Weichert Wake Up Call

Weichert, Realtors® is one of the largest independently-owned providers of real estate services in the country. We believe theres a real Weichert® Difference that makes this a special place to work. And its this: We offer the most salesperson-oriented systems, programs and tools in all of real estate. That means Weichert® Sales Associates, both new and experienced, have every chance to maximize their return with a minimum of hassle.

SACRAMENTO REALTY MAKES MAJOR MOVE INTO FRANCHISE ARENA AS WEICHERT, REALTORS® - GALSTER GROUP

Sacramento/Fair Oaks, Calif., January 30, 2012—Broker Steve Galster and Realtor Sue Galster, owners of Galster Real Estate Group in Fair Oaks, have announced that their seven-year-old agency is now an independently owned and operated franchise with Weichert Real Estate Affiliates (WREA).

Newly named WEICHERT, REALTORS® - Galster Group, the office at 5006 Sunrise Boulevard, Suite 100, in the Sacramento community of Fair Oaks, is home to 25 career Realtors and a full-time staff. The company is in its third office since starting out as “just the two of us,” Steve Galster said. “We keep moving to bigger and better facilities, both to improve our service to clients and to accommodate our still growing sales team.”

Galster also said that “improving the opportunities for their agents to succeed” was among the reasons for joining Weichert. “With the support that Weichert is known for—to brokers and agents alike, we can easily compete for listings as well as top sales talent,” he said.

Galster pointed out that Weichert provides both in-person and online education. Marketing support to agents and brokers and the company’s relocation outreach are also “worth shouting about.” The Weichert Lead Network sends leads directly to Weichert agents from consumers who call into the Weichert call center as a result of viewing listings on line, enabling agents to be reached within minutes of the inquiry from any place in the country. The company’s website, www.Weichert.com, consistently ranks as a top site among all real estate companies for the length of time that visitors spend at the site, according to HitwiseÒ, which monitors the activity of major websites.

Weichert Senior Vice President Bill Scott traveled from the East Coast to make an in-person introduction of the company to its newest franchise owners and their staff and agents. “We are proud to welcome Steve and Sue’s company,” Scott said. “They have earned a solid reputation in the Sacramento area as principled professionals who really care about their clients.”

The Galsters call themselves real estate “lifers” and “near-native” northern Californians. They are active members of the Sacramento Association of REALTORS® (SAR). Steve is a member of the SAR Charitable Foundation Board, a non-profit, Regional MetroList MLS Committee member, and he is currently secretary-treasurer and soon to be president-elect of the SAR Masters Club, an organization of the top 10% of all high achievers in the membership.

WREA announced its first affiliate in January 2002 and by 2005 was identified by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the fastest growing franchises in the nation. To date, offices have opened in some 300 markets in 36 states. The parent company, Weichert, Realtors®, is one of the nation’s largest privately owned providers of real estate and home ownership services.

 WEICHERT, REALTORS® - Galster Group can be reached at 916-966-8700.

ESTABLISHED HARTFORD AREA AGENCY IS NOW WEICHERT, REALTORS® - THE ZUBRETSKY GROUP

Wethersfield, Conn., January 31, 2012— Broker John Zubretsky, Jr., a high-profile Hartford area broker for 35 years, has announced his company’s affiliation with Weichert Real Estate Affiliates, Inc. (WREA). Co-owned by Ann Zubretsky, WEICHERT, REALTORS® - The Zubretsky Group has 85 agents at 449 Silas Deane Highway, Suite 2A, Wethersfield. John Zubretsky III is vice president of operations.

“Weichert really has its act together,” Zubretsky said, citing the organization’s commitment to brokers, agents and profitability. A longtime member of the franchise arena, he is aware of the synergy and benefits that are possible. “Weichert is run by Realtors,” he said. “Others are run by Wall Street.” From founder Jim Weichert to WREA President Martin J. Rueter and his management staff, the team is made up of people who are rooted in real estate.

“We are impressed with the way this company has earned its place in the market with leadership and a client-centric, family philosophy that is in sync with our own,” said Rueter. In 2011, the Wethersfield firm, as a Century 21 office, was identified as no. 1 in units sold of all Century 21 affiliates throughout Central New England. Its Executive Asset Group was ranked the no. 1 team in Connecticut and no. 5 nationally.

The realty was formed by Zubretsky and his father, John Zubretsky, Sr. When John Sr. passed away in 1999, they merged with eight franchised brokerages to form a top 10 nationwide system under the Access America name. “The offices split in March, and we went our separate ways,” Zubretsky said. “Our agents have been with us for a long time and are looking forward to being part of the Weichert family. The timing is good. It’s the right fit.”

WREA announced its first affiliate in January 2002 in Florida and has expanded to some 300 markets in 36 states. The parent company, Weichert, Realtors®, is one of the nation’s largest privately owned providers of real estate and home ownership services. One-stop shopping offers mortgage and insurance services, an award-winning Internet lead-generation platform and a multinational relocation company. Weichert is known for support to brokers and agents, providing in-person local training and online education, marketing and an agent recruitment system.

WEICHERT, REALTORS® - The Zubretsky Group can be reached at 860-263-2121. Email: c21znson@aol.com.

WEICHERT, REALTORS® - NEW COLONY ANNOUNCES PROPERTY MANAGEMENT ‘PLUS’ AT COLUMBIA OFFICE

Columbia, Md., January 31, 2012—WEICHERT, REALTORS® - New Colony in Columbia has announced a new Property Management Division, staffed by management agents who are specialists in the local rental market in Columbia and throughout Howard County.

The announcement is supported by www.ColumbiaWeichertPM.com. The new website details the services available to owners of rental properties, as well as to tenants. The company “specializes in individually owned residential properties,” and prides itself in “connecting qualified tenants with some of the most desirable rental properties in the area as soon as they become available,” said Broker David Vane. “We are committed to providing and maintaining superior living environments for our tenants while maximizing profitability for property owners.”

Secure online tenant services enable renters to check their account and/or pay rent. Owners receive a full range of services that protects their investment while taking care of details required to manage property and serve tenants. Further, maintenance is a “24/7” operation.

The website offers an instant online rental search and features new properties as they become available. For more information, the property management division can be reached at 410-381-3336.

WEICHERT, REALTORS® - New Colony is located at 6925 Oakland Mills Road, Suite A, Columbia. General website address is www.ColumbiaWeichert.com, main telephone 410-381-3331.

Housing Market: What’s Behind and What’s Ahead

 

The housing market in 2011 was a year that saw changing trends and breaking records.

Mortgage Rates

15- and 30-year fixed mortgages hit record lows during 2011. via money.CNN.com

Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey showed the interest rate for a 30-year fixed-rate loan averaging 3.91% last week, the lowest in the 40 years of the survey’s history. The average interest rate for a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage was 3.21% — also a record low.

Mortgage rates are expected to remain low well into 2012.

Greg McBride, a senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com, commented that “for well-qualified buyers interest rates should be no impediment to home buying in 2012.”

Foreclosures & Loans

There were 14% fewer foreclosure notices served in November year-over-year. via Business Week

The  rate of foreclosure filings slowed considerably in 2011, as banks and servicers responded to the documentation and processing challenges from 2010.

The foreclosure liquidation rate is anticipated to rise next year. via Zillow.com

With the settlement between the states’ attorneys general coalition and the major lenders and servicers coming to a head, Zillow sees an increase “either in conjunction with a settlement… or, alternatively, in the aftermath of the settlement effort falling apart.”

Home Values

The slide in home values since 2008 slowed in 2011. via International Business Times

Zillow projects that home values will fall 35% less this year than in 2010; and the Case-Shiller Home Prices indices show that the rate of decline slowed from the second quarter of this year to the third quarter (from 5.8% to 3.9%).

Home values will likely fall a bit more to finally bottom out in 2012.

Jonathon Miller, president and CEP of Miller Samuel, predicts that the decline will be considerably less than this year.

Home Sales & Starts

In 2011, new single-family home sales are on pace to hit a record low of 301,000. via Business Week

On the flip side, however, existing home sales rose to 4.42 million this fall, the highest in 10 months.

Total home starts (houses and apartments) jumped 9.3% month-over-month. via Internation Business Times

This rise from October to November represents the fastest pace in more than 18 months. Although single-family home construction remains stalled, Fitch Ratings projects a 6.7% gain in residential housing starts next year.

Confidence

The Housing Market Index rose to 21 from last month’s 19. via Mortgage News Daily

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) surveys its members monthly to compile the index. Although not huge, 20 is the highest the index has been since May 2010.

 

 

 

 

Are Home Values Finally Stabilizing?

Zillow Real Estate’s latest market report says maybe

On a year-over-year basis, the Zillow® Home Value index declined 5.1 percent. Zillow reports that “the rate of monthly depreciation has stabilized around -0.2 to -0.3 percent over the last few months.”

Of the 156 metropolitan statistical areas covered by Zillow, while 95 showed monthly depreciation in home values, 39 areas actually saw an increase in monthly home value this past October. Twenty-two (22) areas remained flat.

The nine markets that saw the largest year-over-year home value increases from October 2010 to October 2011?

• Tulsa, OK— one-year price gain of 6.2%
• Oklahoma City, OK — one year price gain of 3.1%
• Lincoln, NE — one year price gain of 2.7%
• Madison, WI — one year price gain of 1.3%
• Honolulu, HI — one year price gain of 1.3%
• Fort Collins, CO — one year price gain of 1.3%
• Fort Myers, FL — one year price gain of 0.4%
• Pittsburgh, PA — one year price gain of 0.4%
• Boulder, CO — one year price gain of 0.2%

Another sign of stabilization is the decline in the foreclosure liquidation rate — at 8.1 out of every 10,000 homes being liquidated as of October, 2011 — down from the all-time high of 10.7 out of every 10,000 homes in October, 2010. That’s a drop of nearly 25 percent.

For more details on the Zillow Home Value Index and the latest Zillow Real Estate Market Report, check out these articles:

• U.S. Home Values Continued Fall in October; Rate of Decline Stabilizes (MarketWatch)
• Real Estate Markets: Top 9 Gainers in 2011 (Huffington Post)
• A Bit of Good Real Estate News? (Realty Times)

The Housing Market One or Two?

Analysts disagree over definition and future of the market

Last week, while some real estate analysts offered a somewhat rosy outlook regarding “stabilizing home prices for non-distressed property,” several industry experts from news sources argued that you cannot simply split the market in two pieces — distressed and non-distressed to paint the picture you want.

So what’s the bottom line? Is the market flat, dropping or rising?

Month over month, CoreLogic report that home prices overall fell 3.9 percent in October, and the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index was down 3.9 percent in September (which represents a three month running average of both distressed and non-distressed sales).

Removing the distressed sales(foreclosures and short sales) from CoreLogic’s analysis, however, home prices fell just 0.5 percent in October.

The Wall Street Journal noted that for the first nine months of 2011, non-distressed property prices were relatively stable, with only a two to three percent decline year over year. A real estate analyst from Barclays, a proponent of looking at the two market segments separately, feels that if the pricing trend continues (distressed pricing dropping while non-distressed pricing stabilizes), it could have the effect of “stabilizing something else: home-buyer confidence.” Only time will tell.

For more details, see:

• This blog post on HSH: Home prices may be more stable than we think
• CNBC Real Estate Reporter Diana Olick’s article, Are There Really Two Housing Markets?
•  WSJ mortgage and housing writer, Nick Timiraos’ post: Why Home Prices Are (and Aren’t) Stabilizing

More and More Experts Say Principal Reduction Is the Answer

Why does the head of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac refuse to consider it?

Last week, a group of Democrats from the House sent a letter to Edward DeMarco (who currently heads up the agency (FHFA) that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) asking for a better answer as to why he refuses to implement a principal reduction program at Fannie and Freddie.

The letter cites industry experts, all of whom advocate principal reduction as necessary to bring the housing market and economy out of the dumps, including:

• Chairman of the Fed, Ben Bernanke
• a former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers
• a former Vice Chairman of the Fed
• a former Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program

Even Greg Lippman, the former Deutsche Bank AG trader who made a fortune betting against subprime mortgages, has weighed in on the side of mortgage reduction. Now chief investment officer for a New York-based hedge fund, Lippman wrote a letter to investors saying “principal reductions are necessary to help ameliorate the housing crisis.” (For more on Lippman’s perspective and additional expert opinions, read this Bloomberg News article.)

DeMarco claimed in a Nov. 16^th hearing that his agency has “concluded that the use of principal reduction within the context of a loan modification is not going to be the least-cost approach for the taxpayer.” (For a great summary of DeMarco’s exchange with Rep. John Tierney (D-MA), read this post on Fire Dog Lake.)

According to the Democrats behind the letter, DeMarco has too long been spouting “superficial excuses about why principal reduction programs are not feasible at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, despite a growing chorus of economists and other experts who believe these programs serve the long-term interests of taxpayers.”

Felix Salmon, an award winning financial journalist, boils the likely real reasoning behind DeMarco’s stance down to the following:

If we [the FHFA]do principal reductions, the accounting conventions finally grow some teeth, and we’re forced to take a write-down. Since we don’t want to recognize reality and take that write-down, we’re simply going to avoid doing principal reductions instead.” (read Salmon’s full post on “Ed DeMarco’s Obstructionism” here)

The Democrats’ letter calls for DeMarco to provide documentation that proves there are statutory provisions preventing FHFA from letting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reduce mortgage principal. In addition, they asked DeMarco for an analysis that compares the financial implications of foreclosures with the cost of debt reduction. DeMarco’s deadline to provide these documents is December 9^th. 

Holiday Mortgage News. More of the Same

Rates continue to hover near historic lows

The short holiday week saw little change in mortgage rates.

According to Mortgage News Daily, the Best-Execution Rates for Friday, November 25^th ranged from 3.875% (“very few”) to 4.125% (“some”), with most seen at 4.0%. Realty Times reported the results of Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the three-day week:

• 30-year fixed-ratemortgage averaged just under 4.0%, down from 4.40% a year ago
• Average rate for 5-year adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) reached a new low of 2.91%, down from 3.45% last year
• Average rate for 1-year ARMs was 2.79%, down from 3.23% last year

Although home sales were slightly up in October, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), they could have been even better had there not also been a high number of failed sale contracts in October. NAR’s chief economist attributes the failed contracts in part to appraised values not matching the negotiated sale price and to tight credit standards.

Time to Be Thankful For Housing Market News?

Recent forecasts predict better times ahead in 2012

Although small, a slight uptick in the housing market next year is predicted. A survey by MacroMarkets of more than 100 economists and industry experts shows they expect home values to go up — just a little. About .25 percent in 2012 and a total of 1.1 percent through 2015.

Slowing the recovery down are the many foreclosures clogging the market. A recent article in Money Magazine notes that Freddie Mac predicts that in 2012, 4.8 million homes will be sold in total, while there are more than 5 million homes for sale. The market considers six months of housing inventory to be healthy — more than a year’s worth of inventory is a sign that the going will be tough to return to healthy market conditions.

For buyers and sellers in 2012, the recommendations are to “think small” and “price smart.” For buyers, looking at smaller properties mean smaller loans, smaller payments and smaller home costs overall (energy, water, etc.). For sellers, working with — and listening to — an experienced Realtor when it comes to setting the sale price of their home is critical. According to Trulia, about 25 percent of homes it tracks has reduced its price at least once, by an average of about eight percent.

And of course, for homeowners not looking to sell, now is the time to look at refinancing, as mortgage rates continue to hover at all-time lows. Considering that just recently 15-year mortgage rates were more than half a point less than 30-year mortgage rates, a homeowner who could afford the higher payment could refinance a $250,000 mortgage with a 15-year loan and save more than $100,000 over the life of the loan compared to a 30-year mortgage.

The Battle Over Principal Reduction Rages On

States, including NY and CA, push to include assistance for underwater loans

The latest settlement proposal between the states’ coalition and five major banks after 11 months of talks includes financing support for underwater loans, including refinancing, principal write downs and other forms of assistance. According to CoreLogic, about 22.5 percent of all residential mortgages are underwater.

Multistate talks to craft a settlement with the major banks stalled a few weeks ago when California State Attorney General Kamala Harris withdrew. Harris pointed to the combination of the banks’ demands for broader immunity from litigation and penalty for their earlier “abuses” along with the inadequate relief proposed for homeowners whose loans are underwater as unacceptable to protect the interests of California and California homeowners.

Earlier this month, Harris stated that she thinks the head of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should “step aside” if he will not approve principal reduction for underwater loans. PICO, a California community organizing network, pointed out in a press release that Fannie and Freddie “continue to keep more than one million California families trapped in unsustainable debt.”

The talks, led by Iowa State Attorney General Tom Miller and supported by the Obama administration, had recently increased the suggested penalties from $20 billion to $25 billion. The additional $5 billion, paid directly to state and federal governments, is intended for eligible victims of the five participating banks’ foreclosure processes — restitution payments are estimated to be between $1,500 and $2,000.

In addition to Harris, attorneys general from several other states including New York, Massachusetts, Nevada, Minnesota, Kentucky and Delaware have stated that they don’t feel that the proposed $25 billion settlement is adequate to protect their states’ homeowners.

Gathered from the following sources:

• California Pulls Out of Foreclosure Talks (WSJ)
• States near foreclosure deal with banks (Reuters)
• Kamala Harris, California Attorney General, To Fannie And Freddie Head: 'Step Aside' Over Mortgage Crisis (Huffington Post)
• Should Fannie, Freddie Write Down ‘Underwater’ Mortgages? (WSJ Blogs)

Obama Announces Expanded HARP Program

Two years later after its debut, how has the Home Affordable Refinance Program changed?

Last month, President Obama announced that the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) was being revised and expanded.

HARP was introduced in 2009 as a measure intended, according to a statement by the President, to “make it possible for an estimated four to five million currently ineligible homeowners who receive their mortgages through Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac to refinance their mortgages at lower rates.” In the two years since HARP’s debut, not quite one million homeowners — or 20 to 25 percent of the intended beneficiaries — have received HARP assistance.

As reported on HSH.com, there are two notable changes in the HARP guidelines, impacting borrower qualifications and lender obligations.

Elimination of LTV caps — The original guidelines for qualifying borrowers capped the loan-to-value (LTV) ration at 125 percent. The revised guidelines eliminate this cap, which is good news for borrowers in hard hit states including Nevada and Arizona, where some LTVs exceed 200 percent.

Elimination of Reps and Warranties — The other significant change is the elimination of some representations and warranties for HARP-participating lenders. By transferring certain lender obligations in the case of a loan going bad from the lender to the government, the government is encouraging more banks to participate in HARP, offering homeowners more options and access to loan modification choices.

Tim Manni, managing editor at HSH.com, comments in his post that he anticipates these changes helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (as only mortgages through either of these institutions are eligible for HARP) as well as the loan orginators, who are now able to take on more debt with less risk. Manni does not, however, see these revisions having a noticeable impact on the housing market’s biggest problem: distressed borrowers and shadow inventory. Borrowers who are behind or seriously delinquent are not eligible and REO held out of the market will not be impacted by the expanded guidelines.