Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Real Estate News for Tuesday, June 13th, 2006

Happy June Birthdays to Laura, Kevin, and my mom!

How to survive soaring rents. It's no longer a renter's market. But as the housing market cools, rentals are once again in demand, liberating landlords in many markets to raise rents at the fastest pace in years. Average effective rents -- or what tenants pay after taking concessions into account -- are expected to rise 3 percent this year, according to Reis Inc., a real-estate research firm. Archstone-Smith, which owns apartment buildings in 41 cities, says it is increasing rents 8 percent to 10 percent in New York City and Southern California. It's partly a supply-and-demand issue. Years of soaring house prices (and recent increases in mortgage rates) have simply priced many people out of the home-buying market. Indeed, the portion of U.S. households owning their own home slipped to 68.5 percent in the first quarter from 69.1 percent a year earlier, according to the Census Bureau. The best season to apartment-hunt: between Thanksgiving and Christmas, when rental demand typically slows. Click here to read more.

Number of Existing Homes for Sale Online is Up 60 Percent from Last Year. Residential Real Estate supply online is up from May 2005, while median asking prices stay firm. The number of existing homes listed online for sale in the largest 100 metro areas in the US reached 2.3 million in May 2006, up from 1.3 million in May, 2005, according to market research firm Corzen's Real Estate Indicators survey, (currently available at http://www.corzen.com). Despite the steep climb in available inventory, however, median asking prices also grew over that same period. Nationally, Corzen's survey found that the median asking prices for listed homes nationwide was up 8.4 percent in May 2006 compared to May 2005. In some parts of the country, however, median asking prices showed steep declines, a clear sign of softening within the real estate market. Asking prices for existing homes fell most sharply in Florida, California, Massachusetts and in the Virginia suburbs outside of Washington, DC. Click here to read more.

'Overpriced' housing gets more overpriced. Despite a slowdown, more housing markets are overvalued than ever, says one economist. The rich have gotten richer, at least when it comes to home prices, according to a study released Monday. The most overvalued housing markets in the United States recorded much higher price increases during the first quarter of 2006 than the least overvalued markets, according to the latest analysis by National City Corp, a financial holding company, and Global Insight, a financial information provider. Some places, of course, bucked this national trend. Salinas, Santa Barbara and Sacramento, all in California, are all among the top 50 overvalued cities where prices dropped. Click here to read more.

Google brings out upgrades to Google Earth, Google Maps. Google says it expects real estate professionals to start photographing their properties and build 3D models, which could bring in highly gratifying online house shopping. Click here to read more.

Home Appraisal 101 - What is Inside Your Appraisal? An appraisal is a dense multi-paged, document; usually on a form acceptable to Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae (their endorsement(s) are on the bottom of the page.) In order to simplify our discussion of appraisal contents, we will use a real appraisal of a home located in a coastal area of a southeastern state. This appraisal is 13 legal size pages, but the last five pages are boilerplate in which the appraiser certifies his methods, and outlines the limiting conditions of the appraisal (in traditional cover the posterior language.) Only the first two pages of an appraisal contain really relevant information although subsequent pages have pictures and maps that augment the text. Click here to read more.

Through the roof. As building-material costs soar, homeowners are scaling back on remodels. A Woodland Hills contractor, believed he had a big job lined up last fall. But in the six months it took the client to hire an architect and have blueprints drawn for a large addition, Roshkovan's estimate went from $170,000 to $250,000 and the Northridge homeowner abandoned the project. The contractor blames at least part of the increase on the soaring prices of building materials, which generally account for about 30% of the cost of a major home-improvement project. Also figuring into the equation are rising energy, labor and insurance costs, including workers' compensation. Click here to read more.

~Tina Jan~
Coldwell Banker Kivett-Teeters
1655 E. Sixth St.
Beaumont, CA 92223
Work: 951-845-5520 Ext. 105
Fax: 951-845-4916
Cell: 909-446-2666
Toll-Free: 1-877-TINAJAN
tina.jan@coldwellbanker.com
www.tinajan.com

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