U r b a n T r e k k e r

When Foreclosures Hit Association Dues

One estimate puts less than 5% delinquency rates on dues in many markets. Not too shabby. However as dues dry up, the neighbors might have to pick up the tab, and association may cuts services, MarketWatch reports.

Some of the other ramifications when foreclosure hits a neighborhood, include: 1) cut services/ amenities, 2) putting a break on club house improvements, landscaping, shared amenities, 3) in a condo situation, may have to cut building services such as trash removal (and repairs).

Some of the hoods in the area don't have associations, so they're the exception. A lot of them do have some sort of 'home owners association' relationships.

If you do have HOA. Read the fine print. [via MarketWatch]

"That's why housing experts advise homeowners to read the bylaws thoroughly, asking what services are guaranteed and whether annual fees are capped. Still, since bylaws were drafted when the community was first built, few outline contingencies in the event of a wave of foreclosures." [emphasis added]

Seeing Green in Homes

U.S. Green Building Council has gone residential for their LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) voluntary certification program.

LEED for homes defined. [via USGBC]

".. is a voluntary rating system that promotes the design and construction of high-performance green homes, including affordable housing, mass-production homes, custom designs, stand-alone single-family homes, duplexes and townhouses, suburban low-rise apartments, urban high-rise apartments and condominiums and lofts in historic buildings."

Living Home is a one of them, it is designed by Ray Kappe, FAIA. It's a LEED-Platinum certified, the highest of its kind. To reduce cost and waste, the home is manufactured in the factory (prefab). You'd be surprised when you see the design, because it doesn't look like 'typical' prefab home! In fact, its is style 'very' contemporary which gives the impression of clean simple modern looking design.

The best thing - installation took 2.5 days.

You'll see some pretty amazing stuffs inside the home. Gadgets etc. Fully automated and yet low energy. And using some eco-friendly products. This is cool: (wrap) insulation that uses recycled jeans. According to the designer, the home is competitively priced.

 

5 New Rules of Home Buying: CNN

CNN has this '5 New Rules for Home Buying' based on current market conditions. We've talked along some of the rules here - i.e. there's 'no' way you can 'time' the market, and tougher lending standards.

The 5 rules. [via CNN]

1. You can't time the bottom.
2. One reason to buy now - mortgage rates.
3. Another reason to buy - rates on big mortgages.
4. Don't buy cheap; buy good schools.
5. Make sure your agent has interest at heart.

Nice compliment from CNN for agents! Read full story here.

Harris Teeter Cap Hill + Jenkins Row Opening

GRAND OPENING of the new Harris Teeter grocery store - first for around Capitol Hill on the ground floor of new condo Jenkins Row - is tomorrow, TUESDAY, May 13.

Jenkins Row is new condo out in the east of Eastern Market hood famous for their open markets - flea and farmers market. It is not exactly 'close' to the markets and EM metro station, but, still walking distance. It's rather 'a block?' from Potomac Avenue metro station.

Guess the name Jenkins name comes after this. [via Wiki]

"In the 18th century the hill was called Jenkins Hill or Jenkins Heights by Pierre L'Enfant in 1791 as he began to develop his plan for the new Federal City. He chose to locate the "Congress House" on the crest of the hill, facing the city, a site that L'Enfant characterized as a "pedestal waiting for a superstructure."

This is not a 'green condo' but just regular condos, unfortunately. (I am all for "green" condos!). It features open floor plan, ceramic tile in kitchen and bath, gourmet kitchen with stainless steel appliances, walk in closets, hardwood flooring, garden courtyard, rooftop deck with Capitol views, parking (limited time with 2BR unit purchase). 

Featured condos (their condo specs - come with parking): 1BR $334,900, 1BR+den (w/parking) $429,900, 2BR $464,900 and 2BR+den $499,900. Other floor plans can be viewed here.

Here is the invite (via email).

Weekly Real Estate News Roundup

How to Green Your Lighting
What’s the Big Deal? How we light up the places we live and work makes a big impact on how we feel. It also makes a big impact on the environment. The kind of bulbs, the kind of fixtures, the kind of power, and the habits we keep can all add up to a very significant greening.

Mortgage Crisis Seep to Prime Loans
The first concrete evidence that delinquencies on mortgage bills have spread well beyond those with subpar credit shows that even prime borrowers have increasingly fallen behind on their house payments.

Taxes When You Sell Your Home
IF YOU'RE A HOMEOWNER, then you're probably aware of the incredibly generous tax break available when you sell your home. Play your cards right and you can lock in a profit of up to $250,000 ($500,000 when you file jointly) and owe nothing to the IRS.

Mortgage Credit Losses Could Total $500bln: Goldman
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs economists expect a total of $500 billion in residential mortgage credit losses, a renewed slowdown in economic activity after the near-term boost from fiscal stimulus, and no monetary policy tightening in 2008 or 2009, according to a research note from the firm.

From Their House to the White House
Like millions of Americans, the three presidential candidates rode the real-estate wave. But for them there's been no hard landing, and well-timed home purchases in prime neighborhoods have left two of them -- Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton -- with millions in real-estate gains.

Don't Fall for This Mortgage Pitch
You may have received e-mails touting a system that promises to help you pay off your mortgage early. This mortgage-acceleration package -- which includes a software program -- relies heavily on the use of a home-equity line of credit.

Before the Flood, Make Sure that Your Home is Properly Insured
Many homeowners turn their thoughts to spring cleaning this time of year. But my thoughts are usually drawn toward making sure the contents of our home remain safe and protected. That's because our homeowners insurance policy is up for renewal every June.

Signs of a Housing Bottom?

Map of Misery
SOUNDING more like a cartographer than a central banker, Ben Bernanke this week showed off the Federal Reserve's latest gizmo for tracking America's property bust: a series of maps that colour-code price declines, foreclosures and other gauges of housing distress for every county in the country.

Smart Home: Green + Wired Debuts at MSI
Architect Michelle Kaufmann has made a big splash in Chicago this week during the opening of her Smart Home: Green + Wired exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry.

When You Have a Crooked House
In the nursery rhyme, the crooked man with his crooked cat and mouse didn't mind his crooked house. But outside of children's stories, homes are supposed to have level floors, flat walls and plumb ceilings, so crookedness can be a bit more problematic.

FROM AROUND THE REGION: DC-MD-VA

A Southeast Spot Blossoming with Charm
The fact that Hillcrest is a front-porch-sitting, dog-walking, back-fence-chatting, heavily voting community is not that unusual in this area.

DC Area Governments, Business Plan 400 Building Retrofit
Governments and businesses in and around Washington, D.C., have announced more than 400 buildings in the region plan to undergo energy retrofits.

A House that's Just Right
When Amy and Casey Cooper needed more room, they decided to renovate their former bungalow in northwest Washington. “We bought it in ’98 and lived here for five years before we expanded our family and outgrew it,” Casey says.

Cell Tower Proposed at Pool in Annandale
An application with the county to install a 140-foot-tall cell phone and broadband wireless tower on property belonging to the Holmes Run Acres community pool in Annandale has a few neighbors concerned about the impact on property values as well as on their health.

Virginia New Home: 11 Houses Rise in Alexandria
NVHomes is building 11 single-family homes on quarter-acre homesites at Wilton Hill in Alexandria, near the Cameron Run Regional Park and Landmark Mall.

Fairfax Unemployment Up Slightly in March
The unemployment rate across Fairfax County ticked up slightly in March, but remained below the regional, state and national averages.

Mortgage Delinquency Rates Double in Washington Region
The metro region is feeling the effects of nationwide mortgage troubles, as a new data reveals the number of borrowers with mortgage payments at least 60 days late doubled or almost doubled — and in some cases tripled — in all counties in the region from the fourth quarter of 2006 to the same period in 2007.
 

Friday Cartoon

via Slate

New Homes Special Deals Line Up

Every week I receive builders email solicitation. You can sort of measure builders desperation by looking at the prices. The new home builders can afford to cut prices aggressively more than Joe home seller because to them, each home is just a commodity. Or, number on the balance sheet.

Arts District of Hyattsville

So we know from this email that Busboys and Poets is coming to the hood. And price reduced for this one home (usually a 'spec') from $470k to $399k or a 14.8% price reduction!

Centerpointe in Fairfax

420 Condominiums

Penderbrook Square

This is a serious ding to their condo prices. What a 2BR now under $250? Comstock used to sell the 1BR at high-$200's pushing $300's. They even do FHA now.

Tysons Chase

Even luxury homes cut their prices on their spec homes. Actually there are two spec homes with big discount. One is below and the other one is Carlton model, that comes with over 5900 s.f., 6 BR and 5 1/2 Ba, Chef kitchen with stainless steel appliances, open floor plan for entertaining and brick patio backing to conservation area. (around Tysons Corner, Vienna)

Cameron Station

Prices now off $70,000! It's off $70k probably for the remaining 'few?' units they have available. I love it when they say only a 'few.' My follow up question will be 'how many is few?' The answer determine how far down they're willing to negotiate.

Parker Flats

Capitol Gateway

In addition to the incentives above, they have a couple of spec homes priced from low-$300's to mid-$300's.

Midtown Alexandria Station

Logan Row

Ready for barbeque? The kicker - open house with barbeque for a change here.

I'll keep you posted when I see more deals coming on the pipeline. Here is my disclosure: Prices and incentives subject to change without notice. Got it?

So You're Buying Foreclosure?

Bobby Dempsey nails it.

How good -- or bad -- an idea is it to buy a foreclosure, given the current  housing market?

Besides market supply and demand, the good part of foreclosure is the price. However, the money thing is not as sweet as before given the current underwriting standards. In fact, getting loans are tougher these days. The dilemma facing some first time buyers is this: Foreclosure is the only type of properties available within their price range. Because conditions of the properties sometime in bad shape, you really have to think ahead - whether you have the resources (i.e. funds and energy) or not to work on the property and bring it to a 'habitable' condition - or what they call 'move in condition' while you're (still) working at it.

From the trenches. A bank-owned condo.

While for investors, gotta keep a couple of things in mind: 1) forget flipping, no more quick profits scheme 2) loans are much tougher to get 3) it's a crowded field for investors.

To sum it up, buying foreclosure is 'not' for the faint of heart.

Countrywide HELOC Moment

Countrywide pulls out home equity lines in all of Las Vegas area, Bloomberg reports.

Since January, Countrywide, Bank of America Corp., Washington Mutual Inc. and IndyMac Bancorp Inc. have frozen about 600,000 equity credit lines nationwide, said Michael Kratzer, president of a Bankrate Inc.-owned Web site that's fielding consumer complaints. The lenders are targeting borrowers in cities where property values are falling, including Las Vegas, Chicago and Los Angeles, he said.
....
As many as 15,000 people in Las Vegas, or 5 percent of the total homeowner population, had credit lines suspended by Countrywide and other lenders, said Brad Henderson, president of Henderson, Nevada-based mortgage banker and broker Evofi One.

Wow.

Wash. DC (and N. Va) Housing Turns Around

A measure of market activity shows that when prices decline housing sales sizzles. The observation is based on current market (raw numbers) indicators from MRIS. You'll see below that market shows signs of improvement for Washington DC and Northern Virginia. In other words - sales 'picked up.' [Release of April 'official' housing sales from NVAR and GCAAR won't be available until second week in May].

UNDER CONTRACTS (April 2008)

Let's compare month-over-month sales under contract - in NAR jargon 'pending home sales.' In bracket it shows last year's data.

Washington DC (+21%)
369 homes (conventional)   (303)
17 (foreclosure)
7 (short-sales)

Alexandria City (+15%)
156 homes   (141)
6 (foreclosure)
3 (short-sales)

Arlington  (+14%)
162 homes   (149)
8 (foreclosure)
2 (short-sales)

Fairfax (+14.2%)
1095 homes    (1135)
145 (foreclosure)
57 (short-sales)

Loudoun (+13.5%)
464 homes   (518)
83 (foreclosure)
41 (short-sales)

Prince William  (+23%)
613 homes    (686)
181 (foreclosure)
52 (short-sales)

Based on the data above, you kind of see where the areas with the hardest hit. The analysis of - how sales is better in closer-in neighborhoods (inside the beltway) than in outer burbs (outside the beltway) because of proximity to DC - prove that is the case. Especially now with gas prices on target to reach $4 a gallon? Yeah, commuting can hit pocketbook deep.

For example, Prince William county. Almost 20% of homes under contract is foreclosure. I don't really count short-sales until it closes, because the percentage of short-sales that got sold actually really low. If we take short-sales out (52homes), the turnaround is still 15.7% in April - that is a hell of a come back for Prince William county! Ditto for Loudoun and Fairfax. These hoods show some coming back signs as well.

HOUSING INVENTORIES

Washington DC 8.3 mos.
Alexandria City 5.8 mos.
Arlington 4.9 mos.
Fairfax 8.1 mos.
Loudoun 9 mos.
Prince William 11.1 mos.

[note: 5-6 months is a 'balanced' market. Under 5 months is a sellers market and over 6 months is buyers market.]

You see market is moving fast. Supply of foreclosure homes (bank-owned/REO) might not be around too much longer. Before you know it, they're gone. So you got to hurry up.

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Check here for the most recent REO listings: Washington DC, Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Falls Church and Fairfax City.

data: MRIS