Apr 01
People struck deals to buy more homes in August than in July, but not as many more as usual, according to a new report.
Pending home sales rose by 9.4 percent in real numbers, but fell 1.2 percent adjusting for typical seasonal variation, the National Association of Realtors reported Thursday. Pending deals were up 7.7 percent from August 2010 .
King County showed a similar trend, with unadjusted increases of 9 percent form July and 33.8 percent from August 2010, according to the most-recent report from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. Hurricane Irene significantly disrupted sales in the Northeast, Realtors Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in the report. But broadly speaking, contract signing activity has been holding in a narrow range for many months.
And theres a pent-up demand the market isnt meeting, Yun added.
We continue to experience a pattern in which financially qualified home buyers, willing to stay well within their means, are being denied credit – a factor in elevated levels of contract failures, he said. B
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Tags: August, Home Sales, Pending Home, Pending Home Sales
Mar 17
HOA boards are faced with a challenge. They have limited time and resources, yet must meet the financial obligations of the reserve study by following a funding plan that provides adequate member contributions and additional revenue from prudent investment of reserve funds that reduce those member contributions. Here are four hurdles the board must jump when tackling reserves investment.
Hurdle #1: Failure to use the Reserve Study or not having one in the first place. Homeowner association boards have the duty to conduct long range planning to identify common elements, their current condition, their useful lives and current cost of repair or replacement. This exercise is called a Reserve Study. Some boards believe that a reserve study provides little benefit except to point out the obvious.
These same boards either elect not to pay the cost of one or put the one they have in a file to gather dust.
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Tags: Fund, Fund Investment
Mar 15
Over the last few months, each time Chicago Real Estate Forum has written about an increase in the Mortgage Index, it has been the result of a boost in refinancing, not home buying.
Not anymore.
Mortgage applications decreased 2.4 percent for the week ending March 9, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey.
The decrease is a result of less homeowners refinancing their mortgages, despite record-low mortgage rates. The Refinance Index declined 4.1 percent to its lowest level since January 6.
The good news is in the Purchase Index, which increased 4.4 percent to its highest level since January 13. This is the third week in a row that more U.S. home buyers applied for mortgages.
The rise in demand coincided with data released last week that showed U.S. e
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Tags: Buying, Buying Homes
Mar 03
It’s Real Estate Market Analysis Month on the Investor Insights. This month, we’ll bring you tips, tricks and ideas for finding the real value drivers in your target markets, realtor tips for analysis and sources to perform analysis.
Let’s start with a review of some places to check in with regularly.
Housing Wire – This site is all about real estate news. It’s a news wire, after all. The good thing about this site is that they give you information as it happens and provide analysis of breaking news from the Fed. They also have a great section called the Market Data Center. You can a
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Tags: Analysis, Market Analysis
