Realtors give readings on local markets

Inman Real Estate News - Realtors give readings on local markets

Part 1: Word-On-The-Street market snapshots

Friday, December 22, 2006

By Matt Carter
Inman News

Editor's note: No one knows the local real estate market better than Realtors. In this two-part series, Inman News sought out local insights on what's happening on the ground and what agents think is in store for 2007.

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More people using Web for real estate search

Inman Real Estate News:

More people using Web for real estate searchPew study: 39% of Internet users look for housing info onlineFriday, December 15, 2006Inman News
The number of Internet users who look for housing information online has grown steadily over the last six years, a new study finds, thanks to more online resources for listings and other real estate information.

Nearly two in five adult Internet users in the United States, or 39 percent, have looked online for information about a place to live -- double the overall number of Americans who had done so in 2000, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. That was up from 34 percent in 2004 and 27 percent in 2000.

Overall, more than a quarter of all adults in the United States, or 27 percent, have looked online for information about housing, more than double the overall number of Americans who had done so in 2000 (13 percent).
Younger Internet users were more likely to seek housing information online than older Web users. Fifty-one percent of Internet users 18-29 years old have searched online for housing information, compared with 43 percent of Internet users 30-49 years old, 27 percent of Internet users 50-64 years old, and 15 percent of Internet users age 65 and older.

Moreover, 9 percent of Internet users 18-29 years old reported in August that they looked for housing information on a typical day, more than double the percentage (4 percent) in this age group who said the same thing two years earlier."

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Source: Inman News

Condo auction attracts many bidders

Tampa Bay Business Journal - Monday December 11, 2006.

Forty condominium units at The Hamptons at Tampa Palms were sold at a public auction over the past weekend, at an average price of $148,000 a unit.

J.P. King Auction Co. of Gadsden, Ala., managed the sale of the units, which were among the most expensive converted apartments in the Tampa Bay area. The auction attracted 171 bidders from 15 states as far away as Minnesota, Nevada and California.

The sale disposed of 20 two-bedroom units, 15 three-bedroom units and five one-bedroom units, at a total price of just above $5.9 million, a J.P. King spokesman said.


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NAR: Pending Home Sales Indicate Market Stabilization

NAR: Pending Home Sales Indicate Market Stabilization

WASHINGTON, December 04, 2006 -
Pending home sales are hovering in a narrow range, another indication that a stabilization is occurring in the housing sector, according to the National Association of Realtors®.

The Pending Home Sales Index,* based on contracts signed in October, slipped 1.7 percent to a reading of 107.2 and is 13.2 percent lower than October 2005. The index had trended up from a cyclical low of 105.6 in July, and a decline from year-ago levels is narrowing. In September, the index was 13.6 percent below a year earlier, while in August the decline was 14.0 percent.

David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, said a fairly steady pace of home sales can be expected for the next two months. “It’s important to focus on where the housing market is now – it appears to be stabilizing, and comparisons with an unsustainable boom mask the fact that home sales remain historically high – they’ll stay that way through 2007,” he said. “In addition, a temporary correction in prices distracts from the fact that it is primarily the number of home sales that affects the economy, and the number for this year will be the third highest on record.”

The index is a leading indicator for the housing sector, based on pending sales of existing homes. A sale is listed as pending when the contract has been signed and the transaction has not closed, but the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing.

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Sold out condo hotel: a sign of hot times in Napa

Napa Valley Register Online | LocalNews
: By KEVIN COURTNEY, Register Staff Writer
Sunday, December 10, 2006 1:13 AM PST
Want proof that downtown Napa is becoming a hot address? One hundred investors together and paid an eye-popping $63 million last week to own rooms in the luxury Westin Verasa hotel on McKinstry Street.

The condo hotel hasn't yet risen from the ground, but two of the 100 buyers paid $1.25 million each for suites that will overlook the Napa River and the planned Oxbow nature preserve, said Benjamin Tice, director of sales for Westin Verasa.

Buyers, who paid an average of $630,000, will own rooms at the Westin Verasa. They will be entitled to stay at the hotel up to 29 days a year. The rest of the time, the rooms will be rented to the public.

'We sold out,' Tice said of the first phase. The hotel's remaining 60 units will be put on sale early next year. Now starting construction, the hotel is scheduled to open in late 2008.
Playground Destination Properties, a division of Intrawest, a major hotel-resort developer, sold the 100 rooms within a few months of opening a sales office on First Street."

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REBNY Report Shows NY Condos and Co-op prices still rising

December 7, 2006

The Manhattan Residential Sales Report is compiled by REBNY through confidential surveys provided by the city’s major residential brokerage firms. Individual brokers submit data and REBNY publishes its findings in an effort to help buyers and sellers determine current fair market values.

The report indicated that northern Manhattan condo prices were up 60 percent to $558,000 and those condos on the east side jump 45 percent to about $1.4 million. The report also showed cooperatives’ median sales prices on the east side rose 13 percent to $865,000 and downtown co-op units rose 20 percent to $662,000.

The median price-per-square-foot for Manhattan condominiums rose one percent to $1,022. Median prices of condos between 851 and 1,000 square feet rose by 10.6 percent, and units between 1,001 and 1,500 square feet increased by 5.5 percent. However, median sales prices of units between 1,801 and 2,000 square feet fell 6.7 percent and units 2,001 square feet and larger dropped by 8.7 percent.

Source: Multi Housing News

Rise in existing-home sales is first since February - MarketWatch

Rise in existing-home sales is first since February - MarketWatch: "By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
Last Update: 3:18 PM ET Nov 28, 2006


WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Sales of existing U.S. homes rose 0.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.24 million in October, the first increase since February, the National Association of Realtors reported Tuesday.
Inventories of unsold homes on the market continued to grow, while sales prices fell at the fastest pace ever recorded.

The report was better than expected. Economists were forecasting sales to fall to 6.15 million annualized, according to a survey conducted by MarketWatch. See Economic Calendar.

September's sales were revised higher to 6.21 million from 6.18 million initially reported. Sales are down 11.5% from October 2005's 7.05 million pace.

'As expected, existing-home sales appear to be stabilizing, fingers and toes crossed,' said David Lereah, chief economist for the Realtors. Market fundamentals are improving, he said.

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Source: MarketWatch.

Condo group prepares to fight insurance hikes

Condo group prepares to fight insurance hikes

By MARGIE KACOHA
Daily News Staff Writer

Friday, December 01, 2006

SOUTH PALM BEACH — As with their neighbors to the north, condominium owners are considering banding together in the fight against rising insurance rates.

Leaders of the South Palm Beach Condominiums & Cooperatives Association Wednesday discussed gathering information from the town's 24 associations.

Chairman Murray Fox, who founded the association last year, cited insurance rate increases ranging from 20 percent to 50 percent because of the storms that ripped through Palm Beach County in 2004 and 2005.

"It's gone crazy," Fox said. "It's a mammoth problem."

The Citizens' Association of Palm Beach has formed an insurance committee to analyze the problem and formulate possible solutions.

Fox said the South Palm Beach group will do the same, with the help of Floyd Nichols, an agent with Insurance Office of America in Jupiter.

Nichols was the guest speaker at Wednesday's session at Town Hall, which drew about 70 residents to the 90-minute morning meeting.

Options addressed included self-insurance and the joint purchase of insurance by the associations.

Nichols will assist the group in formulating a list of questions to send out to the individual condominium

associations.

The Citizens' Association of Palm Beach is starting its insurance research in much the same way, sending a survey to each of its member buildings.

Fox said his group will form an insurance committee.

"We're going to start the questionnaires and get the ball rolling," he said.

State legislators will gather in January for a special session to address Florida's insurance woes.

They will use the recent recommendations of the Property and Casualty Insurance Reform Committee as a framework.

Two other issues Fox brought to the meeting were beach restoration and the town's current comprehensive plan review.

"I think the beach is the heart of the town," he said. "Without the beach, we have no town.

"It's time for creative solutions. I don't know what to do, but I'm a businessman," Fox said. "I know how to get things done. We have to be imaginative."

South Palm Beach officials and residents will receive a county report at the Dec. 19 Town Council meeting, outlining recommendations for the shrinking shoreline.

According to preliminary details provided by the Palm Beach County Department of Environmental Resource Management, a full-scale sand-dredging program is not a likely solution because of environmental concerns.

More likely, the town would best be served by constructing a breakwater and possibly rock groins to keep sand on the 5/8-mile-long beach.

Fox also explained the town's current comprehensive plan review after a show of hands indicated that most in attendance did not know of or understand the state-mandated process.

One element of the review is land use within the town, including redevelopment of existing properties.

Residents continue to focus on a preliminary proposal by the Palm Beach Oceanfront Inn to build a high-rise luxury hotel/condominium. The owners have not filed an application for any redevelopment.

Many residents at Wednesday's meeting indicated they would not favor any new building that exceeds the current six-story maximum height. Councilmen Marty Millar, Robert Gottlieb and Chuck McCrosson have indicated they oppose large-scale redevelopment within the town.

Attorney Ron Kolins, who represents the inn, asked residents Wednesday to keep an open mind and assured them any redevelopment application would be subject to town scrutiny and openly discussed in public meetings.

The South Palm Beach Condominiums & Cooperatives Association will hold its next meeting on Dec. 20.

Another Surprise on Rising Home Prices

Another Surprise on Rising Home Prices: "Another Surprise on Rising Home Prices

Attention, everyone who thinks Zillow knows zippo about home valuations (read some recent blog comments here and here): It ain't just Zillow that's saying home values are up.

Check out this announcement today from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, the organization that oversees mortgage-buying giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. OFHEO (pronounced 'oh-FAY-oh') says that single-family house prices were 7.7% higher in the third quarter of 2006 than one year earlier.* It said they grew at an annual rate of about 3.5% from the second to the third quarter of 2006. A slowdown, but not a decline.

There were declines from the second to the third quarter in only five states: New York, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Michigan, and Massachusetts. And only Michigan was lower than a year earlier.

Idaho, Utah, Oregon, and Arizona were all up 16% to 17% from a year earlier.

Kind of amazing, when the Census Bureau and National Assn. of Realtor numbers show prices flat to falling. There are a couple of explanations. One is that the OFHEO index covers only single-family, detached homes with conforming mortgages, which currently are around $400,000 or less.

A more interesting difference is that the NAR figures, in particular, have been skewed downward by a change in the mix of homes being sold. When more cheap homes are sold, it pulls down the median sales price. OFHEO uses a statistical method to compare prices as particular homes are sold and resold over the years, avoiding the mix problem.

The OFHEO numbers are consistent with the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices released Nov. 28, which showed that prices in 10 major markets rose 3.7% in September from a year earlier.

*Asterisk for those who care: The OFHEO index uses valuations reported in refinancings as well as in sales. That number is influenced by overstatement of valuations. OFHEO's purchase-only index shows a 6% increase from a year earlier rather than 7.7%.

Peter Coy
BusinessWeek
November 30, 2006

Philippines set for housing boom - INQ7.net

Business - Philippines set for housing boom - INQ7.net

Published on Page B3 of the December 1, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

BANKS have started to aggressively advertise their housing loans with a previously unheard-of 25-year repayment period, in case you have not noticed yet.

"Buying your own home is just as simply affordable as buying appliances," trumpeted Metrobank's Philippine Savings Bank ad campaign, guaranteeing a fixed 11.5 percent interest rate on a 25-year loan.

Drawings of a washing machine (18 monthly installments of P3,480), a plasma TV (24 "gives" of P13,500), and a P1-million house (300 fixed monthly installments of P10,165) adorned the ad.

Even more, PSBank is willing to shave one percentage point off the first year's interest "if you don't get results [in the loan application] in five days or less."

On Thursday, Megaworld Corp. and Security Bank Corp. sought to undercut the competition by offering a lower 11.0 percent fixed interest rate on the same 25-year loan term.

Calling it Homelite, Megaworld, the largest residential condominium developer in the country, sweetened the offer by promising to further cut the interest rate without any prepayment penalty, should the low -inflation, low-interest-rate trajectory continue.

"Homelite is made possible since we are currently enjoying the lowest interest rate environment in our history," an exuberant Megaworld chairman and CEO Andrew Tan said.

"This is the result of our government's success in reigning in the fiscal deficit through a series of fiscal reforms, including raising of taxes and increasing efficiency in tax collection."

Former undersecretary of finance and now a director of Bank of the Philippine Islands, Romeo Bernardo, could not recall any commercial bank that offered a 25-year loan term in the past.

Just to be sure, Bernardo consulted with a colleague, who confirmed that only the government's pension fund unit, the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), and its private sector counterpart, Social Security System, have had a 25-year repayment scheme, apart from the government's housing-specific Pag-IBIG Fund.

With the real estate industry turning the corner in 2005, Pag-IBIG Fund further stoked the market by slashing to 6.0 percent the interest on low-end housing loans of up to P300,000.

Even better, Pag-IBIG stretched the repayment period to 30 years.

For loans OF from P500,000 up to the P2 million ceiling, Pag-IBIG shaved the interest rate by half a percentage point to a more market-pegged 11.5 percent, still higher than the Megaworld-Security Bank rate.

Megaworld's Tan also predicted that with the lower rate and longer repayment scheme, condo buyers would be enticed to consider bigger units, instead of starting out with broom closets masquerading as studios.