Tag Archives: South Salem NY Homes

Mortgage Rates up slightly to 4.33% | South Salem Realtor

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Freddie Mac (OTCQB: FMCC) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing average fixed mortgage rates following an uptick in the 10-year treasury note and amid a week of soft housing data.

News Facts

  • 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.33 percent with an average 0.6 point for the week ending April 24, 2014, up from last week when it averaged 4.27 percent. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 3.40 percent.
  • 15-year FRM this week averaged 3.39 percent with an average 0.6 point, up from last week when it averaged 3.33 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 2.61 percent.
  • 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 3.03 percent this week with an average 0.5 point, unchanged from last week. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 2.58 percent.
  • 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 2.44 percent this week with an average 0.5 point, unchanged from last week. At this time last year, the 1-year ARM averaged 2.62 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 edged up following the uptick in the 10-year Treasury note late last week. Existing home sales were essentially flat with a 0.2 percent decline in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.59 million. However, new home sales fell nearly 15 percent in March to an annual rate of 384,000, well below consensus.”

Freddie Mac was established by Congress in 1970 to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the nation’s residential mortgage markets. Freddie Mac supports communities across the nation by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Today Freddie Mac is making home possible for one in four home borrowers and is one of the largest sources of financing for multifamily housing. Additional information is available at FreddieMac.com, Twitter @FreddieMac and Freddie Mac’s blog FreddieMac.com/blog.

‘Rare and Mythical’ Cobble Hill Carriage House Asks $8M | South Salem Real Estate

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Is this Pacific Street home a unicorn? The listing’s brokerbabble seems to think so. Built in 1840, this “rare and mythical” former carriage and fire house is “what real estate dreams are made of.” The 25-foot-wide by 85-foot-deep three-story home is currently configured as two units, but can be combined to be a four- to six-bedroom single-family dwelling. The home’s layout skirts the “inconvenience of vertical townhouse living” with its 2,125-square-foot main floor, which has double-height ceilings, big skylights, and an impressively large fireplace. The brokerbabble goes on: “Add to that the drama of massive exposed wood beams, arched windows, a charming greenhouse, a perennial garden … 12-inch-wide wood-plank floors … a terrace off the second floor … and you have a one-of-kind property with the warmth and grandeur only found in historical homes, but the open layout of more modern living.” Unlike a unicorn, this carriage house can be bought for $7.995 million.

 

read more…

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/04/22/rare_and_mythical_cobble_hill_carriage_house_asks_8m.php

Chatting with George Filopoulos about the New Gurney’s Inn | South Salem Real Estate

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Last year, struggling Montauk resort Gurney’s Inn was taken over by real estate moguls George Filopoulos and Lloyd Goldman. A multi-phase, multi-year refresh and renovation means that Gurney’s will soon have a sleek new look. First up is a brand new 38-room oceanfront building, with private verandas and floor to ceiling windows encasing custom built furniture and wire brushed hardwood floors. The new aesthetic is the work of Michael Kramer, a young designer who is already considered one of New York’s most impressive new talents.

Food and beverages will be under the stewardship of Jennifer LeRoy, daughter of Warner LeRoy, famous for Tavern on the Green and Russian Tea Room, among others. The Beach Club, launched last year, and the spa will also be refreshed, as will the fantastic sand-filtered seawater swimming pool, the only one in North America.

Thrilled that an East End icon is being saved (heck, our mom used to babysit there back in the 1950s), we sat down with George to chat about Gurney’s.

You’re a Montauk resident. How far do your roots go in Montauk? As a kid, my family’s annual vacation was a week in Montauk during the month of July. My wife and I started renting out here when we were newly married and have owned a home for the last 10 years.

 

 

 

http://hamptons.curbed.com/archives/2014/04/14/chatting_with_george_filopoulos_about_the_new_gurneys_inn.php

Who Pays America’s Highest (and Lowest) Property Taxes? | South Salem NY Homes

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The second biggest cost of home ownership — following the mortgage — is usually property taxes. In 2012, U.S. homeowners paid an average of about $2,800 in property taxes, according to a recent Zillow study. And if you live in New York, New Jersey, or Colorado your taxes were in some cases five times more than the national average. The numbers are based on an average of real estate taxes paid on single family housing in 2012.

The residents of Westchester County in New York pay more in property taxes than the typical resident of any other major American county. The average property tax bill for a single family home in Westchester County comes to $14,829 a year.

Want to know how your county stacks up against the rest of the country? Check out our rankings below.

 

https://homes.yahoo.com/news/pays-america-highest-lowest-property-taxes-163136546.html

 

3 reasons you should be rationally exuberant on housing | South Salem Homes

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Have you noticed that there is a cacophony of opinion and conflicting information on the health of the housing market this spring?

Rising rates and regulation will stifle demand. Housing is suddenly unaffordable and there is risk of another bubble.

Aren’t these contradictory arguments?  If demand is going to be stifled, then how can we have another bubble?

After all, an asset bubble is defined by irrational exuberance as exhibited by excess demand. Isn’t the rule, you can’t have your cake and eat it too?

Either demand is stifled or there is a bubble, but not both.

Instead, here are the three things that, in my mind, really matter this spring.

1. Availability of Credit

The housing market runs on the availability of credit. Most of us can’t buy a home without it. Analysis of the credit profiles of recent purchase transactions tells us that the only real dimension in which credit availability is “tight” right now is with credit scores. Under more normal circumstances in the early aughts, a little more than 10 percent of purchase originations had credit scores below 620.

At the moment, only 0.3% of purchase mortgage originations have credit scores below 620. There are good signs this spring, however, that standards are relaxing in this dimension as lenders are announcing reductions in minimum credit score requirements. Before you lament the resurgence of the disastrous subprime loan, remember that lending to borrowers with lower credit scores can be done successfully if you don’t also layer on payment shock risk and high leverage.

2. Pent-Up Supply

Most homebuyers are also first home sellers. Even in the best of times, first-time homebuyers account for well less than half of home purchases. The existing homeowner who sells and then buys (we call this housing turnover) is the lifeblood of the housing market. Yet, many still are under-equitied, meaning they’re underwater or have less than a 20% equity stake.

The impressive gains in home price appreciation in many of the hardest hit markets have created a virtuous cycle though, relieving more homeowners’ under-equitied situations and putting them in the position to become sellers and then buyers again this spring.

 

 

 

http://www.housingwire.com/blogs/1-rewired/post/29594-corelogic-economist-3-reasons-you-should-be-rationally-exuberant-on-housing

Eroding home affordability carries housing bubble concerns | South Salem Real Estate

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As home prices and mortgage interest rates rise, potential homebuyers are finding that fewer homes are within their financial grasp, prompting parallels to the most recent housing bubble.

A study by real estate portal Zillow has found that, for a full one-third of homes for sale nationwide in the fourth quarter, buyers would pay a larger percentage of their income toward a mortgage than in the pre-bubble era.

Zillow analyzed fourth-quarter income, mortgage and home value data. The company measured affordability by comparing how the share of an area’s median household income needed to cover the mortgage payment of a median-priced area home in the fourth quarter measured relative to the income-share needed to make a mortgage payment on a median-priced home in the same area between the years of 1985 and 2000.

While two-thirds of U.S. homes for sale were affordable in the quarter compared to the pre-bubble years, Zillow expects affordability to wane as interest rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages continue to rise toward an expected 5 percent over the next year. Rates on that type of mortgage have jumped close to 1 percentage point from 3.54 percent in April 2013 to 4.41 percent this week, according to Freddie Mac.

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2014/04/04/eroding-home-affordability-carries-housing-bubble-concerns/?utm_source=20140404&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyheadlinespm#sthash.BZUVApUm.dpuf

10 things your real-estate agent won’t tell you | South Salem Homes

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1. “I’m using your house to sell myself.”

U.S. home prices have rebounded to mid-2004 levels, according to the latest S&P/Case-Shiller home price survey, and though monthly gains are slowing, this spring — traditionally the prime home-buying season — looks to be a sellers’ market.

That’s good news for real-estate agents as well. A 2013 National Association of Realtors member survey showed that agents’ $34,000 median annual income last year reflected a level not seen since 2006, just before the U.S. housing boom went bust; incomes in 2012 were up 37% from 2010.

But while most agents are hardworking professionals, buyers and sellers may encounter some agents who see only the “me” in home.

To get a listing, some agents tell dazzling stories about houses they’ve sold in your area. They’ll promise to splash photos of your home across the advertising pages of glossy magazines and blanket your neighborhood with direct mail to lure move-up buyers.

Critics say these agents are great marketers — of themselves. Photos in real-estate circulars “market the agent,” says Karen Krupsaw, vice president of real-estate operations at brokerage website Redfin. Mailers generate interest in the neighborhood — not the home. “It’s an avenue [brokers take] to generate business for themselves — using your house,” she says.

Furthermore, just because an agent does a lot of business, that doesn’t necessarily mean his clients were happy with his work, Krupsaw says. Indeed, the Council of Better Business Bureaus reports that consumer complaints against agents nationwide rose 22% in 2012 over the previous year.

The real estate website Trulia advises sellers to ask an agent how long their recent listings stayed on the market before selling, and compare that to the neighborhood’s history. Find out the average sale price compared with the average listing price of the homes they’ve sold. And ask how many other sellers the agent currently represents.

 

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-things-real-estate-agent-124050800.html

Distressed sales down, investor activity wanes | South Salem Real Estate

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Residential properties sold at an estimated annual pace of 5,083,241 in February, a 0.2% decline from January but up 7% from February 2013, according to the latest report from RealtyTrac.

February marked the fourth consecutive month where sales activity has fell on a monthly basis. This includes single-family homes, condominiums and townhomes.

There were monthly declines in 31 states, and year-over-year declines in six – including Massachusetts, California, Arizona and Nevada. Twenty-one of the nation’s largest 50 metropolitan areas likewise suffered sales volume declines, including Phoenix, Orlando, Las Vegas and Detroit, among others.

“Supply and demand have reached a bit of a standoff in this uneven real estate recovery,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “The supply of distressed properties — which buyers and investors have come to rely on over the past few years — is evaporating quickly in most markets, but that dwindling supply is not being adequately replenished by non-distressed homeowners listing their homes or by new homes being built.”

Blomquist noted that some of the volume decline is from institutional investors, a primary driver over the past two years. Investor activity has declined in the last several months.

“It’s not yet clear if that diminishing demand will be filled by first-time homebuyers and move-up buyers,” he said.

 

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/29449-why-did-residential-sales-decline-for-fourth-month-straight

 

Inventory of homes for sale soars 10 percent in February from a year ago | South Salem Real Estate

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Rising home prices are bolstering seller confidence, fueling rapid growth in the number of homes for sale in many markets in February, according to a report issued by realtor.com today.

Median list prices were up 7.6 percent from a year ago in February, to $199,000, and the inventory of homes for sale rose 10.1 percent, to 1.74 million. In other words, there were 160,000 more homes for sale than the same time a year ago.

Out of 146 markets tracked by realtor.com, 99 experienced annual growth in listings, with 63 of those markets seeing inventories swell by 10 percent or more.

Median list prices and inventory were up on a month-over-month basis as well, rising 2.1 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively, indicating that 2014 home sales, which got off to a slow start in January, have potential to grow as the spring buying season gets underway.

But even with the recent surge in listings, inventories “are still extremely low,” realtor.com said in summarizing the overall picture.

“Seller confidence is the factor to watch as we head into the spring homebuying season, and these are very encouraging indicators — not only are more homes coming onto the market, but typically we don’t see a rise in asking prices this early into the year,” said Steve Berkowitz, CEO of realtor.com operator Move Inc., in a statement. “This is the market these sellers have been waiting for.”

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2014/03/18/inventory-of-homes-for-sale-soars-10-percent-in-february-from-a-year-ago/?utm_source=20140318&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyheadlinespm#sthash.7ipS3omW.dpuf

Get Your Fill of Burnt Orange in This 1953 Time Capsule | South Salem Real Estate

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Even in a city as laden with midcentury gems as Los Angeles, the hunger for cork floors, built-ins, glass walls, and period kitchens—that oven!—cannot be satisfied. So when homes like this untouched 1953 spread, on the market for the first time in half a century, become available, there’s no shortage of fanfare/drooling—and for good reason. In Silver Lake—the enclave once named Best Hipster Neighborhood in the country, in large part because of it’s imminently mockable obsession with Dwell-style architecture—this design by L.A. architect Al Martin is what Curbed LA calls “highly textural,” what with its acoustic tile ceilings, plastic-y kitchen cabinets, and raw brick. There’s also, for better or for worse, much in the way of original overhead lighting—including orb lamps at the bar and fluorescent strips in the kitchen—plus two clunky brick fireplaces, a workshop, and a wraparound deck. How much does one need to move in? $1.595M. Photos, however, are free.

 

http://curbed.com/archives/2014/03/10/get-your-fill-of-burnt-orange-in-this-1953-time-capsule.php