News about real estate values in the Outer Banks area

Freddie Mac reported this morning that interest rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 4.57 percent this week. That’s down a hundredth of a percentage point from last week’s average rate, which was already at record lows.   Freddie Mac has been tracking 30-year-fixed-rate mortgages for 39 years, and the past three weeks have shown record-setting lows for the most popular type of home loan.

 COLDWELL BANKER REAL ESTATE WINS COMMUNICATOR CREATIVE EXCELLENCE AWARD FROM INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF VISUAL ARTS

Brand’s ‘On Location’ YouTube Channel Honored in Real Estate Website Category

PARSIPPANY, N.J., (July 7, 2010) – The International Academy of the Visual Arts has named Coldwell Banker On Location, the brand’s YouTube channel, a recipient of this year’s Communicator Awards for Creative Excellence in the real estate website category. The category honors the best site for the sale or rental of residential or commercial property.

“We were the first national real estate brand to add streaming video to our website. Today, our agents across the globe have posted more than 15,000 videos to our On Location channel,” said Mike Fischer, chief marketing officer for Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. “The most exciting part of On Location is that we have only just begun – there’s a lot more to come.”

On Location has been rated among the top 10 most-viewed brand channels on YouTube. In April, just 11 months after launching On Location, Coldwell Banker announced it had received over 1 million views. The site was launched in May 2009 and was produced in collaboration with FD Kinesis.

“Home buyers would much rather see a home than only read about it,” Fischer said. “Our On Location videos empower them to get a feel for a home, a community or a real estate professional that they could not get from photos or a text description alone. Equally important are the home sellers who are now expecting video to be a part of marketing their property.”

With thousands of entries received from across the United States and around the world, the Communicator Awards is one of the largest and most competitive awards program honoring the creative excellence for communications professionals. The Communicator Awards are judged and overseen by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals from acclaimed media, advertising and marketing firms.

About Coldwell Banker®
Since 1906, the Coldwell Banker® organization has been a premier provider of full-service residential and commercial real estate.   Coldwell Banker is the oldest national real estate brand in the United States and today has a network of more than 98,000 agents working in more than 3,600 offices in 50 countries and territories. The Coldwell Banker brand is known for creating innovative consumer services as recently seen by being the first national real estate brand to augment its web site www.coldwellbanker.com for smart phones, the first to create a iPhone application and the first to fully harness the power of video in real estate listings, news and information through its Coldwell Banker On LocationSM YouTube channel.  The Coldwell Banker system is a leader in specialty markets such as resort, new homes and luxury properties through its Coldwell Banker Previews International® marketing program.

 Late last night, the United States Senate passed an extension of the Homebuyer Tax Credit closing deadline.

Known as the “Homebuyers Assistance and Improvement Act of 2010,” the bill was passed by unanimous consent. The extension applies only to transactions that have ratified contracts in place as of April 30, 2010 that have not yet closed.

This legislation is designed to create a seamless extension, and the new closing deadline for eligible home sale transactions is now September 30, 2010. There will not be any gap between June 30 and the date the President signs the bill into law.

Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that home prices in 20 U.S. cities rose in April from a year earlier, a 3.8% increase.

Last week, mortgage rates fell to the lowest level on record. 

Mortgage company Freddie Mac said on Thursday June 24 that the average rate for 30-year fixed loans sank to 4.69 percent, from 4.75 percent the previous week.

This is the lowest since rate on 30-year fixed mortgages we’ve seen since Freddie Mac began tracking rates in 1971. The previous record of 4.71 percent was set in December 2009.

Rates for 15-year and five-year mortgages also hit lows. Rates on 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages fell to an average of 4.13 percent, the lowest on records dating to September 1991 and down from 4.2 percent a week earlier.  Rates on five-year, adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 3.84 percent, down from 3.89 percent a week earlier. That was also the lowest on Freddie Mac’s records, which only date back to January 2005.

Last fall, Congress extended an $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers and added a smaller $6,500 credit for current homeowners who were buying a primary residence. To qualify for the credit, buyers had to sign purchase contracts by April 30 and close on the home by June 30.

As the cutoff to qualify for the federal tax credit looms on the horizon, Congress is considering an extension for homebuyers who are racing to close home sales in order to receive a federal tax credit.   

Experts in the  real estate industry warn that many buyers who rushed to buy homes to qualify for the tax credit may not close before the deadline, and this would result in home buyers losing out on thousands of dollars if lawmakers don’t act.

One of the major issues is that there are a large amount transactions that need to be completed, and the companies responsible for handling the sales, including mortgage lenders, appraisers and title insurers and real estate brokers, are struggling to keep up.

Mortgage rates are low, and it seems they will be staying that way for a while.  In fact, they are two one-hundredths of a percentage point away from the rates of 1956…that’s 54 years!

The average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is within one one-hundredth of a percentage point of the 4.71% reported the week ending December 3, 2009, and if rates decline two one-hundredths of a percentage point, we’re back to the spring of 1956, when the average rate hit 4.68%, according to National Bureau of Economic Research statistics.

Rates for 15-year mortgages fell for the fourth straight week, to 4.17%, the lowest rate since Freddie Mac started tracking 15-year loans in 1991.

In addition to low mortgage rates, according to a recent BankRate.com article, some lenders are beginning to loosen their requirements for down payments.  The article discusses four types of mortgages that require small down payments, some with zero down options.  While these mortgages may have limited availability, they could be a sign of what’s to come.

The updated tax values of property in Corolla will not take place unitl 2013 for Currituck County, but the anticipation is that values will dramatically decrease.

County officials have been at work planning for the change in valuation.  Local experts believe that a tax burden could be passed to property owners on the mainland. There is no question that the downturn of the market since 2005 has caused property to be sold under the appraised value. Some local realtors report that some properties are being sold as much as 70 percent of its appraised value. As of right now, the Outer Banks pays about 58 percent of the property taxes in the county.

Could the tax burden shift soon?  If property valuations drop as they have been predicted to, county officials will be faced with a difficult decision about raising taxes to makeup for the shortfall.

U.S. construction spending for April rose above analysts’ expectations; the largest monthly increase in almost 10 years. 

The Commerce Department said construction spending rose 2.7 percent, the biggest advance since August 2000, to an annual rate of $869.1 billion. March’s increase was revised up to 0.4 percent from a 0.2 percent gain.

New homes sales have increased to a rate of 504,000 in April.  This is a 14.8% percent increase from March. 

Experts in the housing industry predicited the rate to be 425,000 for the month, and April was the second straight month of an increase.