Entries from July 2007 ↓

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American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. is facing liquidation as they are unable to find additional funding. After being cut off from credit, American Home had it’s share stop trading yesterday.

Another tough hit for the mortgage industry as American Home Mortgage specialized in Alt-A loans. The subprime market has for the most part shut down, now Alt-A lenders who focused on borrowers that were just off prime are now in big trouble.

The company has been cut off from credit and didn’t have money yesterday to make $300 million of mortgages it had already agreed to provide, the Melville, New York-based company said today in a statement. American Home said it anticipates $450 million to $500 million of loans probably won’t get funded today.
American Home said it’s “seeking the course of resolution, in this environment, that is least disruptive to its business and to the many thousands of homebuyers to whom it has committed to provide mortgages.” The company said it hired Milestone Advisors and Lazard Ltd. to evaluate “strategic options.”

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 When buying a home, mortgage closing costs are an important part of the equation in figuring out what needs to be brought to the table. One thing that the housing slowdown has done is brought overall closing costs in the United States down almost 300 dollars from 2006. The average closing costs for 2006 were $3.024 while the 2007 number comes in at $2,736 based upon a $200,000 loan with a 20 percent down payment and good credit. New York led the way at $3,830 while if your goal is to lower your closing costs on your mortgage, Indiana is the place to go coming in at  $1,500 less with closing costs at $2,339. Top 10 Most Expensive States For Mortgage Closing Costs 

1. New York   $3,830
2. Texas   $3,413
3. Florida   $3,175
4. Pennsylvania    3,169
5. Ohio   $3,047
6. Hawaii   $3,008
7. New Jersey   $2,996
8. Oklahoma   $2,978
9. New Mexico   $2,922
10. Delaware   $2,904

via Bankrate

Click here for the Top 10 Markets with the Highest Closing Costs in 2006.

The investment by major pension funds in domestic and international real estate is increasing. CALPERs made a big announcement earlier this month, now the State Teachers Retirement of Ohio is looking invest an additional 100 million in real estate plus purchasing 500 million more after a major property sale from it’s portfolio.

The large pension funds are a major source of financing for the hedge funds. With the stock market nearing the top of it’s trading range and worries in the financial derivative markets, the stability of commercial real estate looks to be a good long term investment for these pension funds.

Ohio State Teachers is expected to place at least $100m into international real estate through commingled funds, particularly as both corporations and the governments are still selling real estate in Europe along with strong growth in China and an economic recovery in Japan. Its international assets are currently split to allocate 60% in Europe and 40% in Asia through 14 different commingled funds and 10 real estate managers.
That said, there is $195m worth of outstanding commitments as five of the commingled funds are still investing capital and nine funds have made all of there investments and are now selling assets. Its remaining capital is invested directly in US real estate without the aid of external managers and is focused on buying retail and apartment properties in major metropolitan areas, as Ohio State Teachers believes this is necessary to achieve a critical mass of properties in the areas for efficient asset management and benefit from the increased liquidity in those markets.  via IPE Real Estate News

Apartments.com and Yahoo Real Estate signed an agreement to have Apartments.com as their featured apartment listing provider for the online service. The agreement brings over 3 million apartments into Yahoo Real Estate’s portfolio.

One thing I do like about Apartments.com approach is they do not have registration process to view the apartments. Many of the players in the apartment space still try to get demographic and contact information from you to view their inventory. Most renters using these services are fairly savvy so I am sure that the information given is not of the best quality. Those 103 year old renters that are looking for college apartments with a lively party pool are way to common.

“We are excited about the opportunity to bring together two leading destinations in online real estate, and offer a valuable service to both renters and property managers looking to fill vacancies,” said Kevin Doyle, senior vice president and general manager of Apartments.com. “By enabling Yahoo! Real Estate’s users to access our detailed and visual listings data, Apartments.com can build on our goal to reach renters across the country. In doing so, we will provide even more highly qualified leads to our advertisers, thus reducing the cost for an apartment community to fill a vacancy.” via the Brooklyn Daily Eagle

One thing about real estate in Dubai is they do not do things halfway. When they build their buildings the results are world class. Now to increase the level of real estate education, the Dubai Real Estate Institute has joined forces with the noted School of Planning and Development at the University of Southern California.

USC’s school is considered one of the top institutes in the country for real estate and development education and this should help Dubai build their leaders of tomorrow and create and deeper pool of talent in the developing country.

Dubai Real Estate Institute, the region’s first academic institute for real estate studies, yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding with the School of Planning and Development at the University of Southern California in the US. They will work jointly to offer academic as well as executive education programmes and professional training in real estate to address pressing issues in the industry and offer cutting edge ideas and approaches. In addition, the cooperation will extend to cover important research initiatives in the region.  via Gulfnews

A writer for the Los Angeles Times, Paul Thornton, editorializes about the added cost that the government is putting into his homebuying quest. I will let Paul make his point below, but the pandering of Presidential politicians to the public during election periods always has a cost. Typically it is the promises of pork for votes, trying to give something to a part of the electorate to show that you either care or will comet through for them.

This year the issue is foreclosures and the major candidates, most notably Hillary Clinton, are floating billion dollar bailouts to those in risk of losing their homes. While this sounds great, the reality is that the markets have to hit equillibrium and the more government intervention that comes in the longer it will take.

Here is Paul Thornton’s take on the situation:

But that’s where Hillary comes in to foil me again. This looming crisis comes on the eve of a presidential election, and homeowners, do they ever vote. In the Democratic field, at least two candidates have proposed some form of Washington meddling that would keep the housing market from going where it clearly wants to go — i.e., down. Earlier this year, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd proposed a onetime, multibillion-dollar bailout at taxpayer expense of borrowers behind on mortgage payments. Sen. Clinton suggested a temporary “foreclosure timeout.” Sen. Barack Obama wrote to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., “We cannot sit on the sidelines while increasing numbers of American families face the risk of losing their homes.” Thankfully, talk of timeouts and bailouts has cooled in Washington — for now, anyway. But with California — ground zero of the nation’s housing bubble — coming so early in the 2008 presidential primaries, and with the rate of foreclosures unlikely to crest any time soon, imperiled, debt-ridden homeowners will doubtless press the populist field of Democratic candidates to promise them a break. If conservatives can use a silly issue such as same-sex marriage in 2004, what’s to keep Democrats away from rising foreclosures in 2008? If Clinton resurrects her “foreclosure timeout,” or if by some political miracle, bailout proponent Dodd still has a shot in February, the presidential election could end up presenting the biggest roadblock to my hopes of eventually owning a home that isn’t in a suburb of Phoenix. via the Los Angeles Times.

Click here to for a  Free Foreclosure search in your area.

Tags: foreclosure, Clinton, Obama, government+intervention, Los+Angeles+Foreclosure, foreclosure

In a slower market finding one’s niche in selling real estate is more and more important. One of the ways to align with customers needs is to find common interests. There are many pet owners looking to buy or rent and would look to use the services of real estate agents who specialize in finding properties that are pet friendly.

While the niche marketing for pets is important anywhere, finding pet friendly properties in cities is more important than in the suburbs. A reputation for knowing where  the pet friendly properties in a city could be the way to grow your business in a slow market.

Indeed, “pet friendly” is becoming something of a buzzword in real estate. Developers tout new buildings that not only welcome animal companions but also cater to them. The Thrush Cos., for example, promotes its 740 Fulton condo building’s affiliation with a dog-walking and pet-sitting “concierge” service.

And the trend is carrying over to rental apartments, which are increasingly less likely to hang out a “No pets allowed” sign.

“It is an amazing niche market,” said Rhona Sutter, a Naples, Fla., real estate agent who got the idea for the Pet Realty Network when she came across statistics on pet ownership.

“Last year, in the United States, 10.7 million people moved with their pets,” Sutter said, citing data from the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association. An animal lover who formerly ran an online pet-supply business, she founded PetRealtyNetwork.com to connect pet lovers with like-minded agents. viachicagotribune.com.

And you want further proof that being pet friendly is the way to go, look no further than our good friend Greg at Bloodhound Realty. Now that is pet friendly.

With the rise of short sales by homeowners behind on their mortgages, Zip Realty has added the ability to search for homes that are being offered as short sales.

A short sale is when a home owner is unable to pay on their mortgage and the home that they have can not be sold for the amount due on the loan. Instead of taking the home back as a foreclosure, the bank allows the homeowner to put the home on the market and sell it for less than the mortgage owed. The bank then will accept the lesser amount because it will still cost less than the cost of foreclosing upon the property owner.

The property owner in a short sale will have the difference in the mortgage and the selling amount be reported to the IRS as income but it also keeps a foreclosure from hitting their credit report.

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Tags: MyNextDeal, RexNet.tv, Real+Estate+Advertising

Estately, the search engine for homes and agents, has now rolled out a pretty cool new feature, True Areas. The search mashup in the past gave you large, global searches of a region like everyone else. However, with True Area Search, Estately offers pinpoint searches. So you can search for all homes within a half mile of a town.

We just launched Estately True Area Search today to let you search within an area or nearby an area or an address. You’ll see the outline of the neighborhood, zip code or city you’re searching for on the map now. If you look up in the upper left, you’ll be able to limit your search to that area or to within a distance of the neighborhood, city, zip code or address. via Estately Blog