Thursday, March 29, 2012

Housing Is ‘Awakening From Hibernation,’...


An improving economy is contributing to a gradual rebound in home prices across the country, according to mortgage giant Freddie Mac’s 2012 Economic Outlook report, released Wednesday. But there is still a way to go in the road to recovery for the housing market, the report noted. 
“The housing market is showing some signs of shaking off the depression-like conditions that have plagued it for much of the past few years,” according to the report. “As if awakening from hibernation, housing starts and home sales moved to higher levels of activity.”
In fact, the signs have prompted Freddie Mac to revise its forecast upwards for home sales and originations. One economic contributor that’s helping to stabilize housing: The drop in the unemployment rate to 8.3 percent, its lowest level in three years, according to the report. 
“A variety of encouraging indicators suggest that the housing market may be feeling a nascent recovery ... and more neighborhoods may see a stabilization in overall demand and housing values this spring,” says Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. 
Median home sale prices are up, despite a slight drop in new and existing home sales, Freddie Mac reports. About a half of the increase in housing starts has been for construction of rental apartments in multi-unit buildings to meet the increasing demand, the report notes. New rental construction, at its current pace, is expected to reach its highest level since 2005. 
“Housing starts continue to run below net household formations [and will allow for absorption of existing vacant homes],” according to the report. 
Source: “Freddie Mac: Economic Growth Expected to Stabilize Housing Market,” Dow Jones Newswires (March 28, 2012)

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Buying is Cheaper Than Renting in Nearly All Major Cities


Home buying is the smarter choice than renting, according to Trulia’s Winter 2012 Rent vs. Buy Index. 
Buying a home is more affordable than renting in 98 of the nation’s 100 largest metro areas, according to the index, which tracks asking prices for rental units compared to for-sale homes in major metro areas.
The only two metros out of the 100 tracked where renting was found to be the better deal: Honolulu and San Francisco. Still, the index notes that if you plan to stay in those markets more than five years, you might still be better off owning than renting in those markets too. 
Falling home values and low mortgage rates have made home ownership more affordable. Meanwhile, rents have been on the rise. 
“As rents rise and prices stagnate, home ownership is becoming even more affordable, but rising rents create a dilemma for people who can’t afford to buy yet,” says Jed Kolko, Trulia’s chief economist. “Rising rents make it harder for people to save for a down payment, which is the biggest barrier to buying a home that aspiring home owners face.”
By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR® Magazine Daily News 

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

The Year Ahead: Real Estate’s Best Bets in 2012



Whatever your specialty, you can find opportunities for business growth.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Nationwide List Prices Rise Nearly 7%


Notoriously, Utah is behind the rest of the nation when it comes to changes in our market. If you are thinking of buying or selling a home, this is one of the important pieces information that will help you get a good deal. 



Median list prices nationwide increased 6.82 percent in February compared to February 2011, according to the latest data from Realtor.com, tracking 146 markets. 
“The nation’s housing market as a whole are in better shape today than at any time since the 2009-2010 tax credits,” according to Realtor.com’s monthly housing summary. “While higher list prices do not always translate into higher sales prices, they may signal a growing optimism on the part of sellers that the market has begun to turn around.”
Florida continues to be the market seeing some of the biggest increases to median list prices in the last year. The following 10 markets posted the biggest rise in median list prices year-over-year, according to February housing data from Realtor.com. 
1. Miami, Fla.
Year-over-year increase: 26.19%
Median list price: $265,000
2. Phoenix-Mesa, Ariz.
Year-over-year increase: 20.62% 
Median list price: $174,900
3. Punta Gorda, Fla.
Year-over-year increase: 19.35% 
Median list price: $185,000
4. West Palm Beach-Boca Raton, Fla.
Year-over-year increase: 18.48%
Median list price: $225,000
5. Washington, D.C.-Md.-Va.-W.Va.
Year-over-year increase: 18.45%
Median list price: $384,950
6. Boise City, Idaho
Year-over-year increase: 16.28% 
Median list price: $150,000
7. Naples, Fla.
Year-over-year increase: 15.67% 
Median list price: $369,000
8. Fort Myers-Cape Coral, Fla.
Year-over-year increase: 15.59%
Median list price: $229,900
9. Daytona Beach, Fla.
Year-over-year increase: 15.56% 
Median list price: $179,000
10. Sarasota-Bradenton, Fla.
Year-over-year increase: 14.47%
Median list price: $246,000
By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR® Magazine Daily News

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Where do the most optimistic Americans live?


Where do Americans have the most hope?
In U.S. cities, that place is Provo-Orem, Utah, where 76 percent of residents say their area is becoming a better place to live, according to a Gallup poll released on Tuesday.
The findings show the Utah valley's metropolitan area closely followed by Lafayette, Louisiana; the Raleigh-Cary, North Carolina area; and Huntsville, Alabama.
The nation's least optimistic city? Binghamton, New York, where less than 28 percent see their area improving.
Flint, Michigan; Rockford, Illinois; and the Youngstown-Warren-Boardman area of Ohio and Pennsylvania were other pessimistic cities on Gallup's Healthways-Wellbeing Index.
Gallup, which based its survey on interviews with 353,492 adults across the United States, said it wasn't immediately clear why residents in some urban areas were more optimistic and satisfied with their communities compared to others, but that unemployment rates, income and other factors may be at play.
"Together, the data suggest there is likely a combination of factors that can create optimism about a community," it said in a statement releasing the results.
Read the full Gallup story
The national polling group also said what works in some of the best performing cities could provide an example for other regions to follow. It said leaders in more optimistic areas could "channel that positive energy into a community's economic and social infrastructure, in turn, creating the types of good jobs that help cities thrive."
"Alternately, communities in which residents lack optimism risk losing the very talent and energy they need to rise again," Gallup said.
Gallup's interviews were conducted throughout 2011. The poll's margin of error varied according to the size of the metro area, from less than 1 percentage point for larger cities to plus-or-minus 6.5 percentage points for smaller ones.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

The backlash against Zillow & Co.


Real-estate agencies are taking a harder look at national aggregators. They say the websites can be inaccurate, frustrating potential buyers.
2/28/2012 By Steve Yoder, The Fiscal Times


It used to be a given for anyone selling a house that a real-estate agent would put the listing on national real-estate aggregator websites like Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com to maximize exposure and sell the home quickly. But that could be changing fast as aggregators and agents face off.

Since 2005 or so, real-estate agents have shared data about homes they have for sale with those national sites, which have millions of visitors (Zillow, for example, had 32 million last month). But even though the sites have grown, sales haven't in the distressed housing market, and some agents believe the sites may not be helping. They accuse the sites of engaging in practices that give buyers inaccurate information that may hurt sales.

Among their complaints are that the sites allow any agent, for a fee, to have his or her name and photo appear prominently beside the homes listed for sale in a given region, even if the person in picture isn't the agent representing the seller. In reality, the agent in the photo may know little about the property or the neighborhood where the house is located, frustrating customers' efforts to get accurate answers, according to a report last year by real-estate consulting firm Clareity.

Some agents also claim that many listings on the largest sites are inaccurate. "The wrong photos often appeared with our listings," says San Diego Realtor Jim Abbott, whose firm no longer shares data with the national sites. He also says that the sites kept up listings that were no longer on the market. Clareity CEO Gregg Larson says Zillow and Trulia get information about the same property from multiple sources, such as the listing agent, the local multiple listing service and syndication services. "The duplicates sneak through, and then you have (the same) listing with different prices, listed by different brokers."

One Massachusetts agent, Jack Attridge, notes in a letter to Inman News that because homes he's listed appear on national sites, he's often contacted by agents and customers well outside his area who have questions about those properties. Most of the time, they have incorrect information, and Attridge wrote that none of those calls has resulted in a sale.

These and other problems hurt agents' reputations and do nothing to sell houses, they say. Abbott argues that inaccurate Web listings, combined with side-by-side links to agents who know little about the property, frustrate potential buyers and may actually drive them to look elsewhere.

Abbott studied three years of his agency's sales data and compared listings that the company didn't share with national sites to those it did. "Time after time, the listings that we did syndicate compared with the listings that we didn't had no better outcomes," he says. "In fact, the ones we didn't syndicate often sold faster" and closer to the asking price.

Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff has fired back, asserting that an internal company study shows that homes in the top 10% of page views on Zillow sell more than a month faster than their counterparts in the bottom 10% of views and achieve sale prices closer to their asking price. He also says Zillow "invests massive resources in making our listings as accurate as possible."


Nevertheless, Abbott and a few others have opted out. Edina Realty in Minnesota fired the first shot in November by announcing it would no longer list its data on aggregator sites like Trulia and Realtor.com. Abbott pulled out on Jan. 27 with a hard-hitting Web video announcing his company's plans. Then on Feb. 6, a bigger player weighed in: Metrolist, a Denver multiple-listing service (a member cooperative that agents jointly buy into that advertises properties locally), announced it would no longer allow a Zillow subsidiary to use its data.

Some agents in larger metropolitan areas say they have better local listing service options. "It would only take a few good-sized brokers in every community before these sites either drastically changed how they do business or went away altogether," says Abbott.

But other industry insiders worry that agents will lose business by pulling out of the aggregator sites. "All it takes is (brokers who don't share data) losing a few listings and having a couple of their top-selling agents complain," Larson says, and "they'll cave."

Jay Thompson, the owner of Thompson Realty in Phoenix, has chosen to continue listing with the sites. "Good luck explaining your decision to not market a listing on high traffic sites," he writes on his blog. "I can assure you that if a Phoenix area brokerage chooses to do that, then we will use their decision to our advantage."

Abbott argues the opposite could happen. Since he posted his video, he's had 12 people who were interviewing for an agent to sell their home ask him about his company's new policy. "We got all 12 of those listings," he says. Calls to the company, he adds, have "gone through the roof."