Five Tech Tools You Need to Survive in 2011
Jonathan Osman
By Jonathan Osman
No one would have guessed that REALTORS® would look back on 2009 as “the good ole days,” but as the real estate market continues to find bottom, that’s exactly what some are doing. The reality for 2011 may be that we are all fighting for a smaller piece of the sales pie and remaining in business means implementing low-cost solutions to save money.
That being said, here are a five technology tools that brokers and agents alike should implement to help survive an uncertain 2011.
1. Cloud-based Phone Service
The telephone is still the most important tool of our business but for most brokerages, this can result in a huge monthly expense towards the bottom line. Plus, every agent walks around with a phone attached to their hip so is the expense of a phone system and monthly service even necessary?
Services like RingCentral, Grasshopper, and Phonebooth offer users a plethora of options and features usually reserved for phone systems that cost as much as a BMW 550i for less than the cost of a cell phone bill. Local number – check, 800 number – check, fax-to-email – check. “Find Me” features – check. Best of all, whether you are a solo agent, small company working from home, or a mid-sized firm with 50 agents, you can still have the big-company presence which is could help in recruiting agents to work for you.
Still need a desk phone? Thanks to the recession, many businesses are selling off their existing equipment on eBay for cheap. Search SIP Phone and you will find compatible plug-and-play phones ranging from $39 to $150 or 50 – 75 percent off what they sold for new.
For the solo agent, Google Voice can offer many of the same features as the pay-services but for free. In fact, some agents that only have a cell phone as their primary number use their Google Voice number as their business line (and there’s no mailbox to get full).
2. Certified Refurbished Computers, Printers, Copiers
I have not purchased a new computer since 2001 and no, I am not still using a Tandy. Almost a decade back, I was turned on to purchasing refurbished equipment by a tech guy and I haven’t looked back since. While some may do well with a computer and printer off the shelf from the member’s shopping club, actual business computers (which are lighter, have stronger chassis, and more resilient) are still fairly expensive to purchase new. However buying a name-brand Certified Refurbished computer from Dell, Lenovo, HP, or Apple can save you as much as 30-50 percent when compared to their new counterparts.
Many printer and copier companies have similar programs that offer savings as much as 50-75 percent over new counterparts. Best of all, most manufacturers offer extended warranties for no cost to put aside the fears the consumer is buying an inferior machine.
3. Go Paperless
It’s amazing the amount of paper that is generated in the real estate business. Some of my files are a thick as a Northern Virginia phonebook and it’s genuinely unnecessary. In this golden age of tech, going paperless (not less-paper) will save you money as well as increase your productivity. The savings comes from the cost of storage, savings on toner, paper, and related supplies.
Companies like Docusign and DotLoop offer solutions to help obtain e-signatures from clients on real estate contracts and Dropbox.com offers free to low-cost secure online storage for your files. For software to aid in the creation of PDF files, try Cute PDF Professional or Adobe Acrobat. If you can click, drag, and drop, you can go paperless. Now instead or printing, initialing, and faxing or scanning, you can simply email for authorization and then forward where necessary.
4. Google Apps for Business
Probably one of the best tools you many have never heard of is Google’s Apps for Business which includes a suite of software such like Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Sites, and more. Designed for teams and small businesses, Google uses your personal website domain to provide you email (with your domain name not gmail.com), personal and group calendars, online document creation and collaboration and more. For most users, it’s absolutely free however you can upgrade for more features if you desire.
I have been completely impressed with how well everything works given that it’s free. The calendar will sync with your smartphone automatically (no need to sync with a cable) and with the click of one button, I can see everyone on my team’s calendar at once. This makes scheduling events extremely easy. Plus, the gmail-powered email is the best web-based email as of now.
For larger teams or a corporate level, the free version gives you the ability to set up a intranet site to post documents, announcements, information, etc for your agents.
5. A Facebook and a Linkedin Account
When most people think of using social media for business, they believe they must have a fan page for their business. While a Fan Page is a great internet billboard, unless you are consistently providing something of value to your fans, don’t expect a huge following.
Instead, start first by connecting with past clients as well as old and current friends. We’re in the people business so get back into relationship with people who can help build your business over the next year and more. Then make sure you take your relationship offline through coffee, tweetups, and social gathers to make something meaningful for both parties.
Facebook and Linkedin are NOT places to mindlessly post your new listings but rather to build relationships. Just as you wouldn’t take a stack of listing flyers to the Chamber of Commerce meeting, you shouldn’t plaster your wall with your latest short sale.
Both services are free but Linkedin offers a membership fee in exchange for the ability to contact users outside of your sphere of influence.
Jonathan Osman is a broker and team leader of the Charlotte House Hunter Group with Keller Williams Realty in Charlotte, N.C. Connect with Jonathan via Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter or his Web site CharlotteHouseHunter.com.
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Tags: apps, computers, Jonathan Osman, phones, social networking, tech tools, technology
Full Motion Commercial Grade Video Tours of Yakima, WA Real Estate, surrounding areas..and the Pacific Northwest with map based browsing of Real Estate Videos. We can help you sell your Yakima Homes for pennies-on-the-dollar when compared to traditional print advertisement. If you are a Realtor/Agent or a Home Owner and you are serious about getting huge exposure to your Yakima, Washington listings for sale, give us a try and watch how Real Estate Video can give you an edge over the competition.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Five Tech Tools You Need to Survive in 2011 : YPN Lounge
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
October 5, 2010 Today's Yakima Real Estate Market - Pricing Your Yakima Home For The Market
In markets such as this, it is not unusual for a home to have a market value less than the amount the owner purchased it for and has spent improving or maintaining it.
Not every dollar spent improving or maintaining a home will increase its market value. Improvements such as adding additional square footage or updating a kitchen or bathroom typically have a higher rate of return. Replacing old shingles or other maintenance projects will not necessarily increase the home's market value.
If you're thinking about making improvements to your home, contact your real estate agent as he or she can help you determine what project will give you the highest rate of return. And when you're ready to sell, your REALTOR® can help you determine the market value of your home, guide you as to how to price it, market the home, and guide you through the sale process.
Monday, October 4, 2010
October 4, 2010 Today's Yakima Real Estate Market - Commercial Crisis
Further Lane Securities Sr. Managing Director David Castillo on whether the commercial real-estate market is at risk of crumbling.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
October 2, 2010 Today's Yakima Real Estate Market - Foreclosure Fraud - Realty Tours Northwest of Yakima | Yakima WA Real Estate and Homes For Sale
This is Rep. Alan Grayson explaining the crisis of real estate foreclosure fraud and how it links to the entire securitization chain of Wall Street.
Friday, October 1, 2010
October 1, 2010 - Today's Yakima Real Estate Market
In the current real estate market, is it a good time to downsize and sell the family home?
What is the best season to sell a home?
Is it possible to make money when selling a home to downsize to a smaller residence?
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Will Real Estate Video Help U Sell Your Yakima Home?
The preceding real estate video tour has been active for about 3 months and has received over 2000 views and can be found all over the internet, in search engines everywhere for search terms related to Chinook Pass and Yakima Washington. The numbers are staggering to say the least. The video has also been used as the feature video on several real estate classified sites as well.
However.....does that mean that the house will certainly sell with those kind of numbers? Not necessarily. Selling a home in today's market....along with all the advanced tools at our
disposal like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and such is only a little bit of "icing on the cake"
Location, Condition and Price are still the most important factor when it comes to getting your Real Estate sold.
The beauty behind the concept of real estate listings on video is in the concept that "people LOVE video" and a video opens the doors of a property listing.... 24-Hours-A-Day in ways that PHOTOS simply CANNOT. Therefor, any given real estate listing that has a video tour WILL receive double, triple, quadruple and often times 100X more exposure to MORE people than any other listing that DOES NOT have a video tour.
It is all about the NUMBERS.
MORE exposure = MORE buyers.
A professionally produced video tour engages the audience, and as a result...the video will end up being shared all over the world, thus it will end up being syndicated in ways that any traditional method of Real Estate Advertising will not.
Conclusion - In most cases and when done properly by a professional, a Real Estate listing that includes a video will have MORE PEOPLE seeing the inside of the home (just like being there) in 1 month....than 10 years if that same listing was on the market with traditional forms of marketing.
The math is simple.....and the future of real estate does not include print advertisement or simple photos.
I did a little research on the life- span of newspapers and telephone books and found some great articles from very reliable resources such as New York Times and CNN Money that talk about the demise of newspapers as we know them on my Yakima Real Estate Blog.
Today's Yakima Real Estate Market Pending Sales - Sept 30, 2010 - Realty Tours Northwest of Yakima | Yakima WA Real Estate and Homes For Sale
Why should I care about pending sales? What do they tell me about a real estate market. Home Encounter - Tampa's foremost real estate expert - takes 3 minutes to tell you why you should care about pending sales. We discuss what they tell you about a local real estate market and how you can make better decisions when you know about what sales are pending. Home Encounter has practices in Residential Sales, Consulting, Property Management and Investment Properties, and it cares about it's clients enough to publish these informative videos.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Will Real Estate Video Help U Sell Your Home? - Realty Tours Northwest of Yakima
The preceding real estate video tour has been active for about 3 months and has received over 2000 views and can be found all over the internet, in search engines everywhere for search terms related to Chinook Pass and Yakima Washington. The numbers are staggering to say the least. The video has also been used as the feature video on several real estate classified sites as well.
However.....does that mean that the house will certainly sell with those kind of numbers? Not necessarily. Selling a home in today's market....along with all the advanced tools at our
disposal like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and such is only a little bit of "icing on the cake"
Location, Condition and Price are still the most important factor when it comes to getting your Real Estate sold.
The beauty behind the concept of real estate listings on video is in the concept that "people LOVE video" and a video opens the doors of a property listing.... 24-Hours-A-Day in ways that PHOTOS simply CANNOT. Therefor, any given real estate listing that has a video tour WILL receive double, triple, quadruple and often times 100X more exposure to MORE people than any other listing that DOES NOT have a video tour.
It is all about the NUMBERS.
MORE exposure = MORE buyers.
A professionally produced video tour engages the audience, and as a result...the video will end up being shared all over the world, thus it will end up being syndicated in ways that any traditional method of Real Estate Advertising will not.
Conclusion - In most cases and when done properly by a professional, a Real Estate listing that includes a video will have MORE PEOPLE seeing the inside of the home (just like being there) in 1 month....than 10 years if that same listing was on the market with traditional forms of marketing.
The math is simple.....and the future of real estate does not include print advertisement or simple photos.
I did a little research on the life- span of newspapers and telephone books and found some great articles from very reliable resources such as New York Times and CNN Money that talk about the demise of newspapers as we know them on my Yakima Real Estate Blog.
Today's Yakima Real Estate Market - Sept 29, 2010 - Realty Tours Northwest of Yakima
Equity Investments CEO Sam Zell discusses why he is optimistic about the current state of the real estate market.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Today's Yakima Real Estate Market - Sept 28, 2010 - Realty Tours Northwest of Yakima
Irv Tremblay discusses Market Tips for Agents, Buyers and Sellers (Part 2) on Ask The Expert on Newstalk Radio
Monday, September 27, 2010
Realty Tours Northwest on Facebook
Follow us on Facebook to see the latest Real Estate Market trends, reports, video tours, listings and info about the Yakima Valley.
Today's Yakima Real Estate Market - September 27, 2010 - Realty Tours Northwest of Yakima | Yakima WA Real Estate and Homes For Sale
Irv Tremblay discusses Market Tips for Agents, Buyers and Sellers (Part 1) on Ask The Expert on Newstalk Radio
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Today's Yakima Real Estate Market - Sept 26, 2010 - Realty Tours Northwest of Yakima
Charles Lieberman, chief investment officer at Advisors Capital Management LLC, and Demir Gjokaj, an analyst at Majestic
Research, talk about the outlook for the U.S. housing market. Lieberman and Gjokaj also discuss the U.S. economy and stocks. They talk with Roben Farzad on Bloomberg Television's "Taking Stock."
Friday, September 24, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
A reward for responsible homeowners - Sep. 7, 2010
A reward for responsible homeowners
By Allan Sloan, senior editor-at-largeSeptember 8, 2010: 11:33 AM ET
FORTUNE -- The government has bailed out Wall Street firms, giant banks, creditors of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- and is trying to bail out people who've defaulted or are about to default on their mortgages. But let's say you're a hardworking family that has done nothing wrong except buy a home when the housing bubble was at its peak a few years ago. Your mortgage is now way underwater, but you're still making payments because you want to stay in your home -- and you're actually honorable. You're paying for everyone else's bailout, but because you have no equity in your house, you can't refinance to take advantage of the ultra-low mortgage rates that Uncle Sam's bailout strategy has produced. To use the technical term, you're being screwed.
Enter Keith Gumbinger, a leading mortgage expert, with an interesting proposal for how the government can help you, help the housing market, and even help whoever owns your mortgage. Gumbinger, a vice president at the HSH Associates mortgage consulting firm, wants the federal government to issue what he calls "value gap coverage." It would reduce your interest payments, reduce your incentive to walk away from your mortgage, and show that behaving well doesn't make you a sucker.
"This is for people who are underwater on their mortgages but still current on them and have every intention of remaining so, and hope to remain in their homes for the foreseeable future," says Gumbinger. "These people are being compelled to pick up the tab for reckless borrowers and failing banks, and get absolutely no help from anywhere for themselves. How about a reward for doing the right thing for a change?"
Let me show how this would work, using HSH numbers that I've rounded for simplicity's sake. Say you bought a house for $350,000 in July 2006 -- those were the days of 100% financing, so you borrowed $350,000 on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 6.8%. The house is now worth $280,000, but your mortgage balance is $334,000. The current rate for a 30-year fixed-rate loan, if you could get one, is 4.7%.
Under Gumbinger's plan, you'd get a new $280,000 mortgage at 4.7%, and the government would guarantee the other $54,000, on which you'd pay 4.7% interest to the current mortgage holder. This would reduce your payments by $6,700 a year, or roughly 25%. Your mortgage holder wouldn't have to take a write-down, because the shortfall would be guaranteed by Uncle Sam. You get lower payments, preserve your credit rating, and save your pride by not becoming a deadbeat.
The government is probably on the hook, in one way or another, for some of your shortfall now. This way everyone gets breathing space for the home market to recover. The government's exposure would shrink over time as house prices begin to rise modestly (or so we hope) and your payments gradually reduce the principal on your loan. You wouldn't have any equity in your house until its market value exceeds the loan balance plus the government's guarantee. But then again, you don't have any equity now.
Gumbinger says there are many differences between his proposal and the government's latest mortgage relief effort, including the fact that the government's requires mortgage holders to take a writedown, and his doesn't. You can find his detailed plan, with the fees he proposes to cover costs right here.
Sure, this plan isn't perfect. Among other things, we'd have to make sure people didn't immediately sell their house, stick the government with the $54,000 bill, then buy another house with a low-down-payment FHA mortgage to reduce monthly payments and have all the equity upside.
But Gumbinger's idea strikes me as a better place to start than current restructuring programs, which sound great but somehow don't seem to work out.
How much would this cost the government? Who knows? But it has to be cheaper financially and socially than leaving millions of honorable homeowners at higher risk of foreclosure and forcing them to pay above-market rates on underwater loans.
First Published: September 7, 2010: 5:49 AM ET
Thursday, September 16, 2010
2 Brand New Real Estate Developments - Realty Tours Northwest of Yakima
Two brand new developments are coming to the internet that will benefit both Real Estate Agents and Video Tour Service Providers which will ultimately provide a means to showcase a property via a video tour and generate more viewers for the listing.1. Google has acquired Quiksee
Quiksee allows users to upload interactive photo and video tours of real-world locations with geo tagged information and place them on online maps. Once the transition takes place, Google Maps will include the videos in their Street View browsing. The enhancement to Google Maps will be a great add-on feature for real estate listings as the viewer can get a great view of the property and surrounding neighborhood as well as the ability to now watch a video of the home's interior.
2. Twitter has announced "Split Screen"
Twitter will be unveiling a new user enhancement dubbed "SplitSreen" Users will now be able to view photos and videos on Twitter without leaving the TWITTER application. The new integration will help entice users to view more videos and photos on Twitter as they won't have to leave Twitter and stay on the site longer. This too will ultimately lead to more property views for those real estate listings that include video.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Home Prices Just Dropped In Most States And 8 Million Foreclosures Are About To Hit The Market
The small upward correction in home prices from multiple tax credit offerings died in July. Worse yet, inventory of homes for sale as well as shadow inventory both soared. 8 million foreclosure-bound homes have yet to hit the market according to Morgan Stanley.
Home Prices Drop in 36 States
CoreLogic reports Growing Number of Declining Markets Underscore Weakness in the Housing Market without Tax-Credit Support
CoreLogic Home Price Index Remained Flat in July
SANTA ANA, Calif., September 15, 2010 – CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX), a leading provider of information, analytics and business services, today released its Home Price Index (HPI) that showed that home prices in the U.S. remained flat in July as transaction volumes continue to decline. This was the first time in five months that no year-over-year gains were reported. According to the CoreLogic HPI, national home prices, including distressed sales showed no change in July 2010 compared to July 2009. June 2010 HPI showed a 2.4 percent* year-over-year gain compared to June 2009.
- Empire State Manufacturing Activity Flattens; Huge Divergences Appear - What Does It Mean?
- Home Prices Drop in 36 States; Beazer Warns on Orders; 8 Million Foreclosure-Bound Homes to Hit the Market; Prices to Stagnate for a Decade
- Currency Intervention Madness; Japan Intervenes to Weaken the Yen; Selected Quotes
"Although home prices were flat nationally, the majority of states experienced price declines and price declines are spreading across more geographies relative to a few months ago. Home prices fell in 36 states in July, nearly twice the number in May and the highest since last November when national home prices were declining," said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic.
Methodology
The CoreLogic HPI incorporates more than 30 years worth of repeat sales transactions, representing more than 55 million observations sourced from CoreLogic industry-leading property information and its securities and servicing databases. The CoreLogic HPI provides a multi-tier market evaluation based on price, time between sales, property type, loan type (conforming vs. nonconforming), and distressed sales. The CoreLogic HPI is a repeat-sales index that tracks increases and decreases in sales prices for the same homes over time, which provides a more accurate "constant-quality" view of pricing trends than basing analysis on all home sales. The CoreLogic HPI provides the most comprehensive set of monthly home price indices and median sales prices available covering 6,208 ZIP codes (58 percent of total U.S. population), 572 Core Based Statistical Areas (85 percent of total U.S. population) and 1,027 counties (82 percent of total U.S. population) located in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
CoreLogic HPI Including Distressed Sales
See the above article for additional charts
Beazer Homes Warns on Orders
The Wall Street Journal reports Beazer Homes Warns of Order Miss
Beazer Homes USA Inc. said Wednesday it might miss order expectations for its fiscal-fourth quarter, as it also cut estimates for the year's land and development spending, reflecting the sector's weakness following the expiration of home-buyer tax credits.
Last month, Beazer reported that its fiscal third-quarter loss was little changed because of a prior-year gain, while it reported a 73% surge in closings as buyers raced to qualify for the tax credit. Orders fell 33%.
Inventory Soars
Bloomberg reports U.S. Home Prices Face Three-Year Drop as Supply Gains
The slide in U.S. home prices may have another three years to go as sellers add as many as 12 million more properties to the market.
Shadow inventory -- the supply of homes in default or foreclosure that may be offered for sale -- is preventing prices from bottoming after a 28 percent plunge from 2006, according to analysts from Moody’s Analytics Inc., Fannie Mae, Morgan Stanley and Barclays Plc. Those properties are in addition to houses that are vacant or that may soon be put on the market by owners.
“Whether it’s the sidelined, shadow or current inventory, the issue is there’s more supply than demand,” said Oliver Chang, a U.S. housing strategist with Morgan Stanley in San Francisco. “Once you reach a bottom, it will take three or four years for prices to begin to rise 1 or 2 percent a year.”
Sales of new and existing homes fell to the lowest levels on record in July as a federal tax credit for buyers expired and U.S.
Rising supply threatens to undermine government efforts to boost the housing market as homebuyers wait for better deals. Further price declines are necessary for a sustainable rebound as a stimulus-driven recovery falters, said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist of Maria Fiorini Ramirez Inc., a New York economic forecasting firm
There were 4 million homes listed with brokers for sale as of July. It would take a record 12.5 months for those properties to be sold at that month’s sales pace, according to the Chicago-based Realtors group [National Association of Realtors].
“The best thing that could happen is for prices to get to a level that clears the market,” said Shapiro, who predicts prices may fall another 10 percent to 15 percent. “Right now, buyers know it hasn’t hit bottom, so they’re sitting on the sidelines.”
About 2 million houses will be seized by lenders by the end of next year, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He estimates prices will drop 5 percent by 2013.
Douglas Duncan, chief economist for Washington-based Fannie Mae, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview last week that 7 million U.S. homes are vacant or in the foreclosure process. Morgan Stanley’s Chang said the number of bank-owned and foreclosure-bound homes that have yet to hit the market is closer to 8 million.
Defaulted mortgages as of July took an average 469 days to reach foreclosure, up from 319 days in January 2009. That’s an indication lenders -- with the help of the government loan modification programs -- are delaying resolutions and preventing the market from flooding with distressed properties, said Herb Blecher, senior vice president for analytics at LPS.
“The efforts to date have been worthwhile,” Blecher said in a telephone interview from Denver. “They both helped borrowers stay in their homes and kept that supply of distressed properties on the market somewhat limited.”
I disagree with Herb Blecher. I see little advantage stretching this mess out for a decade, and that is what the government seems hell-bent on doing. Everyone wants the government to "do something". Unfortunately tax credits stimulated the production of new homes, ultimately adding to inventory. Prices need to fall to levels where there is genuine demand.
The short-term rise in the Case-Shiller home price index and the CoreLogic HPI was a mirage that will soon vanish in the reality of an inventory of 8 million homes that must eventually hit the market.
Lost Decade
About 2 million houses will be seized by lenders by the end of next year, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He estimates prices will drop 5 percent by 2013.
After reaching bottom, prices will gain at the historic annual pace of 3 percent, requiring more than 10 years to return to their peak, he said.
Home Price Pressures
We are going to have structurally high unemployment for a decade.
The debt deflation unwind may take another 5 years or longer.
Downward pressures on wages still exist.
Credit conditions reached a secular peak of absurdity that will not occur again for multiple decades.
Retiring boomers hoping to downsize lifestyle will add to supply of upper end homes.
Student debt will inhibit family formation for years to come. Please see How Student Debt Wrecks Marriages, Inhibits Family Formation, and Delays the Housing Recovery for details.
Last Bubble Not Reblown
After the bottom is found, remember the axiom: the last bubble is not reblown for decades. Look at the Nasdaq, still off more than 50% from a decade ago.
The odds home prices return to their peak in 10 years is close to zero. Houses in bubble areas may never return to peak levels in existing owner's lifetimes. Zandi is way overoptimistic in his assessment of 3% annual appreciation after the bottom is found.
Price Stagnation
I expect small nominal increases after housing bottoms, but negative appreciation in real terms as inflation picks up in the second half of the decade. Yes, deflation will eventually end. Alternatively the US goes in and out of deflation for a decade (depending on how much the Fed and Congress acts to prevent a much needed bottom). Either way, look for price stagnation in one form or another.
Thus, if you have come to the conclusion there is no good reason to hold on to a deeply underwater home, nor any reason to rush into a home purchase at this time, you have reached the right conclusions.
Hyperinflation? Please be serious.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post ListMike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.
Home Prices Just Dropped In Most States And 8 Million Foreclosures Are About To Hit The Market
The small upward correction in home prices from multiple tax credit offerings died in July. Worse yet, inventory of homes for sale as well as shadow inventory both soared. 8 million foreclosure-bound homes have yet to hit the market according to Morgan Stanley.
Home Prices Drop in 36 States
CoreLogic reports Growing Number of Declining Markets Underscore Weakness in the Housing Market without Tax-Credit Support
CoreLogic Home Price Index Remained Flat in July
SANTA ANA, Calif., September 15, 2010 – CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX), a leading provider of information, analytics and business services, today released its Home Price Index (HPI) that showed that home prices in the U.S. remained flat in July as transaction volumes continue to decline. This was the first time in five months that no year-over-year gains were reported. According to the CoreLogic HPI, national home prices, including distressed sales showed no change in July 2010 compared to July 2009. June 2010 HPI showed a 2.4 percent* year-over-year gain compared to June 2009.
- Empire State Manufacturing Activity Flattens; Huge Divergences Appear - What Does It Mean?
- Home Prices Drop in 36 States; Beazer Warns on Orders; 8 Million Foreclosure-Bound Homes to Hit the Market; Prices to Stagnate for a Decade
- Currency Intervention Madness; Japan Intervenes to Weaken the Yen; Selected Quotes
"Although home prices were flat nationally, the majority of states experienced price declines and price declines are spreading across more geographies relative to a few months ago. Home prices fell in 36 states in July, nearly twice the number in May and the highest since last November when national home prices were declining," said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic.
Methodology
The CoreLogic HPI incorporates more than 30 years worth of repeat sales transactions, representing more than 55 million observations sourced from CoreLogic industry-leading property information and its securities and servicing databases. The CoreLogic HPI provides a multi-tier market evaluation based on price, time between sales, property type, loan type (conforming vs. nonconforming), and distressed sales. The CoreLogic HPI is a repeat-sales index that tracks increases and decreases in sales prices for the same homes over time, which provides a more accurate "constant-quality" view of pricing trends than basing analysis on all home sales. The CoreLogic HPI provides the most comprehensive set of monthly home price indices and median sales prices available covering 6,208 ZIP codes (58 percent of total U.S. population), 572 Core Based Statistical Areas (85 percent of total U.S. population) and 1,027 counties (82 percent of total U.S. population) located in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
CoreLogic HPI Including Distressed Sales
See the above article for additional charts
Beazer Homes Warns on Orders
The Wall Street Journal reports Beazer Homes Warns of Order Miss
Beazer Homes USA Inc. said Wednesday it might miss order expectations for its fiscal-fourth quarter, as it also cut estimates for the year's land and development spending, reflecting the sector's weakness following the expiration of home-buyer tax credits.
Last month, Beazer reported that its fiscal third-quarter loss was little changed because of a prior-year gain, while it reported a 73% surge in closings as buyers raced to qualify for the tax credit. Orders fell 33%.
Inventory Soars
Bloomberg reports U.S. Home Prices Face Three-Year Drop as Supply Gains
The slide in U.S. home prices may have another three years to go as sellers add as many as 12 million more properties to the market.
Shadow inventory -- the supply of homes in default or foreclosure that may be offered for sale -- is preventing prices from bottoming after a 28 percent plunge from 2006, according to analysts from Moody’s Analytics Inc., Fannie Mae, Morgan Stanley and Barclays Plc. Those properties are in addition to houses that are vacant or that may soon be put on the market by owners.
“Whether it’s the sidelined, shadow or current inventory, the issue is there’s more supply than demand,” said Oliver Chang, a U.S. housing strategist with Morgan Stanley in San Francisco. “Once you reach a bottom, it will take three or four years for prices to begin to rise 1 or 2 percent a year.”
Sales of new and existing homes fell to the lowest levels on record in July as a federal tax credit for buyers expired and U.S.
Rising supply threatens to undermine government efforts to boost the housing market as homebuyers wait for better deals. Further price declines are necessary for a sustainable rebound as a stimulus-driven recovery falters, said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist of Maria Fiorini Ramirez Inc., a New York economic forecasting firm
There were 4 million homes listed with brokers for sale as of July. It would take a record 12.5 months for those properties to be sold at that month’s sales pace, according to the Chicago-based Realtors group [National Association of Realtors].
“The best thing that could happen is for prices to get to a level that clears the market,” said Shapiro, who predicts prices may fall another 10 percent to 15 percent. “Right now, buyers know it hasn’t hit bottom, so they’re sitting on the sidelines.”
About 2 million houses will be seized by lenders by the end of next year, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He estimates prices will drop 5 percent by 2013.
Douglas Duncan, chief economist for Washington-based Fannie Mae, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview last week that 7 million U.S. homes are vacant or in the foreclosure process. Morgan Stanley’s Chang said the number of bank-owned and foreclosure-bound homes that have yet to hit the market is closer to 8 million.
Defaulted mortgages as of July took an average 469 days to reach foreclosure, up from 319 days in January 2009. That’s an indication lenders -- with the help of the government loan modification programs -- are delaying resolutions and preventing the market from flooding with distressed properties, said Herb Blecher, senior vice president for analytics at LPS.
“The efforts to date have been worthwhile,” Blecher said in a telephone interview from Denver. “They both helped borrowers stay in their homes and kept that supply of distressed properties on the market somewhat limited.”
I disagree with Herb Blecher. I see little advantage stretching this mess out for a decade, and that is what the government seems hell-bent on doing. Everyone wants the government to "do something". Unfortunately tax credits stimulated the production of new homes, ultimately adding to inventory. Prices need to fall to levels where there is genuine demand.
The short-term rise in the Case-Shiller home price index and the CoreLogic HPI was a mirage that will soon vanish in the reality of an inventory of 8 million homes that must eventually hit the market.
Lost Decade
About 2 million houses will be seized by lenders by the end of next year, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He estimates prices will drop 5 percent by 2013.
After reaching bottom, prices will gain at the historic annual pace of 3 percent, requiring more than 10 years to return to their peak, he said.
Home Price Pressures
We are going to have structurally high unemployment for a decade.
The debt deflation unwind may take another 5 years or longer.
Downward pressures on wages still exist.
Credit conditions reached a secular peak of absurdity that will not occur again for multiple decades.
Retiring boomers hoping to downsize lifestyle will add to supply of upper end homes.
Student debt will inhibit family formation for years to come. Please see How Student Debt Wrecks Marriages, Inhibits Family Formation, and Delays the Housing Recovery for details.
Last Bubble Not Reblown
After the bottom is found, remember the axiom: the last bubble is not reblown for decades. Look at the Nasdaq, still off more than 50% from a decade ago.
The odds home prices return to their peak in 10 years is close to zero. Houses in bubble areas may never return to peak levels in existing owner's lifetimes. Zandi is way overoptimistic in his assessment of 3% annual appreciation after the bottom is found.
Price Stagnation
I expect small nominal increases after housing bottoms, but negative appreciation in real terms as inflation picks up in the second half of the decade. Yes, deflation will eventually end. Alternatively the US goes in and out of deflation for a decade (depending on how much the Fed and Congress acts to prevent a much needed bottom). Either way, look for price stagnation in one form or another.
Thus, if you have come to the conclusion there is no good reason to hold on to a deeply underwater home, nor any reason to rush into a home purchase at this time, you have reached the right conclusions.
Hyperinflation? Please be serious.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post ListMike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.
Friday, September 10, 2010
We have added a new *Yakima Real Estate Search Engine to 2 more of our Blogs. - Realty Tours Northwest of Yakima | Yakima Real Estate and Homes
We have added A Yakima Real Estate Search Engine to Blogger and Posterous
Thursday, September 9, 2010
How To Get More Qualified Buyers For Your Yakima Real Estate Listing - Realty Tours Northwest of Yakima | Yakima Real Estate and Homes
Although our Video Tours are cutting edge and VERY beneficial to the Buyer as they engage in the real estate browsing experience, we are here to help Home Owners and Realtors get the most exposure to their Real Estate listings by providing walk-thru video tours of their property. The concept of using video to represent real estate listings is still rather new to the market and our company has pioneered this concept and we have been bringing videos to our local real estate market since July 2009.
We are dedicated to what we feel is the MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR when selling a Yakima home, which is to bring better qualified buyers to see your home. A well produced real estate video tour gives the viewer a life-like feel for the properties location and the surrounding neighborhood, as well as how the house flows or transitions from room to room. When a buyer already has a great "feel" for the home before they come to see it in person, they are THREE TIMES more likely to make an offer on your home. And best of all...you now have an OPEN HOUSE available 24 HOURS A DAY, viewable across the globe until your house is sold!
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OUR SERVICES GO BEYOND VIDEO.
We are always looking for new ways to get the maximum exposure to your Yakima Real Estate listing to help your property stand-out among the competing homes in your neighborhood. We have extensive knowledge in WEB marketing, Social Networking, Blogging and optimizing real estate listings to obtain great placement in search engines such as Google. We avidly study SEO(search engine optimization) We would gladly like to take a few minutes with you to explain how our Syndication Process works, why it works... and how you will get more exposure to listing than ANY other venue in the real estate marketing field.
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