Customers Need a Confidence Boost?

Customers Need a Confidence Boost?

More consumers are reporting mixed views toward housing and income growth, according to Fannie Mae’s latest Home Purchase Sentiment Index.

While the percentage of consumers who believe now is a good time to sell or buy is rising, fewer consumers are upbeat about the trajectory of home prices and stagnant wages are weighing on housing’s outlook, the index shows.

Here are some important figures from the survey:

• The percentage of consumers who say now is a good time to sell a home rose 5 percentage points to a survey high of 18 percent in June.
• The percentage of consumers who think now is a good time to buy increased 3 percentage points to 32 percent.
• The share of consumers who say home prices will rise over the next 12 months plummeted 9 percentage points.
• The number of consumers who say their household income is significantly higher than it was a year ago dropped 10 percentage points.

Fewer consumers also reported a positive outlook on the state of the economy.

“The HPSI’s pullback in June from last month’s survey-high reading suggests a slight weakening in the 12-month outlook for housing activity,” says Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae’s chief economist. “Pending home sales have pulled back in the face of continued home price growth, and we’re seeing some softening in the higher priced components of the market. Growing pessimism about the overall direction of the economy gives us further pause as it now stands at the highest level we’ve seen in our National Housing Survey in the last two years.

“Meaningful improvement in the housing market going forward will likely require consistent upward movement in consumers’ income growth perceptions, which have thus far been stagnant,” Duncan continues. “Also helpful would be an acceleration of supply accumulation of entry-level homes, which would moderate the growth of real home prices and increase affordability.”

Source: Fannie Mae

How to Take Better Videos From Your Phone

How to Take Better Videos From Your Phone

When you need to capture a quick video of a listing or area for a client, your phone may be all you have. You can still take some quality videos to share on the go and from your phone.

USA Today recently featured some tips on capturing better videos from your smartphone, such as:

Turn your phone sideways. The horizontal orientation for shooting video will allow you to get more in the shot. You’ll also avoid the black bars along the side when the video is played back.

Use the “rule of thirds.” To make your videos look more professional, watch your framing. Break up a scene into two vertical lines and two horizontal lines. Place your subject then wherever the four lines intersect. Some smartphones actually let you place this grid on your screen.

Watch your light. Try different angles to make sure you get the right amount of light in your focus area. Try to avoid shooting into a bright window. Some phones allow you to tap on an area in the screen that you want to focus on and the phone will then do an auto-adjust for exposure and focus.

Move the phone slowly. To prevent blur while recording, move the phone slowly as you show off a space. Try to get closer to the object you want to focus on rather than just zooming in, which can look blurry when the video is played back.

Edit. You can still edit a video from a smartphone by cutting, cropping, adjusting the color and brightness, adding transitions, music, narration, captions, and more. Don’t just take the raw footage from a smartphone and send it on. Enhance your smartphone videos to make them look more professional either with desktop video editing software or even an editing app from your phone.

Source: “Tips to Shooting Great Video on Your Smartphone,” USA Today (July 10, 2016)

5-Step Checklist to Spruce Up a Backyard

5-Step Checklist to Spruce Up a Backyard

Amber Freda, a landscape designer in New York, recently shared with The New York Times a checklist that can make it easier for your clients to decorate their home’s outdoor space. Some of her tips include:

1. Choose the right furniture. Don’t leave a blank slate. “Furniture is probably the most important thing, so you can start using the outdoor space even before you get the plantings figured out,” Freda told The New York Times. Create a space for lounging, for example, with just simple chairs and small drink tables.
2. Get some planters. Use planters arranged around the perimeter. “Machine-made terra cottas are prone to cracking in the winter,” Freda says. “Handmade terra cotta is better, and the thicker it is, the longer lasting it will be. Fiberglass will last forever, and you can get it in any color imaginable.”
3. Add lighting. “If there’s not enough ambient lighting already, look at doing uplighting — low-voltage landscape lighting in the planters,” Freda says. An entire system can plug into an existing outlet so no electrician is needed.
4. Define with a rug. An outdoor rug can be “a nice way to break up a space, and make it feel like an outdoor living or dining room,” Freda says.
5. Add some shade. An umbrella can make an outdoor space more inviting by offering some shade from the bright sun overhead. “Some [outdoor umbrellas] are rated for wind resistance, with vents in the canopies,” Freda says. “And the bases can be a few hundred pounds” to avoid them blowing away. Shade sails and pergolas can also add some “elegance” to an outdoor space.

Source: “Outdoor Décor: A Checklist,” The New York Times (July 1, 2016)

10 Cities With the Highest Rents

10 Cities With the Highest Rents

San Francisco, New York, and San Jose, Calif., have the highest rents in the nation, according to the Zumper National Rent Report. The report analyzes data from more than 1 million active listings nationwide and calculates the median asking rents for the top 100 metro areas by population.

The following are the 10 priciest cities for apartments (listed with the median rent of a one-bedroom rental):

1. San Francisco: $3,510
2. New York: $3,190
3. San Jose, Calif.: $2,280
4. Oakland, Calif.: $2,270
5. Boston: $2,230
6. Washington, D.C.: $2,190
7. Los Angeles: $1,960
8. Miami: $1,900
9. Honolulu: $1,840
10. Seattle: $1,740

Source: Zumper National Rent Report

Do Ultra-Clean Homes Appraise Higher?

Do Ultra-Clean Homes Appraise Higher?

Some home owners are beginning to see value in spick-and-span listings. But are appraisers on board?

Jennifer Chateauvert of San Jose, Calif., insists that two weeks of deep cleaning is what helped her home appraise higher than she’d predicted. However, appraisers say—while they appreciate clean properties—this work won’t result in higher valuations.

“Appraisers are normal people. When they see something that looks nice and looks clean and presents well, they’ll have a better impression of the property. But that won’t affect the appraisal value,” Donald Boucher, president of the appraisal firm Boucher & Boucher in Washington, D.C., tells realtor.com®.

Still, some real estate professionals say they believe cleanliness has made an impact on some of their listings.

“Having your house clean does make a difference, even though in theory it should not,” says Mark Ferguson, a real estate professional and property investor in Greeley, Colo. “Appraisers are people, and they are swayed by smells and how a house feels, even if they aren’t conscious of it.”

Real estate professionals offer some of the following tips to prepare for an appraisal:

• Make a list of all the upgrades and features in the home to provide to the appraiser.
• Whether you hire cleaners or do-it-yourself, making sure to scrub walls clean and touch up paint will make the home sparkle.
• Print out a list of comparable homes in the neighborhood to provide to the appraiser. Boucher notes that sometimes when users search the MLS, not all comps appear, so this step can be helpful for appraisers.
• Refreshments can be a welcome courtesy. Boucher notes that honest appraisers aren’t actually swayed by extras, but see it as “just a nice gesture.”

Source: “Will a Sparkling-Clean Home Appraise for More Money?” realtor.com® (July 5, 2016)