Mortgage Rates Climb to Highest Level in Year

Daily Real Estate News | Friday, May 31, 2013

Fixed-rate mortgages soared higher this week, reaching their highest averages in a year, Freddie Mac reports in its weekly mortgage market survey.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage -- the most popular choice among home buyers -- has climbed nearly half a percentage point since the beginning of this month -- from 3.35 percent to 3.81 percent this week.
"Fixed mortgage rates followed long-term government bond yields higher, following a growing market sentiment that the Federal Reserve may lessen its accommodative policy stance,” says Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “Improving economic data may have encouraged those views.”
Despite the uptick, mortgage rates remain low by historical standards, Freddie Mac reports.
The mortgage giant reports the following national averages with mortgage rates for the week ending May 30:

• 30-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 3.81 percent, with an average 0.8 point, rising from last week’s 3.59 percent average. A year ago at this time, 30-year rates averaged 3.75 percent. 
• 15-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 2.98 percent, with an average 0.7 point, rising from last week’s 2.77 percent average. Last year at this time, 15-year rates averaged 2.97 percent. 
• 5-year adjustable-rate mortgages: averaged 2.66 percent, with an average 0.5 point, also up from last week’s average of 2.63 percent. Last year at this time, 5-year ARMs averaged 2.84 percent. 
• 1-year ARMs: averaged 2.54 percent, with an average 0.5 point, dropping from last week’s 2.55 percent average. A year ago, 1-year ARMs averaged 2.75 percent. 

Source: Freddie Mac

Investors Place Big Bets on Widespread Housing Recovery

Daily Real Estate News | Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Investors are picking up shares of appliances, building materials, and even pickup trucks in betting on a widening housing recovery, The Wall Street Journal reports. Investors say that the increase in residential construction and home renovation represents a big opportunity on Wall Street.
The recovery is in "the very early innings," Russell Croft, a portfolio manager at Croft Leominster Inc., told The Wall Street Journal. "[I’m trying] to find the secondary or tertiary stocks that might be influenced by housing."
Following a run-up in shares of homebuilder stocks -- like Lennar, KB Home, and Toll Brothers -- investors are now diversifying, looking at such companies like appliance maker Whirlpool (which has surged more than 170 percent since the end of 2011) and Ford Motor Co. for pickup trucks. Investors are looking for anything housing-related, including companies that manufacture related items from roofing and floorboards to drywall and faucets.
Home improvement retailers Lowe’s and Home Depot have each soared by about 60 percent over the last 12 months.
With home prices still below about 28 percent from their 2006 peak, investors are seeing plenty of opportunity ahead for the housing market.
"The housing market is one of the best investible themes out there for 2013 and for 2014 as well," says analyst Kevin O'Keefe with Brown Advisory, which oversees $33 billion in assets.

Source: “Investors Spread Their Housing Bets,” The Wall Street Journal (May 27, 2013)

Short Sales Losing Favor with Lenders?

Daily Real Estate News | Thursday, May 30, 2013

Lenders may be less inclined to approve short sales due to rising home prices, according to a new report by RealtyTrac.
During the first quarter, short sales posted a 35 percent drop compared to year-ago levels.
"The decrease in short sales was a bit of surprise given that 11 million home owners nationwide still owe more on their homes than they're worth," says Daren Blomquist, spokesman for RealtyTrac. "Rising home prices are taking away the incentive for short sales on the part of both home owners and lenders."
Foreclosure prices are on the rise, increasing 28 percent in the first quarter. The banks may be realizing they won’t necessarily lose a lot more money by letting a home go into foreclosure instead, Blomquist says.
However, foreclosure sales have been plummeting too, reaching their lowest levels since early 2008. Foreclosure sales made up 21 percent of the total market during the first quarter, which is down from 25 percent one year ago, according to RealtyTrac.
Foreclosure sales peaked in early 2009, when they made up 45 percent of all homes sold nationally.
Still, foreclosures are making up the biggest bulk of sales in certain states, such as Georgia (where 35 percent of sales were foreclosures in the first quarter), Illinois (32 percent), and California (30 percent), according to RealtyTrac.

Source: “Foreclosure sales fall to lowest level since 2008,” CNNMoney (May 30, 2013)

8 Fast-Growing Cities

Daily Real Estate News | Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Americans are continuing to flock to Texas. The state boasts the most cities that added the highest percentage of residents in the past year.
However, New York continues to hold the crown as the largest city in the U.S., and added 67,000 new residents between July 2011 and July 2012—which is the largest gain of any city in the nation.
The following cities saw the biggest increases in new residents between July 2011 and July 2012, according to the U.S. Census Bureau:

1. New York
   • New residents: 67,000
   • Population: 8.3 million
2. Houston
   • New residents: 34,625
   • Population: 2.2 million
3. Los Angeles
   • New residents: 34,500
   • Population: 3.9 million
4. San Antonio, Texas
   • New residents: 25,400
   • Population: 1.4 million
5. Austin, Texas
   • New residents: 25,400
   • Population: 840,000
6. Phoenix
   • New residents: 24,500
   • Population: 1.5 million
7. Dallas
   • New residents: 23,300
   • Population: 1.2 million
8. Charlotte, N.C.
   • New residents: 19,000
   • Population: 775,000

Source: “10 Big, Booming Cities,” CNNMoney (May 2013)

NAR Allows Public-Facing MLS Sites; Leaders to Look at realtor.com Content

Daily Real Estate News | Monday, May 20, 2013

The debate over public access to real estate information long-controlled by REALTORS® took center stage Saturday at the Board of Directors meeting of the National Association of REALTORS®.  At issue on the concluding day of the NAR Midyear Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo was whether MLSs should be able to charge members for establishing, maintaining, and promoting public-facing Web sites by including such sites in the “basic” services they provide to members.
Directors rejected the idea of “kicking the can down the road” to further consider technicalities of the proposal, as had been recommended by the NAR Executive Committee.
The move in favor of public-facing Web sites followed a separate discussion about the need for realtor.com to enhance and broaden its content and user experience in response to evolving consumer needs and expectations. Explaining that  “these are not ordinary times” for the industry, realtor.com president Errol Samuelson offered a presentation to the Board that described the accuracy of the site as second to none because of its leading-edge technology. He noted that “90 percent of the site is updated every 15 minutes.” The rest of the site is updated in the same day.
But the site’s lack of comprehensive content—such as the absence of FSBO properties from the site and a less than systematic approach to including new-construction homes and rental properties—puts realtor.com at a disadvantage, Samuelson said. He noted that the site is no longer No. 1 in terms of total visits or total audience.
The directors approved a motion for NAR leaders to convene meetings with Move Inc., which operates realtor.com, to discuss ways to enhance the site’s content and to present recommendations to NAR directors on how to achieve this goal at a special meeting to be held this summer.
Also at the meeting, the Board elected a new slate of officers for 2014 including: President-Elect Chris Polychron of Hot Springs, Ark; First Vice President Tom Salomone of Coral Springs, Fla.; and Treasurer Mike McGrew of Lawrence, Kansas. The slate joins Steve Brown of Dayton, Ohio, who will be 2014 President.  Appointed as vice presidents were Beth Peerce of Century City, Calif. and JoAnne Poole of Baltimore, Md.
Other highlights included:

• Membership— NAR membership dues remain unchanged at $120 (with $40 of that amount continue to be dedicated for REALTOR® Party programs), and dues for student membership were set at $25.
• Code of Ethics—The enforcement power of the Code of Ethics was strengthened significantly with the maximum penalty for violations tripling from $5,000 to $15,000.
• No Tax on Services —NAR adopted the following statement of policy opposing the application of state or local sales tax to rents and real estate services and other professional services, including real estate broker commissions, title searches, appraisals, home inspections, property management services, and any other services related to the real estate transaction.
• National Advertising Campaign —­­The Public Advocacy campaign was approved for funding for the next three years at the current level of $35 per member each year along with a name change to the Consumer Advertising Campaign. The new name is seen as better describing the campaign’s purpose, distinct from the association’s political advocacy efforts The national advertising campaign is central to the association’s consumer outreach efforts and is one of NAR most popular membership programs with 95 percent of REALTORS® favoring it.
• GRI Hours ­—The minimum hours of instruction for the GRI designation program were reduced from 90 to 60 hours in recognition of the time commitment and cost that has contributed to the substantial decrease in designees over the past five years, from 8000 in 2007 to 1455 last year.

—Wendy Cole, REALTOR® Magazine

Strong Fundamentals Shore Up Home Sales

Daily Real Estate News | Friday, May 17, 2013

Uncertainty over federal actions remains a big hurdle
Home sales are on a sustained upswing, with solid gains in volume and price predicted for the next few years thanks to improved market fundamentals. But whether the federal government will derail further improvement remains a question, REALTORS® heard Thursday.
Existing-home sales are expected to hit 5 million at the end of this year and then grow to 5.3 million in 2014, up from 4.3 million in 2011, National Association of REALTORS® Chief Economist Lawrence Yun told a packed audience at his residential economic forum at the 2013 Midyear Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo in Washington.

View slides from Yun's presentation.

Price appreciation will be strong, too. Yun said he expects gains of 8 percent this year and 5 percent next year.
The strong price growth reflects the overly tight inventory conditions in many markets, Yun said. And that’s not a healthy condition. What’s needed is a return to the market by small builders, but they can’t get financing because community banks, leery of banking regulations coming out of Washington, aren’t lending.
Until that regulatory uncertainty clears up, only the country’s largest builders, which have access to Wall Street bond financing, will be building. As a result, although building has picked up in the last year after years of flat-lining, the number of new units is barely at replacement level. To meet the pent-up demand that’s in the market right now, builders need to get some 1.5 million units on the market. They’re only getting about 1 million right now.
The good news is that the housing recovery is based on deep-seated improvements in market fundamentals. So as long as the economy stays on track, which economists generally say will be the case, the housing market should continue to improve well into the future.
To the extent that there are market risks, they largely stem from the federal government, which continues to look at ways to reduce its budget deficit. Washington is also writing rules to protect against future mortgage market problems.
Will the government pare back the availability of Federal Housing Authority financing through tightened lending rules? Will it require banks to meet stringent capital standards and underwriting requirements under Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform rules?
Another unknown is whether the government will it impose strict limits on the points and fees lenders charge for loan originations–what Yun called a kind of price control that could end up dampening loan availability.
Until these and other uncertainties are cleared up, the improving market will face headwinds, Yun said. As a result, although the market should continue improving, its gains are unlikely to be as robust as they otherwise would be.

—Robert Freedman, REALTOR® Magazine

Tax Reform Effort to Be Open and Serious

Daily Real Estate News | Thursday, May 16, 2013

Amid all the partisan squabbling in Washington, D.C., that makes national news headlines is a bipartisan effort by the House and Senate chairs of the tax-writing committees to roll out major tax-reform legislation this summer and have it considered by Congress before the end of the year.
Warren Payne, policy director on the tax-writing House Ways & Means Committee, met with the National Association of REALTORS®’ Taxation Committee Wednesday morning at the 2013 Midyear Legislative Meetings and Trade Expo. He told attendees that Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the committee chair, and his counterpart in the Senate, Max Baucus (D-Mont.), have been meeting weekly and are determined to make a good-faith effort to rewrite the country’s tax laws before the end of the year. Rep. Camp will be stepping down as Ways & Means chair at the end of this session, and Sen. Baucus has announced his retirement at the end of his term.
“They’re starting with a blank page,” said Payne.
The two lawmakers’ goal is to be transparent and open throughout the process by keeping stakeholders — including REALTORS®—informed at every step along the way.
Already some 20 hearings have been held in the House, and a Web site called taxreform.gov has been launched to help explain the effort and get input from people inside and outside the formal policymaking process. At the NAR meeting, Payne encouraged REALTORS® to go to the Web site and submit their views and to tell others to do so as well.
The determined effort to craft a bill from scratch means the mortgage-interest deduction and other vital homeownership and commercial real estate incentives are on the table, although Payne noted that Rep. Camp has said he doesn’t consider MID “a loophole,” but rather a fundamental part of the Tax Code.
To start the overhaul, Rep. Camp is working with four goals in mind:

1. The individual tax rate should be split into two levels: 10 percent and 25 percent
2. The corporate rate should be set at 25 percent
3. The U.S. tax system should put the country in a competitive posture compared to other nations
4. The alternative minimum tax should be repealed

Camp also is working on the assumption that the tax overhaul will be “tax revenue neutral” over 10 years, which means it will be targeted to bring in $42.2 trillion over that period, no more, no less.
Payne said the 1986 tax overhaul is being looked at as a model for both what to do and what not to do. On the positive side, the 1986 effort shows how lawmakers can craft complicated tax legislation by finding areas of consensus, while on the negative side it shows what happens when lawmakers aren’t open and transparent throughout the process. He was referring to the changes to passive losses that many experts have said shattered the commercial real estate market.
Those passive-loss changes weren't thoroughly vetted by the industry and other experts before they were approved. The result, many say, was massive, unexpected dislocation in commercial real estate that is still being felt today.
To avoid another debacle like that, Rep. Camp is keeping an open line of communication with all stakeholders, and in fact he and his staff are in regular communication with NAR and other groups to get input and minimize surprises. “We value our open communication with you,” Payne told the

REALTORS®. “We want to have your input at every point along the way.”
–Robert Freedman, REALTOR® Magazine

Don't Get Caught Flat-Footed on MID, REALTORS® Warned

Daily Real Estate News | Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Though partisanship in Washington, D.C., is at a historic high, that doesn't mean lawmakers won't take on tax reform later this year, possibly putting the mortgage interest deduction and other tax incentives important to real estate into play, said Jeffrey Birnbaum, a long-time Washington journalist who captured the 1986 tax reform battle in an award-winning book, Showdown at Gucci Gulch.
“Don’t count out the chances of tax reform,” Birnbaum told hundreds of REALTORS^® in Washington this week for the 2013 Midyear Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo. “It could start out slow and could gain momentum,” which is how the massive 1986 reforms unfolded.
Birnbaum noted that both Democrats — including President Obama — and Republicans have said they would like to overhaul the tax code, and although partisan differences have become a stumbling block to members’ ability to reach consensus on many issues, there’s an unusual dynamic at work in the two tax-writing committees that could end up being a game-changer. That dynamic is the retirements of Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), his counterpart on the Senate Finance Committee.
Both have said they want to move forward with tax reform before they go, and the fight over raising the federal debt ceiling, which is expected to be reached this fall, provides a possible trigger event for them and other lawmakers to come to agreement on big tax changes, said Birnbaum.
What’s more, the federal budget deficit is coming down more quickly than lawmakers expected, thanks to the improving economy and the across-the-board spending cuts under the “sequester” that took effect at the beginning of this year. It’s possible the government could go from a $1.1 trillion deficit this fiscal year to a surplus by fiscal year 2015, which would ease the give-and-take on tax and other issues as lawmakers come to agreement on reform.
Birnbaum said the the risk to real estate is that lawmakers will be looking to the MID as one of the biggest places to find money to offset any tax cuts they agree to. That puts at particular risk the amount of MID benefit available to higher-income households and those with second homes. “No one should take [the] MID for granted,” he said.
The capital gains tax rate applied to the carried interest of general partners in investment partnerships will also be on the table, as will deductions for charitable contributions and employer-sponsored health plans.
Birnbaum said it’s important for REALTORS^® to stay engaged, because “you don’t want to be caught flat-footed if Congress overreacts,” which it often does when it legislates, Birnbaum said. He added that the visits that real estate professionals are making to Capitol Hill this week are just the kind of engagement that’s needed now. “Lawmakers will be able to hear from you directly,” he said.
Rep. Randy Nuegebauer (R-Texas), chair of the House Financial Services Committee's Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance, who followed Birnbaum on the speaker’s podium, complimented REALTORS^® for their strong presence on Capitol Hill. “You’re well represented here,” he said. “You’re at the table with us, and we’re delighted to work with you. We want to make sure these fixes we want to do are right.”


—Robert Freedman, REALTOR® Magazine

Rising Housing Market Likely to Lift Job Mobility

Daily Real Estate News | Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Home owners are starting to feel freer to move where the jobs are, Reuters reports, as worries about homes that won't sell or will sell at a loss begin to fade.
Since early 2012, home prices in the major metro areas have been rising. Homes are also selling faster: It took 62 days, on average, to sell a home, compared with 91 days one year prior, according to March data from the National Association of REALTORS®.
The increase in mobility from the recovering housing market is expected to have a hand in lowering the jobless rate.
"Until the real estate market picked up, people wouldn't even consider a move without the certainty that they could sell their homes," Jerry Funaro, vice president of global marketing for TRC Global Solutions, a Milwaukee-based relocation service, told Reuters. "Companies are now more inclined to make offers since we're seeing real estate markets across the country coming back.”
The number of people who moved last year increased to 35.6 million, with the mover rate climbing to 12 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That marked an increase over the 11.6 percent low set in 2011.
"It's not a huge gain, but when you consider that for two years, we've had the lowest migration rates since World War II, any move up is good news," William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told Reuters.
Meanwhile, in April, the jobless rate dropped to its lowest point in more than four years, reaching 7.5 percent, due to an increase in hiring among employers.

Source: “Insight: Housing improvement may herald return of U.S. workforce mobility,” Reuters (May 13, 2013)

Affordability Remains High, Despite Price Gains

 

Daily Real Estate News | Monday, May 13, 2013

Low mortgage rates and stabilizing incomes are keeping home affordability high and giving home buyers “ample buying power,” according to the National Association of REALTORS®.
The Wall Street Journal highlights the following example on just how affordable housing has become: “Assuming a 5 percent down payment, a 3.5 percent mortgage rate, and 25 percent of a gross income devoted to mortgage payments, a buyer would only need an income of $36,500 to buy a house at the median price. With a 10 percent down payment, the required salary falls to $34,600, and with a 20 percent down payment, it falls to $30,700.”
In the first quarter, the median family income nationwide was $62,200.
Housing affordability remains high despite recent reports that show home prices in 150 U.S. cities saw their biggest year-over-year gains in more than seven years, according to NAR’s most recent report, reflecting data from the first quarter of 2013. The median price of a single-family, existing home was $176,600 in the first quarter of this year, an increase of 11.3 percent from year ago levels, NAR notes.
Areas with strong job growth are posting some of the largest home price gains, including:

• Akron, Ohio: +32.7%
• San Francisco By area: +32.6%
• Reno-Sparks, Nev.: +32.1%
• Silicon Valley area surrounding San Jose, Calif.: +31.7%
• Atlanta: +31.1%
• Phoenix: +30.1%

Source: “Home Prices Jump but Affordability Remains in Buyers’ Favor,” The Wall Street Journal (May 9, 2013)

Foreclosure Activity Drops to 6-Year Low

 

Daily Real Estate News | Friday, May 10, 2013

Foreclosure filings dropped 5 percent in April from March, with foreclosure filings down 23 percent in April from year ago levels, RealtyTrac reports. Nationwide foreclosure activity has reached a 74-month low or the lowest point since February 2007.
"The April numbers indicate that the pig is moving through the python when it comes to deferred foreclosures in judicial foreclosure states," said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. "Foreclosure starts have been increasing for several months in many of the judicial states, and now that increased volume is showing up in the second stage of the process: the public foreclosure auction."
Judicial foreclosure auctions rose 22 percent from March to April and were up 31 percent from year-ago levels, RealtyTrac reports. On the other hand, scheduled, non-judicial foreclosure auctions dropped 7 percent in March and are down 43 percent from last year.
Foreclosure starts are rising in several non-judicial states, Blomquist notes. While foreclosure starts have fallen nationwide, 22 states are still seeing a rise in foreclosures over the previous month, RealtyTrac reports. Some of those states include: New Jersey (138 percent increase), Connecticut (46 percent increase), Texas (37 percent increase), Georgia (35 percent increase), Oregon (16 percent increase), and California (13 percent increase).

Source: RealtyTrac and “RealtyTrac: April foreclosure filings drop 23%,” HousingWire (May 9, 2013)

Are Underpriced Homes Fueling Bidding Wars?

 

Daily Real Estate News | Wednesday, May 08, 2013

The number of homes for sale is at the lowest point in more than 10 years, but with buyer demand still high, many markets are seeing bidding wars. A TIME magazine article recently asked: “Are buyers being manipulated into overbidding for the relatively few attractive homes on the market?”
Some real estate professionals say that homes are being underpriced in order to ignite a bidding war.
“Most people are not pricing at market value,” a real estate professional told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Even in this market, you don’t want to overprice.”
For example, the San Francisco-based agent said a two-bedroom townhouse in the area was priced at $659,000 recently, even after a similar townhome had sold a year ago for $675,000.
“We priced it intentionally to get multiple offers and sell quickly,” the agent says. The townhouse attracted nine offers and sold for 15 percent above the asking price — $755,000.
Bidding wars have become commonplace in markets like Denver, where half of the new homes on the market are selling in less than 30 days. In Northern and Southern California nine in 10 homes are attracting bidding wars, as well as two-thirds of the homes for sale in Boston, New York City, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., the TIME magazine article notes.
“The only question is not whether a new listing will get multiple bids but how many it will get,” says a Sacramento, Calif.-based real estate professional.

Source: “Forget Lowballing: Bidding Wars Return in Hot Housing Markets,” TIME (April 30, 2013)

Will 'Missing Households' Reappear After Investors Leave?

 

Daily Real Estate News | Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Investors and all-cash home buyers accounted for about 19 percent and 30 percent, respectively, of all sales in March, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. That represents a significant share of the market, and some analysts are concerned that as home prices rise, investor and all-cash demand will start to shrink.
Who will step up in their place?
Robert Dietz, an economist with the National Association of Home Builders, notes in a recent article for U.S. News & World Report that “missing households” in today’s market who have delayed home ownership will eventually play catch up.
Notably, recent college grads who delayed home ownership by moving in with their parents or renting are expected to increase their homebuying activity. Also, surveys show a growth in the number of Americans living together as roommates who are not relatives. Americans have doubled or even tripled up in rental residences to help cut costs. But as more people get married and start families and jobs stabilize, household formation will likely grow, Dietz notes.
The nation’s population has grown, but the number of independent households of renters and owners has not kept pace. The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey shows that the population from 2006 to 2011 grew by more than 4 percent, but there was only about a 3 percent growth in the number of households.
Dietz expects that homebuying demand will come strongly from rental households that were created over the last seven years. In that time, the number of rental households in single-family homes grew by 2.5 million, or 22 percent. Traditional renting households in multifamily units increased by nearly 7 percent, Dietz notes.
Dietz says the “real demand for housing is on the sidelines, particularly among younger Americans. ... For these younger prospective homebuyers, policy debates concerning the future of the housing finance system and home ownership programs like the mortgage interest deduction will have real impacts on their housing and wealth status in the years to come.”

Source: “What Happens to the Housing Market When the Investors Leave?” U.S. News & World Report (May 3, 2013)

4 Threats That Remain in Housing Recovery

 

Daily Real Estate News | Monday, May 06, 2013

The housing recovery appears to be on track and growing stronger. Home sales and prices are up after reaching bottom in 2010, foreclosures and mortgage delinquencies are dropping, yet housing affordability still remains high.
So why are some analysts and economists concerned?
At a recent Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., panelists said that threats to the housing recovery still remain. The biggest threats they pointed to included:

1. Land scarcity: Real estate developers are struggling to find desirable land to start new projects, which is limiting the supply of new homes. A few years ago, banks took ownership of land after developers had foreclosed on some projects. The land is worth less than its original price so banks are reluctant to write off additional losses by selling it too cheaply. Plus, lenders remain cautious about issuing loans for new land purchases.
2. House flippers should be cautious: Housing affordability is high mostly due to super low mortgage rates, and investors are taking advantage with intentions of flipping homes for profit. "No doubt you can buy a house today and get a really good price and a low-interest loan,” says Jeff Greene, president of Florida Sunshine Investments. “But if you want to sell that house to somebody two or three years later and rates go up to 5 or 6 percent, how much is he going to pay for that house?"
3. Foreign buyers potentially inflating prices: In some markets, strong demand by foreign buyers has helped home prices recover, which has made homes more expensive for Americans in some areas. Some analysts fear that it could even lead to another housing bubble if interest rates started rising quickly as well. Markets like Miami, Los Angeles, and New York are seeing strong demand among foreign buyers. Some say this is a good thing, because it reflects a strong faith in the U.S. market.
4. A ‘patchy’ recovery: Some markets are seeing rapid increases with bidding wars, rising prices, and low inventories, while other markets are still at a standstill. For example, Miami’s housing market is “on fire” while 80 miles north in Palm Beach County there’s a “huge glut of housing,” says Greene.

Source: “5 Reasons the Housing Recovery Remains Wobbly,” U.S. News & World Report (May 3, 2013)

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'Pocket Listings' Spark Controversy

Daily Real Estate News | Thursday, May 02, 2013

With the housing rebound in full swing, “pocket listings” are growing in many parts of the country as some sellers look to preserve their privacy, and brokers use them to trigger an aura of exclusivity to a listing. But some in the industry worry that exclusivity may be crossing an ethical line.
Pocket listings refer to situations in which real estate agents purposely keep sales information about a home off the multiple listing services, and brokers only show that house to people they expect to actually purchase it.
The National Association of REALTORS® does not have an official policy on pocket listings, spokesman Walt Molony told CNNMoney. But some real estate boards say they don’t like the practice.
In New York, the practice of “pocket listings” violates the Universal Co-Brokerage Agreement, which requires agents to share listings, maintains Neil Garfinkel, counsel for the Real Estate Board of New York.
Some housing experts also say that pocket listings create a gray area when an agent is able to collect double commission from the deal by acting as the agent for both the buyer and seller. "If an agent is putting their own economic interest ahead of the seller’s, it’s a violation of state law," Garfinkel says.
However, "most of the time, pocket listings are done ethically and fairly," Betty Graham, president of Coldwell Banker Previews International/NRT, told CNNMoney.
If the home doesn’t sell quickly as a "pocket listing," many agents say they’ll then advise their clients to readjust their price and list the home publicly on the MLS. But some agents say a few sellers may prefer the privacy of pocket listings because they’re not highly motivated to move — unless someone offers them a “make-me-move” deal with a great price, CNNMoney reports.
Source: “Secret 'pocket listings' return in hot housing markets,” CNNMoney (May 2, 2013)