Pending home sales rise to 2007 level

Numbers are up 13.2% from this time last year as the housing market continues its slow but steady pace of recovery.

The number of contracts signed to buy new homes continued to rise in October, up 13.2% compared with the same month a year ago. The National Association of Realtors' Pending Home Sales Index reached 104.8, its highest level since March 2007. The index reflects contracts signed to buy homes, not closed sales, but is an indicator of the level of closed sales that can be expected a few months down the road.
The favorable statistics came a day after the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development released their October sales data for new homes, showing that the number of contracts was down 0.3% from the previous month but up 17.2% from last October's numbers.

"While this is encouraging, housing’s recovery is being significantly constrained by overly tight mortgage-lending conditions at this time, and policymaker discussions about changes to the mortgage interest deduction could cast a shadow on future housing demand," Barry Rutenberg, National Association of Home Builders chairman and a homebuilder from Gainesville, Fla., said in a news release.

Both the pending home sales and new-home sales numbers seem to indicate that housing is likely to continue its slow but steady recovery. The news that home prices apparently have reached bottom in most cities is drawing some buyers and sellers out of the woodwork.

"We’ve had very good housing-affordabilit

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It's begining to feel like the holidays in Solana Beach! Our first storm is brewing on the horizon, and it looks like the Fletcher Cove Christmas tree just went up! Tree lighting ceremony Dec 2nd at 5:00pm! Come down with the fam!

 

Contact Joyce Doherty at Pacific Coastal Properties to find your perfect holiday home in Solana Beach 858-344-3175

http://www.pacificcoastalproperties.net/

http://www.pacificcoastalproperties.net/

Posted on 2012-11-19 13:16:12

The Thanksgiving week is off to a beautiful start in Solana Beach, come and enjoy our sunny fall weather. Our Thanksgiving temps are reaching 68, and Friday a gorgeous 74!! Our vacation rental department still has some availability this week. Contact Kimber or Muriel to reserve 858-344-3175 you can see our vacation rental properties and properties for sale in Solana Beach and surrounding areas at  http://www.pacificcoastalproperties.net/  contact Joyce Doherty for Sales 858-344-3175

What Obama’s Re-Election Means for Housing

Refinancing, new mortgage regulations, and the mortgage interest deduction all won on Tuesday. But the best shot at more principal reductions might have been lost.

Throughout the 2012 presidential campaign, both candidates were short on specifics about their housing policy, to put it very kindly. They ignored housing in the debates and acted as if the housing crisis were over. Neither their actions nor their policy statements gave a clear idea of what they might do about housing. But what the candidates DIDN’T do or say helps draw out the differences between what housing policy will look like during Obama’s second term and what housing policy would have looked like with a Romney administration. Here’s what Obama’s re-election means for housing:
1. The refinancing push continues. The Obama Administration has made it easier for homeowners to refinance at today’s low mortgage rates and plans to make refinancing available to even more borrowers. Refinancing is economic stimulus since it gives homeowners with mortgages more spending money, but it doesn’t help most people on the verge of losing their homes. Although refinancing has been a priority for Obama, Romney made no mention of refinancing in his housing plan – despite strong support for refinancing from one of his economic advisors.
2. New mortgage regulations are coming. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, established by the Dodd-Frank Act, will set new mortgage standards by January 2013. These standards will define which mortgages are judged to be beyond a borrower’s ability to repay and would therefore trigger legal and financial implications for lenders. These standards, yet to be established, will need to strike a delicate balance between protecting consumers from high-risk loans and giving lenders the incentive to expand mortgage credit. Romney blamed Dodd-Frank for holding back mortgage lending, pledging to “repeal and replace” it. But with Obama’s re-election, Dodd-Frank–and the coming mortgage regulations–is a reality.

3. The mortgage interest deduction lives to fight another day. Romney proposed capping overall income tax itemized deductions at $25,000, which would have, in effect, reduced the mortgage interest deduction (which accounts for 35% of the value of total itemized deductions) even for many middle-income taxpayers. Obama, in contrast, is open to cutting the mortgage interest deduction only for the wealthy. Even if deeply cutting deductions finds bipartisan agreement in Congress–and it might–Obama is likely to resist gutting the mortgage interest deduction. Why? The ten states that benefit most from the mortgage-interest-deduction ALL voted for Obama on Tuesday (see table below). The average household in an Obama-voting state claims 66% more for the mortgage interest deduction than the average household in a Romney-voting state. If Obama takes a swing at the mortgage interest deduction, he’ll be hurting his supporters and putting his fellow Democrats in a tough political spot.

States with the Most Mortgage Interest Deducted Per Household
#	State	Average Amount Deducted, $*
1	Maryland	$5,920
2	California	$5,718
3	Virginia	$5,100
4	Hawaii	$5,009
5	New Jersey	$4,890
6	Connecticut	$4,739
7	Colorado	$4,625
8	Washington	$4,610
9	District Of Columbia	$4,581
10	Massachusetts	$4,490
* Average amount of mortgage interest deduction claimed per household. Includes households who do not itemize. National average = $3,343.

4. A chance for principal reductions may have been lost. In his housing plan, Romney called for more “shared appreciation” loan modifications. This means that a borrower would get a reduction in their unpaid principal balance but would have to share some of the upside with whoever took the hit for the principal reduction if the home’s value appreciates. Shared-appreciation loan modifications reduce a borrower’s incentive to strategically fall behind on their payments in order to get a principal reduction. This “moral hazard” problem was one reason why many Republicans and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, resisted the Obama Administration’s call for more principal reductions earlier this year. Shared-appreciation loan modifications are an approach to principal reductions that Democrats, Republicans, and even a financial regulator could all learn to love. It would be a shame if this approach to keeping more people in their homes goes down in defeat.

For all of your Real Estate needs please contact
Joyce Doherty
Pacifc Coastal Properties
858-344-3175

Home prices to rise 15% in the next 3 years?

Home prices to rise 15% in the next 3 years?

 Good afternoon,

This week, I have had several requests for me to resend the 3.8% tax rate brochure (see attached) that will be going into effect on January 1, 2013. This is a great piece for a determining factor to those that may be on the fence as to whether or not to sell before December 31st 2012.

Since this new tax will affect some real estate transactions, it is important to have knowledge of how this new tax could impact you. It is a complicated tax, I have a pdf including all of this valuable information, the link gives some examples of different scenarios.

Please contact me @ 858-344-3175 or joyce@pacificcoastal.net and I'll be happy to provide link and details.

 Home Prices Near Highs in Some Cities

As housing prices nationwide start to recover from their depths, home prices in Silicon Valley are close to an all-time high.
Many Silicon Valley cities have come nearly all the way back from the real-estate bust of just a few years ago, in terms of how much buyers are willing to pay per square foot for existing single-family homes.
Driven by technology employees looking to buy and a constrained housing supply, Los Altos, Palo Alto and Burlingame have registered the strongest comebacks. During the third quarter of this year, home prices in those cities were just several percentage points away from peak levels in 2008, according to new data from research firm DataQuick

At the same time, in Sunnyvale, Mountain View and Cupertino—home to large technology companies Yahoo Inc., YHOO -0.86%Google Inc. GOOG -2.22% and Apple Inc., AAPL -3.63% respectively—the median prices per square foot during the third quarter were within 10% of their highest levels, DataQuick says.
Only three other spots along the California coast—the Los Angeles County communities of Arcadia, Manhattan Beach and Pacific Palisades—boast similar figures, says Andrew LePage, a DataQuick analyst. "It's unusual to be within 20% of the peak," let alone at just under peak levels, he says. Mr. LePage notes that the data show Silicon Valley is one of the strongest housing markets not just in California but in the nation as a whole.
Los Altos, with fewer than 30,000 residents, had one of the strongest recoveries in Silicon Valley. The median price per square foot for homes in the city was $810, or just 1.3% below the peak price in 2008, according to DataQuick. The median price of homes sold in the third quarter was $1.97 million, up 1% from $1.95 million in 2008.
There is "still so much money flowing into our marketplace," says Ed Graziani, a Los Altos-based real-estate agent.

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A number of factors are in play, says Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin Corp., an online real-estate brokerage with 13 agents operating in Silicon Valley. The inventory of available homes is low, with some owners hesitant to sell amid the housing-price recovery while others are renting out homes to take advantage of the local rental boom, he says.
Meanwhile, an influx of young employees from established and newly public tech firms including Facebook Inc. FB -2.34% and LinkedIn Corp. LNKD -4.80% have increased demand, he says. Salaries for rank-and-file programmers also continue to rise.
"Whether you're selling hamburgers or houses, the prices can't go up as fast as the wealth is increasing; there are too many people who have 'I-don't-care' kinds of money," Mr. Kelman says.
While Facebook's and social-games maker Zynga Inc.'s ZNGA -3.14% share prices have fallen since their initial public offerings, some of their employees sold stock on private exchanges before the IPOs, meaning they were less affected by volatility in early public trading, he says.

While Facebook's and social-games maker Zynga Inc.'s ZNGA -3.14% share prices have fallen since their initial public offerings, some of their employees sold stock on private exchanges before the IPOs, meaning they were less affected by volatility in early public trading, he says.
The result: plenty of bidding wars. Earlier this week in Saratoga, a plain-looking ranch-style home with three bedrooms, two baths and 1,352 square feet sold for $930,000—$180,000 more than its listing price—after receiving 36 offers in just nine days on the market, says Jaleh Taghipour, the listing agent.

Trulia: Home prices rise, and rents rise more

               

The asking prices for rentals rose 5.1% nationwide in the past year, even in areas where home prices are falling. Asking prices for sales rose 2.9%.

 

The asking prices for homes are up 2.9% over last year, but rents are rising faster, even in cities where sale prices are still falling.

The latest analysis by the real-estate portal Trulia found that asking prices of homes for sale in October were 0.7% higher than in September. Year over year, 69 of the 100 metro areas tracked posted an increase in asking prices.

Rents were up 5.1% over last October, showing double-digit increases in three cities and declines in only a handful of the nation’s 100 largest metro areas.

 

"Continued widespread price increases are good for homeowners but not for home-seekers," Jed Kolko, Trulia’s chief economist, said in a news release. "In markets like Denver, San Francisco and Oakland, where prices and rents are both rising, higher prices mean higher down payments, but rising rents make it harder to save enough."

 

 

Among the 25 largest markets, the cities showing the biggest increase in rents year over year were Houston, 16.5%; Miami, 10%; Oakland, Calif., 10%; Denver, 9.4%; and Seattle, 8.8%. They were followed by Philadelphia, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Chicago, New York and San Francisco.

 

 

The cities showing the greatest decline in rents, among all 100 metro areas, were Richmond, Va., 3.2%; Las Vegas, 1.8%; and Little Rock, Ark., 1.3%.

 

These are the cities where asking prices increased the most between October 2011 and October 2012:

 

Phoenix: 24.9%

• Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla.: 15.7%
• San Jose, Calif.: 12.7%
• Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills, Mich.: 11.8%
• West Palm Beach, Fla.: 11.3%
• Las Vegas: 10.9%
• Denver: 10.1%
• Detroit: 9.8%
• Oakland, Calif.: 8.8%
• San Francisco: 8.7%

Most of the cities showing the greatest decrease were in the Midwest and Northeast, where foreclosures continued to drag down prices. For October, the cities showing the great decrease in prices were:

• Chicago: 5.3%
• Camden, N.J.: 4.4%
• Gary, Ind.: 3.5%
• Edison-New Brunswick, N.J.: 3.5%
• Lake County-Kenosha County, Ill.-Wis.: 3.5%
• Greenville, S.C.: 3.3%
• New Haven, Conn.: 3.3%
• Allentown, Pa.-N.J.: 3%
• Philadelphia: 2.9%
• Albuquerque, N.M.: 2.2%

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