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Mortgage Rates end 2011 under 4%!
Average fixed mortgage rates in the U.S. over the past week finished the year near all-time lows, with the 30-year home loan at 3.95%.
According Freddie Mac’s weekly survey of mortgage rates, the rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has been at or below 4% for the past nine consecutive weeks and only twice in 2011 did it average above 5%.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.95% for the week ended Thursday, up from 3.91% the previous week and below 4.86% a year ago. Rates on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 3.24%, up from 3.21% last week and below 4.20% a year earlier.
Five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARM, averaged 2.88%, up from 2.85% yet below 3.77% of a year ago. One-year Treasury-indexed ARM rates averaged 2.78%, up from 2.77% in the prior week and below 3.26% last year.
To obtain the rates, 30-year and 15-year fixed-rate mortgages required payments of 0.7 percentage point and 0.8 percentage point, respectively. Five-year and one-year adjustable rate mortgages required an average payment of 0.6 percentage point. A point is 1% of the mortgage amount, charged as prepaid interest.
05
01 2012
Is the Real Estate Market Getting Better?
U.S. homebuilders are concerned that the struggling housing market won’t recover this year and some feel it may be getting worse.
Builders’ outlook for the industry in May was unchanged at 16, the National Association of Home Builders said Monday. It has been at that level for six of the past seven months.
Any reading below 50 indicates negative sentiment about the market. The index hasn’t been above that level since April 2006.
When asked about where they see sales of single-family home heading over the next six months, the builders offered their most pessimistic outlook since September.
Last year the number of people who purchased previously owned homes fell to a 13-year low. Sales of new homes were even worse, hitting the lowest level on records dating back nearly a half-century.
Builders are struggling to compete because foreclosures are forcing down prices for previously occupied homes. The median price of a new home was about 34 percent higher in March than the median price for a re-sale. That’s more than twice the markup in healthy housing markets.
In response, builders are breaking ground on fewer homes. The seasonally adjusted annual pace in March was 549,000 new homes per year, less than half the 1.2 million units annually that economists consider healthy. The Commerce Department will release the April data on new-home construction Tuesday.
“You can get existing homes at a much cheaper price now, mainly due to foreclosures,” said Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics. “New homes really aren’t competitively priced.”
Fewer new homes mean fewer jobs. Each new home built creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in taxes, according to the builders’ trade group.
The trade group cited a handful of factors weighing on the housing market. Some were familiar — tighter lending standards, high unemployment and an increase in the number of homes sold at foreclosure.
But the builders’ group also noted that higher gas prices were creating “consumer anxiety and reluctance to go forward with a home purchase,” said the group’s chairman, Reno, Nev., home builder Bob Nielsen.
About 90 percent of the builders surveyed said potential buyers are also holding back on purchases because they are concerned they won’t be able to sell their current home at a favorable price.
Economists expect home prices will continue to struggle this year before a modest recovery takes hold. The hardest-hit states, including Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada, are inundated with foreclosures and short sales, when a lender allows a borrower to sell their property for less than what is owed on the mortgage.
Builders had been hopeful that a strong spring season, traditionally the best time for home construction, could help power a turnaround. But that has yet to happen.
Regionally, the West saw a two-point gain and the South received a one-point gain in their index of construction activity, both to 16. The Midwest held steady at 14. The Northeast fell five points, to 15.
The index gauging current conditions rose one point, to 16, while the recorded foot traffic of prospective buyers also rose by a point, to 14. But the outlook for the next six months fell two points, to 20. That was the lowest level in eight months.
The survey is analyzed by the builders’ trade group and Wells Fargo. This month’s survey was based on the responses of 339 builders.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/05/16/national/w070100D39.DTL
31
05 2011
Mill Valley, California Real Estate Overview
From February 11th to April 11th,2011, the median sales price for homes sold in Mill Valley was $874,000. The median is 0.6% lower than the median from the prior quarter, and 7 % below the median from the same quarter the year before. Average sales prices have now declined nearly 16% over the last five years in Mill Valley. In the week ended May 4th, the average listing price for homes on the market in Mill Valley was $1,370,000, about 0.3% higher than the average listing price the week before, and about $52,000 higher, or 4%, than the average price a month earlier. The average price per square foot during this time for Mill Valley homes listed for sale was just over $490, representing an 11% decline from the same period in 2010.
10
05 2011
Mortgage Applications Down 5.6 Percent
The Mortgage Bankers Association reported Wednesday that applications for U.S. home mortgages fell last week as an increase in insurance premiums for government-backed loans hurt demand. The MBA’s seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes data for both purchase and refinance loan requests, fell 5.6 percent in the week ended April 22nd.
The report denotes the reversal of a recent trend, in which mortgage activity has increased for several straight weeks, a trend analysts say was likely driven by buyers trying to beat the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s raising of insurance premiums.
The agency’s seasonally adjusted index of purchase loan applications fell 13.6 percent, while its measure of refinance loan requests slipped 0.6 percent. Interest rates dipped during the week, meanwhile, with the average rate for a 30 year, fixed-rate mortgage falling from 4.83 percent to 4.80 percent.
08
05 2011
Kentfield Single Family Sales Historical Results
Kentfield Data Historical:
| YEAR | AVERAGE
SALE PRICE |
MEDIAN
SALE PRICE |
PERCENT ±
|
TOTAL
SALES |
AVG.
DOM* |
| 2010 | $1,893,380 | $1,837,000 | 14.63% | 62 | 77 |
| 2009 | $2,185,576 | $1,602,500 | -14.53% | 38 | 98 |
| 2008 | $2,329,732 | $1,875,000 |
-4.53%
|
41 | 75 |
| 2007 | $2,460,331 | $1,960,000 |
24.64%
|
76 | 67 |
| 2006 | $1,656,764 | $1,575,000 |
-12.13%
|
53 | 58 |
| 2005 | $2,290,289 | $1,797,500 |
3.20%
|
64 | 77 |
| 2004 | $1,859,451 | $1,740,000 |
20.67%
|
76 | 73 |
| 2003 | $1,690,521 | $1,450,000 |
-3.45%
|
79 | 86 |
| 2002 | $1,735,034 | $1,500,000 |
26.17%
|
79 | 92 |
| 2001 | $1,526,932 | $1,182,500 |
-9.94%
|
52 | 89 |
| 2000 | $1,637,076 | $1,300,000 |
9.01%
|
69 | 63 |
| 1999 | $1,351,379 | $1,192,500 |
46.77%
|
88 | 70 |
| 1998 | $988,564 | $812,500 |
16.87%
|
72 | 72 |
| 1997 | $842,113 | $699,800 |
8.53%
|
77 | 93 |
| 1996 | $718,645 | $645,000 |
-9.15%
|
64 | 85 |
04
02 2011
Fairfax Historical Sales Data-Single Family Homes
Fairfax Historical Price Changes: Single Family Homes:
| YEAR | AVERAGE
SALE PRICE |
MEDIAN
SALE PRICE |
PERCENT ± | TOTAL
SALES |
AVG.
DOM* |
| 2010 | $664,572 | $601,000 | -8.17% | 73 | 77 |
| 2009 | $673,617 | $654,500 | -8.46% | 64 | 101 |
| 2008 | $771,056 | $715,000 |
-9.38%
|
57 | 75 |
| 2007 | $878,400 | $789,000 |
5.48%
|
67 | 62 |
| 2006 | $812,203 | $748,000 |
-5.02%
|
79 | 60 |
| 2005 | $865,985 | $787,500 |
17.71%
|
82 | 49 |
| 2004 | $710,918 | $669,000 |
11.69%
|
121 | 41 |
| 2003 | $636,163 | $599,000 |
7.16%
|
107 | 73 |
| 2002 | $615,370 | $559,000 |
11.91%
|
101 | 80 |
| 2001 | $535,862 | $499,500 |
13.78%
|
83 | 74 |
| 2000 | $468,590 | $439,000 |
15.68%
|
94 | 56 |
| 1999 | $396,120 | $379,500 |
12.28%
|
125 | 57 |
| 1998 | $353,992 | $338,000 |
10.82%
|
106 | 80 |
| 1997 | $328,819 | $305,000 |
4.45%
|
121 | 99 |
| 1996 | $315,330 | $292,000 |
1.74%
|
118 | 93 |
04
02 2011
Marin County Sales Data-6 Months weekly
08
12 2010
Most Expensive Home Sold in the WORLD-FOR NOW!!
Despite the doom and gloom in some parts of the World, the news that a home in Monaco has been sold for a record-breaking $305 million USD should come as no surprise as there are still people with lots of money.
What perhaps makes this sale so different, however, is the fact that the home isn’t a sprawling estate, but like most homes in Monaco a two-storey apartment, albeit a huge 30-room penthouse of the most magnificent opulence. The Monaco property, La Belle Epoque, was formerly the home of billionaire banker Edmund Safra, and was where he was found dead following a mysterious fire that gutted the apartment in 1999.
This 17,500 square foot penthouse features three bedrooms, a double-height library, a leisure room with billiard tables and arcade video games, a panic room with reinforced glass and surveillance cameras, a spa, a movie theatre with chairs that convert into beds, and fully-grown 15 foot trees on its terraces.
