Home Buyers in a Rush to Beat Higher Rates

Home Buyers in a Rush to Beat Higher Rates

Mortgage rates are moving higher, and that has some home shoppers rushing to locking in rates before they edge up even more.

Mortgage applications for refinancing and home purchases increased 4.5 percent last week compared to the previous week on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Wednesday. Loan applications are now 6.1 percent higher than the same week a year ago.

Broken out, applications to purchase a home surged 6 percent during the week and reached their highest level since April 2010, the MBA reports. Loan applications for home purchases are now 7 percent higher than the same week a year ago.

“A combination of being left on the sideline last summer due to a lack of inventory for sale and the prospect of slowly rising interest rates over the near term appears to have buyers in a hurry to start the spring buying season,” says Lynn Fisher, the MBA’s vice president of research and economics.

Mortgage applications to refinance a home increased 1 percent for the week. Typically, refinance applications move lower when interest rates rise, but borrowers are showing some concern for missing an opportunity to refinance at lower rates.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.36 percent during the week, its highest average since March, the MBA reports.

“The increases that we’ve seen so far have only gotten people off the couch and into the market,” Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, told CNBC. “People are worrying that they need to hurry and buy a house now before rates go up further.”

Source: “Mortgage Applications Jump 4.5% as Buyers Rush to Beat Higher Rates,” CNBC (Jan. 24, 2018)

Road to financial freedom? Buy a home…

Road to financial freedom? Buy a home…

Ways Your Buyers Can Prevent Wire Fraud

Ways Your Buyers Can Prevent Wire Fraud

With scammers increasingly targeting real estate transactions, the National Association of REALTORS® is teaming up with the FBI and brokerage Realty Executives International to educate the industry on how to identify and help clients avoid wire fraud schemes. A particular cause for concern is hackers who send fake emails to home buyers on the cusp of closing on a property purchase, providing bogus wiring instructions. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been stolen from consumers who fall prey to such scams.

“We believe the way to stop these scammers in their tracks is by educating clients to identify, avoid, and report potential fraud,” says Alysia Heun, vice president of franchise services at Realty Executives. “By raising awareness in the real estate industry on how these scams are being carried out, we can create a united front fighting against and working to shut down this devastating trend.”

Realty Executives highlights three ways to help protect buyers from scammers:

1. Pay attention to how wire instructions are sent. It is best to only accept instructions that are secure and encrypted.
2. Before buyers wire funds to an individual or company, urge them to call to verify the wire instructions independently with the title company or closing agent.
3. Be very watchful of any changes. Inform your clients that wire instructions rarely change. If they receive an email saying that any wiring instructions have changed, urge them to confirm the validity with the real estate agent or title company.

“The best defense against this type of scam is having multiple checkpoints with your title company and agent to ensure everything you are being instructed to do is legit—and phone is best. Just make sure you’re talking to the right person,” Realty Executives urges in a blog post.

Source: “Three Steps to Preventing Wire Fraud,” Realty Executives (Jan. 16, 2018)

Why Your Clients Hate Automated Messages

Why Your Clients Hate Automated Messages

f you’ve set up automated replies to prospect inquiries online, you may be saving time—but turning off potential customers. Only 14 percent of consumers say they will respond to a message they perceive to be automated, while the rest say they’ll ignore it and move on to another service or professional, according to a new white paper produced by Move Inc.’s Realsuite business solution platform for real estate professionals.

The vast majority of consumers in the study, “Shift Happens: How to Capture, Communicate, and Close in Today’s ‘On Demand’ World,” say they crave personalized communication from an agent as they undergo the real estate process. Three of the top five qualifiers consumers use when selecting an agent cannot be replaced by technology, the study found. Consumers seek greater transparency every step of the way, and three out of four home buyers want an online system to track the offer-to-close process. Buyers say agents’ insider knowledge of upcoming assessments, homeowner association fees, and neighborhood details is just as critical to them as information on pricing trends, recent sales, and days on market.

“This is a critical time for real estate professionals,” says Luke Glass, executive vice president of industry platforms for Move, the operator of realtor.com®. “The emergence of technology and automation has greatly improved the real estate process in some ways, yet these findings reveal that many agents are failing to leverage technology, or to use it properly, at key points along the journey—to the detriment of the agent-client relationship. … Finding the right balance between automation and personalization is critical to an agent’s ability to deliver an exceptional experience, yield more closed business, and bring more repeat and referral business into the pipeline.”

Move unveiled its Realsuite platform in beta mode last fall. Currently, more than 1,100 real estate professionals are testing it.

Source: Move Inc.

Fannie Offers ‘Healthy Housing’ Incentive

Fannie Offers ‘Healthy Housing’ Incentive

Mortgage financing giant Fannie Mae launched a healthy housing reward initiative that offers financial awards to multifamily borrowers who provide services that improve the health and well-being of tenants living in affordable housing. These services could range from day care and food access to youth and education programming and job training.

The program, dubbed Enhanced Resident Services, includes a lower borrowing rate for purchasers who participate. The program is part of Fannie Mae’s Healthy Housing Rewards initiative, which aims to advance sustainable communities and the availability of affordable housing by encouraging multifamily borrowers to improve design features and services that improve residents’ health and stability.

“We believe that the strength of an affordable rental housing property is directly linked to the health and stability of the people and families who live there,” says Bob Simpson, vice president of affordable and green financing at Fannie Mae. “Affordable borrowers have recognized the value of providing enhanced resident services at their properties for years, but have been constrained by the inability to ensure a long-term source of financial support. By participating in our Healthy Housing Rewards program, borrowers will save between $15,000 and $75,000 per year. Amounts saved can be used to offset resident services costs at their property for the life of the loan—thus ensuring that the low-income residents who live there have access to health, education, and other community services.”

For the program, Fannie Mae is teaming up with Stewards for Affordable Housing for the Future, a nonprofit multistate group of affordable housing providers that offers compliance certifications for borrowers and the multifamily affordable housing property.

To qualify for the program, at least 60 percent of the units in multifamily properties seeking the pricing incentive must serve residents earning 60 percent of average median income or less. The program officially started Jan. 15.

Source: Fannie Mae

The Fastest Growing States May See Housing Boom

The Fastest Growing States May See Housing Boom

The population of the U.S. is growing, rising by 2.2 million people in 2016, according to the latest Census data. But the population growth is not even across the country. For instance, the South and West saw their populations rise by 1.1 percent in 2016, while the Northeast and Midwest saw just a 0.1 percent uptick.

Eight states saw populations grow by more than 1.6 percent in 2016. Many of the fastest-growing states tend to be affordable, midsize cities with quality school systems, and have low unemployment, reports 24/7 Wall St., a financial news site.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed one-year populations for all 50 states from 2015 to 2016 Census data. (The population estimates listed are from July 1 of each year.)

The fastest growing states are:

1. Utah

• 1-year population growth rate: 2.03%
• Current population: 3.05 million
• 2015 population: 2.99 million
• 10-year population growth rate: 20.82%

2. Nevada

• 1-year population growth rate: 1.95%
• Current population: 2.94 million
• 2015 population: 2.88 million
• 10-year population growth rate: 16.55%

3. Idaho

• 1-year population growth rate: 1.83%
• Current population: 1.68 million
• 2015 population: 1.65 million
• 10-year population growth rate: 14.60%

4. Florida

• 1-year population growth rate: 1.82%
• Current population: 20.61 million
• 2015 population: 20.24 million
• 10-year population growth rate: 13.46%

5. Washington

• 1-year population growth rate: 1.78%
• Current population: 7.29 million
• 2015 population: 7.16 million
• 10-year population growth rate: 14.40%

6. Oregon

• 1-year population growth rate: 1.71%
• Current population: 4.09 million
• 2015 population: 4.02 million
• 10-year population growth rate: 11.51%

7. Colorado

• 1-year population growth rate: 1.68%
• Current population: 5.54 million
• 2015 population: 5.45 million
• 10-year population growth rate: 17.37%

8. Arizona

• 1-year population growth rate: 1.66%
• Current population: 6.93 million
• 2015 population: 6.82 million
• 10-year population growth rate: 14.96%

Meanwhile, the states that are seeing their populations shrink by the fastest amounts are: West Virginia and Illinois. West Virginia’s one-year population growth rate dropped by 0.54 percent; its 10-year population growth rate is projected to be 0.17 percent. Illinois saw its one-year population growth rate decline by 0.29 percent, but its 10-year population growth rate is 1.25 percent, according to the study.

View more detailed findings on the study.

Source: “The Fastest Growing (and Shrinking) States,” 24/7 Wall St. (Jan. 5, 2018)