Subprime Lender Troubles

March 31st, 2007

An increase in defaults in subprime mortgages originated by small lenders over the last couple of years has prompted big banks and investors that purchased these mortgages to order the lenders to buy them back.

Many of these subprime originators are now facing bankruptcy because  they don’t have the money to comply with these repurchase demands.

New Century Financial is among the lenders on the brink of bankruptcy due to repurchase orders from Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group, Credit Suisse Group, IXIS Real Estate Capital Inc. and Bank of America Corp.

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
Real Estate Consultant
http://www.northvirginiahomes.com/

Jobin Realty
Manassas, VA  20110

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Existing Home Sales Report

March 31st, 2007

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their existing home sales report recently showing existing home sales are still off 3.4 percent from one year earlier. The report also indicated that home values fell 1.5 percent from just one year earlier, which makes it the the 7th straight month that home values have declined.

Single-family home sales are 3.4 percent below the 6.09 million-unit pace in February 2006.  The median existing single-family home price was $211,100 in February, down 1.5 percent from a year ago.

The report included some more bad news for total housing inventorys levels which rose 5.9 percent at the end  of February to 3.75 million existing homes available for sale which is a 6.7 month supply at the current sales pace compared with a 6.6 month supply in Janaury.  The rise in inventory will likely put further downward pressure on home prices.

Existing home sales in the Northereast surged 14.2 percent to a level of 1.21 million in February, and are 3.4 percent higher than February 2006.  The median existing home price in the Northereast was $265,900, down 1.4 percent from a year ago.

Speculation about a recovery in the housing market, in particular the new home market, has centered around the rising costs of material and labor for builders and the still favorable interest rate market.  In addition, the Northern Virginia Metro area employment growth will certainly work in our favor.

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
Real Estate Consultant
http://www.northvirginiahomes.com/

Jobin Realty
Manassas, VA 20110

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November Home Sales Up

December 31st, 2006

November brought some welcome news that Existing home sales were up but the price of homes sold in November fell for the fourth consecutive month. 

The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of previously owned homes rose 0.6 percent in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.28 million units. That followed a 0.5 percent sales increase in October and marked the first back-to-back sales gains since the spring of 2005. 

The median price for an existing home sold in November dropped to $218,000, down 3.1 percent from the price a year ago. It was the first time on record that sales prices compared to a year ago have fallen for four straight months. The report on existing home sales offered some hope that the housing slump may be bottoming out. It followed a report Wednesday that showed that new home sales rose 3.4 percent in November, the third gain in the past four months. Rates on 30-year mortgages rose for a third straight week as investors viewed improving economic reports as a sign that the Federal Reserve will not quickly cut interest rates

Mortgage giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.18 percent this week. That was up from 6.13 percent last week. However, it was still well below the high point for this year, which was 6.80 percent back in July.

The increase in recent weeks came after a prolonged slide in rates, which helped set the state for a rebound in sales of both new and existing homes.

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
Real Estate Consultant
http://www.northvirginiahomes.com/

Jobin Realty
Manassas, VA 20110

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Seller Market Update

August 31st, 2006

Frankly speaking, it’s starting to look a little brutal here for home sellers.  We’re seeing $50,000 – $100,000 price ”reductions” frequently now and there are small signs of what I would call a “quiet, measured, panic!”. 

In short, Bad Things are Happening. 

Lots of sellers out there.  Some, trying to preserve what equity they have left, others who bought at the top of the market last year are trying to sell and even some who bought earlier this year are worried about a prolonged period of price reductions and are trying to bail out.  The worst are those who HAVE TO SELL, for financial reasons, and can’t.

Recent reports indicate that home sales in Virginia are down about 24% in the April – June quarter this year compared to 2005.  The Northern Virginia Association of Realtors is reporting that July sales were off by a whopping 39% in Northern Virginia!  How’s that for a soft  landing!

The news is even worse for Prince William, Loudoun and the Greater Piedmont counties with sales down 44%.  The number of homes for sale is up 147%.  I continue to hear about Realtors leaving the business and have started getting emails from other Realtors about homes facing foreclosure. 

My Best advice is, if you don’t HAVE to sell in the next year or so…wait this one out.  It appears that it may get worse before it gets better.

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
Real Estate Consultant
http://www.northvirginiahomes.com/

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Soft Landing for the Housing Market ?

July 22nd, 2006

When interest rates started rising last year and homes sales started slowing, we heard a lot of reassuring talk from the fed and various economists about a so called “soft landing” for the housing market.

Well, if this is a “soft landing” for the housing market, let me be one of the first to announce, IT DOESN’T FEEL VERY SOFT!  At least not from the perspective of many Northern Virginia Realtors and homeowners.  Some Realtors are looking for part-time jobs and, in some cases, leaving the field altogether.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not suggesting we shed a lot of tears for Realtors.  This is the nature of the business and those that can adapt and survive will learn some valuable lessons and end-up stronger in the long run.

Similarly, many homeowners in Norther Virginia who enjoyed double-digit gains and profits on their homes when they sold, are now in the position of having to reduce their prices and make other concessions in order to sell their home.  Not to mention the predicament of people with adjustable rate mortages. 

This is the price that needs to be paid for the excessive growth in the housing market in the past few years.  When the pendulum swings too far in one direction, it’s sure to swing back.

My real point is that, we need to face reality and decide on a strategy to effectively deal with the situation from our own perspective as a Federal Regulator, Realtor or homeowner.  Denial won’t help.

The reality is that in many areas of Northern Virginia home prices are not stablizing.  They are dropping.

Federal regulators who are responsible for making decisions regarding our economy need to get out in the “field” and take notice of what’s going on.  It’s not all a numbers game. There are real people behind those numbers. They need to be aware of how we are all affected by this “slowdown”, what we are likely to do about it and what are the consequences of our actions on a national scale should we collectively reach a “tipping point’.

As Realtors, we need to tell homeowners the truth and not continue to provide reassuring advice that is based on wishful thinking.  At some point it isn’t credible to keep telling people that home prices are stablizing or that we exepct a “soft landing” while we are reducing prices $50,000 – $100,000 in order to sell them. 

As a homeowner, you need to decide on a strategy to realistically price and sell your home now or hang-on and wait the market out.  How long ?  Who really knows!  I would plan for a few years at least.

Of course, if you are a hombuyer, let’s talk!

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
Real Estate Consultant
Frank@NorthVirginiaHomes.com
http://www.NorthVirginiaHomes.com

 

 

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Buying Northern Virginia Real Estate

March 18th, 2006

This is just a short update on the market for buyers in Northern Virginia.  Northern Virginia is becoming a much nicer market for home buyers than it has been in the recent past.

Homes in many areas across Northern Virginia are sitting around with little activity.  Incentives for buyers and their agents are common.  A lot of homes are still over-priced for the current market and you can expect to be able to negoitiate a reduced price and/or better terms in many cases.

If you need assitance obtaining financing, you can use our mortgage pre-approval button on our home page.  You can also use our Northern Virignia Real Estate MLS system to search for homes for sale.  If you register, you can save listings as well as create and save searches that will email you a list of matching homes.  When you are ready to start looking at homes, send us an email or call us at 703-940-9193.

Thanks,

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
http://www.northvirigniahomes.com/

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New Website Users – Registration

February 26th, 2006

One of the most popular features of our website is the Northern Virginia Real Estate Search.  In fact, It’s probably the most popular feature.  We provide this service free of charge to anyone.  We only ask you to register with us if you want to view property addresses.

Registering with us is simply a matter of providing us with some contact information so that we can introduce our services to you.  There is no great mystery about this.  We are a for-profit business and only make money if someone buys or sells a home with us.

We use email, postal mail and telephone calls to introduce our services to people.  We do not, however, overwhelm people with emails, cards or telephone calls.  In other words, it’s a pretty soft-sell approach, as it should be, in my view.

We do make an effort to validate the contact information you provide us (email, address, phone).  If we determine that you’ve entered false information, we will remove your registration and you will need to re-register.  If this  happens, you will lose all of your saved searches and listings.  We don’t like doing this and feel bad when we see people continually register with false information, only to be removed again. 

In addition, we do provide you with the ability to unsubscribe from our mailing lists and to opt-out of receiving any marketing information from us (privacy statement).  If you do unsubscribe we will remove you from our email database.  Further, you can send us a request to opt-out of everything and we will remove you from all of our databases and the property search system.

In short, please do register with our site and provide us with valid contact information.  We won’t overwhelm you with emails, cards or telephone calls.  If you absolutely, positively don’t want to provide us with your contact information, it’s probably best not to register.

Thanks,

Frank

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
www.NorthVirginiaHomes.com

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Contact Information

January 29th, 2006

One of the things that people are naturally sensitive about these days is giving out their personal contact information.  We encounter this a lot when we speak with or exchange email with people about our services.  Let me explain.

www.NorthVirginiaHomes.com is currently the #1 ranked real estate website in Northern Virginia.  This is based on our #1 ranking on Google, the 800 lb gorilla of the search engine world.  We’re also top-ranked on Yahoo and MSN as well.  As a result, hundreds of people visit our website everyday.

An important part of our job is to categorize the people that contact us so that we can make the most efficient use of our time and resources.  Mainly, we try to determine how serious and ready you are to buy or sell a home. Naturally we need to devote most of our time and energy to the people who are serious and ready to buy or sell.  This makes sense doesn’t it ?

One of the ways that we determine if you are serious is to ask you for your contact information and verify it to the extent that we can.  Mainly we ask for your name, current address, home & cell phone.  Here’s the important part.

If you don’t want to provide us with your contact information, that’s perfectly fine but we will have to put you in the Not Serious category.  That’s seems reasonable doesn’t it ?  If you want to make use of our services, you should be willing to let us know who you are, where you live and how we can contact you.

Incidently, we think you should know the same about us.  That’s why we provide our telephone & email information at the top of our website and additional information on our disclosure page.

I hope this explains why we ask for this information.  I also want you to know that we will never sell your information or provide it to any 3rd party without your consent.

Thanks,

Frank 

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
www.NorthVirginiaHomes.com

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Rental Properties

January 24th, 2006

We get frequent requests from people looking for a home to rent.  Unfortunately, we do not generally help people find a rental property.  For the most part, we work exclusively with northern virginia home buyers and sellers. 

The only exceptions to this are when:

  1. We help a client who has already bought or sold a home with us
  2. We help a homeowner to rent their home

When I explain this to people they naturally ask why we have rental properties in the property search on our website.  The answer is because we do refer people to our other offices that have rental agents.

As I mentioned, we will help you to rent your home or investment property.  We just don’t help people find a rental property. Incidently, if you are thinking of renting out your home or investment property you may be interested in taking a look at HUD’s Fair Market Rent guide for 2006.

Speaking of investment properties, I do want to quickly mention that we have a network of contractors that we work with who can help you to repair, upgrade or completely renovate your home or investment property.  Please give us a call if you or someone you know needs help getting their property fixed up to sell or rent. 

 

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
www.NorthVirginiaHomes.com

 

 

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Expired Listings

January 22nd, 2006

Lately I’ve received a number of inquires from people who’s homes have been on the market for awhile with other real estate agents.  Typically, they are requesting a home evaluation from our website http://www.northvirginiahomes.com/.

My assumption is that their home hasn’t sold in awhile and they are seeking a “second opinion” of sorts. This is always a difficult position for us because while we would like to be helpful in this situation and would like their business, we are prohibited by our ethical standards of practice from soliciting them while their home is listed with another Realtor.

While performing a home evaluation in and of itself may not be considered a solicitation, we’ve opted not to provide the evaluation because all of our marketing material associated with providing this service (emails, letters etc.) clearly has solicitations for business in it. 

So, if you or someone you know are in this unfortunate situation, we’d  like to be of service to you but we really can’t do anything until your listing with your present Realtor has expired or you have asked your current Realtor to withdraw the listing because you are dissatisfied with their service/results.

Once you’re no longer listed with another Realtor, please give us a call or email.  We’d love to help you!

 

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
http://www.northvirginiahomes.com/

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