Freddie Mac recently released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing average fixed mortgage rates largely holding steady from the previous week, remaining near their 65-year record lows, and continuing to provide support for the housing recovery.
Results showed that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 3.52 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending March 7, 2013, up from last week when it averaged 3.51 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 3.88 percent.
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That boom you heard is Southwest Florida building industry: It’s back
By LAURA LAYDEN | Sunday, February 17, 2013
NAPLES — Builders in the Naples market are investing millions in houses with no buyers.With the housing market on the rebound, the speculative, or so called “spec” market has made a comeback, especially in areas near the water such as Port Royal, Aqualane Shores, Coquina Sands and Old Naples.In the past year, more high-end custom builders have been buying lots and putting multimillion-dollar houses on them, expecting buyers to come. And buyers have come, sometimes snatching up houses before they’re finished.Spec home building slowed to a virtual halt after the red-hot housing market went bust starting in 2006, but it’s back.
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41 West, a longtime luxury builder in Naples, decided to start building spec homes again last summer after a four-year pause.”Builders like myself are building homes on a speculative basis. Where everybody has been afraid of their own shadow for the last four years, people are stepping up. It’s a totally different market,” said William Bayes, 41 West’s vice president of operations.It’s a different market because the inventory of both new homes and resales has shrunk, which is slowly driving up prices.41 West’s decision to get back into speculative building came after Naples-area Realtors saw one of their busiest summers for sales in a decade, Bayes said.
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Other builders jumped back into the speculative market more quickly than 41 West, with construction picking up noticeably last year, such as in Old Naples.During the past two years, Waterside Builders built two quaint cottages off Third Street South that fetched some of the highest prices per square foot seen in Old Naples, said Mike Assaad, the company’s president.Buyers paid more than $1,000 per square foot for the living space under air and one of the homes was a spec that brought $2.6 million, he said.”There are a lot more buyers at $2.5 million than there are at $4 million or $5 million,” Assaad said.
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While much of the speculative building is near the water, it has picked up elsewhere in Collier County, including Mediterra, the luxury golf community straddling the Lee-Collier county line off Livingston Road.Most of the builder’s spec homes have been priced at $1 million to $3 million. They are three- and four-bedroom homes, ranging from 3,000 to 5,400 square feet.The builder will soon start similar spec homes in downtown Naples and Quail West, another golf community east of Interstate 75 between Bonita Beach and Immokalee roads.
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WCI Communities Inc., a Bonita Springs-based home builder, has spec homes in all five of its gated communities in Collier and Lee counties.WCI has two communities in Collier, including Tiburon in north Collier, where it’s building four spec homes with four and five bedrooms, priced at about $1 million. They’ll range from 3,800 to 4,500 square feet.There are another seven spec homes under construction at WCI’s Manchester Square community off Livingston Road, north of Pine Ridge Road.”We definitely have increased spec count,” Wolf said. “Last year, we were kind of following a sell one, replace one (strategy). This year, there has been enough demand that we are putting out two specs for every one that we sell.”
© 2013 Scripps Newspaper Group — Online
WASHINGTON – Feb. 5, 2013 – Banks are slightly loosening standards for many kinds of loans, and cutting into their own profit margins to try to make more loans, especially to businesses and real estate developers, the Federal Reserve says.
The central bank’s quarterly survey of bank lending officers said most banks haven’t made it materially easier to get business loans and commercial real estate loans in the last three months. But more than half of banks said they are accepting interest rates closer to what they pay for deposits, or other sources of money they lend out, according to the survey released Monday.
The report is one of the Fed’s primary ways to assess how credit is making its way into the economy, powering both business investment and consumer spending.
Demand for car loans rose since the October report, and demand for mortgages was little changed, the Fed said. About 16 percent of banks are easing car-borrowing standards slightly, including lengthening the maximum term of loans and downpayment requirements.
“This is another sign that the economy is gaining traction,” said Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at brokerage firm Miller Tabak. “While interest rates will likely remain low for a long time, the Fed is unlikely to need to keep the pedal to the metal in terms of bond purchases as 2013 develops.”
Banks are also trimming their markups, also known as spreads, on car loans, but have not been willing to make the same concessions to credit card customers, the Fed found. Standards for new credit cards remain tight, the Fed said: Just over 90 percent of banks said their standards for approving credit cards haven’t changed since the fall.
The report shows few signs that banks are returning to the business of offering high-risk credit, as they did in the middle of the last decade.
More than 20 percent of banks said they have actually tightened standards for “subprime” residential mortgages in the last three months. For mortgage loans to consumers with good credit, credit standards are still about the same, more than 90 percent of the banks said. And just fewer than 90 percent of banks reported no change in standards for home-equity lines of credit.
Demand for many loans is picking up, the Fed said.
About a quarter of banks said they were seeing more applications for commercial loans, slightly less than the number that said they were seeing more applications for mortgages and cars.
Banks expect credit quality to improve this year in nearly all categories of loans, meaning fewer write-offs to cut into bank profits, the Fed said.
© Copyright 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc., Tim Mullaney, USA TODAY
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“Latest Study Shows Average Buyer Expected to Stay in a Home 13 Years
RISMEDIA, Saturday, January 05, 2013— A recent article published by NAHB shows that, based on a long-run calculation that averages mobility tendencies over a number of years, the typical buyer of a single-family home can be expected to stay in the home approximately 13 years before moving out.”
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Colorful home in Old Naples, Florida
“Closed sales, pending sales, median prices and average prices rose in Florida’s housing market in November, while the inventory of homes and condos for sale shrunk, according to the latest housing data released by Florida REALTORS®.
“The sizzle is back,” said 2012 Florida REALTORS® President Summer Greene, describing the state of Florida’s real estate market. “With home sales strongly trending up and the supply of homes for sale drying up, the market is hot. And we expect these trends to continue into 2013 with the jobs market improving, low mortgage rates continuing and consumer confidence getting stronger.”
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