Posts Tagged ‘home rentals’
While inventories of homes for sale have been shrinking this spring, MLSs are filling the void with rental listings for single family homes that until recently were foreclosures. Some 16.1 percent of all listings on MLSs today are rentals, more than double the number in 2006.
Single family rentals are $3 trillion business today and growing as investors turn to real estate and opt to rent out the bargains they buy until prices improve. Today the single family rental market accounts for 21 million rental units or 52 percent of the entire residential rental market, according to a new study by CoreLogic economist Sam Khater.
Yet the single family rental market is poorly understood and almost invisible to economists and journalists because virtually all rental market data tracks multifamily properties and either ignores the single family segment or lumps it together with multifamily.
“Single family rentals are very distinct from multifamily and they behave very differently,” said Khater in an interview with Real Estate Economy Watch. For example, on a per unit basis, rents for single family rentals run 1.5 to 1.6 times higher than multifamily. Unlike multifamily, millions of single family rentals are listed on MLSs by real estate brokers, many of who represent new owners in acquiring investment properties. As the for-sale inventory has trended down since 2005, the rental share rose 13.3 percent last year alone. As of the end of last year rental closings were up 11.5 percent year-over-year while prices fell 9.8 percent during the year. Demand is strong. The national average months’ supply for single family rentals was 4.5 months in December compared to 6.2 months for homes listed for sale.”
Another important difference is the nature of the tenants. Single family rentals, usually stand-alone properties in ownership settings, appeal more to families. In fact, the typical SFR tenant is a family that has just left a foreclosure and can afford to pay the rent on a former foreclosure but could not make the mortgage payment on their old home, perhaps because they bought with alternative financing or purchased at the peak and could not get a modification when their home lost value. Over the past five years, foreclosures have turned more than 3 million homeowners into renters. Typical multifamily tenants, however, are younger, generally single and more mobile, and have never owned a home.
Khater found a strong relationship between distress sales markets and single family rentals. Census data shows a correlation between single family rentals and the hardest hit areas of the so-called “sand states”-Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada. Investors buying REOs and short sales in foreclosure markets convert them to rental units and homeowners in the same locale who have lost their homes to foreclosure rent homes that until recently were owned by other families who suffered the same ill fortune.
Written by: Steve Cook Mon, April 23, 2012
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Renting used to be cheaper than buying. But in many U.S. cities that’s no longer the case, as rents continue to climb and home prices stagnate.
While asking prices for homes declined 0.7% over the past 12 months through March, rents rose 5%, according to a report released Thursday by real estate listing site Trulia.
“Buying a home is more affordable than renting now in almost every part of the United States,” said Jed Kolko, chief economist for Trulia.
Several metro areas recorded double-digit percentage increases in rental rates.
In Sarasota, Fla., the average rent jumped 12.9% year-over-year, the biggest increase of any of the 100 largest metro areas Trulia surveyed.Miami and San Francisco saw the next biggest increases, with rent hikes of 12.1% and 11.1%, respectively.
The metro areas that sustained the highest rent increases were a decidedly mixed bag, but obviously shared one factor: rising demand for a limited supply of rental units.
The national vacancy rate for apartments fell 0.3 percentage points during the first quarter to 4.9%, its lowest point since late 2001, according to a separate report from Reis Inc., a real estate research firm. With such limited availability, it has put pressure on rentals of all types.
In cities like Miami that were hit hard by the housing bust and recorded a high number of foreclosures, all of the displaced residents have to live somewhere.
Other cities have put constraints on the construction of new multi-family housing, thereby limiting supply. For example, in San Francisco, where the median rent is a whopping $2,625, there are few tracts of land available to develop, raising demand for housing and pushing rents there higher.
Several Rust-Belt cities also saw large rent increases in the past year, including Indianapolis, where rents went up 9.7%, and Columbus, Ohio, where they jumped 9.3%.
These cities have seen big gains in the industrial sector, which have led to a growing number of jobs and higher rents, said Kolko. As hiring levels off, he does not expect the big rent increases to continue.
Meanwhile, asking prices for homes nationwide crept lower over the past 12 months, according to Trulia.
That, along with record low mortgage rates, has made buying a home more affordable than it’s ever been and a bargain compared to renting. However, many Americans will not be able to seize this historic opportunity to become homeowners, said Kolko.
Unemployed, too broke to come up with a down payment or with credit scores too battered to qualify for a mortgage, many people simply cannot qualify to buy a home right now, according to Kolko
With fewer consumers able to make the leap into homeownership, rents could continue to climb higher, he said. 
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — At least 20 times a day, Alan Hladik walks into a fixer-upper and tries to figure out if it is worth buying.
Alan Hladik, inspecting a home in California, uses an iPad to calculate the cost to renovate homes for rentals.
As an inspector for the Waypoint Real Estate Group, Mr. Hladik takes about 20 minutes to walk through each home, noting worn kitchen cabinets or missing roof tiles. The blistering pace is necessary to keep up with Waypoint’s appetite: the company, which has bought about 1,200 homes since 2008 — and is now buying five to seven a day — is an early entrant in a business that some deep-pocketed investors are betting is poised to explode.
With home prices down more than a third from their peak and the market swamped with foreclosures, large investors are salivating at the opportunity to buy perhaps thousands of homes at deep discounts and fill them with tenants. Nobody has ever tried this on such a large scale, and critics worry these new investors could face big challenges managing large portfolios of dispersed rental houses. Typically, landlords tend to be individuals or small firms that own just a handful of homes.
But the new investors believe the rental income can deliver returns well above those offered by Treasury securities or stock dividends. At the same time, economists say, they could help areas hardest hit by the housing crash reach a bottom of the market.
This year, Waypoint signed a $400 million deal with GI Partners, a private equity firm in Silicon Valley. Gary Beasley, Waypoint’s managing director, says the company plans to buy 10,000 to 15,000 more homes by the end of next year. Other large private equity investors — including Colony Capital, GTIS Partners and Oaktree Capital Management, in partnership with the Carrington Holding Company — have committed millions to this new market, and Lewis Ranieri, often called the inventor of the mortgage bond, is considering it, too.
In February, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees the government-backed mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, announced that it would sell about 2,500 homes in a pilot program in eight metropolitan areas, including Atlanta, Chicago and Los Angeles.
And Bank of America said in late March that it would begin testing a plan to allow homeowners facing foreclosure the chance to rent back their homes and wipe out their mortgage debt. Eventually, the bank said, it could sell the houses to investors.
Waypoint executives say they can handle large volumes because they have developed computer systems that help them make quick buying decisions and manage renovations and rentals.
“We realized that there is a tremendous amount of brain damage around acquiring single-family homes, renovating them and renting them out,” said Colin Wiel, a Waypoint co-founder. “We think this is a huge opportunity and we are going to treat it like a factory and create a production line to do this.”
Mr. Hladik, who is one of seven inspectors working full time for Waypoint’s Southern California office, is one cog in that production line.
On a recent morning, he walked through a vacant three-bedroom home with a red tiled roof here about 60 miles east of Los Angeles, one of the areas flooded with foreclosures after the housing market bust. Scribbling on a clipboard, he noted the dated bathroom vanities, the tatty family room carpet and a hole in a bedroom wall. Twenty minutes later, he plugged these details into a program on his iPad, choosing from drop-down menus to indicate the house had dual pane windows and that the kitchen appliances needed replacing.
The software calculated that it would take $25,413.53 to get the home in rental shape. Mr. Hladik adjusted that estimate down to $18,400 because he deemed the landscaping in good shape. He uploaded his report to Waypoint’s database, where appraisers and executives would use the calculations to determine whether and how much to bid for the house.
With just three years of experience, Waypoint is one of the industry’s grizzled veterans. But critics say newcomers could stumble. “It’s a very inefficient way to run a rental business,” said Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist at Mizuho Securities USA. “You could wind up with an inexperienced group owning properties that just deteriorate.”
The big investors are wooed by what they see as a vast opportunity. There are close to 650,000 foreclosed properties sitting on the books of lenders, according to RealtyTrac, a data provider. An additional 710,000 are in the foreclosure process, and according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, about 3.25 million borrowers are delinquent on their loansand in danger of losing their homes.
With so many families displaced from their homes by foreclosure, rental demand is rising. Others who might previously have bought are now unable to qualify for loans. The homeownership rate has dropped from a peak of 69.2 percent in 2004 to 66 percent at the end of 2011, according to census data.
Economists say that these investors could help stabilize home prices. “If you have a lot of foreclosures in one community you will improve everybody’s home values if you take them off the market,” said Diane Swonk, the chief economist at Mesirow Financial. “If those homes are renovated and even rented, it is a lot better than having them stand empty.”
Until now, Waypoint, which focuses on the Bay Area and Southern California, has been buying foreclosed properties one by one in courthouse auctions or through traditional real estate agents.
The company, founded by Mr. Wiel, a former Boeing engineer and software entrepreneur, and Doug Brien, a one-time N.F.L. place-kicker who had invested in apartment buildings, evaluates each purchase using data from multiple listing services, Google maps and reports from its own inspectors and appraisers.
An algorithm calculates a maximum bid for each home, taking into account the cost of renovations, the potential rent and target investment returns — right now the company averages about 8 percent per property on rental income alone. By 5:30 on a recent morning, Joe Maehler, a regional director in Waypoint’s Southern California office, had logged onto his computer and pulled up a list of about 70 foreclosed properties that were being auctioned later that day in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties.
Alan Hladlik, an inspector for Waypoint Real Estate Group, looked at a property in Riverside, Calif.
Looking at a three-bedroom bungalow in San Bernardino, he saw that Waypoint’s system had calculated a bid of $103,000. Mr. Maehler, who previously advised investors on commercial mortgage-backed securities deals, clicked on a map and saw that rents on comparable homes the company already owned could justify a higher offer. The house also had a pool, which warranted another price bump.
By the time the auctioneer opened the bidding on the lawn in front of the San Bernardino County Courthouse at $114,750, Mr. Maehler had authorized a maximum bid of just over $130,000.
As the auction proceeded, Waypoint’s bidder at the courthouse remained on the phone with Mr. Maehler in the company’s Irvine office about 50 miles away.
“Stay on it,” Mr. Maehler urged as the bidding went up in $100 increments. The bidder clinched it for $129,400.
The sting of the housing collapse, driven in part by investors who bought large bundles of securities backed by bad mortgages, makes some critics wary of the emerging market.
“I don’t have a lot of confidence that private market actors who now see another use for these houses as rentals, as opposed to owner-occupied, are necessarily going to be any more responsible financially or responsive to community needs,” said Michael Johnson, professor of public policy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Waypoint executives say they plan to be long-term landlords, and usually sign two-year leases. Once the company buys a property, it typically paints the house and installs new carpets, kitchen appliances and bathroom fixtures, spending an average of $20,000 to $25,000. It tries to keep existing occupants in the house — although only 10 percent have stayed so far — and offer tenants the chance to build toward a future down payment.
Waypoint’s inspectors are evaluating hundreds of properties that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are offering for sale. Because the inspectors are not allowed inside these homes, they are driving by 40 of them a day, estimating renovation costs by looking at eaves, windows and the conditions of lawns.
Rick Magnuson, executive managing director of GI Partners, Waypoint’s largest investment partner, said “the jury is still out” on whether Waypoint — or any other investor — can manage such a large portfolio. But, he said, “with the technology at Waypoint, we think they can get there.”
By MOTOKO RICH
Published: April 2, 2012
Plenty of windows give a true feeling of the Colorado beauty: view the snow capped peaks and trees every day in lovely Soda Creek, Evergreen. This home has a flat driveway with ample parking to accommodate an RV. Approximately 10 acres with 2-3 acres fenced. School bus drop off at the end of the road. Upstairs/downstairs decks connected by a dramatic spiral staircase much outdoor living and a hot tub. Hard to believe that this lovely setting with little traffic is only minutes to the grocery store as well as I-70 for an easy commute.
Wonderful stainless/granite tile kitchen with eat in space & hardwood floors as well as a formal dining room. The home has a gas log fireplace, vaulted beamed ceilings. The master suite includes a five piece bath and large walk in closet. Total 4 bedrooms and 3 baths, large laundry room, and lots of storage. Many areas suitable for a home office and lots of entertaining space. Three car oversize garage. This is a smoke free non smoking home and it is lovely with a western mountain feel.
This property is apart of our Lease your Listing (LYL) rental program which means it will be listed for sale by the owners during this rental period. Because of this lower rent price offered, the tenant could be asked to move during their term of the lease with a 30 day notice if this property goes under contract and their loan terms are approved by their bank. Additionally this tenant must allow showings with a 24 hour notice, have home in show quality condition before showings. Please be aware of these conditions for THIS house prior to contacting Executive Home Rentals to schedule a showing
$2,495 Per Month
Contact Us
Executive Home Rentals
(303) 988-9999
BY NICK TIMIRAOS, ROBBIE WHELAN AND MATT PHILLIPS
Some of the biggest names on Wall Street are lining up to become landlords to cash-strapped Americans by bidding on pools of foreclosed properties being sold by Fannie Mae.
The idea is that the new owners would rent out the homes at first rather than reselling—potentially aiding a housing-market recovery by reducing the number of properties clogging the market. The fact that big-name investors are interested also suggests they anticipate sizable future profits in housing.
Bulk sales, however, pose a trade-off. While the current approach of selling homes one-by-one has its own high costs and is sometimes inefficient, selling properties …
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303863404577285791317719200.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
By Motoko Rich, New York Times News Service
The housing market remains a potent drag on the economy as home prices continue to slip, foreclosed homes fill some neighborhoods, and millions of construction workers scramble for jobs.
But one group is sitting pretty: landlords.
Unlike home prices, rents have been rising, up 2.4 percent in January from a year earlier, according to recent data, not adjusted for inflation, released by the Labor Department.
With few rental buildings erected over the past few years, available units are going fast. Nationwide, the apartment vacancy rate is down to 5.2 percent, its lowest level in more than a decade, according to the research firm Reis Inc.
Rent increases are greatest in places like San Francisco; Austin, Texas; and Boston, where technology companies in particular are hiring, as well as in New York City and Washington, D.C. But cities like Chicago and Seattle, where house prices are still declining quite sharply, have had rental increases, too.
“We are more of a renter nation than we have been for a while,” said Christopher J. Mayer, a professor of real estate at the Columbia University Business School.
Economists suggest favorable conditions for landlords will continue for at least a year, with employment gradually rising and apartment construction remaining constrained.
As job growth has begun to accelerate in recent months, young people are starting to move out of their parents’ homes or away from shared rooms and into their own rentals. Families who might previously have bought homes are also staying in rentals longer. They may be waiting for the housing market to hit bottom or finding it difficult to qualify for a mortgage.
Many others remain uncertain about their job prospects and wary of the obligations of ownership after the housing bust.
When Charles Griffith moved with his wife and two children to Orlando, Fla., last fall, they chose a new two-bedroom apartment for $1,140 a month. They left a four-bedroom, 2-1/2-bath house they had bought a decade ago in Antioch, Calif. His brother-in-law has moved in and taken over the mortgage payments.
Griffith, who works as a supervisor for Southwest Airlines, and his wife, a customer service representative for the airline, are enjoying the flexibility and convenience of renting, as well as amenities like a pool.
“We kind of like the situation now of not having to be under so much pressure,” said Griffith, 40, adding that the family may eventually buy in Orlando. But “with the economy and the airline industry, that factors into us thinking maybe we should hold off for a while.”
The home ownership rate has been falling from its peak of 69.4 percent in 2004, according to census data. By the fourth quarter of 2011, it was down to 66 percent. That means about 2 million more households are renting, said Kenneth Rosen, an economist and professor of real estate at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
Not all those people are choosing apartments, of course. Some are moving into single-family homes left vacant by foreclosures. Eager to capitalize on the trend, investors are scooping up some houses at a deep discount and leasing them to tenants who have lost their own homes.
Several prominent hedge funds and private equity firms have recently announced plans to invest in distressed properties and convert them to rentals. And earlier this month, the government solicited applications from investors interested in buying pools of foreclosed properties held by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as the Federal Housing Administration.
Investors could help the market by turning empty houses into rentals, said Diane Swonk, an economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago.
“It can make the difference between a neighborhood being literally like Detroit — dead forever — or a neighborhood that has another chance at life,” she said.
Still, it is apartments, not houses, that are in the most rental demand.
Although many families crushed by the recession have doubled up and plenty of underemployed 20-somethings are living with their parents, some young people are finally getting their own space. Nearly 60 percent of job gains in the past two years have gone to people who are 20-34, a crucial rental group, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by G. Ronald Witten, a consultant to apartment companies.
During the economic downturn, apartment developers retrenched. The number of new apartments completed fell from 284,200 in 2006 to less than half that number in 2011, according to census data.
The limited supply is pushing up prices in some markets. In San Francisco, rents jumped close to 5 percent last year, according to Reis, and increases averaged 3 percent in Austin and New York. Landlords have also been withdrawing incentives like a free month’s rent.
Liz Brent and Matt Mochizuki moved into a studio apartment a year ago in the Mission District in San Francisco for $1,395 a month. Now they want more space.
Brent, 26, makes costumes and is working as a barista at a cafe where customers leave big tips. Mochizuki, 27, has a steady job with a metal fabricating studio. They are budgeting $1,800 a month in rent.
But at an open house for an apartment billed as a one bedroom, they found a studio with an awkward layout and bad light. More than 40 people were in line, many ready to hand over a check.
“That’s what the market is like now,” Brent said of her fruitless search. “That’s how many people showed up for this tiny apartment with no windows.”
A few metropolitan areas are experiencing a much softer rental market. In Atlanta, owners of vacant condos are lowering rents to attract tenants, and in Las Vegas, homes are taking six weeks to lease and rents are still well below their peaks, said C. Terry Robertson, broker of Desert Realty.
Orlando might seem an unlikely place for rental strength. The unemployment rate, at 9.7 percent, is higher than the national average, and home prices slipped 4.6 percent last year, according to the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller home price index.
Yet Ric Campo, chief executive of Camden Properties, a real estate investment trust that owns apartment buildings, said rental business was brisk at its LaVina development. Since the office for the 420-unit complex opened last summer, more than half the apartments have rented.
That’s “a faster rate than we’ve ever seen in Orlando,” Campo said. The company has raised the base rent on a two-bedroom apartment to $1,080, from $995 a month.
Many are left to wonder whether the housing collapse has had a more profound effect.
“I think it’s going to be interesting to see whether there’s been a fundamental sociological shift in that 20-35 year old cohort, where they literally say ‘this American dream just doesn’t work for me,”’ said Brad Forrester, chief executive of the ConAm Group, which manages about 50,000 apartments in the western United States.
Matt Byford, a 24-year-old litigation consultant in Chicago, is certainly in no hurry to buy. He has been renting in the Lincoln Park neighborhood since his college days.
Given the low purchase prices and record low interest rates, Byford acknowledges that the financial scale probably tips more toward buying than renting. “Since I can pretty much assume with confidence that it’s not going to go anywhere,” he said, “I don’t necessarily have a sense of urgency.”
By Lou Carlozo
Wed Feb 15, 2012 12:05pm EST
(Reuters) – Rich Arzaga owns a luxury home in San Ramon, California, but he’s not betting on it as an investment.
The founder and CEO of Cornerstone Wealth Management, who bought the 5,000 sq. ft. property in 2005 for $1.8 million and has spent $500,000 improving it, considers the abode a wonderful place for his family. But ask him to rate his home — or any home, for that matter — as a financial investment, and Arzaga balks.
“It’s the American Dream to own a home, but whoever said that didn’t do the analysis on it,” says Arzaga, knowing he’s taking a contrarian stance to conventional wisdom.
Examining 250 properties around the U.S., and going through close to 40 client files to project the financial impact of owning real estate versus liquidating it, Arzaga, an adjunct professor in personal finance at the University of California at Berkeley, found that, “100 percent of the time it was better to rent, rather than own.”
That’s right: 100 percent.
The reason is simple. While a home is the main repository of wealth for many Americans, it comes with numerous hefty expenses. The carrying costs – what’s needed to hold and maintain the asset – range from property taxes and home insurance to emergency repairs and renovations. In a rental situation, the landlord covers those costs, leaving the occupant free to invest revenue in other areas.
“I don’t have the emotions a lot of people do surrounding real estate,” Arzaga says. “I have steely eyes for how investing in real estate works, and I’d better be a prudent investor for my clients.”
Owning a dream home, he says, creates a drain on other financial priorities, causing homeowners “not to meet their financial goals. They were going to fail.”
Some real estate experts thought there was some truth to Arzaga’s argument, albeit with several conditions.
“To state that owning a home is or isn’t a good investment is too simplistic,” says Jeffrey Rogers, president and COO of Integra Realty Resources. “It depends. In times of relatively higher rents, low home values, and low interest rates, it makes sense to own a home. But in a reverse market, it wouldn’t be economically feasible. Over time, those who purchase in down or flat markets with low interest rates come out ahead.”
“Our lifetimes are a long time, and when we look over the long term, real estate and other investments tend to have a positive return,” says Jed Kolko, chief economist at Trulia.com,
a real estate search and research website. “But when it comes to real estate, changing your mind is expensive. There are a lot of costs involved in buying, selling and moving. If you move every two years, it’s probably a bad investment for you. It also depends on your job market. If you’re in a one-company town and the company goes down, there goes your job and there goes your home value.”
Greg McBride, a senior analyst at Bankrate.com, agrees with one point of Arzaga’s. “Home ownership is not so much a creator of wealth as a store of wealth,” he says. “The promise of home ownership is that over the long haul, it can rebate many or perhaps all of your costs, unlike rent, which doesn’t rebate a dime.”
The trouble, he says, is that many Americans want a home so badly, they neglect other ways to grow wealth and financial security.
“You have the other financial bases covered: emergency savings, retirement savings, paying off debt, saving for the education of your children,” McBride says. “There’s no sense in buying a home if it’s going to deplete your emergency or retirement savings.”
McBride crunched the numbers in a pre-bubble era (2004) for a home purchased at $200,000 by a buyer in the 27 percent marginal tax bracket. Factoring in a 30-year mortgage, $1,200 in annual home insurance, closing costs of $5,500 and maintenance costs of $100 a month, along with property taxes, he calculated that it would take a selling price, 10 years later, of $395,404 just to break even. His conclusion gave Arzaga’s view credence: “Homeownership may not be the moneymaker you think it is.” (See the full chart at link.reuters.com/hej66s)
Then there’s the emergency fund, a must for when a home requires unexpected repair work.
“As far as emergency savings is concerned, six months of a cushion is adequate,” McBride says. “But only 24 percent of people have that kind of cushion, and about 65 percent own homes.”
So while home ownership may sound glamorous, you need a lot of money to make it work, without much guarantee of positive returns in a post-bubble era. Indeed, Arzaga cites himself as an example of how home ownership doesn’t pay off. His residence is today worth $1.5 million, about 17 percent less than what he paid.
So why not sell? For Arzaga, it’s a lifestyle choice, and one that he doesn’t regret, since his big money-making investments are elsewhere.
(Editing by Bernadette Baum, Beth Pinsker Gladstone and Andrew Hay)
In previous years, it was embarrassing to say you rent. Today, in most cases, it is embarrassing to say you own. According to the US Census Bureau, the U.S. homeownership rate has fallen about 1.5% over the past year (from 66.9% to 65.9%). For every 1% drop in the homeownership rate, it represents approximately 1 million new renters entering the rental market.
In some cases, homeownership rates have fallen below some European countries. Italy for example, has an 84% homeownership rate. Along with Spain with a 78% homeownership rate.
High unemployment rates, difficulty in getting financing, changing demographics and increased foreclosure rates are adding to the deceleration of homeownership. In 2011, there was a 4% increase in the amount of renting households compared to 2010.
In the United States, homeownership is the least in states like California (56%), New York (54%) and Washington at (64%). States with the highest homeownership rates are Michigan (75%), Mississippi (75%), South Carolina (75%) and West Virginia at (79%).
Rental vacancy rates dropped to 5.6 percent in the third quarter of 2011, down from their record high of 8 percent in 2009, according to Reis Inc. This increase in rental demand is putting upward pressure on rental prices throughout the United States. As more foreclosures and new apartment buildings enter the market, the rental rates should stabilize and reach equilibrium.
Renting is the new buying and this trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
RentBits, Rental Property Search
The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage dropped to the lowest since records have been kept, creating a tempting target for people to refinance their homes.
Freddie Mac said Thursday the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage hit 3.87 percent, down from 3.98 percent the prior week. That’s below the previous record of 3.88 hit two weeks ago.
The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage fell to 3.14 percent, also a record low. Records for mortgage rates
date back to the 1950s.
Mortgage rates tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which fell below 1.9 percent this week.
Mortgage rates have hovered near 4 percent for the past three months, and have perhaps contributed to a slight improvement in the housing market. But many homeowners remain underwater and the pipeline of foreclosures continues to be huge, putting heavy pressure on housing prices.
High unemployment and scant wage gains have made it harder for many people to qualify for loans. Many don’t want to sink money into a home that they fear could lose value over the next few years.
Sales of previously occupied homes were dismal last year. New-home sales in 2011 were the worst on records going back half a century.
Builders are hopeful that the low rates could boost sales next year. But so far, they have had a minimal impact.
Mortgage applications have risen slightly over the past four weeks, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. But they are coming off extremely low levels.
To calculate the average rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country Monday through Wednesday of each week.
The average rates don’t include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.
The average fee for the 30-year loan rose to 0.8 from 0.7; the average on the 15-year fixed mortgage was unchanged at 0.8.
For the five-year adjustable loan, the average rate fell to 2.80 percent from 2.85 percent. The average on the one-year adjustable loan rose to 2.76 percent from 2.74 percent.
The average fee on the five-year adjustable loan rose was unchanged at 0.7; the average on the one-year adjustable
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This 5 Bedroom plus office 31/2 bath offers amazing views from the patio deck. Large entry area with high ceilings. Large family room with fireplace. Enjoy cooking in the chefs kitchen with cherry cabinets and granite counter top breakfast bar. Formal dinning room. Also located on the main floor are two additional bedrooms. Upstairs is the master bedroom with two walk outs with one walk out leading to the patio deck for enjoying views and eating. Master bath with dual sinks and double head shower. An additional bedroom is also located on the top floor. Downstairs from the main level has a big bedroom room and an office/workout. The laundry room is also located downstairs. Attached 3 car garage
A majority of Americans recently surveyed say now is a good time to buy a home. That’s no surprise, given that record-low mortgage interest rates and bargain home prices are boosting affordability.
But selling a home? That’s a different story. According to 71% of the 1,000 people surveyed by Fannie Mae in December, now is a good time to buy a house. But only 11% think it’s a good time to sell.
That’s because sellers sense that even if the housing market and the economy continue to show signs of improvement in 2012, the good news likely won’t be good enough for buyers to return to the market in droves—even if they can buy a home for a steal.
“For people to start buying in larger volume, they need to see home prices go up a bit,” says Ingo Winzer, president of Local Market Monitor, a firm that analyzes housing markets for bankers.
Many potential buyers also are waiting to see the jobs picture improve, which will give them confidence in the stability of their own employment, Mr. Winzer says.
Improvements Ahead
Still, various forecasts and surveys suggest better times for the housing market this year:
Sales of existing homes are expected to grow between 2% and 5% in 2012, according a recent forecast from Freddie Mac.
A recent survey of about 1,000 Re/Max real-estate agents found that 39% of agents think prices have hit bottom in their market, while almost 75% think home prices in their markets will have stopped declining by the end of 2012.
The number of improving housing markets rose to 76 in January, from 41 in December, according to the Improving Markets Index, from First American Financial Corp. and the National Association of Home Builders.
Nationwide, home prices are expected to be relatively flat in 2012, says Alex Villacorta, director of research and analytics at Clear Capital, a provider of real-estate asset-valuation data for financial-services companies. Indeed, 2012 seems to be a turning point before a healthier and sustained recovery in 2013, he says.
If You Can Hold Out
While now still may not be the perfect time to sell a home, it may be time for home sellers to get their places ready for a sale next year.
Of course, markets vary. Prices already are on the rise in some places, including parts of Florida, Washington, D.C., and Dayton, Ohio, Mr. Villacorta says.
But other markets—including Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit and Las Vegas—continue to be on a “downward slide,” according to a December report from Realtor.com.
Either way, holding out until next year could mean a quicker and more profitable sale.
“From a seller’s point of view, it’s still a little early, though tempting, to put the house up for sale and expect a lot of demand,” Mr. Villacorta says. “Unless there are circumstances that dictate they have to sell now, certainly waiting and tracking the markets a little bit more would be a more prudent thing to do.”
Still, some sellers have delayed their moving decisions for years now. For those champing at the bit to make a sale and move on with their lives, 2012 may offer glimmers of hope.
“There are a lot of people over the last few years that decided to put their life on hold,” says Budge Huskey, president of real-estate brokerage Coldwell Banker. Some now are saying, ‘I’ve waited long enough. I can’t put life on hold forever,’ ” Mr. Huskey says.
The market is finally nearing the point where people who don’t need to sell for financial reasons are starting to consider a move for lifestyle-related reasons, he says, such as a growing family that would be more comfortable in a larger home.
The good news for them: Inventory plunged to a 6.2-month supply in December, from a 12.4 month supply in July 2010, according to the National Association of Realtors. That means there are fewer sellers competing for buyers. (The month-supply figure is how long it would take to sell all the homes on the market now based on the current rate of sales per month. The higher the number, the more sellers there are looking for buyers.)
If You Can’t Wait
If you plan to sell a home this year, get the house in the best possible condition and price it to sell before it hits the market, Mr. Huskey says.
An appealing online listing, complete with quality photographs, is also crucial to bring traffic to your home.
“The buyer has the opportunity to prescreen all the homes online and see only the few that really shine online,” Mr. Huskey says, so a seller should do everything he or she can to get on a buyer’s shortlist of homes to physically visit.
Write to Amy Hoak at amy.hoak@dowjones.com
Amy Hoak is a reporter for MarketWatch. Read more at marketwatch.com.
This 3 bedroom 3 bath home with office offers a spacious floor plan with high ceilings. As you walk into this home you notice hard wood floors, to your left you have an office complete with french doors. Next to your office you have a formal dinning room. Enjoy cooking in a chefs kitchen kitchen with granite counter tops, lots of counter space, with large pantry and dark wood cabinetry, a large breakfast nook is also next to the kitchen with great views from the table. Relax in a comfy living room with fireplace. Off the living room is a large Master bedroom with a walk out to the deck. Master bath with shower and tub. Attached to the master bath is a large walk in closet for getting ready for the day. Also on the main floor is an additional full bathroom and bedroom. Easy access from the attached 2 car garage to the main floor. Downstairs you have a wet bar with full refrigerator, Also a huge warm family room complete with fireplace. An additional large bedroom is also downstairs. Another full bath is downstairs as well. Enjoy the mountain views on the wrap around deck great for barbequing. All yard maintenance and up keep is provided at no cost to the tenants. Close distance to Chatfield Reservoir for boating, camping, and swimming. Close to C-470. Short distance to restaurants and schools. This property is available full furnished included in the rental price.
Rent: $2,200
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The housing sector will likely take incremental steps forward in 2012, though total originations will fall on fewer refinances, according to economists at Fannie Mae.
The second half of the year should outpace the first six months in terms of growth, though fiscal policy and political uncertainty in Washington will likely drive consumer and business activity, the mortgage giant said.
Chief Economist Doug Duncan said positive consumer activity and challenges in housing and the global economy will equate to moderate growth for the year.
“We’re entering 2012 with decent momentum, especially on the employment side, which is fostering positive household and consumer behavior,” Duncan said in a release. “Unfortunately, we expect this momentum to slow as we move through the first half of the year.”
The report released Friday forecast total home sales to increase 3.5% to about 4.74 million in 2012 from 2011 with another 5% gain in 2013 to nearly 5 million. New home sales could jump 10.4% for 2012.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency home sales price index, excluding refinances, could dip 1.1% for 2012 from a year before, according to the forecast. Economists predicted the 2011 index would finish 4.6% lower than 2010.
Mortgage originations as dollar volume could see a decline as well in 2012, largely on a steep drop in refinances. The Fannie report said total originations will fall to $1.01 trillion in 2012 from a predicted final 2011 tally of $1.36 trillion. Economists expected refinancing to plummet to $540 billion from $894 billion.
Purchase mortgages, however, will rise to $471 billion in 2012 from a estimated 2011 total of $464, according to the report.
Total single-family outstanding mortgage debt will likely drop 1.3% to $10.14 trillion in 2012.
For the U.S. economy as a whole, Fannie researchers predicted real GDP would increase 3.3% in the fourth quarter to finish the year at 1.7% growth. Economists forecast 2.3% GDP growth for 2012 and 2013.
Write to Andrew Scoggin.
Follow him on Twitter @ascoggin.
Freddie Mac recently released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey®, showing mortgage rates easing to new all-time record lows for all products covered in the survey helping to keep homebuyer affordability high. The average for the 30-year fixed mortgage rate has been below 4.00 percent for six consecutive weeks.
The survey concluded that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.89 percent, with an average 0.7 point for the week ending January 12, 2012, down from last week when it averaged 3.91 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.71 percent.
The 15-year FRM this week averaged 3.16 percent with an average 0.8 point, down from last week when it averaged 3.23 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 4.08 percent.
Additionally, the 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 2.82 percent this week, with an average 0.7 point, down from last week when it averaged 2.86 percent. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 3.72 percent.
Results showed that the 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 2.76 percent this week with an average 0.6 point, down from last week when it averaged 2.80 percent. At this time last year, the 1-year ARM averaged 3.23 percent.
“Mortgage rates eased slightly this week to all-time record lows following mixed indicators in the labor market,” says Frank Nothaft, the vice president and chief economist of Freddie Mac. “Although the economy added 1.6 million jobs in 2011, which was the most since 2006, the unemployment rate remained historically elevated.”
For more information, visit www.freddiemac.com
The stars are aligned to make 2012 an extraordinary year for rental income. The decline in homeownership is translating into rising rents and the multifamily apartment sector, though booming today, was late catching the wave. If it weren’t for the new investor-driven single family rentals in many markets, rents would be zooming even higher than they already are.
The New Normal in Homeownership Creates Demand
Changing attitudes towards homeownership have been pushing up rental demand since 2004, before the housing bust. The number of homeowner households declined by 805,000 from 2006 to 2010 and the number of renters rose steadily for six consecutive years, increasing 3.9 million during that period, according to Census data. The net increase of in 2012 alone was 1.4 million new rental households, a 1.5 percent decline in the national homeownership rate and a 4 percent rise in the number of tenants.
Much of the rental demand is from younger households that are postponing or even canceling homeownership in favor of renting. The decline in the homeownership rate has been sharpest for those household heads under 30 years of age. Owner rates have fallen by 4.4 percent (to 21.9 percent) for those under 25 years of age and by 7.0 percent (to 34.7 percent) for those aged 25 to 29 years, according to Freddie Mac.
Multifamily Struggles to Keep Up
Multifamily rental housing can’t keep up with the demand. Census Bureau reported that third quarter vacancies for rental housing were only 9.2 percent, 1.4 points lower than a year ago and .5 percent below the first quarter. We haven’t seen a 9.2 percent vacancy rate since 2003. A Reis Inc. survey of professionally managed buildings in metropolitan markets found vacancy rates stood at 5.9 percent during the third quarter, the lowest since 2007 for that class of apartment.
Apartment developers and investors are a conservative lot and they took a wait-and-see attitude towards the rapid and dramatic changes in the rental market. Now, however, things are popping. In November starts of residential developments with two or more units saw a 25.3 percent increase from the previous month , the construction of apartments, town houses and other multifamily developments, evidence that rising demand for rental housing has encouraged developers to begin building again. Newly issued building permits, a gauge of future construction, climbed 5.7 percent in November from a month earlier to an annual rate of 681,000, a 24.3 percent increase from November 2010 and the highest rate since March 2010. The overwhelming majority are for multifamily units.
Even so, developers can’t keep up. Two-thirds of developers surveyed in the third quarter by the National Multifamily Housing Council said construction activity is underway, and 20 percent are breaking ground on new projects at a rapid clip. The other 47 percent reported an increase in pre-construction activities-acquiring land, lining up financing, getting building permits-but not much actual construction yet. Yet even with this increased activity, more than half (54 percent) think new development remains considerably below demand.
Single Family Fills the Void
In the dorky world of real estate economics, single family rentals are the newest kid on the block. Just recently have databases serving the residential investor tracked single family apart from multifamily, but it’s very clear that in many markets today single family rentals are taking up the slack. From 2005 to 2010, single-family rentals grew at 21 percent versus just a 4 percent increase in total housing units, according to Zelman Associates.
Single family demand is closely linked to foreclosure activity in the hardest hit markets as families displaced by foreclosure prefer to rent a single family home rather than crowd into an apartment. In hot foreclosure markets attractive to investors, such as Nevada, Arizona and Florida, single-family rental units have increased 48 percent, while apartment units were virtually unchanged. According to the Census Bureau, since 2004 there are 3.60 million homes built for sale that are being utilized as rental today.
2012 Rental Outlook
The national median rental rate rose to $1,004 in the third quarter, up from $981 in the third quarter of 2010, according to Reis Inc. Although overall rent growth will vary greatly by metro, on a national median rent increase will come in somewhere between 2.5 to 4.0 percent for 2011, depending on whose data you use.
However, 2012 could be even better. Fannie Mae is currently projecting that average asking rents on a national basis could experience an annualized increase of between 2.0 percent and 3.0 percent. Others are less conservative. The National Association of Realtors forecasts multifamily rents to rise 3.5 percent next year. Axiometrics’ research forecasts a national rental growth rate of 5.5 percent. Christina Aragon, Director of Marketing and Customer Insights at Rent.com, predicts the vacancy rate will hover at a only 5 percent and rents will explode. Now, Aragon expects rents to spike 7 percent or so in each of the next two years.
As we all know, there is no such thing as a “national” real estate market. Numbers like those cited above are merely estimates of national medians across hundreds of local markets. Relying on a national real estate forecast to predict prices or rents in your market is like using a national weather forecast to tell you whether it will rain in your backyard this afternoon. The big picture may or may not be relevant to your market situation.
Local Market Rental Outlooks
However, the good news is that many of the hottest markets for investors, rents are going to the most. Increases will likely top the 10 percent mark annually for the next couple of years, according to John Burns Real Estate Consulting quoted in CNNMoney. In San Diego, rents will rise more than 31 percent by 2015 and in Boston, they may jump between 25 percent and 30 percent. Seattle rents will climb 4.5 percent next year and 6 percent in 2013.
A number of metro areas have actually had double-digit effective rent growth. High-density, west coast metro areas such as San Francisco with 14.8 percent and San Jose with 11.7 percent year-over-year effective rent growth rates are not totally unexpected. Charlotte with 7.2 percent rent growth; Miami with 5.6 percent; and even Denver with 6.6 percent effective rent increases, are less predictable examples. Axiometrics expects San Jose, San Francisco, and Austin to remain among the top 10 markets in effective rent growth in 2012 and Las Vegas is expected to become one of the most improved markets in 2012.
Local economies, especially jobs, will drive local demand. Over the next three years, Local Market Monitor expects rents to rise 18 percent in Houston, 15 percent in Grand Rapids, 25 percent in Rochester, 16 percent in Dallas and 19 percent in Tulsa.
Landlords increasing rents by 2 to 4 percent this year may find tenants won’t be surprised. Consumers expect home rental prices to increase by 3.2 percent over the next year, according to a recent Fannie Mae survey. Some 41 percent said rents will increase next year, 48 percent expect rents to stay the same and only 6 percent expect them to fall. The November numbers showed a slight retreat from October, when 43 expected rents to rise and 47 expected them to stay the same.
“Most Americans expect no improvement in their personal financial situation in the next 12 months and will likely remain wary about undertaking the significant financial obligation associated with homeownership until their view of their income, expenses, and job security heads in a more positive direction,” said Doug Duncan, vice president and chief economist of Fannie Mae.
By Steve Cook, Bigger Pockets Blog, December 28th, 2011
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