Category Archives: Sellers

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Small Home Improvements With Big Returns for Sellers

Even in a housing market where inventory is low, buyers still want a move-in ready house and are willing to pay more for one that’s turn-key. Sellers can increase their listing price and decrease the time their home sits on the market just by doing a few home improvement projects, experts say. But not all projects carry the same return.

“A big mistake a lot of home sellers make is they upgrade the kitchen thinking they will make so much more money on the house. But the rest of the house still needs upgrading or repairs,” says Michael Corbett, Trulia’s real estate expert. Home sellers have to look at repairs as a whole rather than a sum of parts, he says.

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Shutdown Will Stall Home Loans for Thousands

Beginning this week, thousands of home buyers will be unable to get approvals for their mortgages because of the government shutdown, potentially undercutting the nation’s resurgent housing market.

Without paperwork from the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration and in many cases the Federal Housing Administration, banks and other mortgage lenders will be less willing to make loans, if they can make them at all. For instance, lenders rely on the IRS to confirm borrowers’ income and on Social Security to confirm their identity.

Every day that government offices remain shuttered will delay an ever-larger fraction of mortgage closings, industry leaders say, jeopardizing mortgage and interest-rate approvals and spooking sellers. About 15,000 new home mortgages and 18,000 refinancings on average are completed across the country each day.

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Homes Near Public Transit Worth More

Homes close to public transportation are worth more than similar properties that don’t have nearby access to subways, rail lines, or buses, according to a study commissioned by the American Public Transportation Association and the National Association of REALTORS®.

Researchers evaluated five years worth of sales data in several major metros with various public transportation options. They found that homes located within a half-mile of public transportation were valued 41 percent higher than properties located outside that area.

“Transportation plays an important role in real estate and housing decisions, and the data suggests that residential real estate near public transit will remain attractive to buyers,” says Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. “When consumers choose a home, they also choose a lifestyle. Shorter commutes and more walkable neighborhoods matter to a growing number of people, especially those living in congested metro areas.”

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Where Home Sellers Fared the Best This Summer

As the summer home buying season wraps up, realtor.com® reports which markets fared the best.

For home sellers who listed their homes in April, they tended to have the best chance to receive multiple offers as well as the shortest time on the market, according to realtor.com®. 

Over the season, inventory levels increased, adding greater competition to the field and slowing the appreciation of prices in the majority of housing markets. 

Realtor.com® compiled a list of the “Top 10 Housing Markets Where Home Owners Wish They’d Listed in April,” which includes housing markets that saw the largest jumps in inventory from April to August.

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Demand for Puget Sound area Homes “Still Incredibly Strong”

… but brokers report frenzy is easing in some neighborhoods.

Earlier this month the Northwest Multiple Listing Service reported that figures for August show brisk sales, escalating prices and some improvement in inventory, prompting one MLS director to declare, “What these numbers tell us loud and clear is that buyer demand in the Puget Sound region is still incredibly strong.”

In making that comment, OB Jacobi, president of Windermere Real Estate, noted the housing market tends to experience some slowing during August, but rising inventory levels and sustained buyer demand fueled “higher than expected home sales and another month of strong appreciation.”

The latest figures from Northwest MLS show pending sales (mutually accepted offers) during August increased 8.7 percent from a year ago. Brokers in the 21 counties served by the MLS reported 9,065 pending sales system-wide. That’s a drop of 500 units from July, but an increase of 727 transactions compared to a year ago (August 2012). In the four-county Puget Sound region (King, Kitsap, Pierce, and Snohomish), the total of 6,916 pending sales was the highest volume for August since 2006 when members notched 7,692 sales.

Prices also reflected an upward trajectory. The area-wide median price for last month’s completed sales of single family homes and condominiums was $283,000, which compares to the year ago figure of $250,000 for a gain of 13.2 percent. Only two other months this year have had higher year-over-year increases: March (14.9 percent) and May (13.4 percent). Since January, prices have jumped 18.3 percent.

Prices on single family homes (excluding condos) that sold during August increased from $263,495 to $294,000 for a gain of 11.6 percent.

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Will The Mortgage Rate Spike Slow Market Recovery?

Thoughts

Have you been watching mortgage rates rise the past few months and wonder what that means for the housing market? So have a lot of other people!

Find out when mortgage rates are likely to bite and what other factors are influencing the current market nationwide.

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Smoking Snuffs Out Home Prices

A recent study of real estate agents in Ontario, Canada, found that smoking can reduce a home’s resale value by 20 percent. The study was commissioned by Pfizer Canada, a pharmaceutical manufacturer.

Selling the home can pose quite the challenge too. Eighty-eight percent of the agents surveyed say that it’s more difficult to sell a home where the residents were smokers.

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August Housing Barometer Details Recovery Phase 3

Each month, Trulia’s Housing Barometer charts how quickly the housing market is moving back to “normal.”  They summarize three key housing market indicators: construction starts (Census), existing home sales (NAR), and the delinquency-plus-foreclosure rate (LPS First Look). For each indicator, they compare this month’s data to (1) how bad the numbers got at their worst and (2) their pre-bubble “normal” levels.

In July 2013, all three measures improved: construction starts and existing home sales rose, while the delinquency + foreclosure rate notched downward.

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All-Cash Deals on the Rise

Money

As mortgage rates creep up and stringent lending standards continue to make it difficult for many home buyers to get loans, all-cash deals are accounting for more and more home sales completed in the U.S.

RealtyTrac data released recently shows that 40 percent of all home sales in July — including single-family homes, co-ops, condos and townhomes — were made without a loan being recorded, up from 35 percent in June and 31 percent in July 2012.

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Repeat Buyers, Backbone of Housing Recovery

The growing ranks of repeat home buyers are helping to drive the housing recovery, making up for the dwindling numbers of first-time buyers.

Repeat home buyers accounted for 54 percent of existing-home sales in June, up from 49 percent just one year prior, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. Meanwhile, first-time buyers — who usually account for 40 percent of the market share — shrank to 29 percent in June. A lack of lower-priced homes and strict lending requirements are edging more first-time buyers out of the market.

“What we’re seeing are these buyers who’ve waited around and who have finally realized this is a good time to move,” says David Crowe, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders. “They will feed the demand until our economy gets a little more solid.”

The article…