They had the Harris Poll conduct surveys to assist with the research. The responses from renters were the most interesting.
It appears that the barriers to home buying are what we’d expect; the saving of down payment, and being able to afford the payments:
The poll suggests that most renters can’t afford to buy, rather than deliberately choosing to wait it out.
Even a change in market forces (lower prices/higher rents – in yellow) probably won’t make much difference, plus a large segment of the older population have already checked out altogether (in red).
Crowdfunding is getting bigger and more diverse, and it gives an investment vehicle to those who can’t – or don’t want to – put all their eggs in one basket and buy properties individually. This company opened an eREIT, did an interview with Forbes, and, in one day, took in all the money it could handle:
Just one day after announcing plans to open its next investment opportunity, Fundrise debuted what’s dubbed as the world’s first eREIT.
The crowdfunding platform shared:
“Commercial real estate has historically been one of the best performing investment assets. Investors whose portfolios have up to 20% allocated to real estate have outperformed those with only stocks and bonds. Until now, investing in commercial real estate has been restricted by either very large minimum investments or the need to go through middlemen who charge high fees, negatively impacting returns. The Fundrise eREIT has a minimum investment of $1,000 with approximately one-tenth the average fees of similar traditional channels.”
Fundrise noted that the eREIT uses the latest technology to offer investments directly, online. This increased efficiency allows us to reduce overall costs, and provide greater transparency. It is similar to an ETF or mutual fund but instead of investing in stocks, you are investing in what is intended to be a diversified pool of commercial real estate assets.
It was also revealed that the eREIT’s primary objective is to provide investors with a low-volatility income stream of consistent, attractive cash distributions generated from commercial real estate investments. Cash distributions are expected to be paid every quarter.
Update: Fundrise’s initial $1 million processing window has exceeded the subscription amount by 503%. As a result, the platform are currently restricting available investment while it complete the initial processing.
Importantly, those new homes are becoming more affordable, realtor.com Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke said Wednesday.
“What you’ve seen in the last couple of years is that builders have been avoiding that more affordable entry-level price point,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“We’re already seeing movement. Last week’s report on new home sales showed that the median new home price is finally coming down, and that’s a good sign that builders are positioning communities and product for a more affordable price.”
That is helping to draw in millennials, who are often viewed as absent from the housing market.
Americans ages 24 to 35 accounted for 30 percent of the existing home sales market in 2015, according to National Association of Realtors data cited by Smoke.
“That’s higher than it has been the last couple of years and trending towards normal, which is more around 36, 37 percent,” he said.
Smoke noted that realtor.com’s top 10 hottest housing markets for 2016 contained other surprises, in addition to top-ranked Providence: St. Louis; New Orleans and Virginia Beach, Virginia.
While all the areas on the list have strong economies or improving prospects, those four areas are about four years behind other markets in the recovery, and their economic outlook for 2016 is particularly strong, Smoke said.
Realtor.com hottest markets for 2016:
1. Providence, R.I., and Warwick, Mass.
2. St. Louis 3. San Diego-Carlsbad
4. Sacramento-Roseville-Arden-Arcade, Calif.
5. Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell
6. New Orleans-Metairie
7. Memphis, Tenn.
8. Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, N.C.
9. Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, Va.
10. Boston-Cambridge-Newton
Below is an interactive chart showing the active listings – each data point is three months of activity. Currently the inventory is lower than in previous years, in spite of the higher prices – a trend we have been experiencing lately:
However, this chart shows that lately the number of new listings has been higher than in previous years – suggesting that sellers are sensing an opportunity, and that next year we could finally see some market balancing:
‘North Coastal’ excludes La Jolla and includes Oceanside – but starting at $800,000 should limit any skewing of our regular NSDCC trends.
It’s the little black book of claim records that the insurance industry keeps on its clients and their properties. It is the Carfax for insurance claims:
CLUE (Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange) is a claims-information report generated by LexisNexis®, a consumer-reporting agency. The report generally contains up to seven years of personal-auto and personal-property claims history.
For years the LexisNexis company had sold the history of claims to third-party companies who also furnished the Natural Hazard Disclosures report. These independent companies would bundle up the whole package and provide these required disclosures to home sellers – who would then complete their disclosure requirement and deliver the package to the buyers.
But we’ve had a development, starting today:
Recap of Changes:
1. NHD companies will no longer be able to provide C.L.U.E.® Reports. LexisNexis, the provider of the C.L.U.E.® Report, will discontinue providing the information through NHD companies.
2. Only the property owner will be able to request the C.L.U.E.® Home Seller’s Disclosure Report. LexisNexis will ask specific questions to verify their identity (SSN, DOB, etc.).
4. The C.L.U.E.® Report is not a mandatory Report. The Seller’s only obligation is to disclose and explain within their knowledge about any insurance claims for the past 5 years. The California Association of Realtors® Supplemental Statutory and Contractual Disclosures (SSD) form provides a line item to disclose that information.
Now only the homeowner can access the C.L.U.E. report, which presents an interesting dilemma for buyers. What happens if you ask for a free report, and they say no?
I’ve had five-figure claims be exposed by C.L.U.E reports, and even had a six-figure claim once that a seller gingerly tried to explain was his remodeling budget. Sellers who haven’t owned the house for five years may not know the history.
There has already been one local real estate company that has decided not to require a C.L.U.E report any more. Buyers of their listings will have to rely solely on the seller’s disclosures only.
I can’t remember a time when we have gone backwards on disclosures, and now we can provide less than before.
With our listings, I will insist that our sellers provide the free report in advance. Comfortable buyers pay more money, and they close escrows.
The mass defaults haven’t happened yet, but old cronys from Countrywide who are funding loans that are insured by FHA does sound sketchy.
From the latimes.com:
PennyMac, AmeriHome Mortgage and Stearns Lending have several things in common.
All are among the nation’s largest mortgage lenders — and none of them is a bank. They’re part of a growing class of alternative lenders that now extend more than 4 in 10 home loans.
All are headquartered in Southern California, the epicenter of the last decade’s subprime lending industry. And all are run by former executives of Countrywide Financial, the once-giant mortgage lender that made tens of billions of dollars in risky loans that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis.
This time, the executives say, will be different.
Unlike their subprime forebears, the firms maintain that they adhere to strict new lending standards to protect against mass defaults.
Still, some observers worry as housing markets heat up across the country and in Southern California, where prices are up by a third since 2012.
Sundays are the favorite day to look at homes online. From realtor.com:
So what is the true Black Friday of the housing business? Here’s a holiday shocker: Dec. 28 was actually one of the busiest days for real estate searches in the entire year, despite the fact that Dec. 24 was the single slowest.
The reason: When we’re over the holiday hump but still on break, it’s a great time to look for our dream home. The same reason explains the surge of activity on New Year’s Day. And, perhaps buying a house is a popular New Year’s resolution?
Another surprising, best-performing day on a holiday weekend: the other side of the year, July 6. Instead of traveling, many buyers apparently use the long weekend in the height of the buying season to search for homes and go to open houses.
Overall, the spring market typically has the best combination of inventory and value—more homes go onto the market, but prices have not yet thawed. If you miss out on that sweet spot, the second-best opportunity is in fall. Sept. 1, on Labor Day weekend, was another top performer—it’s all part of a seasonal pattern that buyers and sellers can use to their advantage if they are not constrained by school schedules or job transfers.
Besides family-oriented holidays, there’s one more holiday that significantly slows down home-searching activity. Nope, not Mother’s Day, not Father’s Day, but … Valentine’s Day. Think about it: Your significant other wants to take you out for a romantic dinner. Are you gonna say no because you want to stay at home to browse photos of fixer-uppers?
We know that we’re running out of land in San Diego County – here’s a story from the VOSD about Americans going to Tijuana for real estate development.
An excerpt:
“What is really misunderstood is that Tijuana is very important to San Diego. It’s actually where our affordable housing is,” said Shannon.
That is, working-class residents have already realized they can escape San Diego’s high housing costs by crossing the border.
More than 36 million people came through the San Ysidro border crossing in 2014, according to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. And the San Ysidro trolley station is also the second-most active on San Diego’s network, with about 17,955 riders daily. Given that San Ysidro is home to only 20,000 people between 20 and 60 years old, it’s a safe assumption that many of those riders come from Tijuana.
It’s an international version of what real estate agents call “drive until you qualify.” Facing unaffordability, residents fan out ever farther, trading cheaper housing for longer commutes.
In a lot of housing markets, increases in housing prices force wage increases, but that hasn’t happened in San Diego, said Erik Bruvold, president of the National University System Institute for Policy Research.
That’s partly because people can instead live in Tijuana and Temecula and work in San Diego, he said.
“Sometimes the figures for housing and housing prices in San Diego County can be a bit misleading,” Bruvold said. “They don’t help us understand how housing prices in Temecula and Baja are and how they interact with the San Diego economy.”
Much of Murrieta and Temecula were built because housing costs in San Diego pushed lower-wage residents to the area, said Greg Strangman, a developer working on a hotel project in Tijuana.
“That’s how that Inland Empire came about,” Strangman said. “And in the same way, you could have the same situation in Tijuana. It’s a shorter commute coming from Tijuana to San Diego than Temecula to San Diego.”
Thanksgiving week is traditionally one of the slowest weeks of the year for new listings to hit the market. But demand is steady – there were more new pendings (42) than new listings (35), and one of my buyers got caught up in a bidding war that culminated on Thanksgiving Day!
Click on the link below for the complete NSDCC active-inventory data:
