Posts Tagged ‘apartments’
‘A Great Time to Buy,’ Real Estate Mogul Corcoran Says
Real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran says it’s ‘a great time to buy.’
NEW YORK — It’s so thrilling to hear an expert back up what you’ve been saying all along. In this case, it’s real estate mogul and reality TV star Barbara Corcoran weighing it on why it’s a great time to buy.
Appreciation in property values, she said Wednesday on CNBC, would be stronger than the numbers are suggesting.
“It’s going to go much higher than people anticipate,” she said.
Sure enough, the Case-Shiller home-price index has shown consistent growth over the past several months and an increase of 3 percent from last year — and that’s in a soft economy.
The Case-Shiller index is backward-looking, data-heavy and conservative gauge of what home prices have already done, so it’s not subject prone to wild speculation.
With mortgage rates this week around 3.4 percent for a 30-year loan and 2.84 percent for a 15-year, Corcoran is the latest expert to suggest buying real estate, joining the likes of billionaire investor Warren Buffett and Billy Procida, Donald Trump’s original apprentice.
In her interview, Corcoran was asked whether prospective buyers who are able to borrow should borrow as much as they can. She agreed.
“You have 30 percent reduction in sale price. You have cheap money around,” she said, adding that in nine out of 10 real estate markets, buyers are likely to be outbid on a housing purchase at least once.
Corcoran, who built a $5 billion New York real estate business with $1,000 and now stars in ABC’s “Shark Tank,” also said that homeowners looking to upgrade should take notice.
“Right now, if you’re upgrading to a bigger house, even if you’re selling at 10 percent off, you buy your new house at a 10 percent off,” she said.
Addressing the popularity of multi-family housing, Corcoran said buyers would do well to look at another segment of the market.
“I would first go out and buy a beachfront property,” she said. “Go out and buy a second home. It’s the last piece of the real estate market that has yet to hit bottom.”
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NYC Real Estate ‘Can’t Get Cheaper,’ Former Trump VP Says
Owning a Home Regains Appeal (Photo by Bruno J. Navarro)
NEW YORK — Buying a home within 100 miles of the metropolitan New York area stands to be a strong investment that “can’t get cheaper,” a former apprentice of Donald Trump and real estate mogul Billy Procida said this week on CNBC.
“At the end of the day, all of the country’s wealth was made through homeownership. Now, of course, we have fallen as far as you can fall. It can’t get cheaper because we’re way below replacement costs,” he said in a televised interview. (Watch: Billy Procida Says Owning a Home Regains Appeal.)
Founder of Procida Advisors and Procida Funding, Procida has been called Trump’s “original apprentice” due to his 10-year letter-writing campaign for a job with the famous developer and reality-television star. He worked his way from an unpaid position to vice president with the Trump organization.
Procida had advice for those thinking about buying real estate.
“If I’m talking to a consumer, a first-time homebuyer, a couple looking to move, I say if you have 5 percent or 10 percent of the value of the home you’re looking to buy, you should be buying because you’re going to look back 10 years from now and go, ‘Thank god I did.’ When liquidity returns to the market you will see things shoot up, and that will happen in two or three years,” he said.
The developer and mogul also urged staying within one’s means when buying.
“Would I be trying to reach today? No,” he said. “Would I be going out to middle of nowhere to buy? No. If you are buying a house because it is near where you work and you are going to stay there for a while, there is nothing like homeownership to build wealth. That’s a fact.”
For those who don’t have a down payment, Procida advised renting something cheap to build up savings. “Too many young people, I see, graduating from college go for their lungs and get no savings and they will never be able to buy anything. If you can get the deposit, interest rates are at all-time lows.”
This week, the average rate for a 30-year mortgage rate was 3.59 percent, just slightly above its all-time low.
Based in the New York metropolitan area, Procida also said he had a new investment vehicle: “Our new fund is called the 100-Mile Fund because I want to be investing 100 miles from right here because there’s no more land. Everything’s built out.”
For the big picture, Procida struck an optimistic note.
“The good news about America and our banks is sooner or later they will flood the market with liquidity and things will go crazy again, and you will go, ‘You know what? I’m not going to refinance this time and take everything out of my house and go on vacation.’ That’s where everybody got in trouble. It wasn’t that the house is not a wealth creator. It is,” he said. “They have nowhere to go in my opinion but up from here.”
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It Takes Know-How to Win a Bidding War
It Takes Know-How to Win a Bidding War
NEW YORK — The 2012 Olympics are in full swing in London and the frenzied pitch of the New York City market brings to mind its competitive spirit (not including badminton).
Buyers are feeling a sense of urgency as multiple bids and bidding wars are becoming increasingly common. Inventory is dwindling as the number of reported transactions soar.
Although mortgage rates remain at historic lows, home prices are beginning to rise.
In a heated market such as we currently find ourselves in, the slightest error can mean the difference between gold and going home. Using an experienced sales agent is more important than ever, and having all your paperwork in order may help catapult you to the top of the buyer’s line when putting in an offer.
There is no instant replay, do-over, or second chances when it comes to negotiating for that perfect home. Be smart and make sure you have the best representation there is.
A true Olympian never stops training for the gold and seasoned real estate professionals never stop perfecting their negotiating skills. The link below will give you a list of negotiating errors that buyers and their inexperienced brokers make.
Don’t let this happen to you.
When you are ready to buy or sell a property in the New York area, reach out to me and we can win gold together.
BrickUnderground: Top negotiating mistakes of buyers, and their brokers
Hot NYC Area Condos: Gone In One Hour
Hot Condos: Gone In One Hour (Photo by Bruno J. Navarro)
NEW YORK — Condo sales are heating up across the metropolitan area, so much so that pausing for lunch might mean missing out on a dream home.
A couple who mulled two condominium apartments for sale in a Hoboken, N.J., development while grabbing a bite to eat returned an hour later to find both of their options already in contract.
“People feel like now is the time to buy and they aren’t isolated to one building in Hoboken,” Toll Brothers CEO Douglas Yearley said in a May 23 conference call with analysts. “Confidence is up. The interest rates are there and they’ve been waiting so long to move on with their lives that they came out this spring.”
The Pennsylvania-based luxury homebuilder a 47 percent increase in quarterly orders for new homes. (Sales of existing homes recently neared a 2-year high, as well.)
The story, reported by Bloomberg Businessweek and other news organizations, stands out because it reflects the turnaround made in the New York real estate market.
While Hoboken is still on the other side of the Hudson River, as far as I know, it resembles what has been happening in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens over the past couple of months with increasing regularity.
And it isn’t idle talk.
Bloomberg Businessweek reports: “In Hoboken, Toll Brothers increased prices six times since it began selling apartments last spring in the 157-unit 1450 Washington at Hudson Tea, where prices now range from $450,000 to $1 million, said Todd Dumaresq, marketing manager for Toll’s City Living division. The company has sold 108 units in the building and is now selling about 12 homes a month, he said.”
Toll Brothers offers such developments as The Touraine in Manhattan, 2 Northside Piers in Williamsburg and 205 Water Street in DUMBO, as well as three condo buildings in Hoboken. (Anecdotally, buyers I’ve worked with have been interested in a couple of these condos, only to find that they were sold before we’d had a chance to view them — one reason to pursue apartments aggressively.)
For those paying attention, the signs are adding up.
Recently, Time magazine took note of another feature of a strong sales market: Bidding wars.
As always, if you’re looking to buy, sell or rent a home in New York, please let me know.
Why This May Be the Ideal Time to Buy Real Estate
Well, it's only taken half a decade, but the moribund real estate market is finally starting to show signs of life. If you were thinking about making a move on a piece of property, right now is possibly the best time. You can still take advantage of low prices in most places around the country, and mortgage rates are at once-in-a-lifetime record lows: 30- and 15-year fixed mortgages are around 4% and 3%, respectively.
Read more: http://moneyland.time.com/2012/05/21/why-this-may-be-the-ideal-time-to-buy-real-estate/?iid=pf-article-mostpop1#ixzz1virbnyya
Home Sales Approach Two-Year High
Existing Home Sales Near Two-Year High (Photo by Bruno J. Navarro)
NEW YORK — It’s not your imagination: The real estate market is hot again.
Sales of existing homes grew almost to the highest rate in two years, while prices saw the biggest increase since 2006.
Last month, existing U.S. home sales increased 3.4 percent to an annual rate of 4.62 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors.
That rate was the highest since May 2010.
Anecdotally, sales activity has picked up in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, as previously forecast. I expect the data to show significant gains when it becomes available.
At the same time, home resale prices nationwide soared to a median of $177,400 in April, up 10.1 percent from a year earlier.
“That was the biggest year-over-year increase since January 2006,” according to Reuters.
Mortgage rates, too, continued their downward trend.
The average rate for a 30-year loan dropped to 3.79 percent, a Freddie Mac survey showed.
That was even lower than the record low set earlier this month.
As always, if you’re looking to buy, sell or rent a home in New York, please let me know.
UPDATE: The data gets a boost from federal statistics, which show similar gains among new homes.
The Real Deal writes, “Sales of new single-family homes rose 3.3 percent month-over-month in April 2012 and 9.9 percent year-over-year, according to a release issued by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. April saw new home sales at a seasonally adjusted rate of 343,000 units.”
Mortgage Rates Hit Historic Low 3.84 Percent
Mortgage Rates Hit Another Historic Low (Photo by Bruno J. Navarro)
NEW YORK — Mortgage rates dropped to another all-time low this week, providing another stimulus to the strengthening housing market.
The average rate on a 30-year mortgage was 3.84 percent, according to survey results released by Freddie Mac.
That’s the lowest rate ever since long-term mortgages were introduced in the 1950s, even below the previous record low set in February.
At that rate, a $100,000 loan would mean monthly payments of about $468 per month.
Meanwhile, sales activity in the past few weeks suggest that the robustness of the condo market in Manhattan and Brooklyn recently predicted was taking hold.
Brooklyn’s Allure: The Possibility Of $625 Rent In NYC
NYC Apartment Agent – A View of Manhattan From Brooklyn (Photo by Bruno J. Navarro)
NEW YORK — As rents climb in Manhattan to all-time highs and the costs of Brooklyn apartments are also on the rise, one woman manages to keep her payment around $600 per month.
Sophia Cosmadopoulos, an art therapist, was featured in The New York Times for her ability to keep her rent affordable, embarking on an ever-elusive quest throughout the great New York City county of Kings, better known to the world as Brooklyn.
“They’re not glossy, and they’re kind of falling apart,” she told the Times. “But I’ve always valued what I could get out of New York, more than where I lived.”
After recounting a surprise that followed the partial collapse of the bathroom ceiling in her current apartment, Cosmadopoulos took a positive spin on her situation.
“It’s nice to live in an apartment where you have stories,” she said.
A little optimism is a great thing, maybe more so if you’re a New Yorker.
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NYC Rent Hits An All-Time High
Downtown Manhattan. (Photo by Bruno J. Navarro)
NEW YORK — It finally happened.
After a recent upward trend over the past several months, the average rent in Manhattan hit a record $3,418 — surpassing the previous high, set in 2007.
Writes The New York Times:
“The last time rents shot up in a similar fashion, they were tied to a strong economy, low unemployment and booming business on Wall Street.
“But this spring, Manhattan rental prices seem to be divorced from the larger economic picture. While the city has added jobs in recent months and growth in businesses like technology has helped make up for losses in the financial sector, much of country is still struggling.”
Brooklyn rents are a similar state, too.
In case you were wondering, that’s about six shares of Apple stock.
It’s no wonder more people who are able to do so are looking to buy.
If you decide to look for a new place to live, take a moment to look over tips for avoiding Craigslist apartment rental scams.
Or use a reputable broker.
Please feel free to share your feedback on how you’re coping with the rental rates in the comments below.
Should I Buy Or Should I Rent?
Should I Buy Or Should I Rent? (Photo by Bruno J. Navarro)
NEW YORK — The question almost sounds like the title of a Clash song: Should I buy or should I rent?
The results of a new study make it clear. Buying is the better option.
A confluence of factors are the cause, from low mortgage rates to rising rents.
CNN Money writes: “In 98 of the top 100 housing markets, buying a home is more affordable than renting, according to the online real estate company Trulia. Only Honolulu and San Francisco buck the trend.”
Of course, such rankings do little to paint a complete picture.
The article also adds, ”Housing markets, even within a single metro area, typically have local submarkets. Take New York City, for example. Renting in Manhattan is more affordable than buying. But in suburban Westchester County just miles to the north, buying is the more affordable option.”
If you decide to rent, there are a few steps you can take to avoid Craigslist apartment scams. Feel free to share any other helpful tips in the comments, too.
As always, if you know someone looking to buy, rent or sell a home in New York, please let me know.
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CNN Money: “Home buying much cheaper than renting“
