Does a desire for two-person showers, travertine floors and granite countertops push home prices up? Housing economist Tom Lawler, a Vienna, Va., consultant, argues that it does — and says these cravings are partly responsible for ballooning home prices throughout much of this decade. In a subscription-only report, he notes that household spending for improvements for single-family homes increased to $1,900 last year from $1,100 in 1997, and that such spending will likely continue to rise, despite the slowdown in home sales and prices reported earlier this week by the National Association of Realtors.

Although the impact of these spruce ups is hard to gauge statistically — improvements often aren’t noted in public records — he estimates that overall, remodeling is responsible for 1% to 1.5% of home-price appreciation each year. So, while prices overall may continue to decline due to overbuilding, speculation and risky mortgages, remodeling will continue to add real value to many homes. (more…)

search for : ballooning home prices, National Association of Realtors, remodeling

Last year, the corn fed stove replaced pellet stoves as the hot new home heating appliance on the block. This year, with higher fossil fuel costs driving home heating concerns and global warming spreading environmental woes, the biomass burning appliance market is heating up with multi-fuel stoves that let you toss in everything from cherry pits to wheat. “What makes these stoves so appealing across the country is the fact that they are true biomass appliances. Depending on your geographical region, certain renewable fuels are in more abundant supply than others. Corn is readily available in the Midwest. Wood pellets are popular in the northeast.

The Magnum brand includes models that burn corn, wood pellets, wheat, barley, oats, durum, cherry pits and olive pits, as well as more traditional wood, pellet and corn burners, Haefner says. Sales of all their biomass fueled appliances has soared 500 percent over the past five years, driven by conscientious consumers who want to heat their homes with less pollution and reliance upon fossil fuels. With customers on a six-month waiting list, the firm is expanding facilities to crank out 75,000 biomass burners a year by 2007, doubling it’s current output. (more…)

search for : corn fed stove, pellet stoves, heating appliance, fossil fuel, home heating, multi-fuel stove

They represent the future of real estate in this time of uncertainty — 17 bright-eyed and eager students, median age 40, sitting for three hours in a classroom while I click slowly through a 50-slide Power Point presentation with embedded video and audio. These are small investors, a mixed group of young and old, Realtors and nonRealtors, and all ethnicities — a true mix of the modern-day urban market.

They want to know what I can tell them about renovating one-to-four unit properties cost-effectively, whether or not to hire an architect, what to look for in a contractor, what will put their rentals a cut above the others without breaking their budgets. These are not flippers. These folks are in for the long haul, agreeing with some expert who told me this week that this isn’t the time to experiment with real estate but to get serious about it. One of the experts whose video was embedded in the Power Point was Carl Dranoff, a developer who was one of the pioneers of the warehouse to loft conversion boom on the late ’70s to mid-’80s in many of our older cities. (more…)

search for : real estate, architect, contractor, , flippers

When I first picked up “Confessions of a Real Estate Entrepreneur” by James A. Randel, I wasn’t enthused by its bland, noncreative cover, which makes the book look dull and boring. Wrong. Instead, it is one of the best real estate books of 2006 so far because it tells how a super-successful investor evaluates real estate opportunities. What makes this new book so unusual is the self-deprecating author emphasizes his real estate mistakes as much as the highlights of his successes. The book’s title could have been “Real Estate Mistakes I Made But How I Succeeded Anyway.”

James A. Randel started with an excellent educational background from Columbia University where he obtained his law degree. Then he wisely became a real estate broker so he could participate in real estate commissions as well as practice law. When briefly mentioning his New York City residency during college years, Randel admits he didn’t spot the opportunities to buy run-down buildings near Columbia for upgrade profits by adding value. The book’s theme is “add value” whether you invest in raw land, houses, a fixer-upper factory building with potential for rezoning profits, or a run-down office building. What makes this book so special are the personal stories the author shares, emphasizing how he profited when he (and his investor partners) added value and how they lost money when their planning was faulty. (more…)

search for : Confessions of a Real Estate Entrepreneur, real estate book, real estate commission

He shuffles around the corner clutching a typed notice in his hand, making his way past the Guilford County Clerk of Court’s administrative suite and down the long hallway where a continuous bulletin board stretches the length of the wall, subdivided into columns headed with numbers for the day of the month, each one containing a headache-inducing array of sale notices.

The special proceedings room at the Guilford County Courthouse is a modest-sized room with plate-glass windows facing Eugene Street. With waist-high cubicles arranged to fit three deputy clerks, it accommodates members of the public with a counter running most of the length of the room. The deputy clerks make easy small talk with the stream of buyers who come in to scour the “upset bid” pail, which holds foreclosure case files for 10 days after sale, and with the substitute trustees, who come in periodically to check on the progress of paperwork. Occasionally respondents, such as a distraught widow unclear about whether her house will be padlocked before the foreclosure sale, come in to ask for an explanation of procedural details. (more…)

search for : Guilford County Clerk of Court, foreclosure sale

Just in case you haven’t been paying attention, most cities are now in a “buyer’s market” for home sales. That means there are more houses and condos listed for sale than there are qualified home buyers actively in the market. Nationally, home sales volume is down about 10 percent compared to 2005.

The best way to tell if your area is in a buyer’s or seller’s market is to check the average number of days homes are on the market before selling. When this number rises above 60 days, it’s definitely a buyer’s market. That means it’s a great time to be a buyer, but not such a great time to be a home seller. Another method is to look at the number of months’ supply of homes for sale at the current sales pace. Just divide the number of local homes sold during the last 30 days into the number of homes listed for sale. If the result is more than a six-month supply of homes, the oversupply of listed homes shows it’s a buyer’s market. Fall is usually the second-best season to sell a home (spring is the best because that is when the largest number of prospective home buyers are in the market). But 2006 is proving to be unusual. (more…)

search for : buyer’s market, prospective home buyer

Freddie Mac today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMSSM) in which the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 6.40 percent with an average 0.5 point for the week ending September 21, 2006, down from last week when it averaged 6.43 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 5.80 percent.

The 15-year FRM this week averaged 6.06 percent with an average 0.5 point, down from last week when it averaged 6.11 percent. A year ago, the 15-year FRM averaged 5.37 percent.Five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) averaged 6.08 percent this week, with an average 0.5 point, down from last week when it averaged 6.10 percent. A year ago, the five-year ARM averaged 5.31 percent.One-year Treasury-indexed ARMs averaged 5.54 percent this week with an average 0.8 point, down from last week when it averaged 5.60 percent. At this time last year, the one-year ARM averaged 4.48 percent. (more…)

search for : Freddie Mac, 30-year fixed-rate mortgage

When it comes to eventually moving into that dream home you’ve always wanted, keep in mind that many of the choices we make on a house are really driven by lifestyle desires, rather than lifestyle needs. More bedrooms means more time to clean, more expensive to repaint and carpet/floor in the future. The bigger the house and the larger the lot, the more you’re going to pay for it both in time and financial resources. The main three decision factors are larger lot, more space and more stuff. Each of these come with a price tag.

Depending on the acreage, the lot is going to cost the owner in regards to acquisition, monthly payment, and upkeep. First is the acquisition. Larger lot means larger price, thus larger down payment and monthly payment. In metropolitan areas, the closer in to the epicenter of town, the more the extra space is going to cost you. If you decide to get it cheaper by moving out of town, then you’ll be paying more for gas and be losing the ever elusive minutes of your life. (more…)

search for : dream home, bedrooms, down payment

The once-sizzling housing market may be rapidly cooling, but not all residential property owners are worried — especially if they happen to own apartment buildings. Landlords are enjoying booming times these days as more people are choosing to rent. Apartment vacancy rates are at five-year lows, averaging 5.6 percent nationwide and only 2.9 percent in the New York metropolitan area, according to the latest data from Reis Inc., a research company. Meanwhile, rents are up nearly 4 percent, on average, over last year, the biggest rise in six years, the company said.

Fewer people have been eager to buy homes lately, in light of lofty prices and higher mortgage rates. What is more, industry analysts say, the supply of rental units is tighter, partly as the result of the conversion of rental apartments to condominiums at the height of the housing surge. And demand is intense as the children of the baby boomers, sometimes called the “echo boomers,” move out on their own. “The apartment landlords have a lot of room to raise rents even more,” said Louis W. Taylor, a senior real estate analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities, who predicts the industry will continue to thrive in the next 9 to 12 months. (Rents, averaging $1,143 a month for a two-bedroom nationwide, according to Reis, could jump 5 to 9 percent next year, Mr. Taylor said.)
(more…)

search for : housing market, apartment buildings, Apartment vacancy rates

Many headlines and cable news programs are touting a pending real estate bubble. Sure this helps increase their ratings, but there are too many factors in favor of real estate to worry about the naysayers. All you have to do is look back to the early `90s. In the early part of the decade, prospects for real estate investments were looking about as good as they are today. After Japanese investors paid extravagant prices for Hawaiian hotels and Los Angeles office properties sent the real estate market climbing, the `80s real estate boom was topped off when a Japanese consortium purchased the iconic Pebble Beach golf course for $500 million.

The examples above are just a few of the national real estate players. On the local level, I know there are thousands of individual investors and real estate speculators that have been piling up cash while waiting for housing prices to begin to fall. Once they start falling, these investors are going to have to outbid each other to get their hands on these depressed properties. One final point is that houses have utility value. That’s economic parlance for a tangible use. After all, you can live in a house. Other examples of items with utility value are a hammer (because it can hammer nails) and a washing machine (because it washes clothes). These items have value as tools to make your life easier. (more…)

search for : real estate investments, Japanese investors, real estate