National Real Estate News
Nearly half of all US homeowners with a mortgage still ‘underwater’ in Q1
Posted on May 23rd, 2013
Zillow: Homeowners with "effective" negative equity helped keep inventory low in Q1
Despite rising home prices early in the year, a significant portion of U.S. homeowners with a mortgage, about 44 percent, still owed more on their home than it was worth or didn’t have enough equity to move at the end of the first quarter, according to Zillow’s first quarter Negative Equity Report.
Zillow’s analysis showed that 25.4 percent of homeowners with a mortgage were underwater on their homes, while another 18.2 percent more were “effectively” underwater, with less than 20 percent equity in their homes.
Taken together, about 22.3 million U.S. homeowners likely don’t have enough equity in their homes to afford a down payment on another home, Zillow said, keeping them in their homes and preventing new inventory from hitting the market.
“Reaching positive equity, even barely, is an important milestone,” said Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries in a statement. “But things like real estate agents’ fees and a down payment for the next home traditionally come out of the proceeds from the prior home’s sale. Without enough equity, these costs will instead have to come out of a homeowner’s pocket, leaving many still stuck,” he said.
“Looking at the effective negative equity rate could explain why recent, healthy declines in the number of underwater borrowers haven’t yet translated into more homes for sale,” Humphries added. “The only cure is patience, as rising home values continue to build equity to the point where more homeowners can realistically sell.”
Among the 30 largest metro areas covered by Zillow, those with the highest effective negative equity rate, including homeowners with 20 percent equity or less, include Las Vegas (71.5 percent); Atlanta (64.1 percent); and Riverside, Calif. (59.7 percent).
Zillow predicts that the negative equity rate among all homeowners with a mortgage will fall to 23.5 percent by the first quarter of 2014. Of the 30 largest metro areas, the majority of these newly freed homeowners are anticipated to come from: Los Angeles (94,642 homeowners); Riverside (74,693 homeowners); and Phoenix (51,580 homeowners).
Copyright 2013 Inman News3 game-changing reasons for getting started with Google Analytics [Infographic]
Posted on April 29th, 2013
For most people, analytics is one of those subjects that other people pay attention to. There are a number of reasons why this is the case: there’s not enough time, it doesn’t seem important, or maybe it seems way too complicated. For years I was in the same boat, relying on a webmaster or someone from my marketing team to interpret all those bits of information into something that they thought I would find interesting or useful. Those were always wholly unsatisfying meetings, sitting with my marketing manager, asking questions like, “Why aren’t our visitors buying?” or, “We made some great content, why isn’t anyone reading it?” All I wanted was a straight answer. Looking back, I understand now that I wasted so much time relying on others to help me discover the answers locked inside all that information.
As an entrepreneur and marketer, I know there is so much value in creative inspiration and intuition that I would never discount, but the power of understanding the actions of you customers and the effectiveness of your efforts comes from analytics. If someone had told me that I could see what people were viewing on my website in real time, exactly what content they read, how long they read it, where they came from, what device they used, and whether or not they had been to my site before, I would have been much more excited about understanding analytics. A lot has changed in the last decade. For one, I love analytics! It’s no longer like reading Latin, which for the record would always put me to sleep. Granted, the tools have come a long way to make it easier for me to experience this love: they’re better, cheaper, and easier to set up. If only I had known then what I know now, I would have taken control of my analytics from the start. This guide is about getting you started quickly and easily with Google analytics so you don’t have to rely on others to tell you what’s happening with your website.
“Analytics is simply a way for you to track the activity on your website. The number of visits it receives, where people come from, how long they stay, and what they’re looking at while they’re on your site.” – Jeff Bernheisel, 1000watt
So let’s start with why analytics are so important. It used to be that understanding potential customers’ intent was limited to three things: Did they contact you? Did they fill out a form on your website? Or did they visit an open house? Since we know that more homebuyers are making up their minds about properties they’re interested in online way before moving the conversation offline, it’s crucial to know more about the customer life cycle and their activities on and off your website.
Google Analytics, sometimes abbreviated as “GA,” is the best free service available for generating detailed statistics about how visitors are getting to your website and what they are doing once they’re there.
There are dozens of reports and hundreds of ways to view them, below are some of the most popular metrics to start with. You will also be able to use a date comparison on any of these reports to see month over month progress.
Google Analytics is able to make all of its measurements via a “page tag” (called the Google Analytics Tracking Code), which is a snippet of code that lives on all of the pages of your website. The page tag collects visitor data and sends it to Google Analytics, where it is then organized into charts, graphs, and lists. Unlike earlier analytics tools, which were geared toward technologists and webmasters, Google Analytics was created for marketers: you don’t have to be a developer to get started. Getting started is really simple – just follow the outline below.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FULL INFOGRAPHIC
Getting a handle on your analytics is the only way to gauge the ROI of your blogging and content marketing efforts. At work, I measure the lead and customer generation my company gets from all the channels: Google Adwords, Facebook, Twitter, Slideshare, Linkedin, and organic search results to name a few. We use a combination of Google Analytics, MixPanel and Infusionsoft to help us validate any time and effort we spend on content and inbound marketing.
“Being data informed is critical for any business. Google Analytics is a powerful tool that offers many benefits. The application enables you to measure conversion, user engagement, technology trends and more. Best of all, it’s free.” – Tom Flanagan, VP of Marketing & Technology at Residential Properties
I hope this is sinking in. It’s game changing and it’s available to every business that is serious about marketing online. By including analytics in your marketing conversation you can start having actionable discussions about content and social media ROI as a real, measurable number, and not some mythical figure that no one knows.
Your Questions:
What questions do you have about measuring the ROI of your blogging and social media efforts? What tools are you using to get your stats? Finally, if you’re willing to share, tell us a little about the effect your blogging has had on ROI.
Copyright 2013 Inman NewsCalculated Risk: Housing inventory won’t bottom until 2014 [VIDEO]
Posted on April 10th, 2013
Finance blogger Bill McBride sees near-term price increases exceeding expectations
Former tech executive turned blogger Bill McBride was one of the first to suggest that homes were precariously overvalued back in 2005. When he spots a trend, people have learned to listen.
McBride — who gets up early every day to post his analyses of news on the finance and economics blog he founded in 2005, Calculated Risk — thinks housing inventory won’t bottom until 2014.
Calculated Risk author Bill McBride discusses home prices and inventories with Inman News reporter Paul Hagey.
Existing-home inventory, which makes up about 90 percent of homes on the market, has dropped about 20 percent year-over-year for the last 15 months and is at levels not seen since around the year 2000, McBride pointed out.
Sustained, large year-over-year declines in inventory indicate that a bottom is near, McBride said.
Low inventory currently acts as the limiting reagent to a full-scale housing market recovery, according to some economists.
Data from the National Association of Realtors showed 1.74 million existing homes were for sale in January, a scarcity, in raw numbers of homes for sale, not seen since December 1999.
As supply continues to shrink, McBride said, demand, and prices along with it, will continue to go up, enticing more homeowners and investors to sell their homes, which will bring inventory, and the housing market, up.
“Prices are going to go up more than expected in coming months,” McBride said.
Source: Calculated Risk
McBride, whom the Los Angeles Times profiled in January, began writing a weekly post on housing inventory on Calculated Risk this year.
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New ad campaign highlights California Realtors’ role in state economy
Posted on April 1st, 2013
Ads to air on TV, the Web, radio and print in the state
The California Association of Realtors announced a new TV, Web, radio and print ad campaign today that highlights the positive impact its 155,000 members have on the state’s economy.
Two 30-second TV spots, featuring the "ripple" effect that the facilitation of home buying and selling has on the economy and families, will air on the ABC network in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco from today through June 16. In addition, on April 17, a spot will air during the network’s hit show "Modern Family" in the three markets.
The campaign, dubbed "Ripple," continues the association’s "Champions of Home" campaign and includes ad time on the Clear Channel Radio station, display ads on realtor.com, and mobile ads.
CAR says it expects the two TV spots to run 732 times on ABC during the 11-week period and to result in 55 million views.
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National Association of Realtors to release national MLS
Posted on April 1st, 2013
Industry players breathe sigh of relief
A national multiple listing service run by the National Association of Realtors should be ready by late summer, the large trade association announced today.
NAR has been working for the last decade to put all of the nation’s agent-represented homes for sale into one database, consolidating the 800-plus multiple listing services in the U.S. in the process.
"Everybody has been on board with the national MLS idea for a long time and we’ve been working on it for the last decade," the trade group said in a press release.
Brian Boero, co-founder of real estate marketing and design firm 1000watt, who predicted NAR’s national MLS move in one of his "Friday Flash" blog posts five years ago, said, "It’s a great move by NAR. I wonder what took them so long."
"It’s about damn time," said Matt Cohen, chief technology officer of real estate consulting firm Clareity Consulting.
"In some cities there were five or more MLSs!" Cohen said. "How and why did that even happen?"
Many third-party MLS vendors, such as Greg Robertson, co-founder of W&R Studios, are ecstatic. "Now we won’t have to make multiple versions of one product to work with each MLS. We can just make one!"
Some brokers, who have been concerned about the businesses third-party listing portals like Zillow, Trulia and realtor.com have built using listing data, are expressing relief.
"Hallelujah," said the spokesman of a large Minneapolis-based brokerage that pulled all of its listings from the big three portals last year.
However, the brokerage will not send its listings to the national MLS because the firm wants to continue focusing on generating leads from its own website, the spokesman said.
Zillow, Trulia and realtor.com, which had been battling for consumer eyeballs as de-facto nationwide MLSs in recent years, are working to carve out a new niche.
"We’ll still be a leader on mobile," one Zillow exec said.
Editor’s note: For further context on this report, please check this story’s date. And note that all or portions of this article may be based entirely on anonymous and/or fictitious sources and erroneous and/or facetious information.
For similar stories posted today, click here.
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April Fools’ Day real estate roundup
Posted on April 1st, 2013
Among today's stories: NAR shutters RPR, 'March Madness'-style home bidding system, real estate pro dating site
On the first day of April each year, communities, businesses and news outlets come up with stories intended to fool, amuse, and, sometimes, satirize. Here’s a roundup of the posts Inman News came across in the residential real estate space today.
National Association of Realtors shutters Realtors Property Resource: If you’re a member of the National Association of Realtors, as of today, you no longer have access to, or are paying for, the funds-draining national property database Realtors Property Resource, according to Greg Robertson on his blog at Vendor Alley.
"Our long national nightmare is over," said NAR CEO Dale Stinton, via a "quote" in a purported NAR press release shown on the blog.
Never fear, Realtors, the post says that NAR has decided to invest in another industry important to agents — cars. "Today’s cars aren’t designed for the average Realtor, so we thought we needed to do something about it," said NAR President Gary Thomas in a "statement."
Seattle broker launches homebuying tournament platform for listings: For those home sellers in Seattle who know that a playoff system is the best way to determine a winner (see college football), Seattle brokerage Findwell has launched a new "March Madness"-like bracket system that will help them find the best buyers.
Eight buyers –- six chosen based solely on ranking of initial offer price and two at-large bids — will be pitted against each other in three single-elimination rounds, Findwell explained in a blog post.
The two homebuyers that make it to the championship round will try to woo the neighbors at a soiree at the home to win the tournament and the home.
New dating site for real estate pros, "On the Market": Real estate professionals are busy, "generating leads … showing homes, and filing paperwork," said real estate software and marketing firm Market Leader. So the firm has developed a dating site exclusive to real estate pros.
No news on whether the firm has a customer relationship management platform to handle leads from the new dating site. Sign up here.
Redfin adopts new shark species as mascot: Seattle-based brokerage Redfin announced that it has adopted a new shark species discovered by a Redfin employee while fishing from his kayak in Puget Sound near Seattle as its mascot.
Photo of the new Redfin Shark species.
The new shark species has an actual red dorsal fin and biologists have given it the name "Redfin Shark," a blog post on Redfin that announced the discovery noted.
Redfin is launching an advertising campaign around the fish, which will include three days of sponsorship on the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week program in 2013.
Other news
Google introduced Gmail Blue, a result of "moonshot" thinking. The popular email platform now offers a "blue that was reminiscent of nature but better than what nature created."
Virgin Airlines announced it now has developed the technology to produce glass-bottomed planes. "I am incredibly proud of yet another aviation breakthrough which has been years in the making," wrote Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, in a blog post.
Artist’s rendition of Virgin Airlines’ glass-bottomed plane.
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NAR Tech Edge to launch this month
Posted on April 1st, 2013
Conference tour sheds light on real estate technology trends in locations across the country
The National Association of Realtors will launch its tech-conference tour this month, the trade group announced today. The first event of the tour will be held on April 12 in Fairfax, Va., and others will follow in different locations throughout the summer and fall.
Launched for the first time last year, "NAR Tech Edge" conferences aim to shed light on emerging technological trends in the real estate industry. The announcement of the tour came shortly after NAR revealed the inaugural members of its new startup accelerator, REach. The program will provide mentoring and, potentially, funding to the participating companies.
"Technology continues to change the way that Realtors and the real estate business operate," said NAR President Gary Thomas in a statement. "NAR Tech Edge is a great opportunity for Realtors to further expand and build upon the techniques and tools they’ve already successfully incorporated into their business."
Technology tools are integral to Realtors’ business dealings, according to the 2012 NAR Member Profile. The survey found that nearly all member respondents used their email on a daily basis, and that eight out of 10 used smartphones with Internet capability on a daily basis. In addition, more than half of respondents reported having their own websites and regularly using social media.
Speakers for the one-day events will include CEO of the Social Media Marketing Institute and Century 21 Advantage Gold Bill Lublin; NAR Director of Digital Engagement Nobu Hata; and Vice President of Platform Development at Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Amy Chorew.
NAR Tech Edge will take place in Fairfax, Va., on April 12; Bullhead City, Ariz., on April 19; San Francisco on July 24; Boca Raton, Fla., on August 7; Columbus, Ohio on September 7; Parsippany, N.J., on September 23; Chicago on October 9; and Springfield, Mass., on October 18. The events are open to Realtors and non-Realtors alike.
To learn more or register for the conference, visit www.epronar.com/nar_tech_edge.cfm.
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More millennials see homeownership as a good investment
Posted on April 1st, 2013
PulteGroup survey: Intention to buy rose among most 18- to 34-year-olds in the last year
Most millennials that make more than $50,000 a year are more interested in buying homes than they were a year ago, a recent survey by homebuilder PulteGroup, Inc. found.
Nearly two-thirds, or 65 percent, of renters between 18 and 34 who responded to the survey and had an income above $50,000 said that their intention to buy has "significantly or somewhat increased in the past year," PulteGroup said.
"Millennials have witnessed the housing boom and bust, but still believe homeownership is a good investment," said Fred Ehle, vice president for PulteGroup, in a statement. "Consistent with other third-party research that shows more than 90 percent of millennials plan to buy a home someday, we see a lot of young adults who are making financial sacrifices to afford a place of their own."
As part of the survey, PulteGroup also polled people on what home aspects matter most to them. The company found that millennials highly value efficient use of space in a home, with 69 percent of respondents indicating that they "overwhelmingly want an open layout space in the kitchen and family rooms for entertaining family and friends."
Millennial survey respondents also said these features were either very important or extremely important to them:
- 84 percent said ample storage for daily items;
- 76 percent said space for TV, movie, or sports watching;
- 73 percent said the entry to the home;
- 63 percent said an outdoor living space or deck; and,
- 36 percent said the ability to conduct business from home.
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Study: Neighborhood zoning helped cause crisis
Posted on April 1st, 2013
Communities that zoned for larger, more expensive homes at higher risk of foreclosure
A new study published in the journal Housing Policy Debate may have identified another contributing factor to the financial crisis: neighborhood zoning.
Conducted by a team at the University of Illinois, the study examined the incidence of foreclosure from 2005 to 2008 in different categories of zoning in six metropolitan areas.
Based on a look at zoning classifications that allow anywhere from more than eight units per acre to less than one unit per acre, researchers discovered that communities that were zoned to foster development of large, single-family homes rather than a broader spectrum of housing options had a higher proportion of homes that entered foreclosure.
Read more about the study at Phys.org.
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Protect yourself against loan lock scams
Posted on April 1st, 2013
If market price changes, lock should be based on 'twin sibling rule'
A price quote means nothing until it is properly locked with the lender. A rate lock, as it is commonly called, is the lender’s commitment that it will make the specified loan at the specified price within a specified future period.
The price includes not only the interest rate but also points, which are upfront charges expressed as a percent of the loan; fixed-dollar charges; and (if the loan is adjustable-rate) the margin and maximum rate.
Locking has become more difficult: Before the financial crisis, if you started early enough in the day, it was relatively easy to contact a lender and lock the price the same day. Today, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Delays are more frequent today than before the financial crisis, and the delay periods are longer. Before the crisis, income and asset documentation as well as appraisal requirements were often waived, facilitating the locking process. There are few, if any, waivers today.
Determining the property value, which has a major bearing on the terms of a loan, is particularly problematic. Before the crisis, lenders would lock based on the borrower’s or broker’s estimate of value if it was a refinance, or based on the sale price if it was a purchase, confident that in the great majority of cases the appraisal would confirm the value. Appraisals in buoyant markets generally did.
Today, lenders cannot have this confidence because appraisals have become conservative, and they also take longer. So lenders do one of two things: Either they require an appraisal before they lock, or they lock without it but require that the appraisal, when it materializes, show a value above some level for the lock to remain valid.
Lock delays carry risk to borrowers: Because market prices are highly volatile, lenders reset them every morning, and often during the day as well. This makes it very likely that the price on the lock day will not be the same as the price quoted to the borrower earlier, on which the borrower’s decision to proceed was based. While prices may change in either direction, the risks to the borrower are not symmetrical. Borrowers waiting to lock will always pay more if the price has risen, but they won’t necessarily pay less if the price has declined.
Lock scamming is all too easy: A lender who locks at the current price when that price is higher than the one quoted to the borrower earlier should do the same when the current price is lower. However, few borrowers are likely to object if they are locked at the price they were quoted previously, and my soundings suggest that this is a common occurrence. The irony is that the borrowers who consider themselves victimized are the ones who pay a higher price following an increase in the market price, whereas the real victims are those who pay the same price following a market decline.
The good faith estimate (GFE) doesn’t help: The GFE is a federally required disclosure of rates, fees and other loan characteristics that must be provided to the borrower within three business days of the submission of a loan application. It is designed to protect borrowers against a variety of hazards, but it does not protect them against lock scamming.
If the loan has been locked at the time the GFE is issued, any scamming has already occurred. If the loan is not locked when the GFE is issued, the rates and fees shown on the GFE are pre-lock quotes similar to those quoted to the borrower orally, but many borrowers don’t understand this. The GFE states that "the interest rate for this GFE is available through [date]," and if the loan has not been locked, the lender enters a day that has already expired. This is a horribly roundabout and confusing way to tell the borrower that the loan is not locked.
Protecting yourself against lock scamming: When the market price changes between the time the lender quotes a price to the borrower and the time the loan is locked, the lock price should be based on the "twin sibling rule": That rule states that the price locked will be the price the lender would quote on the same day on the identical transaction to the borrower’s twin requesting a price quote. If the new market price is below the price quoted to the borrower earlier, the lender will lock the lower price. If the new market price is higher than the price quoted earlier, the lender should not lock until explicitly authorized to do so by the borrower.
How does a borrower verify that the lender has followed this rule? One way is to monitor market changes on a day-to-day basis. The best tool for this purpose is my daily series on wholesale mortgage prices.
Even better is to deal with lenders who provide access to their pricing systems through third-party multi-lender websites, where borrowers can check their price on the system when they lock. Three sites that provide this facility are mortgagemarvel.com, zillow.com and mtgprofessor.com, which is mine.
The writer is professor of finance emeritus at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Comments and questions can be left at www.mtgprofessor.com.
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