodd-Frank Act divides regulatory authority over swap agreements between the CFTC and SEC.”
Yet the FBI is investigating? Clearly something about this whole ordeal should be illegal, if not yet explicitly so as of today. How did this get past regulatory authority?
After all, we were led to believe that Dodd-Frank is meant to prevent activities just as this.
Three points from the article that show Dodd-Frank isn’t working. Read them and weep (the italics are my responses):
1: “Senior bankers at the two banks ‘planned and encouraged this behavior because it led to higher revenue for their respective parent banks’.”
Dodd-Frank is meant to serve as a model for disincentivizing this exact behavior.
2: There is “low confidence that law enforcement could prosecute suspected traders because the trades concerned seem to be completely legitimate.”
This kind of market manipulation may or may not be illegal? Dodd-Frank should have made it clear.
3: “GSEs frequently submit large interest-rate swap trades, making them easy targets for front running and lucrative targets for market manipulation,” the FBI bulletin said.
http://www.housingwire.com/blogs/1-rewired/post/28585-heres-hard-proof-dodd-frank-isnt-working
We crazy Miamians really did scare talk show lady Rosie O’Donnell out of her Star Island house after all. In a radio interview on the Paul & Young Morning Show, Rosie admitted that tour boats constantly cruising behind her house, and the insanity of her Real Housewives of Miami neighbors, finally drove her from the island, where she had lived for 18 years. And by that she probably means the Lisa Hochstein/42 Star Island debacle right next door, although to be fair Lea Black does own on the island too.
http://miami.curbed.com/archives/2014/01/10/real-housewives-tour-boats-made-rosie-leave-miami.php
Baku, Fineko/abc.az. The Central Bank of Azerbaijan reports that turnover of the country’s residential property market for the first 11 months of 2013 increased by 38.6% against the same term of 2012. In 2012 the index grew by 24.86% against 2011.
According to the CBA, turnover of residential property (the cash flow of notary’s offices) reached AZN 3.495 bn by 1 December 2013 versus AZN 2.52 bn a year earlier.
At the same time transfers to notary’s offices accounts for purchase/sale of residential real estate by individuals totaled AZN 1.548 bn for Jan-Nov 2013 versus AZN 1.1 bn a year earlier (+40.45%), and the withdrawals from these accounts AZN 1.947 bn versus AZN 1.419 bn (+37.22%).
At that, the CBA reports of a rise in revenues of mediators (banks, notary’s offices and realtors) for residential real estate transactions by 25.99% for Jan-Nov of 2013. As of 1 December 2013 mediators’ earnings were AZN 399.119 million versus AZN 316.795 million a year earlier.
Last year’s turnover of residential property totaled AZN 2.828 bn versus AZN 2.265 bn in 2011. At that, transfers to notary’s offices accounts for purchase/sale of residential real estate by individuals totaled AZN 1.599 bn versus AZN 1.2 bn a year earlier (+31.81%), and the withdrawals from these accounts AZN 1.228 bn versus AZN 1.05 bn (+16.84%). Last year mediators’ earnings grew 2.29-fold up to AZN 371.307 million versus AZN 162.3 million a year earlier.
Australia’s latest housing data, while promising on the surface, has increased concern the market may be overheating, posing a potential threat to a still fragile economic recovery.
A government report Monday showed the value of home loans approved in Australia rose 1.1% in November from October and 15% from a year earlier, confirming that record-low interest rates are continuing to fuel demand for houses and apartments.
However, the data also highlighted two trends that policy makers will be less thrilled about.
First, the rise in the value of mortgages approved continues to be driven by people looking to invest in property, rather than those seeking to move into houses or apartments. Second, first-home buyers are increasingly being frozen out of a market in which house prices have hit record highs in some large cities.
“While owner-occupier demand is intensifying, investor demand is surging well ahead,” said Janu Chan, a Sydney-based economist at St. George Bank in a note to clients, pointing out that investor loans for housing exceeded 30% in November.