Renovation SOS

Licensed contractor John DeSilvia comes to the rescue of distraught homeowners who have seen their homes left in shambles by the contractor they hired to fix it. Bad plumbing, shoddy framing, being structurally unsound: These are the complaints that homeowners have after hiring a bad contractor. DeSilvia steps in to make everything right, but he only has a few days in which to do it. After John and his team finish their work, these homeowners won't recognize their place.

 "Rescue My Renovation" crews demolish, build, renovate and refurbish projects in Tri-State area homes. “If you have been a victim of a contractor who has done shoddy work on your home, they want to hear your story,” Firstbrook said. If you would like to be considered for the new series and are currently living in nightmarish conditions, email casting@boywonderproductions.net.

The Fate of Rates

Last week, Bernard Bernanke startled many by announcing that the Fed will not wind down their bond buying program right now. The program is part of an overall stimulus package geared at bringing back the national economy. The Fed’s purchase of these bonds over the last few years has driven mortgage rates to historic lows. The assumption that there would be a reduction in bond purchases has caused 30 year mortgage rates to spike upward over the last few months. Surprisingly, Bernanke revealed the Fed will continue bond purchasers at the current pace.

 What does it mean to mortgage interest rates? Some buyers are waiting to see if interest rates will come back down before making a decision about buying a home. Though no one can guarantee where rates will be in a few months, we don’t believe waiting is a good strategy.

Most experts believe rates may actually move higher. The Mortgage Bankers Association,Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the National Association of Realtors are in unison projecting that rates will continue to climb.
With home prices increasing and interest rates projected to also increase, the cost of buying a house could quickly increase rather dramatically.

NJ Cash Buyers Grow to 45% of Housing Market

As interest rates climb steadily, the proportion of cash purchases that are taking place in New Jersey has made it one of the top 10 markets in the country for investors. In addition to rising interest rates, the reluctance of big banks to make mortgages easily available has also become a significant contributing factor, as well.  

Finally, given their propensity to pay for real estate purchases with cash, in whole, and up front, institutional investing has also been a huge contributing factor Cash sales: 45.0% Median list price: $279,900 institutional sales: 3.1%

Mining Ethics From the Wind

Ethical Electric is America's first supplier of exclusively 100% renewable energy. They characterize themselves as "the good guys" in the energy industry. Their goal is to power as many American homes and businesses as possible with 100% clean energy from renewable sources like wind and solar.

Ethical Electric intends to use their profits to fund causes that benefit our planet and "advance equality, peace, justice and opportunity." To spread the word, they're partnering with some of such prominent environmental organizations as the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters and the Wilderness Society.

Switching is fast and easy - you'll still get the same bill, the same service, over the same wires. All that changes is that instead of powering your home with dirty energy, like oil, gas and nuclear, funding dirty politics, your electricity will be 100% from local, renewable sources and a share of your electric bill will help support their affiliated environmental causes.(click on photo to enlarge)

Bubbles of Fresh Expectations

Rebounding from 6 years of declining prices, this infographic includes the average projected growth in home values for the next 4 years.

Great Epectations

Real Estate analyst Steve Harney is reflecting on the latest Home Price Expectation Survey that came out a few weeks ago.  It’s a quarterly report done where they survey a nationwide panel of over 100 economists, real estate experts and investment and market strategists. They take over a hundred of the real gurus in our industry and they say, “Where do you think prices are going to be over the next five years?”
The survey takes both ends of the spectrum and everyone in between and they mesh all their answers together, and then they give you the average.  It surveys the experts, both bulls and bears, and says, “All right, what’s the average of their findings?”  They give us a little historical perspective on it. Here is the average annual appreciation on a yearly basis.

What these experts did is looked at it and said, all right, what’s the pre-bubble number? What happened during the bubble? And they redefined the bubble. That’s why that number sometimes vacillates a little bit.

 What happened during the bust? What’s happened so far from the bottom to where we are today? And what are the expectations on an annual basis going forward?

An inexpensive A/C Alternative for Your Whole House

Although they may be initially more expensive than single room a/c units whole house fans can save a lot on your electric bill and increase your green footprint.

Whenever the outside temperature drops below inside temps, open some screened windows and flip on the fan to pull cool, dry air through the house and exhaust hot air through your roof vents.

For a morning “pre-cool,” run your whole-house fan just before sunrise, then close the windows to seal in the cool air as the day warms up. In the evening when outside temps dip, turn on your fan to cool off the house, which takes about 20 minutes for a 2,500 sq. ft. house. In general, whole-house fans are more effective in multi-story homes than single-level.

Read more at houselogic.com

(You can find more house logic tips on the bottom right of this page)

hhttp://www.wholehousefan.com/where-wholehousefans-work/

Introducing My New Website

I've just published a brand new website that is designed to give potential home buyers and sellers more control in today's rapidly changing marketplace. It will be updated on a daily basis.

The live link can be found above as well next to my profile on this blog. Let me know if you have any suggestions for improving it's functionality.

Near Record Rise in Home Sales

Pending home sales rose in May to the highest level since late 2006, implying a possible spark as mortgage interest rates began to rise, according to the National Association of Realtors®.

 The Pending Home Sales Index,* a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, increased 6.7 percent to 112.3 in May from a downwardly revised 105.2 in April, and is 12.1 percent above May 2012 when it was 100.2; the data reflect contracts but not closings.

Contract activity is at the strongest pace since December 2006 when it reached 112.8; pending sales have been above year-ago levels for the past 25 months.

New Record Set for Home Values

US home prices have taken a major leap in April, setting a new monthly record for gains. From March to April, home price gained 2.6% and 2.5% for the top ten and top 20 US markets respectively, according to the latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices. Average prices rose 11.6% and 12.1% in April from a year ago.

Newest Data Suggests Buying Beats Renting

Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies released its annual State of the Nation’s Housing report for 2012. The report, which always does a good job laying out in plain language what’s happening with the market, points to the increasingly strong market fundamentals and says home sales really could see serious improvement this year.

The big beneficiary of the last several years has been the multifamily housing sector. It’s booming. As the report puts it, “the number of renters surged by 5.1 million in the 2000s, the largest decade-long increase in the postwar era.” More rental growth is expected. It’s in part because of this rental growth that home ownership is poised to improve.

The report includes an informative graph (see below) that shows how much more affordable mortgage payments have become relative to rental rates. At some point, renters are going to realize they’re losing money each month they continue to rent.

Newark's Water Wars

The Gateway Group of the Sierra Club is sponsoring "Newark's Water Wars", a free public forum, on Wednesday, June 12, from 7-9 pm, at St James Parish, 143 Madison St, Newark. All are welcome. Membership is not required. The panelists include Columbia Economics Professor Dan Flaherty, Dr Ana Baptista (Ironbound CC), Kim Gaddy (Newark Environmental Council Chair), Guy Sterling (retired Newark Star Ledger Reporter), and Lenny Thomas (Ironbound Super Group Chair). Dr Flaherty will be doing a Power Point presentation about the history of the Newark Watershed controversy. The part played by US Senate Candidate Mayor Cory Booker will be part of the discussion. The Panel intends to address other environmental challenges for Newark as well.

Mortgage Rates Approaching 4%

After bouncing along their all time lows for several month, residential mortgage rates seem to be on a steady upward climb.

Freddie Mac today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing fixed mortgage rates climbing higher for the fifth consecutive week on concerns the Federal Reserve may slow its bond purchases amid a strengthening economy. This marks the first time the average 15-year fixed-rate mortgage has gone above 3 percent since the week of May 24th of last year.

It's
30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 3.91 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending June 6, 2013, up from last week when it averaged 3.81 percent.
Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 3.67 percent.

15-year FRM this week averaged 3.03 percent with an average 0.7 point, up from last week when it averaged 2.98 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 2.94 percent.

Essex Home Values Continue to Rise

Here's a map of Essex County home values lumped broadly by each town's Zip code.

Are You Making the Most Out of Your MID?

A home mortgage interest deduction allows taxpayers who own their homes to reduce their taxable income by the amount of interest paid on the loan which is secured by their principal residence.

As the national map indicates. New Jersey residents have been high among the one third of all taxpayers who take the largest deductions from the program. Further down, you can find a town by town breakdown within NJ showing which parts of the state benefit the most.

Foreclosures Decline Nationally But NJ Backlog Still 2nd Highest

According to Housing Wire, the nation’s supply of homes in some stage of foreclosure fell 23% in March, declining from 1.5 million housing units a year earlier to 1.1 million distressed properties, CoreLogic said in a new report Tuesday.

While foreclosure filings were dropping year-over-year, the number of completed foreclosure actions actually rose 6% from February to March. Still, the overall trend is for foreclosures to continue to decline. From the years 2000 through 2006, the nation averaged roughly 21,000 foreclosures per month. Since the onset of the crisis, CoreLogic estimates 4.2 million homes have been lost to foreclosure,

The states with the highest foreclosure inventory rate based on the percentage of all mortgaged homes includes Florida, which boasts a 9.7% foreclosure inventory rate. New Jersey comes in second with a 7.3% foreclosure inventory rate, while New York, Maine and Illinois maintain foreclosure inventory rates between 4.4% and 5%.

10 Ways to Have Earth Day Every Day

From the new Managing Editor of Treehugger.com:comes a reminder that you don't have to spend a lot of money to make a difference in transforming your environment:

Housing Recovery Now 56% Back to Normal

Trulia's latest gages of the housing market are all showing encouraging signs of a steady recovery. Averaging these three back-to-normal percentages together — construction starts, existing home sales and the delinquency-plus-foreclosure rate — the housing market is now 56% of the way back to normal, up from 54% in February and 43% six months ago in September, writes Trulia in a blog post.

One year ago, the market was only 33% back to normal – so the last year has been a significant recovery, says Jed Kolko, chief economist at Trulia.
 .

Home Prices Soar at 8.1% Annually Highest in 6 years.

January was the second consecutive month-over-month increase in house prices and the eighth consecutive year-over-year increase.
According to the most recent release by Standard and Poor’s Case-Shiller 20-City Composite House Price Index rose by 0.1% on a not seasonally adjusted monthly basis and the 10-City Index rose by 0.2% on a not seasonally adjusted monthly basis. In the 12 months ending in January 2013, house prices rose by 8.1% according to the 20-City Composite Index and 7.3% according to the 10-City Composite Index.

 Year-over-year house price growth has been generally widespread. House prices have risen on a not seasonally adjusted 12 month basis in each city tracked by the 20-City Composite Index

Pet Owners Fighting Housing Bans With "Nuclear Option"

Pet owners who move into apartments or condos have to deal with all kinds of restrictions. Many ban pets altogether or have weight limitations on dogs. Other large new projects allow pets when they first open, but clamp down later when homeowner associations takeover. When the original owners move, they may not even know that they can't transfer all their "grandfathered" rights to the new owner or renter.
Exceptions were often made for Service Dogs owned by the blind or severely handicapped.
Now, legal precedents have expanded the Service Dog rules to include the emotional support of  "Assistance Animals."  Faced with choosing between their dream home and their forever pet, dog owners are beginning to resort to a "Nuclear Option."
While it can't hurt to have a doctor's note prescribing the need for the animal, Americans With Disability(ADA) and Fair Housing regulations state that

When it is not obvious what service an animal provides, only limited inquiries are allowed. Staff may ask two questions: (1) is the dog a service animal required because of a disability, and (2) what work or task has the dog been trained to perform. Staff cannot ask about the person’s disability, require medical documentation, require a special identification card or training documentation for the dog, or ask that the dog demonstrate its ability to perform the work.

This option for Emotional Support Animals (ESA) could conceivably be applied to almost any animal.

The owner can be charged for actual damage done by the animal, but they may not require the applicant to pay a fee or a security deposit in order to keep the animal.

If this process becomes seriously abused by pet owners, we can expect pushback from the owners of multifamily homes and apartment complexes. Since Fair Housing regulations are federally mandated, appeals of the substantial fines may ultimately wind up in the Supreme Court.