Christina Lazrak Real Estate News you can use

News that may help Chelmsford, Lowell, MA Home buyers from Christina Lazrak

Sunset over Waikiki !

Real Estate Sentiment

Nearly half of consumers polled in Fannie Mae’s National Housing Survey in March expect higher rental prices in the year ahead. And 33% expect home prices to rise in the year, the highest percentage recorded in more than a year. Forty-four percent think their personal finances will get better over the next year.

As a result, 73% of the 1,000 Americans polled think it’s a good time to buy a home. More from Marketwatch.

Ron Peltier, the executive building Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A)’s real-estate brokerage by acquisitions, said he expects a rebound in U.S. home sales as banks liquidate seized properties after settling foreclosure-misconduct claims. From Bloomberg

Home Loans

Potential buyers in the Chelmsford, Lowell, Tewksbury, MA area, please contact me if you need assistance on your FICO scores.  Home loans closed by banks and mortgage lenders in February had borrowers with a credit score of 750, up from 740 six months earlier, and an average loan-to-value ratio of 76%. The average denied loan had a credit score of 699 and a loan-to-value ratio of 83%. Story from WSJ

Home Builders

KB Home (KBH) slashes its quarterly dividend to $0.025/share from $0.0625. This cuts the yield on the stock from nearly 3% to 1.2%. 

Foreclosures

The number of foreclosure filings in the USA is continuing to fall, dropping 16% year-on-year in Q1 according the latest numbers from market monitoring service RealtyTrac. “There are hairline cracks in the dam, evident in the sizable foreclosure activity increases in judicial foreclosure states over the past several months, along with an increase in foreclosure starts in many judicial and non-judicial states in March.”

“The dam may not burst in the next 30 to 45 days, but it will eventually burst, and everyone downstream should be prepared for that to happen—both in terms of new foreclosure activity and new short sale activity.” The five states posting the largest monthly increases in foreclosure starts are:

1. Nevada: Up 153%

2. Utah: Up 103%

3. New Jersey: Up 73%

4. Maryland: Up 53%

5. North Carolina: Up 47%

Christina Lazrak - weekly Real Estate news round up

April 2nd : Are you shopping for an investment home? 

According to this NAR survey, investment home sales  surged an extraordinary 64.5 percent to 1.23 million last year from 749,000 in 2010!

April 3rd: Are credit trends reversing? 

FICO thinks so ! Read more on the survey conducted by FICO for the Professional Risk Manager's International Association (PRIMA ) than at any time since FICO launched its survey in early 2010. Good news for Mortgage Lenders and those ready to buy or refinance?  

Contact me if you are looking for home loan suggestions to work with, I have a network in the Massachusetts area and I am sure they can refer you to someone if you are living in a different state.

Drop in nationwide foreclosures? 

Foreclosure starts fell 15.2 percent month-to-month. Foreclosure sales, the final stage of the process (not sales of already bank-owned properties) fell 19 percent month-to-month, according to a new report from Lender Processing Services. More from CNBC

April 5th: Rent vs Buy ?

I found this article from Fox News to be true based on my experiences in Honolulu, Hawaii. A recent study of residential units in America's most populous 100 metropolitan areas by Trulia, a real estate website, found buying to be less expensive than renting in 98 of the areas -- with Honolulu and San Francisco the exceptions. See photo below I took from Fort DeRussey, Oahu - sunset from paradise! Does it remind you of a scene from LOST? :)

The Wall Street Journal recently found that between January 2011 and January of this year, median rents rose 3 percent, while home values fell 4.6 percent. Another survey of metropolitan areas by real estate website Zillow reported that in 2011 nearly 70 percent of cities saw rental prices increase, while home prices increased in only about 7 percent of cities. And Zillow found a 3 percent rise in rental prices nationwide. 

Oh Canada, Oh Canada

The Royal LePage House Price Survey released today showed the average price of a home in Canada increased between 2.2 and 5.0 per cent in the first quarter of 2012, compared to the previous year.  In the first quarter, standard two-storey homes rose 5.0 per cent year-over-year to $398,282, while detached bungalows increased 4.4 per cent to $356,306. Average prices for standard condominiums increased 2.2 per cent to $243,153. More here from Sacramento Bee


Nine-in-10 Ontario residents (90 per cent) say a house or condo is a good investment, leading other Canadian regions surveyed about confidence in real estate, according to the 19^th Annual RBC Homeownership Poll. According to the survey, Ontarians are looking to buy:

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/05/4392687/unprecedented-mortgage-sale-and.html#storylink=cpy

Nine-in-10 Ontario residents (90 per cent) say a house or condo is a good investment, leading other Canadian regions surveyed about confidence in real estate, according to the19^thAnnual RBC Homeownership Poll.
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• Detached house: 68 per cent (national average: 66 per cent)
• Condo/loft: eight per cent (national average: 11 per cent)
• Semi-detached house: 10 per cent (national average: 10 per cent)
• Townhouse: nine per cent (national average: eight per cent)

Have a Great Easter Weekend ! 

Christina Lazrak - RE/MAX Prestige

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