Gilroy Real Estate: February 24, 2013

Saturday, March 02, 2013

Unique Property for Sale

What an amazing property! $695,000. Near San Antonio, Texas. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pearl and Amy Lorys Photography. Many more pictures and lots of information here.

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Week-End Entertainment in Gilroy

Here’s some help for you if you’re looking for something to do this week-end. All of these events can be enjoyed rain or shine – and from what we hear it’s probably going to be rain.

Events for March 1st – 2nd
SVCT’s Big: The Musical

Pintello Comedy Theater presents, “Sylvia”

Bottle Your Own at Martin Ranch Winery
Mar 2 – 3

Kids Discover Arts
Mar 2

Out of Character, The Costume as Art
Mar 2

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Home Values, Sales and Housing Starts on Track for Big Growth Year

By Gino Blefari, President & CEO, Intero Real Estate Services, Inc.

The housing market kicked off 2013 with an energetic bang, with January marking the 15th consecutive month of home value gains and a positive report from Fannie Mae last week that noted housing is “on a sustained growth path,” despite a potential damper on overall economic growth at the federal level.

Home values were up 0.7% in January from the previous month, and up 6.2% year-over-year, according to the latest report from Zillow. It was the largest annual gain since July 2006, when home values rose 7.5% year-over-year.

Zillow’s home value index averaged $158,100 in January. The last time home values were this high at the national level was June 2004.

The rise in values is spreading out as well. Major markets that saw the biggest annual increase in home values were Phoenix (21.9%), San Francisco (17.2%), San Jose (16.8%), Las Vegas (16.2%), and Sacramento (13.7%).

And thanks to rising home values, Zillow estimates that 2 million homeowners are no longer underwater.

In a separate report released last week, Fannie Mae made some predictions for housing this year and gave an overall conclusion that this growth will keep up.

Fannie Mae economists predict the median price of an existing home will rise 2.3% in 2013, to $181,000. They expect the median price of a new home to increase 1.6% to $248,000. And they predict a further increase of 2.8% for both types of housing in 2014.

Growth, not recovery.

Of course, not every market will be enjoying this growth – many are still in recovery mode. But Fannie Mae expects existing home sales, new home sales and single-family housing starts to see substantial increases from 2012. The mortgage financier predicts existing home sales will rise 11.5%, new home sales will climb 12.5%, and single-family housing starts will shoot up 23.7% this year from 2012.

The substantial increase in housing starts is telling of the activity expected in the market for new homes this year and in coming years. We’ve talked here before about how investors are betting bigger on home builders this year, with the first builder IPOs debuting this year in nearly 10 years. We know the demand is there in many markets that suffer from lack of supply – so this is great news to see housing starts increasing.

As anticipated, 2013 is showing signs of breaking out of a recovery pattern and growing faster and with more force. Hold on tight – the ride is getting intense!

Monday, February 25, 2013

Spinning the Oscars toward Real Estate

We watched the Oscars last night, partly because we’re interested, partly because there wasn’t anything else on. Other Realtors were interested, too. Here’s a posting from just one.

Amy Hahn, a Realtor/Broker from North Carolina, posted on Amazon.com her list of the top 10 Real Estate movies in honor of the Oscars last night. Here’s here list. (None of the movies on her list received any awards.) Let us know if she left your favorite real estate movie off the list.

Amy’s Top 10 Real Estate Movies