Twin Cities Housing Market Improving?

Over the last couple weeks I’ve done showings with several different buyers in different price points and areas of the Twin Cities and the one common thing I’m seeing is that anywhere from 10% to as high as 30% of the houses my buyers want to see are “sold subject to inspection” by the time we call to set up the showing.  Granted, many of these houses have been on for quite some time, but the sheer number of houses with accepted offers on them is a very encouraging sign for the coming months.

Houses priced right and in the right condition are selling quickly again… some in as few as 3-4 days in certain areas of the Twin Cities.  This doesn’t mean an end to the housing slump, but it does suggest we’ve turned the corner.

Townhomes and Condos – They can be Easier to Sell Right Now

With the dramatic increase in inventory in recent years, the number of townhomes and condos for sale has risen dramatically.  Where once there may have only been 1-2 units for sale in a development, there are now likely 1-2 other units (or more) with the exact same floor plan.  Given that builders typically do several developments in the same or neighboring cities, there can be a large amount of competition within just a couple miles.

While everyone would agree that it is a boon for buyers, almost all of those people would also say it is a detriment to the seller.  While the competition is high, that also means that it should be much easier to determine at what price a seller’s townhouse or condo will sell for, given its current condition, view/location, and updates.

In this market sellers that try to argue that their’s is worth more than the one next door because of XYZ will struggle but those that look at the competition and the comparable solds and price accordingly will find that the sales process isn’t as bad as they thought.  Buyers can choose the house in the best condition AND with the best price.  If you’ve got that, you’re home free.

Radon Gas – What You Should Know

Most people have heard the word radon before, but many probably do not understand what it is.  As found in the EPA’s “A Citizen’s Guide to Radon”

Radon is a cancer-causing, radioactive gas. You can’t see radon. And you can’t smell it or taste it. But it may be a problem in your home.

Radon is estimated to cause many thousands of deaths each year. That’s because when you breathe air containing radon, you can get lung cancer. In fact, the Surgeon General has warned that radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States today. Only smoking causes more lung cancer deaths. If you smoke and your home has high radon levels, your risk of lung cancer is especially high.

I was recently working with a buyer who during the inspection process also requested a radon test because he was planning to put an office in the basement and consequently would be spending a lot of time there.  When we received the results back from the test we found out that the levels were significantly above the EPA action level of 4.0.

At first I thought: “damn, this could be really expensive to mitigate.”  After speaking to my colleagues and to a couple of mitigation contractors, we found out that the process is relatively easy and not very expensive at all.

The process typically involves digging a hole in the foundation about the size of a 5 gallon pail and then installing solid PVC piping from the hole up through the roof line, with something similar in size to a bath fan installed in the piping in the attic.  This fan exhausts the radon gas up and out the roof where it dissipates quickly.  In houses that have a drain tile system installed the installation can typically get the radon levels below 1.0 because of the efficiency of the drain tile at getting a broad suction around the foundation.

Once the system is installed the contractor will run a second test to confirm that the radon levels have been brought down within safe limits.  If the level is still elevated, a larger fan typically resolves the problem.

Depending on the contractor chosen and the difficulty of the work to be done, most projects are in the $1000 – $1800 range and can be completed in a day!

The contractor we used for my client’s home was Brad Nyberg from Quality Radon, 612-521-3580.  He did a great job and has nearly two decades of experience installing these systems and has been training others for many years as well.

Banks Tell Sub-Prime Mortgage Originators to Take Back Their Garbage

A colleage of mine forwarded me an article entitled “Mortgage Hot Potatoes” from the Wall Street Journal that discussed how banks like Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan Chase, and HSBC Holdings are excercising clauses in their purchases of sub-prime loans from mortgage originators to make the originators take them back.

These clauses apparently state that if a borrow defaults early in the repayment period or if the loan had underwriting defects, such as bad appraisals, that the originator must buy back the loan.  Needless to say that this allows the big banks to keep the good loans and kick back a large portion of the bad loans back to the people that shouldn’t have lended the money in the first place.

While this process will prevent the big banks from hemmoraging too much profit margin, it will put some (or possibly a large number) of the subprime lenders/originators out of business.  Many of these lenders/originators have limited assets and use corporate lines of credit to finance the loans they close until they can resell them to the bigger banks. 

When these banks send these loans back (for failure to pay), this means that the subprime originator has to borrow against their line of credit, reducing their ability to make new loans.  If enough of these loans get sent back, the mortgage originator may consume all their credit line with these bad loans and may not be able to fund closings on their new ones.

Enter the headache for buyers and sellers: Imagine sitting at the closing table waiting for a wire transfer of the buyer’s funds and come to find out that the buyer has no funds because the originator has no money! This scenario will come true, it is just a question of how many originators will have the problem.

In the last few years lenders really softened up their lending requirements, allowing a lot of low credit score borrows to go “stated income” or “no doc” loans which basically paired up risky borrowers with risky loans.  In the rush to make as much money as possible, some mortgage brokers/originators went one step further and either omitted or falsified information on the applications to get buyers approved that shouldn’t have.

Because we are still in a rising interest rate market and we haven’t exited the housing slowdown, there’s still a long time for these loans to go into default and come to the attention of the big banks that bought them.  As more of these loans come under scrutiny, I think we’re going to see much larger problem than many expect.

If you’re buying or selling a home, it is eminently important that you know where the money is coming from and that the lender will still be in business at closing!

Minneapolis Housing Inventory Begins its "Spring Market" Climb

January 1st 2007 marked the low point for Active Listings in the market for at least the next 10-11 months.  As is typical for our market, new listings will hit the market in ever-increasing numbers each week and will add to our supply of Active listings until sometime this summer, when the number of listings will likely peak for the year.  In fact, since the 1st of the year the number of listings in the Twin Cities has gone up by over 2000!

While the number of listings in the market will rise dramatically, this is also the time when we see the largest increase in buyer activity as well.  Last year from January to May we saw supply increase in lock-step with demand such that the ratio of buyers to sellers remained relatively flat until summer.  If trends remain the same this year we should see the same pattern which means more choice for buyers but also quicker turnover of what is listed for sale.

 

Edina Realty Releases Sold Property Search

On Monday December 4th, Edina Realty released a new search tool which lets consumers search the last two years’ worth of sold properties as reported to the RMLS of Minnesota.

To search for homes that have sold in the last two years, click here.

Beginning today the RMLS is now permitting agents and brokers to display basic information about listings that have sold in the last two years on their web sites.  Up until this point consumers were only permitted to view listings that were currently for sale and consequently did not know what they sold for until the county posted the sales price… in many cases months later.  Now Edina Realty’s new tool pulls in new sold information in almost real-time.

As a real estate agent you may think that I would be concerned about giving up what’s been considered the holy grail of information: comparable sold properties.  Far from it, I’m actually quite excited to see our company and local MLS board progressing forward.

The information that we’re publishing is by and large already published by other sources, most notably the county in which the home resides.  Zillow and others currently use this tax data on their web sites.  The big problems with tax data are that it usually takes several months or more to get the sales information posted and the other information the counties have (beds, baths, garages) is often inaccurate.

Enter the REALTOR.  If the information already publicly exists, why not make it easier for the consumer to get timely & accurate information from us directly?  Some agents look at it as we are giving away the farm; I look at it as a way to increase dialog between buyers, sellers and REALTORS.

Information in today’s society is fluid and many times free, but information is worthless without an ability to analyze and interpret that information.  Just as many people use WebMD to look up their physical ailments and self-diagnose, buyers and sellers now do a basic “diagnosis” of the housing market and get a feel for valuation.  But just like doctors, when it’s time to bring out the scapel, or in this case sell or buy a home, consumers still look to a professional to see that the job is done right.

Housing Starts Down 49% – This is Great News!

In September, Twin Cities home builders were issued 49% fewer permits for 48% fewer units.  This marks a substantial deceleration of the new construction market in the Twin Cities area.  This is excellent news for the local market!

Why am I so elated with what appears to be bad news?  While this does signal a significant slowdown for builders, this slowdown in activity will help moderate the increasing inventory in our market.

I’ve included a page from a recently published MAAR report which shows the months of housing supply currently on the market in the $250,001-$350,000 price range.  In all but the condominium market, new construction supply is dramatically higher than existing homes.  This exacerbates the stress of lower buyer activity, creating more pricing pressure on both the existing and new construction markets.

With the diminishing numbers of new housing starts, new construction inventory should slowly reduce over the next 6-9 months, which should bring supply down to more manageable levels.  This in turn will help stabilize pricing and bring back consumer confidence in the housing market.

Housing Supply September '06 $250k-$350k

September 2006 Market Statistics for Minneapolis/St. Paul

SEPTEMBER 2006 CURRENT RMLS STATISTICS MARKET UPDATE

80       Average days on market

43%    More listing on the market than 1 year ago totaling 60663.

41%    Of the inventory that has sold in last 30 days has had a price adjustment

5.3    Months Absorption Rate=the time it would take for all the listings to sell if no more homes were put on the market

     For every sale that takes place, there are 6 more homes that haven’t sold 
 
18     Showings for every home that sells (From Edina Realty appt center statistics)

August Market Statistics

The Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors released its new version of the weekly report recently and I love all the new data and breakouts by price and style.  It really helps you look into the data further to see what’s happening on a sector-by-sector basis.

Here’s this week’s report:
MAAR Weekly Statistics – August 21, 2006

While these numbers are great, it can also be helpful to look at the market as a whole in summary:

AUGUST 2006 CURRENT RMLS STATISTICS MARKET UPDATE

69       Average days on market

45%    More listing on the market than 1 year ago totaling 60663.

35%    Of the inventory that has sold in last 30 days has had a price adjustment

5.3    Months Absorption Rate=the time it would take for all the listings to sell if no more homes were put on the market

     For every sale that takes place, there are 6 more homes that haven’t sold 
 
36     Showings for every home that sells (From Edina Realty appt center statistics)