Useful Tips for Clients with Nosy Friends

Useful Tips for Clients with Nosy Friends. Image courtesy of franky242 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Clients who recently purchased a new home might find themselves in an awkward place when an inquiring mind – a friend, neighbor, colleague, or relative – questions them about the price of their home. Time Inc’s Money magazine has some helpful tips for people who don’t feel comfortable answering that question directly. Passing this information onto your clients could help them get out of sticky situation in the future.

Deflect the question with a joke. The writer of the Money article, Antonia Messa, suggests that recent home buyers could say something like, “How much did we pay? More than I would have liked!” Clients can use the joke as a “jumping-off point” for a bigger discussion about the current real estate market, bringing the attention away from their specific home and making the conversation more broad.

Present a unified front with your partner. Messa states that “some of the blame” can be shifted onto a spouse or significant other when an inquiring mind asks about the price of your home. Home buyers can say that they agreed with their partner not to discuss the home price, which hints that responding to the question is non-negotiable.

Be upfront. If home buyers want to be more direct with their nosier friends or relatives, they can simply respond to the question by telling the truth and stating that they just don’t feel comfortable discussing the cost of their new home. This is an authentic, honest answer that should get the message across to the inquirer.

Source: “Here’s What to Say When A Nosy Friend Asks How Much Your House Cost,” Money magazine (Oct. 14, 2014)

Lower Mortgage Rates Revive Refinancing Housing Boom

Lower Mortgage Rates Revive Refinancing Housing Boom. Image courtesy of hywards / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As interest rates tumble, home owners are rushing to take advantage of the lowest rates of the year. Overall, mortgage applications rose 5.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis during the week ending Oct. 10, led by an 11 percent week-to-week surge in refinance applications, the Mortgage Bankers Association reports.

“Growing concerns about weak economic growth in Europe caused a flight to quality into U.S. assets last week, leading to sharp drops in interest rates,” says Mike Fratantoni, the MBA’s chief economist. “Mortgage rates for most loan products fell to their lowest level since June 2013. Refinance application volume reached the highest level since June 2014 as a result.”

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to a nationwide average of 4.20 percent last week, from 4.30 percent the week earlier, the MBA reports. However, average mortgage rates reportedly have dropped even more this week, with many lenders reporting a 4 percent average as of Tuesday and some even offering 3.875 percent to creditworthy borrowers, according to Mortgage News Daily.

Low rates, however, aren’t spurring greater homebuying activity. Mortgage applications for home purchases, viewed as a gauge of future home buying, dropped 1 percent last week. Purchase applications are 4 percent lower than they were for the same week one year ago, the MBA reports.

“Purchase application volume continues to run behind last year’s level, but to a lesser degree,” Fratantoni says. “We continue to expect that the strengthening job market should lead to an increase in purchase activity next year.”

Source: “Mortgage Rate Drop Sparks Refinancing Boomlet,” CNBC (Oct. 15, 2014)

Major Incentives for Home Buyers This Fall.

Major Incentives for Home Buyers This Fall. Image courtesy of amenic181 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Home builders are throwing in some extras to lure home buyers back this fall. For example, 10 home builders in a new suburban Phoenix community called Bridges at Gilbert are offering swimming pools, built-in barbecues, and subsidized mortgages.

Joseph Beben, a home buyer in the Phoenix area, says he chose to have a house built by Woodside Homes, which agreed to cover up to $10,000 of his closing costs as well as the price of a swimming pool. Beben will pay $332,000 for a 3,000-square-foot house.

“Builders in volatile housing markets, such as Phoenix, Sacramento, Las Vegas, and Orlando, are sweetening offers as sales slow,” Bloomberg Business reports.

The large increases in home prices last year have discouraged some buyers. The number of new-home communities in Phoenix rose by a third in the past year to 457, but sales per community dropped 45 percent last month from a year prior, according to Jim Belfiore, president of Belfiore Real Estate Consulting.

Builders in Nevada also saw a big drop in sales this year. In Las Vegas, new-home sales surged 32 percent in 2013 — but in the first eight months of this year, they have fallen 26 percent from the previous year, says Dennis Smith, president of Home Builders Research, a Las Vegas-based consulting company. A similar trend is taking hold in Sacramento, Calif., where new-home sales plunged 16 percent last month year-over-year.

Builders are beginning to discount homes and look for ways to boost sales. Orlando builders, for example, reportedly are advertising discounts and appliance packages, as well as offering to cover closing costs, after new-home sales dropped 19 percent year-over-year in June.

Buyers are enjoying being the drivers at the moment in some of these markets. Bob Berg, a retiree from Chicago, was looking for homes in the Phoenix area. “A couple of builders said to me, ‘What will it take for you to buy this home?'” Berg says. “That’s kind of drastic when they say something like that. It tells me they want to move that home.”

Source: “Homebuilders Offer Goodies as Sales Slow,” Bloomberg BusinessWeek  (Oct. 9, 2014)

Low Rates Aren’t Enough for Buyers\

Low Rates Aren’t Enough for Buyers. Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and housing forecaster Robert Shiller said earlier this year that they expected low rates to serve as a stimulus to home buying this year.

Freddie Mac reported the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to 4.12 percent for the week ending Oct. 9, near the lowest average rate of the year. The rate is far less than a 20-year mean of more than 6 percent for the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. Yet mortgage rates hovering near annual lows for the past few weeks have not spurred the market. What’s going on?

However, home sales are facing major challenges that even low borrowing costs can’t help. The Wall Street Journal explains that 2014 home sales “have been hit by poor weather, a low number of homes available for sale, and tight credit.” Also, the most popular home sales season—typically the spring and summer—has already come to an end.

“Families buying houses need to be done with that by the time that school starts,” says Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance. “Rates have been hovering around 4 percent for the better part of the peak home-buying season. I don’t think anybody has been sitting on the sidelines, waiting for rates to drop.”

Second, high credit standards in the wake of the financial crisis are still preventing many would-be buyers from getting a loan and taking advantage of the low rates.

“Right now the real issue isn’t the price of credit, it’s more the availability,” says Robert Denk, an economist with the National Association of Home Builders. Eighty three percent of homebuilders recently surveyed by NAHB say they have lost sales over the last six months due to buyers not qualifying for a mortgage. Tight credit has resulted in about 18,700 new-home sales lost, NAHB estimates.

Source: “Housing Needs More Than Mortgage Rates of 4%-ish to Boom,” The Wall Street Journal (Oct. 9, 2014)

30-Year Mortgage Falls Back to Yearly Lows

30-Year Mortgage Falls Back to Yearly Lows.. Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Borrowing costs were down once again this week, giving home buyers another opportunity to lock in some of the lowest rates of the year.

Freddie Mac reported the following national mortgage rate averages for the week ending Oct. 9:

• 30-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 4.12 percent, with an average 0.5 point, dropping from last week’s 4.19 percent average. Last year at this time, 30-year rates averaged 4.23 percent.
• 15-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 3.30 percent, with an average 0.5 pont, dropping from last week’s 3.36 percent average. Last year at this time, 15-year rates averaged 3.31 percent.
• 5-year hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages: averaged 3.05 percent, with an average 0.5 point, dropping from last week’s 3.06 percent average. A year ago, 5-year ARMs averaged 3.05 percent.
• 1-year ARMs: averaged 2.42 percent, with an average 0.4 point, holding the same average as last week. A year ago, 1-year ARMs averaged 2.64 percent.

Source: Freddie Mac

Home Owners are Tapping Into Equity, Again

Home Owners are Tapping Into Equity, Again. Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Home equity lines of credit surged nearly 20 percent compared to a year ago and are now at the highest level since the 12 months ending in June 2009, according to RealtyTrac’s Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) Trends Report. HELOC origination’s comprised 15.4 percent of all loan origination’s nationwide during the first eight months of the year, the highest percentage since 2008.

“This recent rise in HELOC originations indicates that an increasing number of home owners are gaining confidence in the strength of the housing recovery and, more importantly, have regained much of their home equity lost during the housing crisis,” says Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.

Nearly 10 million home owners nationwide, representing 19 percent of all home owners with a mortgage, have regained at least 50 percent equity in their homes, RealtyTrac data shows. Meanwhile the percentage of home owners with severe negative equity has fallen from 29 percent in the second quarter of 2012 to 17 percent in the second quarter of this year, Blomquist notes.

Despite home equity lines of credit rising significantly in the past year, they still remain 76 percent below the 2006 peak reached during the housing boom, RealtyTrac notes.

Among the nation’s largest metro areas tracked, 49 out of 50 posted year-over-year increases in HELOC originations for the year ending June 2014 (the lone exception was Rochester, N.Y.).

The following metro areas had the largest year-over-year increases in HELOC originations:

• Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif.: +87.7%
• Las Vegas: 85.1%
• Cincinnati: 81%
• Sacramento, Calif.: 65.1%
• Phoenix: 60.1%

Source: RealtyTrac