The number homeowners in a negative equity position (owing more on their mortgage than the current value of their home) during the first quarter of this year fell to just 7.3 million homeowners in the U.S. or less than 15 percent of all homeowners with a mortgage, according to the most recent data from Lenders Processing Services (LPS). This represents a decline of almost 50 percent in the number of negative equity homeowners from a year ago. Continue Reading →
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Yes, I know how to spell “facts” and am aware that “fax” machines have went the way of the dinosaurs and therefore would never advise someone to get one, so what exactly am I talking about in my post title? Actually, my recent discovery of a company that was launched in 2012 called Housefax prompted me to do this post, hence “fax”, however, I also mean to suggest that you should get all the “facts” you can (about the house and market) before you buy a home. First, about Housefax. The company was launched last year and it’s top Continue Reading → St. Peters is the top booming suburb in Missouri, according to a newly released ranking by Coldwell Banker of “Top Booming Suburbs In America”. In compiling this ranking, Coldwell Banker ranked 1,500 suburbs around the U.S. based upon job growth, unemployment rates, neighborhood amenities, community safety and more. St. Peters, with a score of 859.35 out of a possible 1,000 scored the best of the Missouri suburbs. The top suburb in the U.S.? Cottage Lake, Washington with a perfect score of 1,000. St Peters Homes For Sale (click here) By state, here is the list of Continue Reading → There are St Louis Housing markets on the rebound with prices and demand on the rise and inventories down. For the 9 areas of St Louis where the real estate market is on the rebound listed below, I have charts showing what home prices have done over the past 3 years (the red line) as well as what our Market Action Index is for the area (an index that rates an area based upon supply and demand – the Olive colored line). As the data shows, these markets are seeing home prices on the rise and the market heating up! I once heard it said that people remember you, not by what you said, not by what you did, but by the way you made them feel. I cannot think of another person that this statement applies to more than Tina Niemann. If you haven’t already heard, Tina passed away on June 14, 2013 after suffering a heart attack. The last time that I saw Tina, was at a luncheon at Bellerive Country Club. Tina saw me and came over and said “I just had to come over and speak to my favorite REALTOR “. Was I really her favorite Continue Reading → A survey by LendingTree reveals that now is the time to buy a home if you want to beat the coming higher home prices and interest rates. According to the survey of individuals that say they are considering buying a home in the coming year, 68% say they feel home prices will rise and 64% think interest rates will rise in the next 12 months. Of the would-be home buyers surveyed, 57 percent are first-time home buyers and 45 percent said they are “actively” shopping for a home while the remaining 55 percent said they are “casual” shoppers. Click here Continue Reading → In the Bible we are told to “love our neighbor as yourself” but it seems over 4 in ten people out there may have a problem with this and noise is the culprit almost half the time. According to a new survey by FindLaw.com, forty two percent (42) of Americans say they have had a dispute with a neighbor and almost half of that group (48 percent) cites noise as the reason for the dispute. Tyler Frank,Paramount MortgageNMLS ID 942420 St Louis Mortgage companies were not making many 30-year, fixed-rate jumbo mortgages a year ago, but now many St Louis Mortgage companies are offering fixed jumbos – with very competitive rates, including my firm, Paramount Mortgage. As interest rates start to rise, homeowners are thinking they may not see rates this low in the future and if their ARM is maturing a couple of years from now, they could be in a tough spot. There were 88,367 St Louis homeowners with negative equity during the first quarter of this year, according to a report just released by CoreLogic. This represents 15.7 percent of the St. Louis homeowners with a mortgage and is a decline of 10 percent from the prior quarter when there were 98,365 St Louis homeowners with negative equity, or 17.5 percent of all St Louis homeowners with a mortgage. For the State of Missouri as a whole, there were 120,056 homeowners, or 15.3 percent of all homeowners with a mortgage, with negative equity during the first quarter of this year. On Continue Reading → Over three of every four people (76 percent) say now is a good time to buy a home according to the National Housing Survey for May just released by Fannie Mae. Would be sellers are also feeling better about the housing market with 40 percent saying now is a good time to sell a home. When it comes to financing that home purchase, American’s are getting more optimistic as well, with 46 percent saying it would be easy to get a home loan today, however 50 percent believe it would be difficult to obtain a mortgage. Thinking of Continue Reading → St Louis Real Estate Market Shows Strengthening in May! The St Louis Real Estate Market remains in seller’s market territory this month, according to the latest market data from MORE, REALTORS. The inventory of homes for sale remains low while home sale and prices are increasing. Thinking of selling and want to know if your neighborhood is a seller’s market? Contact us and we’ll answer that question for you. This is not the market to be an uniformed participant in though or not have qualified, professional representation. This can lead to frustration as a buyer as you continue to “miss” Continue Reading → Missouri Attorney General, Chris Koster, has joined in with Attorney Generals from around the U.S. to combat time share buying scams. According to Koster, deceptive timeshare resellers will often falsely claim to have buyers or renters in place who are ready to pay top dollar for consumers’ timeshare properties. The scamming companies ask timeshare owners to pay hefty up-front fees and do nothing in turn. The Missouri Attorney General’s office offers the following tips to avoid becoming the victim of a timeshare scam: Dennis Norman,Broker-Officer,MORE, REALTORS St. Louis 4th Best City in the U.S. To Buy Bargain Real Estate According to a report released today by RealtyTrac, St Louis is 4th on the list of the best cities in the U.S. to still be able to buy fixer-upper bargain homes. In compiling the list, RealtyTrac considered the number of homes each city had that were bank owned homes (REO’s), built before 1960 (indicating the opportunity to increase value by updating and/or improving) and had an estimated value below $100,000. The complete list of the top 15 cities is below as well Continue Reading → The average home buyer in Missouri makes a down payment of 13.2 percent and borrows an average amount of $172,998.59, according to the latest data from LendingTree.com. The state with the lowest average down payment is Mississippi at 11.9 percent and the highest, New Jersey at 20.5 percent. St Louis was ranked number 2 on the list of “Lowest Performing Major Metro Markets” just released by Clear Capital. The Clear Capital report listed the top 15 performing housing markets in the U.S. as well as the 15 worst performing housing markets in the U.S. during the month of May 2013, based upon home price appreciation on a quarter over quarter basis. At the top of the list of top performing markets is Las Vegas with a 4.5 percent increase in home prices from the prior quarter and a staggering 27 percent increase over the past year. In Continue Reading → The fastest selling areas in St. Louis in April included 7 areas in St Louis County, 2 areas in St Charles County and 1 in the City of St. Louis, according to the latest data from MORE, REALTORS. At the top of the list of the ten fastest selling areas in St Louis is the 63121 zip code, comprised primarily of the city of Normandy in St Louis County where the median time on the market of homes sold in April was under three weeks. [wpsharely id=”5779″]Would you like to SELL your home FAST Too? Click HERE for my free Continue Reading → Slightly over 1 of every 4 (26.4 percent) St Louis homeowners with a mortgage are underwater or, in other words, in a negative equity position owing more on their mortgage than their home is currently worth, according to a report by Zillow. This is slightly higher than the national rate of 25.4 percent and, unfortunately, is predicted by Zillow to increase in the coming months to about 26.7 percent by January 2014. In addition to the St Louis homeowners that are underwater, the report indicates that another 20.7 percent of the St Louis homeowners with a mortgage have less than Continue Reading → St Louis did not make the list of the 15 fastest growing large cities just released by the U.S. Census Bureau and, in fact, no city in Missouri made the list. The list was based upon the 2012 population estimates just released (literally about 1 minute ago) which showed, from 2011 – 2012, the State of Missouri barely had any population growth (0.22 percent). In the St Louis area, as the table below shows which compares the 2010 population for cities and counties throughout the St Louis area to the 2011 and newly released 2012 estimates, the St Louis population Continue Reading → St Louis home sales in April increased 13.7 percent from a year ago for the five-county core area (City of St Louis and the Counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin) while U.S. existing home sales rose 9.7 percent during the same period. During the same time-frame, St Louis home prices rose from a median price of $123,000 13.7 percent to $139,900 while US home prices increased 11.0 percent. The National Association of Home Builders released their housing affordability report for the 1st quarter of 2013 showing that in Mansfield Ohio, the median price for a home was $73,000 and, with the area median family income being $54,600, resulting in 97.5 percent of the new and existing homes for sale being affordable to an average family. At the other end of the list was San Francisco, with a median price of $675,000, median income of $102,000 and only 28.9 percent of its homes affordable to a family with a median income. St. Louis came in at 76 on the Continue Reading → In over half (58 percent) of St Louis neighborhoods it is a better move financially to buy a home rather than rent a home, according to a report just released by Zillow. According to the report, in 49 neighborhoods in the city of St Louis (of 76 in the report) and in 42 neighborhoods in the county of St Louis (of 87 in the report) it makes more sense to buy a home than rent. In putting this list together, Zillow looked at the costs associated with buying and leasing a home, including up front payments, fees as well as Continue Reading → Tyler Frank,Paramount MortgageNMLS ID 942420 Since the real estate market crash, millions of homeowners have lost their homes in a foreclosure, been forced to do a short sale to get out from a home they were underwater on or file bankruptcy as a result of financial hardship as a result of the the market crash and general economic downturn. Many of these homeowners have resorted to renting or living with relatives but, as time passes and the financial wounds heal, are now wanting to buy a home again prompting the question, “how long do I have to wait Continue Reading → St Louis Real Estate Market Sees Declining Inventory and Rising Prices The St Louis Real Estate Market remains a seller’s market this month barely, according to the latest market data from MORE, REALTORS. The inventory of homes for sale remains low while home sale and prices are increasing. Thinking of selling and want to know if your neighborhood is a seller’s market? Contact us and we’ll answer that question for you. This is not the market to be an uniformed participant in though or not have qualified, professional representation. This can lead to frustration as a buyer as you continue Continue Reading → One-third of Homebuyers Surveyed Are Ill-prepared to Get a Mortgage Tyler Frank,Paramount MortgageNMLS ID 942420 According to a survey recently conducted by Zillow, many homebuyers are really not armed with the information they should have before attempting to obtain a mortgage. For example, over one-third (34 percent) of the prospective homebuyers surveyed did not know that a qualified borrower can obtain a home loan today with less than a five percent downpayment. In addition, many homebuyers have misinformation that can prevent them from obtaining the best possible mortgage interest rate. For example, 26 percent of the homebuyers said Continue Reading → As of April 2013, there were 182,678 homeowners in Missouri (26.68 percent) that were underwater on their mortgage meaning that their loan balances exceeds 125 percent of the current value of their home, according to a report just released by RealtyTrac. As a comparison, Illinois’ underwater homeowner rate is 34.79, Florida 41.24, Nevada 52.07 and California 25.07 In a little more upbeat news, the RealtyTrac report also revealed that foreclosure filings (default notices, scheduled foreclosure auctions and bank repossessions) in April affected 144,790 properties in the U.S. which is a decline of 5 percent from the month before and a Continue Reading → The St Louis Housing Market was delivered a blow by a Clear Capital report just released ranking the performance of the housing market in St Louis as the 7th worst of the major metro areas in the U.S. According to the report, St Louis home prices dropped 0.3 percent in the past quarter and declined 1.0 percent from a year ago, that, coupled with the fact that REO’s (foreclosed property owned by banks) makes up 1/3 of the St Louis market, put us at 7th on the “bad” list. At the top of the “good” list was Las Vegas with Continue Reading → In What Cities Can You Make The Most Money Flipping Homes? Unfortunately, St. Louis did not make the list. However, that is actually a good thing as the cities at the top of RealtyTrac’s list of the top 25 cities in the U.S. for flipping homes are all cities that were hammered when the market crashed. This is not to say that the opportunity does not exist in St Louis to flip property for a profit or to make good buys for rental or other long term investment, it’s just the profits here may not be as large as Continue Reading → Tyler Frank,Paramount MortgageNMLS ID 942420 “The (real estate) recovery has been much more like the tortoise than the hare,” said Stephen Blank, a senior resident fellow of the Washington-based Urban Land Institute. “We’ve become used to slow relief. But we have finally turned the corner.” Real estate markets on both coasts in places like; New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Boston were the first to emerge from recession and will pick up their pace of recovery through 2013, said Blank, a principal researcher for Emerging Trends. He was the main speaker at the annual outlook presented by Continue Reading → When you purchase a home if you are most likely going to obtain some type of survey as part of the purchase process. Even if you don’t think you need one, if you are obtaining a mortgage, the lender is going to require that you get one. There are many types of surveys though and not all are created equal. Here in St. Louis it is quite common for a home buyer to obtain a “spot” survey because, at around $100, it is the lowest cost survey that will normally meet the lenders requirements. However, in my opinion, all home Continue Reading → St. Louis is the 4th best place in the U.S. for investors to buy property, based upon a recent report by Radar Logic. In compiling the list of cities, Radar Logic examined where institutional investors (i.e., corporations, LLC’s, partnerships and trusts) were buying property and how big of discounts they were receiving compared to other home sales in that area. The Top 10 Markets For Investors Based Upon Discounted Home Prices: Continue Reading → |
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