Inventory Watch

by | Oct 5, 2015 | Inventory, Jim's Take on the Market

Here are the new actives/new pendings for the first week of October:

Year
New Listings
New Pendings
2013
80
61
2014
78
54
2015
83
53

Until we see some disruption, it looks like the market is all ahead full!

Click on the link below for the complete NSDCC active-inventory data:

(more…)

HELOCs Are Back

by | Oct 4, 2015 | Jim's Take on the Market, Mortgage News | 1 comment

money

Equity is back, so it’s no surprise that homeowners want to tap into it. And little by little, the lenders are happy to oblige:

http://newsok.com/article/5450439

WASHINGTON — Americans are tapping into their home equity at a pace not seen since the housing bubble aftermath nearly a decade ago, but here’s a key question: Is all this borrowing getting a little too frothy?

Are we headed back to the bad old days when some owners hocked their houses to the hilt to finance autos, vacations and other consumer expenditures?

New data provided by national credit bureau Equifax reveal that between January and June, lenders extended more than 657,000 new home equity lines of credit, popularly known as HELOCs, with a total credit limit of nearly $70 billion.

The number of new lines was up nearly 15 percent over comparable year-earlier levels and was the highest since 2008. The total dollar limit on the lines was 24 percent above the year before and the highest in seven years.

Not all these HELOCs are going to owners with great credit ratings: Through the first half of the year, 9,600 credit lines, with total dollar limits of $338 million, went to borrowers with subprime credit scores, defined as an Equifax Risk Score below 620. That’s a 30-percent increase over the previous year.

New home equity installment loans also are surging. In the first six months of the year, more than 354,000 home equity loans were originated, 23 percent above the same period in 2014.

The total dollar amount of these loans exceeded $12 billion, which is close to a 20 percent increase year-over-year. More than 38,000 new home equity loans went to borrowers with subprime credit scores, 30 percent higher than the year earlier.

Meanwhile, cash-out refinancings are making a comeback, according to new information from giant investor Freddie Mac. During the second quarter of this year, 34 percent of all refinancings resulted in owners adding to their mortgage principal balances and pocketing the extra cash, $11.4 billion worth.

That’s the highest quarterly rate for cash-outs since 2009 and is 35 percent higher than a year earlier.

So what’s going on here? Is there cause for alarm?

Read full article here:

http://newsok.com/article/5450439

Archtoberfest

by | Oct 3, 2015 | Historic Homes, Interesting Houses, Jim's Take on the Market, Local Flavor

la jolla

Enjoy local architecture in October, with lectures, exhibitions, and tours scheduled throughout the month – from the UT:

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/oct/02/archtoberfest-architecture-design-tours/

Fantastic opportunities in the second and third tours:

Tours

“Sundays with Save Our Heritage Organisation,” at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. each Sunday in October, Balboa Park and other locations; see sohosandiego.org for details.

Modern San Diego home tours, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Oct. 10; self-guided tours of six homes, $40; tickets at modernhometours.com.

“Oh! San Diego” open house tours of 41 sites, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 17; free. See details at sdarchitecture.org.

American Society of Interior Designers Kitchen and Bath tour, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 24; $25; tickets available from asidsandiego.org.

Could Be Worse?

by | Oct 2, 2015 | Jim's Take on the Market, Listing Agent Practices | 2 comments

greed

During the bank-owned/foreclosure era, lenders were adamant about squeezing every last penny out of a deal.  They insisted on their escrow and title companies, refused to do any repairs, no termite work, etc.  You should just feel grateful that they decided to sell you the house.

People understood the banks’ position – their investors were eating hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the clerks were just trying to stop the bleeding.

But now foreclosures are over, and sellers are back to making hundreds of thousands of dollars of profit on the sale of their home.

But the previous attitude has stuck around.

You could say that listing agents are just trying to save money for their sellers when they won’t do any repairs, no termite, no home warranty, no nothing.  They demand shorter contingency periods, shorter escrow times, and the seller might even take a few fixtures if they feel like it.

But in a softer market, they are going to be blowing up deals that could have – and should have – been made.

Why won’t buyers keep going for it?  Because their frustrations over the actual negotiations are compounded by the listing agents not returning calls, not responding to offers for 3-4 days, and having an attitude once they do surface.

Of course, just as I get on my high horse about how agents should be treating each other better, I hear from a buyer in the Silicon Valley.

He is having to include a 6% non-refundable deposit now on each offer!  If it gets accepted and you don’t like the inspection, then say bye-bye to your 6%!

Variable Range Pricing

by | Oct 1, 2015 | Jim's Take on the Market, Listing Agent Practices | 5 comments

VRM

Hat tip to the reader who sent in this good explanation about variable-range, or value range pricing:

http://www.zillow.com/wikipages/Variable-or-Value-Range-Pricing-for-Homes/

The author takes a neutral stance, and notes that it hasn’t caught on much outside of San Diego (I haven’t heard of it being used anywhere except here).

I also like the point that listing agents should have sellers prepped to entertain offers at the bottom of the range:

Of course, we always make sure our sellers would actually consider an offer at the lower end of the range before advertising it! To do otherwise would constitute misleading “bait and switch” advertising.

In the 10-15 years of range pricing, I haven’t found a buyer yet who likes it.

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