Monday, November 27, 2006

BRITISH REALTOR CALLS A DUMP A DUMP

A British real estate agent, in a new twist, is describing homes for sale in newspaper ads as "grubby, cramped and dirty," or "suitable for a midget." Julian Bending of Somerset told The Independent he was fed up with accolades heaped upon properties that were undeserved at best and downright misleading at worst. He decided to take a blunt approach to selling houses. In one ad, the details read, "Dear God, it's difficult to imagine a more disgusting house than this." Bending told the Telegraph that he has found a following among people who are impressed with his stark honesty. "If you get called up by an estate agent and they tell you somewhere is lovely and perfect for you and it's not, they have no trust in you," he said. "People thank us and say it's exactly how you said, thanks for not wasting our time, while sellers are also grateful they don't have to bother with people who aren't interested."

Copyright © 2006 by United Press International

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

NEW REAL ESTATE SITE LISTS HEADY PRICES

You might have heard this piece of wisdom: A man with one clock always knows what time it is. A man with two clocks is never sure. The old saw applies to the rapidly expanding number of sites that estimate your home's value. First came Zillow (www.zillow.com) and its "Zestimates," which launched with a splash earlier this year. Realtors and consumer advocates gripe that Zillow's estimates are inaccurate and confusing. Now comes CyberHomes (www.cyberhomes.com), the Zillow-like site just launched by title insurance giant Fidelity National Information Services. Both sites make it nearly effortless to look up home values. So, The Palm Beach Post ran some homes currently listed for sale and compared the prices to the valuations offered by Zillow, CyberHomes and county property appraisers' sites. The results? The numbers are all over the place, with CyberHomes offering especially optimistic values. CyberHomes was above the asking price for four homes looked at. The lesson? Don't take these tools too seriously.
Copyright © 2006 The Palm Beach Post, Fla. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

Survey: Homebuyers generally ignore media reports on housing

WASHINGTON – Nov. 22, 2006 – Prospective homebuyers may derive some of their information on the housing market from the news media, but at the end of the day, the price of a home, mortgage interest rates and their housing needs mean more than news stories, according to a nationwide survey conducted for the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).

“While the majority of the households we polled indicated that they found the media a reliable source of information on the housing market, what they read in the newspaper, saw on television or heard on the radio was no substitute for actually going out and shopping the market,” says Thomas Riehle, a partner in RT Strategies, which conducted the research for NAHB. “When people are actually thinking about buying a home, they are driven by the details of how it will impact their family budget and lifestyle and contribute to their long-term wealth, and that gives them a much closer perspective on the market than what can be conveyed in news coverage.”

When asked to rate the importance of several factors that might affect their decision to buy or not to buy a home, survey respondents put the home’s price at the top of the list, with 80 percent citing its significance.

That was followed by: the potential for the new home to appreciate in value, 71 percent; the prospect of selling their current home at a fair price, 70 percent; the level of mortgage interest rates, 69 percent; and personal life changes, such as a new job or an addition to the family, 60 percent. On a list of eight items, news stories on real estate market conditions ranked second from the bottom, with 28 percent saying that it was an important factor behind their decision to buy.

When asked about the influence of the news media on their decision, only 19 percent of the respondents said it played an important role; 23 percent indicated that it had some importance on their decision; and 7 percent said it played a minor role. A full 48 percent said it had no influence whatsoever.

Sixty-one percent of the survey participants said that the media is “sometimes trustworthy” as a source of information on the housing market and 5 percent said that it is “always trustworthy.” Twenty percent and 8 percent, respectively, said it is “seldom trustworthy” and “never trustworthy.”

The NAHB survey of 2,000 households, including more than 1,750 registered voters, was conducted Oct. 26 to 29.

Something cool that Xerox is doing and it's FREE

Something cool that Xerox is doing and it's FREE

If you go to this web site, www.LetsSayThanks.com
,you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will
print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is
currently serving in Iraq. You can't pick out who gets
it, but it will go to some member of the armed
services.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

HOUSING MARKET

The housing market is tanking. No, everything is great. Tanking. Great.
Confused? So are the experts. Interest rates have dipped, which draws buyers into the market; but a fear that home prices have not yet bottomed out simultaneously scares them away. Economists, unsure which force is stronger, can't agree on what will happen next.


Housing: The riddle of rates and prices

NEW YORK – Nov. 21, 2006 – Conflicting data this week showed that the housing market, like a bull in the ring, is wounded yet still powerful. It takes an experienced toreador to discern whether the beast will succumb to the knife or come charging back. The course it takes may hinge on which matters more to buyers: falling interest rates [a big positive] or fear of falling prices [a big negative].

For now, at least, housing construction is clearly in a localized recession. The freshest evidence came on Nov. 17 from the Census Bureau, which announced that starts on construction of single-family homes plunged 14.6 percent in October, to the lowest level since July 2000. On top of that, permits fell 6.3 percent, to the lowest level since December 1997, indicating that construction could dip even further in the months ahead.

But that’s not the end of the story. Buyers could still save the housing market, depending on how they react to current economic conditions. Mortgage rates, after rising at the beginning of this year, have dipped in recent months, from a peak of 6.80 percent on average for a 30-year fixed loan in July to 6.24 percent last month, according to Freddie Mac. There’s also speculation that the Federal Reserve could cut rates in the months ahead, if inflation is under control and the economy flags.

Divided Economists

If buyers take heart from the decline in mortgage rates and step up to buy, the backlog of unsold homes could shrink quickly – especially with the production of new homes having abruptly fallen. That would put the market back on sound footing within a few months. On the other hand, if potential customers decide that an investment in housing is “dead money” because home prices are going to flatten or decline for an extended period, then no jiggering of interest rates is going to encourage them to part with their down payments.

Economists are sharply divided over the prospects for housing because they disagree over how potential buyers will react. Ian Shepherdson, chief North American economist of High-Frequency Economics in Valhalla, N.Y., is a bear on housing because he thinks the prospect of further price declines, or at least a lull, will scare away buyers. During the boom, he says, people were effectively being paid to buy homes because the annual appreciation they got was greater than the interest on their loans. That is no longer true.

But economists who are more bullish say buyers don’t seem to be frightened despite the flood of bad publicity about housing. They point to the recent resilience of demand. For example, the Mortgage Bankers Assn. announced on Nov. 15 that its seasonally adjusted index of mortgages to purchase homes rose 2.7 percent in the week ended Nov. 10, to its highest level since July. The biggest factor: lower mortgage rates. Rates for 30-year fixed mortgages fell to 6.15 percent, their lowest since this past January.

Waiting for the Recovery

And people are putting those mortgage loans to work: Sales of both new and existing homes are up from their summer lows. “We’re probably seeing the turn. We’re starting fewer homes even though we’re continuing to sell them,” says Michael Englund of Action Economics.

The housing slump is far from over, but the conditions for an eventual recovery are in place: Builders are sharply cutting back, and buyers are cautiously continuing to buy. That means the backlog of unsold homes should begin to diminish. The welcome decline in mortgage rates may seem small compared to the reversal in price trends, from soaring to sinking. But it appears enough to put at least some people back in a buying mood.

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Cos., Peter Coy. All rights reserved

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Fidelity Releases Cyber Homes

Fidelity has just released their own version of Zillow, called Cyber Homes. http://www.cyberhomes.com/

I used my own home as a test and I can't say that I felt the estimate of value was any better than Zillow's (which I think is not too good). The map highlighted the house next door, not mine!

Saturday, November 11, 2006

In Face of Housing Slowdown,Homeowners Remain Optimistic

By Andrea Coombes From MarketWatch
Homeowners are either remarkably stable people with their financial houses in order or they've got their heads in the sand. Despite news of late that the housing market is slipping, just 6% of homeowners in a survey in August said they think their home's value will decline in the next 12 months.
Ten percent expect their home's value to increase a lot in that time, 53% expect it to increase a little and 27% expect it to stay the same. Another 4% weren't sure where home values would go, according to the survey of 1,361 homeowners nationwide conducted for Wells Fargo and released Monday.

Monday, November 06, 2006

S. Florida has seen the worst of real estate slump, executive says

Another national voice is saying the worst of South Florida's housing slump appears to be over."I think you've seen the majority of the pullback," said Brian Tonry, vice president of McGraw-Hill Construction. The company is a division of the McGraw-Hill Cos., the New York-based global information services provider.

The Economy | Housing bust?

Already over, several experts are saying
By Andrew Cassel
Inquirer Columnist

Could the housing bust be over already?
That seems hard to believe - wasn't it only yesterday we were warning that the stratospheric rise of home prices couldn't continue forever?
But it could be true. At least in the view of several hard-boiled economy-watchers, there's reason to think that the much-anticipated collapse of residential real estate has now happened, more or less.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/business/15915825.htm

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Home-price comparison, state by state

What it costs to buy a typical four-bedroom home in 342 cities

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Hint for house hunters: Learn to love wide open spaces. The most expensive cities in Coldwell Banker's Home Price Comparison Index cluster on the coasts, while the least expensive cities hug the heartland.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/27/real_estate/costliest_housing_cities_for_middle_managment/index.htm

Friday, November 03, 2006

Coral Springs in Top 10 survey of safe U.S. cities

Nice to see Coral Springs get some good press.

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Coral Springs may be the safest place in Florida to go trick-or-treating.
The city was ranked the 10th-safest place to live in the United States, according to Morgan Quitno Press, a private research and publishing company based in Kansas

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15889494.htm
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Coral Springs FL #27 on Money Magazines Top 100 List

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2006/snapshots/PL1214400.html

Most cities not ready to handle millions of aging Boomers, study shows

You would think that Florida would be prepared because of our large elderly population.

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The nation's 76 million Baby Boomers began turning 60 this year, a gray wave that will sweep the nation during the next decade. But a new study suggests most cities aren't prepared to meet the needs of their aging populations -- a trend that will dramatically affect everything from development to city services to public transportation.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/custom/consumer/sfl-hlpsurvey30oct30,0,471871.story?coll=sfl-consumer-helpteam
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Wednesday, November 01, 2006

3/2 Villa Heron Bay

BEAUTIFUL TUSCANY VILLA - IN FABULOUS HERON BAY. SPACIOUS 3/2, TILED LIVING AREA, 42" WOOD CABINETS W/ GLASS DOORS IN KITCHEN, LOADS OF CLOSET SPACE. NO REAR NEIGHBORS! COMMUNITY FEATURES 2 CLUBHOUSES W/GYMS, RACKET BALL, POOL, TENNIS, PLAYGROUNDS, BASKETBALL & MORE. PARKLAND SCHOOLS. ***Seller to credit $5000.00 at closing for new flooring*** $388,000.00

Broward County Real Estate

Welcome to Broward County Real Estate. Here you will find local area information, some background on this part of Florida and current real estate news as well as some of my listings.