Real Estate Information Archive

1. Homes have increased in value and the demand is up. There was a 10.1% increase in home values in November to $180,000 average from a year ago per National Association of Realtors. Nine consecutive months of home price increases accross the U.S.

2. Record low loans will be a thing of the past. Rates will be increasing to 3.5-4% says senior Analyst Greg McBride with Bankrate.com. Now, barring any unusual changes in the economy interest rates should hold steady. Cost of getting a FHA will mostly likely increase this year. Reserves are at all-time lows and with the Federal Housing Administration Fiscal Solvency Act of 2012 it gives them authority to raise premiums to build back up its reserves

3. Inventory of existing home down again in November by 3.8%, fewer distressed properties for sale, and lowest inventory since 2005.

4. New rules to protect home buyers from predatory lenders. Ability to repay rule, which takes place in January 2014 but most lenders will put in place this year. This should stop the risky practices such as interest only and "No Doc" loans that help create this mess in the first place. To many loans in the past set the buyer up to fail with loans they could never afford.

5. Home-Equity loans are back. Just like home loans, home equity loans have been going down too.  Home prices appear to be going up again lenders will be competing for your home equity business.

6. There are less and less distressed home deals to buy. Banks are giving distressed homeowners a chance to stay in their homes by giving them principal reductions as a way of avoiding short sales. 

7. New construction is up a whopping 27% over a year ago. Record low interest and increase in employment has spurred builders to break ground on new home projects.

8. You missed the bottom of the home sales market but prices are still at record lows. It’s time to check with a Realtor to see if it’s right for you to buy a home now. If you wait too long you may find the market will pass you by again.

Call Carol at 714-726-3166 or Carol@carolandjim.com

A jump in home sales this summer indicates that Orange County’s housing slump may finally be coming to an end. According to housing tracker DataQuick Information Systems, sales were up 25.7% in July 2012 compared to July 2011 – that’s the biggest percentage gain the local market has seen in approximately 40 months. And, the boom isn’t isolated to a single area. According to the data, home buying rose in 80% of Orange County zip codes.

Market observers speculate that lower inventory – particularly of distressed properties that have been discounted in price – is driving the jump in purchases. Foreclosures, for example, accounted for only 13.2% of recent Orange County transactions. When compared to a historical average of 26% per month for the past four-and-a-half years, this indicates a significant decrease in supply. And, it’s that lack of supply that’s likely driving up prices.

While demand is highest for homes priced under $300,000, the median price for an Orange County home was $450,000 in July. And, thanks to a stabilizing market, low interest rates, and an increase in “normal” (that is, non-distressed) sales and purchases, most experts expect the upswing in real estate sales and prices to continue.

"Homebuyer confidence has returned ... and low borrowing rates and rents are attracting investment at higher than normal levels," Orange County Association of Realtors President Maria Elena Banks told The Orange County Register. "Buyers are jumping off (the fence) to follow investors, lured by low rates and the sense that prices will rise in the future as the economy improves."

Based on the data, it seems now may be the best time to buy or sell a home in years.

1. Accepting the buyer with the highest offer without regard to the other contractual terms.

2. Not properly handling mu1tiple offer situations with multiple buyers.

3. Not properly handling back-up offers.

4. Entering into an agreement with no earnest money deposit from the buyer, or a very small amount.

5. Entering into an agreement before verifying the buyer's financial ability to dose escrow.

6. Not disclosing known material fact affecting the value or desirability of the property.

7. Not providing the buyer with legally required disclosures.

8. Not obtaining the buyer's written acknowledgment of disclosures.

9. Not considering whether to require the buyer to remove contingencies.

10. Not excluding items from the sale that the seller wants to keep.

U.S. housing permits rise for the third month in May 2012. The Commerce Department said builders broke ground on 3.2% more single-family homes and April figures revised up to 744,000 - fastest building pace since October 2008. 780,000 permits were requested by builders the largest number since September 2008.

South Florida has seen an increase in foreign spending on real estate and tourism, Canada, South America, and even Europeans have been actively buying properties in areas of distressed residential real estate.

Austin Texas homes prices rise 6.5%, home prices appreciating at a higher rate than the national average and this includes distressed sales according to a report by CoreLogic.

Las Vegas is beginning to see a glimmer of renewed hope with a 90.4 percent increase in building permits and new-home builders have started increasing their home prices by $1000-$5000.

 Arizona ranked third for construction job growth in May. It’s happening all over the country signs of renewed hope that the housing market is truly on the mend.

California, 44% percent of all properties sold had multiple offers this year. Orange County California, personally are sales are up, multiple offers, homes selling over listing price, and Open Houses with a continues flow of potential buyers. Inventories are at the lowest level in years. Brea California today: 44 active listings, 92 with offers to purchase accepted by sellers (pending sales or taking backup offers), and 141 closed home sales since the first of the year with an average of 26 per month.

Steady builder confidence in June good article atThe Natioanl Association of Home Builders (NAHB) webiste

Opportunities knocking, will you be the one to take advantage of it this time?

If you are thinking about buying or selling a home, give us a call at (714) 726-3166 or send us an email to explore your options and to find out when is the best time for you to make a move. Texting ok

You just found the perfect home on Zillow and pick up the phone to call your real estate agent and boy are you excited you want to go see it now! Your agent says let me look up the property to call the home owner. Sign on to CRMLS to look up the property on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and get the phone number and staring right at the top of the page is "PENDING SALE". Your shoulders visibly sag and you tell your client your dream home is already sold and everyone is disappointed.

I can’t tell you how many times this happens.  Unfortunately this is one problems looking for homes using internet homes for sale websites.  The only properties you can see on these websites are the active listings. What does the word active listing mean? An active listing is any property listed on our MLS that is NOT a closed sale.  Active listings include; Pending Sales, Taking backup offers, hold do not show,  properties do fall out after a contract is signed to purchase that is the reason they stay active. 

When you look at the chart on the right the first section “CRMLS” is the information out of our real estate Multiple Listing Service.  At that date and time these were all the active listings without; pending sales, taking backup offers, and hold do not show. When you look down the graph there are significant differences from the CRMLS making it impossible to really know what is active listing, doesn’t it. Prudentialproperties.com, site works different that the rest. It shows: “ Newly listed within the past 15 days”. So anything active more that 15 days are not shown in the search results, but it still has all the pending sales, taking backups, and hold do not show properties.  So in the end it doesn’t show all the active listings in the MLS. 

Now, you can see why when looking on the internet for homes for sales it can be disappointing.  What it is good for is picking out an area you would like to live in, see how much properties are listed for in specific area, and find out about the city you want to live in. Beyond that there can be a lot of heart ache.  It’s always better to receive your home search information directly from a real estate agent.  It will be up to date and should be accurate.

Reference:  this is my opinion below I’m sure other agents may have somewhat of a different view.

Active Listing:  any property listed for sale on MLS that is NOT a closed sale.

Taking Backups:  A property for sale that has an accepted contract to purchase, but the buyer has not yet removed all the buyers’ contingencies. Home inspections, appraisal, final loan approval, disclosures haven’t been approved, etc.

Pending Sale:  All contingencies have been removed waiting for loan docs to be drawn, signed and then to close.

Closed Sale:  Everything is done and buyer can move in the property they have purchased.

CRMLS: California Regional Multiple Listing Service, Inc. The member service I belong too.

If you are ready to start the process you will find our Home Buyers Guide Helpful

If you are thinking about buying or selling a home, give us a call at (714) 726-3166 or send us an email to explore your options and to find out when is the best time for you to make a move. Texting ok

According to research conducted by Steve Thomas at Reports On Housing, the active inventory for Orange County homes is falling dramatically for both standard sales and distressed properties.

Typically, homes come on the market faster than they go into escrow; thus, the active inventory increases, but that hasn’t been the case in 2012. The current active listing inventory shed 226 homes in the past two weeks and now totals 7,597, which is 3,081 fewer than last year. The media hasn’t quite caught up to reporting on all of the activity; so, for the most part, homeowners have been shielded from the fact that the market is extremely hot.

The decrease in the availability of distressed homes is a particularly big surprise to many homebuyers who have been reading for months about foreclosure properties and short sales, but as Thomas points out, “The distressed inventory continues to drop like a rock.”

With less inventory and increased demand, the expected market time for Orange County has dropped to a mere 2.1 months. That is the lowest level in 78 months, back in August 2005. This is completely unprecedented for this time of year.

So far in 2012, Orange County’s active distressed inventory, both short sales and foreclosures, has dropped by 644 homes, or 20%, in just six weeks. Currently, distressed inventory represents 33% of the active inventory, and foreclosures are the hottest segment of the current market.

Just about every buyer wants to purchase a foreclosure, yet there are only 489 in all of Orange County, just 6% of the total inventory. In the past two weeks, the foreclosure inventory dropped by 57 homes and now totals 489, the lowest level since May 2010. With so few homes on the market, short sales are being swept up almost as fast as they hit the market.

Paul Baran dies at 84 and you shoud care! Without him I would not be able to publish this blog, send emails, or anything else we sent through the internet. At the Rand corporation he created the "packet switching network", which is what allows the grouping together of information into packets that can be easily sent across the internet.

He died March 26, 2011 of lung cancer. This man has had a impact on almost everyone in the world and very few know him. There very few of us who will ever be able to say I made a difference in the world. Take a moment to read about Paul in Digital Trends, or google his name there is plenty of information there. He is worthy of your time.

What a beautiful weekend we had in Orange County and most of us are off today,  Memorial Day. The real estate market, however,  seems to be humming along in North Orange County. If any of you read the Orange County Register over the weekend, it confirmed this. My favorite city of Brea is leading the way in home sales.

We held 2 open houses over the weekend and had over 50 groups of people through both 2151 Clears Springs Rd and 1155 Timbergate in Brea. That’s more people than we have had in the last 6 month holding open houses.

No one knows where the bottom of the housing market is until long after it has passed. There are a few signs to be optimistic about though; 1. Inventory is down for the 3rd month. 2. The number of multiple offers on properties has increased. 3. The length of time on the market is decreasing. These are all sure signs we are in the bottom curve of the market and home sales will begin to improve

And, "Here's Your Monday Morning Coffee"...On Memorial day: it is good to be reminded that veterans and active duty personnel alike deserve our undying gratitude.  Keep in mind that there are heroes from the past and there heroes today, living and dying for our country and our freedom.

There have been 5 Medals of Honor presented in Afghanistan and Irag ... All five recipients gave their lives to save others, 3 of the five literally covered grenades with their bodies to save others... you can read their stories at www.homeofheroes.com

(When you read this story remember our soldiers are in the middle of an ambush, guns blazing, RPG's blasts (Rocket Propelled Grenades), and comrades being injured all happening all around them.)

This story is about a surviving recipient of the Silver Star...

Staff Sgt. Lincoln V. Dockery said he didn't even see the grenade that sent shrapnel into his right forearm while charging insurgent fighters in Afghanistan's Korengal valley, Nov. 16, 2007.

"Someone yelled out,” he said.  “My hand went up and a hot, sharp feeling went through."

Dockery, a combat engineer then assigned to a route clearance patrol with Company A of the 173rd Airborne Brigade's Special Troops Battalion, said he decided the injury wasn't major, and continued his charge up a hill into enemy fire.

"I don't want to think about what would have happened had he not been there," said Capt. William Cromie, Dockery's platoon leader that day in Afghanistan. "It would have been a completely different day."

Dockery said the description of the mission for which the patrol departed from Forward Operating Base Asadabad in Kunar Province that day sounded like the description of their mission for any other day: "Out looking for bombs."

"My only concern was for the guys who worked under me," the 25-year-old stated.

His concern became reality when the lead vehicle on the mission, a Husky mine-detecting vehicle, activated an improvised explosive device. Rocket-propelled grenades immediately started hitting the damaged vehicle and it became clear the convoy was in the middle of an ambush.

With RPGs coming at his men and him from two different directions, he realized that the enemy was not only across a nearby river, but also about 20 meters from their position.  He had to make a quick decision. 

"If we didn't assault the hill they were attacking from, they would have taken us out. They couldn't miss with their weapons they were so close," Dockery recalled.

He checked on the lead vehicle’s driver who was barely conscious but not wounded.  Pfc. Amador Magana managed to give a thumbs-up, Dockery said, and soon stood up, manned his M-249 machine gun and returned fire on the enemy.

Dockery and one of his Soldiers, Spc. Corey Taylor, then stormed the hill as their team members provided support from the convoy.  During the charge Dockery was injured, but he kept going, through hand grenade exchanges and incoming RPGs.

The pair low-crawled the rest of the way up, watching bullets kick up rocks and dirt all around them.  They then pushed the enemy back from their position and found the IED command detonator and wire.

Indirect fire, air strikes and other close air support was called in later to deal with about 30 fleeing fighters, but Dockery's assault kept everyone else from the patrol alive.

Dockery received the Purple Heart for his injury in combat and earned a Silver Star for valor.  Both medals were presented on March 11 in Bamberg, Germany.

"Hopefully anybody would have done the same thing I did that day," Dockery said, downplaying his role in the event.

Excerpts from article by Sgt. Micah E. Clare, U.S. Army Europe Public Affairs Office, March 19, 2009.

Support our soldiers by sending a gift this holiday at

www.AnySoldier.com

Have a thankful and enjoyable day and remember to thank our Serviceman and Servicewomen.

Sincerely,

Carol & Jim

A modest gain in the level of home sales is possible over the next couple of months, and an improvement is forecast for the second half of this year as more buyers are able to access affordable mortgages, according to the latest forecast.The Pending Home Sales Index rose 6.3 percent to 88.2 from a reading of 83.0 in March. It's the highest index figure since last October. Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said pending sales contracts have picked up notably in areas undergoing significant price drops. "Bargain hunters have entered the market en masse, especially in areas that have experienced double-digit price declines, but it's unclear if they are investors or owner-occupants," he said. "Sharp price reductions are leading to a quicker discovery of price equilibrium points. The West is already seeing year-over-year gains in pending contracts."

To read the complete forcast and pending home sales index at NAR "click here"

The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) statement. This form, sometimes called a HUD 1 statement, itemizes all the costs associated with the closing. You’ll need this for income tax purposes and when you sell the home.