Foreclosures Back to Pre-Crisis Levels

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2014

A new sign that the foreclosure crisis may largely be in the rearview mirror, new filings in the third quarter of this year were down 16 percent from a year ago — bringing overall foreclosure activity down to its level before the housing crisis, according to RealtyTrac's Foreclosure Market Report. What's more, default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions in September dropped 9 percent from the previous month and were down 19 percent from a year ago. That's the lowest level since July 2006.

Not so fast. Could it be that thedip in foreclosures is only temporary?

"September foreclosure activity was back to pre-housing-bubble levels nationwide, in large part thanks to a continued slide in bank repossessions," says Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. "However, a recent rise in scheduled foreclosure auctions in many markets across the country shows lenders are continuing to clean house of lingering delinquent loans. This rise in scheduled auctions foreshadows a corresponding rise in bank repossessions and auction sales to third-party buyers in the coming months."

While foreclosure filings fell last month, they were up slightly by 0.42 percent in the third quarter from the previous quarter. It's a small percentage, but it does mark the first quarterly increase since the third quarter of 2011, according to RealtyTrac. The uptick was largely attributed to a 2 percent increase in default notices and a 7 percent quarterly increase in scheduled foreclosure auctions.

That proves the foreclosure crisis isn't over in every market quite yet. Default notices in the third quarter rose from a year ago in 10 states, including Indiana (up 59%); Oklahoma (49%); Massachusetts (38%); New Jersey (19%); Iowa (12%); and New York (2%).

Lenders are taking longer to process foreclosures, too. The foreclosure process took an average of 615 days in the third quarter, up 13 percent from a year ago. That's the longest average time to complete a foreclosure since RealtyTrac began tracking such data in 2007. The states with the longest foreclosure wait times are New Jersey (1,064 days); Florida (951 days); Hawaii (937 days); New York (902 days); and Illinois (889 days).

The five states with the highest foreclosure rates in the third quarter were:

• Florida
• Maryland
• New Jersey
• Nevada
• Illinois

Source: RealtyTrac

http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2014/10/16/foreclosures-back-pre-crisis-levels

www.RebeccaSellsAZ.com

Major Incentives for Home Buyers This Fall

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014

Homebuilders are throwing in some extras to lure home buyers back this fall. For example, 10 homebuilders in a new suburban Phoenix community called Bridges at Gilbert are offering swimming pools, built-in barbecues, and subsidized mortgages.

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Joseph Beben, a home buyer in the Phoenix area, says he chose to have a house built by Woodside Homes, which agreed to cover up to $10,000 of his closing costs as well as the price of a swimming pool. Beben will pay $332,000 for a 3,000-square-foot house. 

"Builders in volatile housing markets, such as Phoenix, Sacramento, Las Vegas, and Orlando, are sweetening offers as sales slow," Bloomberg Business reports.

The large increases in home prices last year have discouraged some buyers. The number of new-home communities in Phoenix rose by a third in the past year to 457, but sales per community dropped 45 percent last month from a year prior, according to Jim Belfiore, president of Belfiore Real Estate Consulting.

Builders in Nevada also saw a big drop in sales this year. In Las Vegas, new-home sales surged 32 percent in 2013 — but in the first eight months of this year, they have fallen 26 percent from the previous year, says Dennis Smith, president of Home Builders Research, a Las Vegas-based consulting company. A similar trend is taking hold in Sacramento, Calif., where new-home sales plunged 16 percent last month year-over-year.

Builders are beginning to discount homes and look for ways to boost sales. Orlando builders, for example, reportedly are advertising discounts and appliance packages, as well as offering to cover closing costs, after new-home sales dropped 19 percent year-over-year in June.

Buyers are enjoying being the drivers at the moment in some of these markets. Bob Berg, a retiree from Chicago, was looking for homes in the Phoenix area. "A couple of builders said to me, 'What will it take for you to buy this home?'" Berg says. "That's kind of drastic when they say something like that. It tells me they want to move that home."

Source: "Homebuilders Offer Goodies as Sales Slow," Bloomberg BusinessWeek  (Oct. 9, 2014)

http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2014/10/14/major-incentives-for-home-buyers-fall

www.RebeccaSellsAZ.com

10 Best College Towns for House Flippers

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014

College towns have long been known as havens for investors looking to cash in on rentals or turn a profit on a home flip. RealtyTrac recently ranked the best college towns for flippers in 2014.

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RealtyTrac analyzed public four-year universities that had enrollment of 20,000 or more as of 2012 and also were located in counties that had unemployment rates below the national average of 6.2 percent. The top 10 college towns for flipping were ranked based on the average gross return on investment (ROI) percentage for single-family home flips there during the first eight months of 2014. (Note: Some college towns did not have sufficient sales or flipping data to be included in the rankings).

Here are the college towns that topped RealtyTrac's 2014 list:

1. University of Minnesota (Minneapolis)
   Average gross flip profit: $105,292
   ROI: 65.59%
2. University of Washington (Seattle)
   Average gross flip profit: $168,247
   ROI: 61.88%
3. University of Nebraska (Lincoln, Neb.)
   Average gross flip profit: $53,763
   ROI: 55.01%
4. San Francisco State (San Francisco)
   Average gross flip profit: $402,790
   ROI: 54.16%
5. Thomas Edison State College (Trenton, N.J.)
   Average gross flip profit: $40,497
   ROI: 48.06%
6. University of Florida (Gainesville, Fla.)
   Average gross flip profit: $41,235
   ROI: 47.95%
7. University of Colorado (Denver)
   Average gross flip profit: $103,658
   ROI: 45.86%
8. University of Cincinnati
   Average gross flip profit: $45,929
   ROI: 44.88%
9. University of Akron (Akron, Ohio)
   Average gross flip profit: $35,909
   ROI: 42.95%
10. North Carolina State (Raleigh, N.C.)
    Average gross flip profit: $61,028
    ROI: 38.52%

Source: RealtyTrac

http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2014/10/14/10-best-college-towns-for-house-flippers

www.RebeccaSellsAZ.com

Landscaping Boosts Home Values Up to 12%

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014

You might want to take a closer look at your listing's curb appeal: Upgrading a home's landscape from average to excellent can raise its overall value by 10 percent to 12 percent, according toresearch from Virginia Tech.

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Researcher Alex X. Niemiera with the Department of Horticulture at Virginia Tech found that a $150,000 home with no landscaping could fetch an additional $8,300 to $19,000 by adding a landscape with color and large plants.

The value of landscaping differed greatly from state to state. For example, the change in value from a home with no landscape to well-landscaped ranged from 5.5 percent in Louisiana to 11.4 percent in South Carolina. Michigan homes saw the biggest difference in landscaping appeal, with a home's value being increased by 12.7 percent.

"The most preferred landscape included a sophisticated design with large deciduous, evergreen, and annual color plants and colored hardscape," according to Niemiera. Adding different plant sizes to a front yard, for example, can boost curb appeal, as well as mixing fruit trees and flowers for added color.

The following landscape elements were found to be most important to survey respondents:

• Design sophistication
• Plant size
• Diversity of plant material type

"Survey results showed that relatively large landscape expenditures significantly increase perceived home value and will result in a higher selling price than homes with a minimal landscape," Niemiera writes in the paper. "Design sophistication and plant size were the landscape factors that most affected value. The resulting increase in 'curb appeal' of the property may also help differentiate a home in a subdivision where house styles are similar and thereby attract potential buyers into a home. This advantage is especially important in a competitive housing market."

Source: “Does Landscaping Increase Your Homes Value?” Realty Times (Oct. 13, 2014)

http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2014/10/14/landscaping-boosts-home-values-up-12

www.RebeccaSellsAZ.com

Wave of Singles to Make Big Impact on Housing

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | MONDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2014

Half of all American adults now live in one-person households, a rapidly growing number, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The singles demographic is likely to reshape multifamily communities and single-family home designs going forward, according to Builder Online.

In 1976, only 37 percent of adults were single. As of August, that percentage has bloomed to 50.2 percent, or about 124.6 million singles. It marks the first time that single Americans make up the majority of the adult population since the government began tracking such data.

Get tips on how real estate pros can best serve this growing group.

“Thanks to the growth of single-adult households, floor plans will go from static to flexible as living arrangements change more frequently,” Susan Yashinsky, vice president of innovation trends for Waterford, Mich.-based Sphere Trending, LLC, predicts on Builder Online. “Analysts project that this group of adults will job hop more often, bring new types of living arrangements into the housing market (think friends buying homes together), and expect their environments to adapt to their frequently changing lifestyles as easily as picking a favorite Keurig coffee flavor.”

Affordability will be key, since single home buyers will have less income per household than dual-earner couples.

Also, “housing developments will need to embed elements of community that address the social aspects singles need, similar to what we have seen in multifamily new builds,” according to Builder. “Builders, developers, and designers who create housing for single consumers need to consider fresh concepts, such as communal sheds for lawnmowers and snow blowers, and even cars that can be rented as needed versus owned. Work/live spaces will evolve to reflect the growing number of entrepreneurs working from home. And, backyard cottages will bring solutions for related and/or unrelated adults sharing a single lot.”

Source: “More Americans Are Going Solo,” Builder Online (Oct. 6, 2014)

http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2014/10/13/wave-singles-make-big-impact-housing

www.RebeccaSellsAZ.com

Why Low Rates Aren't Enough for Buyers

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | MONDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2014

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and housing forecaster Robert Shiller said earlier this year that they expected low rates to serve as a stimulus to home buying this year.

Freddie Mac reported the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to 4.12 percent for the week ending Oct. 9, near the lowest average rate of the year. The rate is far less than a 20-year mean of more than 6 percent for the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. Yet mortgage rates hovering near annual lows for the past few weeks have not spurred the market. What's going on?

From low down payment options for first-time buyers to jumbo loan options for move-up purchases, find out what lenders are offering buyers today.

However, home sales are facing major challenges that even low borrowing costs can’t help. The Wall Street Journal explains that 2014 home sales “have been hit by poor weather, a low number of homes available for sale, and tight credit.” Also, the most popular home sales season—typically the spring and summer—has already come to an end.

“Families buying houses need to be done with that by the time that school starts,” says Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance. “Rates have been hovering around 4 percent for the better part of the peak home-buying season. I don’t think anybody has been sitting on the sidelines, waiting for rates to drop.”

Second, high credit standards in the wake of the financial crisis are still preventing many would-be buyers from getting a loan and taking advantage of the low rates.

“Right now the real issue isn’t the price of credit, it’s more the availability,” says Robert Denk, an economist with the National Association of Home Builders. Eighty three percent of homebuilders recently surveyed by NAHB say they have lost sales over the last six months due to buyers not qualifying for a mortgage. Tight credit has resulted in about 18,700 new-home sales lost, NAHB estimates. 

Source: “Housing Needs More Than Mortgage Rates of 4%-ish to Boom,” The Wall Street Journal (Oct. 9, 2014)

http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2014/10/13/why-low-rates-arent-enough-for-buyers

www.RebeccaSellsAZ.com

Community Revitalization From the Ground Up

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | MONDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2014

Does your community have a lifeless block of vacant storefronts holding it back? Better Block might be able to help. The program helps a community come together and figure out the kind of change that will revitalize a neighborhood quickly.

Holly Moskerintz, community affairs representative for the National Association of REALTORS®, explains how Better Block helps precipitate change in a way that circumvents the common barriers to neighborhood development.

"Better Block is a demonstration tool that rebuilds and revitalizes an area using grassroots efforts to show the potential to create a great walkable, vibrant neighborhood – and even a destination... It’s a way to give residents a taste of what’s possible," Moskerintz writes on NAR's Spaces to Places blog. The "focus is to bring back a neighborhood rapidly rather than developing a larger scale, more financially complex project that could take years. It can help people come together to create a community destination quickly."

And the process doesn't have to cost much, either. Better Block Co-founder Jason Roberts tells Moskerintz the projects “never cost more than $3,000... and we can pull them off for as low as $500 if we have to.” At least one Better Block program has received an NAR Smart Growth grant to help cover costs.

Moskerintz shows Better Block in action in Memphis, Dallas, and Norfolk, Va. But you can also see a project first-hand in New Orleans during the REALTORS® Conference & Expo this November.

Source: "One Block at a Time," Spaces to Places (Oct. 8, 2014)

http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2014/10/13/community-revitalization-from-ground-up

www.RebeccaSellsAZ.com