Thursday, March 25, 2010

Home Sales Are Up!!

Ocala home sales up 59 percent over Feb. '09

By Anthony Clark
Staff writer

Published: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 at 12:41 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 at 4:32 p.m.
Ocala's housing market resembles a fire sale, with buyers snatching up homes for bargain prices.


Sales of existing single-family homes were up 59 percent in February over a year ago, the fastest rate in the state, while median prices dropped 18 percent - the second largest drop - to $90,000 from $109,600 a year ago, Florida Realtors reported Tuesday.

Only Fort Pierce prices dropped faster - down 21 percent from $122,100 to $96,800, while Fort Myers' median sales prices remained the lowest in the state at $88,000 after dropping 10 percent.

Foreclosures and short sales are downwardly distorting median prices nationwide, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Buyers closed on 264 homes last month in the Ocala metro area, consisting of Marion County, compared to 166 a year ago.

Statewide sales were up 21 percent over the year - marking 18 months of year-over-year gains - and 14 percent since January, while the median price dropped 7 percent from $141,800 a year go to $131,300 in February.

U.S. sales of existing single-family homes were up 4 percent from a year ago but dropped 1 percent since January. The the median price dropped 2 percent from a year ago to $164,300.

First-time buyers accounted for 42 percent of February sales as the April 30 deadline approaches to have a contract to qualify for the $8,000 first-time buyer tax credit. A credit of up to $6,500 is also available for current homeowners in their homes at least five years to buy a new home.


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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

A Greeting E-mail to All Village Realty

Greetings to all from Rob and Keith at Landmark Mortgage Planners,



Most of you already know by now that we are here on site to service all of your mortgage needs at Coldwell Banker All Village Realty. We’ve enjoyed meeting many of you and look forward to meeting those of you that we haven’t. We feel that it speaks volumes of the ownership and management to have the vision of creating a more synergistic approach to providing all of our clients with superior service for their mortgage and real estate needs. We are also very excited to be able to work closely on site with Tri-County Land Title and Escrow Co. and The Millhorn Law Firm who also have a proven track record and great reputation. We are dedicated to your service and we wanted to take a moment to explain our business model and a few of the things that set us apart from the rest:



-We often double and triple submit our loans to ensure they close on time. This strategy is a must due to the current heightened sensitivity of internal underwriting and this is why we are maintaining a near 100% pull through ratio. If a loan gets denied with one lender/underwriter, we already have our plan B and C in place. No Surprises, we close on time!

-We have a realistic approach and strategically communicate any red flags and obstacles that we foresee in the beginning of the origination process in an effort to set the stage for realistic timelines/expectations while keeping the deal transparent and successful.

-We pride ourselves on adapting to the new underwriting guidelines as quickly as they change and then digesting them into simple terms to keep you up to date with the essential information needed to make your job easier.

-We have an arsenal of marketing material and resources available and would be glad to help you with any flyers or promotional materials for your listings.

-We have a lot of experience dealing with bank foreclosures and short sales and know what it takes to structure a deal correctly and to motivate the seller/bank to accept our offers. We also can eliminate a lot of wasted time by being able to contact the sellers directly, as your buyers’ mortgage representatives, while not crossing over any ethical boundaries that typically restrict the buyer’s agent from communicating with the selling side. Many times our extra proactive communication and professionalism leads to the sellers accepting our deals, even when the listing agent was not cooperative or was seemingly trying to stifle our efforts.

-We use Consumer direct marketing to get to the borrowers first through numerous marketing/advertising campaigns so that we can provide you with pre approved buyers. We like to reciprocate.

-AVAILABILITY- We always answer our phones including our mobile lines after hours and on the week-ends. We know that many clients need to speak to somebody after hours when they aren’t working and when they are out looking for properties and ready to make an offer. This extra dedication of our time has been integral in building our business and our reputation.



Ultimately the success of both of our businesses comes down to the lasting relationships that we build with our clients. We have a client for life approach as we build and maintain these relationships endorsing our realtor partners as well. Here are some of the systems that we use to help us meet our prospect and referral marketing goals:



-Mortgage Quest is a highly sophisticated mortgage/ real estate CRM that we use for our automated follow up/drip campaigns that we share with our preferred realtors.

-Every client or prospect that comes to Landmark Mortgage Planners gets put into a specific campaign, whether it be for credit repair, simple letters of appreciation, or a campaign designed to cultivate referrals from our influential customers.

-Nobody slips through the cracks, and everybody gets periodic correspondence for years to come including birthdays, anniversaries and holidays.

-We are capable of co-branding these efforts to keep not only us in our clients minds but you also as their realtor.



When it comes to loan processing, our team is among the most experienced, competent, and determined in the industry. We process our loans in-house and utilize a technology called PushMx that allows us to maintain the highest level of communication throughout the files underwriting between the loan officer, processor, client, and ultimately you, the realtor. We are constantly in search of utilizing the best technologies for every aspect of our business to create better service for our clients and business partners. Please feel free to come to us with any questions that you may have, even if you have a deal already positioned with another lender that you just need advice or guidance on! That’s why we are here, to help create a powerful business synergy, to meet the demands of this current market as a team. We have a full spectrum of programs and lending tools we specialize in, including: USDA, FHA, conventional, commercial, small business loans, reverse mortgages, reverse mortgage purchases, and private lending.



We look forward to introducing you to the rest of our team and continuing to get to know all of you. We feel that the sky is the limit! Let’s take all of our production to the next level!



Committed to your success,



Rob Ziebart and Keith Meredith

Monday, February 22, 2010

Halleluiah

Microsoft's dual-screen Courier booklet emerges, isn't near production
By Darren Murph posted Sep 22nd 2009 7:47PM

We know, we know -- you're probably still waiting for the Apple tablet that'll never come, but how's about a prototype alternative from said outfit's arch enemy to tide you over? Gizmodo has just let slip details surrounding what was previously a top secret project deep within the lairs of Redmond, but given that this is more of an advanced proof of concept than anything else, we're doing our best to curb our inner enthusiasm about a near-term release. We're told that the folding device could eventually ship with dual 7-inch displays, both of which support multitouch gestures and can also be controlled via a stylus. It should too boast a camera and possibly an inductive charging pad on the rear, though we can't help but be a wee bit frightened by hearing that the user interface is "complex." Essentially, the Courier is a touch-friendly, two-screen tablet that can't let go of the tried-and-true pen input method, and your guess is as good as ours when it comes to purpose. Though, something tells us ASUS might just have the answer. Video's after the break.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Rates Will Go Up....

Monday, February 15, 2010 (SF Chronicle)
Mortgage rates poised to jump as Fed cuts funds
Carolyn Said, Chronicle Staff Writer


The Federal Reserve is poised to turn off a major money spigot that has
helped sustain the ailing real estate sector, as an extraordinary program
under which the Fed has pumped $1.25 trillion into the mortgage market is
slated to end March 31.
"Housing has been on government life support, and without it the crash
would have been much more severe," said Mark Zandi, chief economist with
Moody's Economy.com in Pennsylvania. "This spring and summer as those
policy efforts unwind, we most likely will see mortgage rates move higher
and more house-price declines."
Rather than being held by banks, today's mortgages are sliced, diced and
resold on Wall Street to create liquidity - money that then can be lent in
more mortgages. After the credit crunch beginning in the fall of 2008,
investors lost their appetite for these mortgage-backed securities, so the
Federal Reserve stepped in to purchase them to ensure that money would
keep flowing to home purchasers.
The Fed started buying securities backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and
Ginnie Mae in January 2009 and originally planned to conclude the program
by year's end. It extended it for three months to ease the impact on
mortgage markets, although it didn't allocate more money. The program's
ultimate cost won't be known until the Fed sells off the securities,
something that officials said it will do gradually starting this year.
It's conceivable that the program could end up generating a modest profit,
breaking even or losing money, depending on what prices the securities go
for.
While experts agree that the Fed's exit will cause mortgage rates to rise,
the big unknown is how severe the effect will be.
"There is no question rates have been kept artificially low by the Fed's
heavy buying," said Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance. "My
opinion is that rates will go up a full percentage point initially,"
meaning that 30-year fixed conforming loans, now hovering around 5
percent, would hit 6 percent.
Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH Associates, which compiles mortgage
loan data, thinks that rates will slowly rise to about 5.75 percent after
the Fed withdraws.
"Right now the Fed is acting as a sponge, absorbing about $12 billion a
week of what you might consider excess supply," he said. "When they stop,
the market will have to pick up some chunk of change."
Julian Hebron, branch manager at RPM Mortgage's San Francisco office,
anticipates a bump up to around 5.5 percent by summer with rate volatility
all year.
"The Fed isn't going to start dumping mortgage bonds on April 1, they're
just going to stop buying," he said. "By that time, improving economic
data is likely to push the Fed toward a rate hike bias. This will
contribute to higher mortgage rates, slowing refi activity, and less
mortgage bond supply. So while the Fed won't be buying anymore, rates
shouldn't spike immediately because there will be less supply for markets
to absorb."
Christopher Thornberg, principal at Beacon Economics in Los Angeles,
thinks the Fed's withdrawal will have a radical impact.
"Clearly, when they stop printing all that money, it's going to be a shock
to the system. I have to assume that when they pull back on it, it will
cause a 100- to 200-basis-points rise" to rates of 6 percent or 7 percent,
he said. "When they start selling off the stuff they purchased, which by
my guess would come early next year, that would cause another 100- to
150-basis-points rise."
The Fed has indicated that it might resume buying mortgage-backed
securities if mortgage rates spike.
In written Congressional testimony released last week, Fed Chairman Ben
Bernanke said the Fed eventually will take steps to forestall inflation
that also are likely to result in higher interest rates for all loans.
Several other government programs designed to prop up the housing market
also are in play:
-- The home buyers tax credit of $8,000 for first-time buyers and $6,500
for repeat buyers expires April 30. Although many experts think the
program simply caused people to buy houses earlier than they had planned,
its end is likely to cause a dip in home sales.
"Higher interest rates without a tax credit means the cost of buying a
home will rise significantly," Zandi said. "We should expect much weaker
home sales in May, June and July."
Cecala thinks that if home sales are anemic, Congress may extend the tax
credit an additional six months, as it's already done once before.
-- Federal Housing Administration loans, an increasingly important source
of financing for many borrowers, especially those with low and moderate
incomes, imposed more stringent lending criteria in January. As FHA
delinquencies rise, the rules could tighten still more, eliminating some
potential buyers.
"The FHA portfolio has all sorts of bad debt in it," Thornberg said.
"Eventually they'll have to pull back" on lending.
-- Home Affordable Modification Program, the government-backed plan to get
banks to help troubled homeowners, has kept the market from being flooded
with foreclosures, as hundreds of thousands of borrowers are negotiating
with their lenders for lower payments. Eventually, observers say, much of
that backlog will wind up in foreclosure because homeowners simply don't
have the income or ability to make modified payments. A new surge of
bargain-basement foreclosures would undermine home prices.
"We have a boatload of homes that ultimately will find their way to a
foreclosure sale, and that will put pressure on house prices," Zandi said.
"The more that distressed home sales rise, the more home prices get pushed
down."

E-mail Carolyn Said at csaid@sfchronicle.com. ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2010 SF Chronicle

Friday, February 12, 2010

Foreclosures are Down...

Foreclosures down slightly in Marion

Ocala's median home price plunges 23.4%

Published: Friday, February 12, 2010 at 6:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 11:26 p.m.

The number of new foreclosure filings in January dipped 10 percent nationally - and 3 percent in Marion County - compared with December numbers.


But the ease in foreclosures didn't come soon enough: For the fourth quarter of 2009, the median price for an existing home in the Ocala metro area was 23.4 percent lower than it was during the same period in 2008.

It was the largest percentage drop of any metro area in the nation. Right behind was Las Vegas, which saw its median home price drop 23.3 percent.

The median home price in Ocala plunged to $93,200, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Realtors say foreclosures drive down home values and can lead to blight when the properties are neglected or abandoned.

The Realtors association said the median sales price rose in 67 of 151 (44 percent) of the nation's metropolitan areas in the October-December quarter. In the third quarter, prices rose in only 20 percent of cities.

The national median price was $172,900, or 4.1 percent below the fourth quarter of 2008.

RealtyTrac reported Thursday that Marion County saw 784 foreclosures last month, compared with 807 in December. The statistic includes foreclosure and default notices, bank repossessions, and foreclosure auction notices.

The latest RealtyTrac report indicates that one in every 197 Marion County homes received a foreclosure notice. The total number of county properties in the foreclosure process is 6,226.

The metro area with the highest foreclosure rate in January was Las Vegas, with one in every 82 homes receiving a foreclosure filing, followed by Phoenix and the California cities of Modesto and Stockton.

Nationwide, 315,716 households received a foreclosure-related notice in January, or one in every 409 homes.

RealtyTrac Inc., an online Web site that analyzes foreclosure trends, said even though foreclosure filings decreased throughout the country, they were still about 15 percent higher than the same time a year ago.

Nevada, Arizona, California and Florida posted the top foreclosure rates in January. The most were in California, with 71,817 new January filings.

RealtyTrac cautioned that the numbers would likely increase over the next few months.

In Florida, there were 47,069 new foreclosure filings, with the hardest hit counties being Broward, with 7,677 new listings; and Miami-Dade, with 4,628.

In Florida, one in every 185 homes is in the foreclosure process. Currently, there are 297,367 foreclosed homes on Florida. In Marion County, there are 4,318. The average price of a foreclosed Marion County home is $94,265.

This story includes information from The Associated Press. Contact Fred Hiers at 867-4157 or fred.hiers@starbanner.com.

Foreclosures: Florida, Nev., Ariz. have highest rates

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Another Interesting Article... Time to Buy!

Ocala has nation-high drop in home prices

Published: Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 2:40 p.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 2:42 p.m.

The number of new January foreclosure filings nationwide dipped 10 percent compared to December, a trend that was also reflected in Marion County, which experienced a 3 percent decline.


But that good news, announced Thursday, was paired later in the day with a dismal statistic: The Ocala metro area experienced the largest in the nation --- 23.4 percent --- drop in median home prices for the fourth quarter of 2009. The Ocala median price was $93,200.

Foreclosures play a significant role in pushing down property vales. The Ocala area beat out Las Vegas, where the median home price dropped 23.3 percent in fourth-quarter 2009 compared with fourth-quarter 2008.

As for the foreclosures: RealtyTrac reported Thursday that Marion County saw 784 foreclosures last month compared with 807 in December. The statistic includes foreclosure and default notices, bank repossession, and foreclosure auction notices.

The latest RealtyTrac report indicates that one in every 197 Marion County homes received a foreclosure notice. The total number of Marion County properties in the foreclosure process is 6,226.

The metro area with the highest foreclosure rate in January was Las Vegas, with one in every 82 homes receiving a foreclosure filing. It was followed by Phoenix and the California cities of Modesto and Stockton.

Nationwide, 315,716 households received a foreclosure-related notice in January, which is one in every 409 homes.

RealtyTrac Inc., a Web site that analyzes foreclosure trends, said that even though foreclosure filings decreased throughout the country, they were still about 15 percent higher than the same time a year ago.