Survey Says: Homeowner Regrets

Homeowner regrets: most wish they’d gone bigger (via AGBeat)

Homeowner regrets and other sentiments As with any major purchase, there is typically something different most people would do if they had another shot at their investment. Trulia surveyed thousands of Americans to discover their regrets and note that with tight inventory levels, buyer regrets may…

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Why Home Sales Slipped in March

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

If you've been following housing market news this year, you may have been surprised by the latest home sales numbers to come out this week. Sales of existing homes stalled at 4.92 million, dropping 0.6% in March from February.

But what about this hot spring we've all been anticipating? What about the great recovery and growth period we're supposed to see in 2013? What's going on here?

The problem is lack of homes. There's plenty of demand from buyers, but just not enough to choose from on the market.

Some areas are experiencing multiple bids, which can frustrate buyers after they've been outbid a handful of times and turn them away.

And in some cases, we see sellers being affected as well. For those in tight markets, they may not feel confident enough to list their homes until they know for sure they'll be able to find a new one to move into.

Despite the decline in March sales from February, home sales were still 10.3% higher than the same month a year ago, marking the 21st consecutive month of year-over-year increases. That's good news, and a good indicator of how the market is trending in the big picture.

Demand is still strong, according to the National Association of Realtors, which reported buyer traffic is 25% above a year ago. But the drop in available homes has put upward pressure on prices. And some buyers are getting frustrated and priced out.

The national median home price was $184,300 in March, 11.8% higher than a year ago. The increase was the highest gain since November 2005.

Total housing inventory was up 1.6% to 1.93% homes for sale, representing a 4.7-month supply at the current pace. For-sale inventory was 16.8% below what it was a year ago, showing how lack of supply is truly impacting the pace of sales and overall market activity.

What happens next?

At the rate things are going, we can likely expect more price increases, driven by continued tight markets with some increases in new home building to balance supply.

At some point, prices will reach a tipping point where more sellers are able to sell because values will meet their needs.

Until then, buyers need patience and the ability to act fast; sellers need motivation or the right price points to get out from an underwater mortgage. We have an interesting second half of the year ahead!

Your Homeowner's Insurance Company Keeps a Scorecard on You

Your CLUE Insurance Report Matters

Your CLUE insurance report keeps your homeowners insurance claims alive for seven years—and that could cost you on your premiums.

A tree falls on the roof of your house. You file an insurance claim with your agent, collect a settlement from the insurer, and fix your roof. End of story, right? Not quite. Every claim you make on your homeowners insurance is recorded in a widely used insurance industry database called CLUE, short for Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange.

Almost all insurance companies use CLUE to check on the claims history of prospective policyholders. The CLUE insurance report also includes claims made on your home before you even bought it. A-PLUS is another company that maintains a loss-history database. What’s inside these reports can affect your insurance premiums, or even prevent you from getting coverage.

Your claims history lives on in CLUE

The CLUE Personal Property report, which pertains to homeowners insurance, is divided into two parts: your personal record of claims (“Claims for the Subject”) and the claims on your home (“Claims History for Risk”). The number of claims in either section will affect whether you can get insurance for your home, how much coverage you can get, and how much you’ll pay in premiums. If you’re turned down for homeowners insurance because of information in your CLUE report, your insurance company is required to let you know why you were rejected.

Since the database is used by most insurance companies, your claims history follows you from one insurer to another. Actual claims, as opposed to inquiries, remain in the CLUE database for seven years from the date you filed them. Both LexisNexis, the owner of CLUE, and A-PLUS advise insurance carriers not to report loss information just because you called to ask a question about whether your policy will cover a particular loss. Individual insurance companies may keep a record of inquires, though.

How insurers use CLUE

Insurance companies rely on CLUE reports because statistics show that if you’ve filed a claim in the past, you’re more likely to file one in the future, says Dick Luedke, a spokesperson for State Farm Insurance. The amount of a claim is less important than how often you’ve filed, he says. “We aren’t trying to make up for past losses, but to predict the risk of future claims.”

Each insurance company has its own formula for calculating how much a claim will affect your premium, according to the Insurance Information Institute, a trade group that provides information to consumers. Suffice it to say the fewer the claims the less you’ll likely be charged. State Farm gives a 5% discount if you haven’t filed a claim in the last five years, says Luedke. That’s $40 off an average annual premium of $804 (this varies by company). Ask your agent if a claim-free discount is available.

Claims aren’t all that count

Knowing what’s on your CLUE report will give you a sense of whether you’ll need to pay extra for homeowners insurance, or even if you run the risk of rejection. Unfortunately, even a pristine report doesn’t mean you can be sure of getting homeowners insurance at a great price. That’s because the claims on your CLUE report aren’t the only things that affect your overall insurance risk.

Insurance companies also consider your credit score, which is based on such things as how much debt you carry, whether you pay your bills on time, and so forth. According to the Insurance Information Institute, studies show that how people manage their finances is a good indicator of whether they’ll file an insurance claim. The more likely you are to file a claim, the bigger risk you are to the insurance company. And more risk means a higher premium or denial of coverage. Other factors insurers consider include the location of your home and its type of construction.

 

How to review your CLUE report

If you do decide to check you CLUE Personal Property report, it’s a relatively easy process. Under federal law, you get one free CLUE report a year. The LexisNexis order page has information on how to order the report online, by phone, or by mail.

Request a form to receive a Property Loss report from A-PLUS by calling. There’s a charge of $19.95 to have the report mailed to you, according to the company’s website. This fee will be waived if you’re ordering a report because an insurer took an adverse action against you because of A-PLUS data.

Your CLUE report will have:

·         Your name, home address, birth date, and Social Security number;

·         The number assigned to the report;

·         The name of your insurance company;

·         The type and number of the insurance policy;

·         The type of loss—fire, water, etc.—for each claim and the claim number;

·         The date of the loss and the amount of each claim;

·         The status of each claim: closed, pending, etc.

·         The order page lets you view a sample report.

The report also tells you how to dispute any errors you find. Because risk calculations vary by insurance company, it’s impossible to say exactly how a claim on your CLUE report will affect your premium. That makes it tough to decide just how much value checking your CLUE yields. Still, taking less than an hour once a year to order and review your report could pay off, especially if you find an error.

This article was written by Mariwyn Evans who has spent 25 years writing about commercial and residential real estate. She’s the author of several books, including Opportunities in Real Estate Careers, as well as too many magazine articles to count. Ms. Evans writes for HouseLogic.com.

Today is Earth Day

Flowers for Sale

Gilroy Rotary is having their annual flower sale on Saturday, April 20th. Just one day so don’t let this get by without at least checking out everything that is offered. It’s at Syngenta Seeds, on Hecker Pass Highway in Gilroy.

 

 

Three Reasons to Sell Your House Today!

In case you need them, here are three more reasons to get your house on the market now if selling is part of your plan this year.

Part I - Demand for Real Estate is Much Stronger This Year

When selling anything, owners can only hope there is a strong demand for that which they are selling. The great news for today’s home sellers is that the current housing market is experiencing a stronger demand than we have seen in some time. Read the entire article here.

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Part II - Housing Supply is Low

A seller’s ability to sell their home in today’s real estate market will be determined by both the supply of homes for sale and the demand for that housing. In real estate, supply is represented by the current month’s supply of homes for sale (the number of homes for sale divided by the number of homes sold in the previous month). Read the entire article here.



 

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Part III - New Construction Will Soon Be Your Competition

Over the last several years, most homeowners selling their home did not have to compete with a new construction project around the block. As the market is recovering, more and more builders are jumping back in. As an example, the National Association of Realtors revealed, relative to last year, year-to-date new home sales are up 19%. Read the entire article here.




 

These articles are from The KCM Blog, A small piece of Keeping Current Matters.

It's a Seller's Market

You read it right. Sellers are in charge in today's real estate market. Here's an article from CNN Money about selling your house and pricing it right.

Selling your home? The cards are in your favor

 

Selling your home? In most parts of the country, you have finally regained the upper hand.

To get your best price, though, you need to finesse your timing, list competitively and match your marketing strategy to local conditions.

Lower your sights to make more money.

Rising prices breed rising hopes: In a recent poll, brokers complained that 75% of homeowners think their agent's recommended listing price is too low. Pricing your property above recent sales to cash in on the momentum may slow down deals, and sitting on the market too long can stigmatize a house.

Catch buyers' attention -- and get multiple offers -- by pricing your home in line with comparable sales, says Rick Turley, president of Coldwell Banker San Francisco: "Then let the market take it higher."

Trading up? Move fast. Downsizing? Go slow.

It's tempting to postpone selling to hold out for a better price. But if you want to move to a larger place, act sooner rather than later. True, higher-end homes aren't rising as quickly, but the gap is small. So while you'll be able to sell your home for more if you wait, the appreciation on the trade-up home will be greater.

When you're downsizing, the math works the other way, so it pays to wait.

The case for these strategies should strengthen as gains slow for cheaper homes. "Investors are driving the lower end of the market, and there is a point when the investor opportunity becomes less attractive," says Richard Green, director of the University of Southern California's Lusk Center for Real Estate.

Smooth out your home's rough patches.

Repair that leaky roof and address other obvious structural problems, or you'll have to subtract the cost of doing so from your price. "In today's economy, many buyers don't have as much savings left over after their down payment for improvements," says Teri Herrera, a broker in Bellevue, Wash.

Smaller fixes that pay off the most, according to a HomeGain poll of real estate professionals and consumers: cleaning and decluttering, brightening (adding lamps and clearing window obstructions), and solving electrical and plumbing problems.

Get ready for your home's close-up.

Sellers who stage their homes -- rearranging or replacing furniture to bolster appearance -- usually do so just before an open house. The better time to glamorize: right before you post your listing online, where 90% of buyers look first. Says Realtor.com president Errol Samuelson: "Web appeal is the new curb appeal."

Guard against low appraisals.

While rapidly rising prices may attract more buyers, the upswing can make it harder to close a deal. One-third of realtors polled in December reported setbacks from low appraisals, including delays in closing, lowered prices, and cancellations.

The problem: Appraisals can come in low because they're based on transactions as old as six months out of date, perhaps, in today's market.

Solution: Have your agent personally oversee the process, accompanying the appraiser to point out improvements and supplying data about the latest comparable sales.

 

By Beth Braverman @Money

Delinquent Borrowers Get a Lifeline

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

 

Here's some news from the past week that could potentially impact thousands of homeowners:

 

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's regulator last week said they would begin offering lower payments to borrowers without having to prove hardship – an obstacle that previously kept a lot of borrowers from modifying their loans.

 

Starting in July, borrowers who are 90 days or more past due on mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may be eligible to reduce their monthly payments by about 30% on average. Eligible borrowers would receive an explanation of the offer and then enter a trial modification period in which they make three monthly payments under the new loan terms before they become permanent.

 

The news here is that borrowers would be able to do this without having to document their financial situations. It gives delinquent borrowers a means to avoid foreclosure.

 

And although the new program doesn't call for documentation, officials said they would still encourage borrowers to submit paperwork as it could help get them even better modification terms.

 

The question begs: Will this encourage and lead to an increase in strategic defaults – the decision to intentionally fall behind on payments when the mortgage is underwater and the borrower can still afford the payments?

 

Freddie and Fannie's regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, says no. In announcing the program, officials said that they have screening mechanisms in place to detect strategic defaulters, but failed to give much detail beyond that.

 

State of foreclosures

 

Speaking of foreclosures, we got a fresh look at what's happening with this portion of the market this past week too. Close to 1.2 million properties were in some stage of foreclosure in February, according to data firm CoreLogic. That was 21% lower than the same time last year.

 

RealtyTrac also released foreclosure numbers last week showing a higher number (1.5 million), but noting that their number includes homes that have already been repossessed by banks.

 

In addition, Inman News points out an interesting nugget of info from RealtyTrac's report: When broken down by listed and unlisted status, the number of homes in foreclosure or bank-owned that were listed for sale has fallen 43% this quarter compared to a year ago.

 

That of course suggests that there may be some shadow inventory coming down the pike. Shadow inventory – homes that have started the foreclosure process but have not been listed for sale – may be just what inventory-starved markets need. In some cases, the buyers are there but the homes are not.

 

CoreLogic estimates that about 2.2 million distressed and bank-owned properties will hit the market this year.

 

This will get interesting. In some markets, you may even feel a kick into high gear.

Sorting Out Your Personal Paperwork

We don't know about you, but we've just completed sorting and stacking and entering and reconciling in preparation for handing it all over to our tax preparer. Now we're ready to throw something, anything, away. But we want to do it right. Here's some advice from CBSNews.com on what paperwork to keep and how long.

Congratulations to Sheryl Cather, local Gilroy artist, on winning the Garlic Festival Art Poster contest this year. Her poster will be sold at the Garlic Festival as well as at the Gilroy Garlic Festival office in downtown Gilroy, and online. We love Sheryl’s poster, as well as her art on display around Gilroy, and that a local artist won.