MortgagesState of the Markets – March 2012“The market is on fire!” When you start hearing that phrase too often, its time to start worrying. And all around the Bay Area, real estate brokerage water cooler chatter is borderline euphoric. Even the Chronicle (http://cirios.net/2012/02/the-bay-areas-hottest-housing-market/) picked up on the story a couple of weeks ago, advising buyers to bring cash to the table [...] Ask CiriosDear Cirios, I am in my early 60s and I own the following real estate: * A single family residence in Palo Alto which I live in. Estimated Value: $3,000,000. No loans * A single family residence in San Francisco which I rent for $2,000 a month. Estimated Value: $750,000. No loans * A single [...] US Foreclosure Policy Contradicts ItselfSo, let me get this straight — the Massachusetts Attorney General is suing some of the biggest banks for wrongful foreclosures in its state. Fine, we’ve heard that before. And since the ability to foreclose for non-payment is essential to a lender securing its interest in a property, Ally Bank announced this weekend that they have stopped buying [...] Congress to Homeowners: Destroy Retirement to Avoid ForeclosureThis post first appeared on Minyanville. Our elected officials want to play financial adviser to distressed homeowners — and dole out terrible advice. In their infinite wisdom, Congress is proposing yet another ill-conceived plan to slow foreclosures. The latest scheme is not simply misguided, but could be downright ruinous for American families. Two Republican Senators [...] Cirios Real Estate Becomes San Francisco Green BusinessBoutique Firm Is Second San Francisco-Based Brokerage to Go Green In what touts itself as the greenest city around, an astonishingly small portion of San Francisco businesses actually behave that way. Perhaps it’s the onerous requirements for receiving a formal green certification. Perhaps it’s the time and money it costs to officially go green. Or [...] Is Countrywide Slowly Killing Bank of America?This post first appeared on Minyanville. In January 2008, when Lehman Brothers was still a company and Washington Mutual (JPM) was still making loans, I wrote of Bank of America’s (BAC) recent Countrywide acquisition, “Did Bank of America get the deal of the century or the biggest headache in recent financial history?” As solvency issues [...] Top 5 Real Estate Search EnginesWe checked out the 21 most popular real estate search engines and found the ones below to have the most user friendly interfaces and timely housing information. 5. Ciriosre.com More than just shameless promotion…awesome shameless promotion. Check us out. We have new and improved search [...] Top 5: Things you should do before you start to LOOK for a houseLooking for a house can be fun, exciting, daunting and stressful. But before you start walking into houses and falling in love with the ‘perfect’ house, it’s time to figure out what you can afford, what you want to pay, and your 7 year timeline. 1. Check your credit/Fix your credit Time to log onto [...] Foreclosure Relief Programs Under FireThis post first appeared on Minyanville. It wasn’t so long ago that foreclosure relief programs had near-unanimous support in the political community. There were elections afoot after all, and something had to be done about the millions of homeowners facing the loss of their home. But as data continue to show that loan modification and [...] Is the Mortgage Interest Deduction Doomed?This post first appeared on Minyanville. It doesn’t make nearly the headline fodder as revolution in Egypt (or Wisconsin), but the fate of the mortgage interest deduction, or MID, is a hot topic in housing finance circles this budget season. And while eliminating the MID may sound like a popular, hard-line approach to expensive government [...] 10 Reasons to Be Bullish on HousingThis piece first appeared on Minyanville. Almost five full years into the housing downturn, it’s still cool to be bearish on real estate. But cool isn’t always right: Despite headwinds such as looming shadow inventory, a lackluster job market, and geopolitical instability, there are plenty of reasons why rose-colored glasses may be the real estate [...] Foreclosure-Gate: What the Hell Is (Was) Going On?This post first appeared in: Cirios Trends – Special Edition: 2010 Real Estate Roundup A 2010 housing market recap would be incomplete without a rundown of what has become known as “Foreclosure-Gate,” a foray into the procedural minutiae of distressed mortgage servicing. In September of this year – in the midst of the crucial mid-term [...] Cirios Trends – September 2010In this month’s Cirios Trends: Finding Real Estate Opportunities, check out: The State of the Markets – September 15, 2010 Housing is dead. Or is it? Feature: What To Do with Fannie and Freddie? Mortgage giants are propping up the housing market, but at what cost? Around the Bay: Local News Bites Goings on that [...] Around the Bay: Local News BitesThis post first appeared in the September edition of: Cirios Trends: In Search of Real Estate Opportunities Is Google Getting Long Real Estate? (Silicon Valley Business Journal) Google, the web behemoth, appears to be stepping further outside its sweet spot of Internet search. The company is investing $19 million in a senior housing development in [...] Housing Isn’t Really DeadThis article first appeared on Minyanville. A piece in this weekend’s New York Times contends that the golden era of real estate is over. The author, David Streitfeld, argues that for the foreseeable future (and possibly forever), a home will simply be four walls and a roof, ceasing to be the lucrative financial investment it’s [...] The State of the Markets – 8/4/10This post first appeared in the June edition of: Cirios Trends: In Search of Real Estate Opportunities Humans, as a species, are lousy fortunetellers. A few intrepid visionaries aside, most people simply cannot grasp what the world will look like in 20, 10 or even five years. And for good reason. Trying to envision the [...] Cirios Trends — June 2010In this month’s Cirios Trends: Finding Real Estate Opportunities, check out: The State of the Markets: June 8, 2010 Something isn’t adding up in the market for bank owned homes. Feature: How Much Should I Pay? Tips for buyers not interested in overpaying. Around the Bay: Local News Bites Goings on that move markets. Zip [...] Realtors Roll the Dice With HAFAThis post first appeared on Minyanville. The Obama Administration’s latest salvo in the war against foreclosures, Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives, or HAFA, is but a week old and already America’s real estate establishment is trying to cash in. HAFA aims to step in where Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, fails. In other words, when [...] Feature: HAFA – Double Edge Swords AboundThis post first appeared in the April edition of: Cirios Trends: In Search of Real Estate Opportunities. Every six months or so, Washington’s political will seems to coalesce in support of the only issue where there is true agreement across party lines: The housing market is still broken. Sadly, in our view, the Treasury Department’s [...] SPECIAL EDITION: Cirios Trends — A Decade in FluxIn this SPECIAL EDITION, check out: The State of the Markets: A Decade in Flux 10 years that were anything but boring.. Home Prices: A Much Needed Breather After a historic rise, an equally historic fall. Getting Back on Track: Are We There Yet? Many believe the bottom in housing has come and gone. Are [...] Do High Mortgage Rates Kill Home Prices?This post first appeared in the SPECIAL EDITION: Cirios Trends: A Decade in Flux << PREVIOUS Given the widespread expectation for future inflation, and as an extension higher interest rates to combat rising prices, the question above is the most common one we hear from home buyers and real estate investors alike. To try and [...] All Bubbles Burst, EventuallyThis post first appeared in the SPECIAL EDITION: Cirios Trends: A Decade in Flux << PREVIOUS The belief that the Federal Reserve kept interest rates too low, for too long, is one which is now nearly universally held. Well, outside the Fed, that is. Here’s a smattering of quotes which show how the view of [...] A Tale of Two Markets: Underneath the DataThis post first appeared in the SPECIAL EDITION: Cirios Trends: A Decade in Flux << PREVIOUS Since we just spent the last ten pages laboriously scratching the surface of complex macroeconomic trends with a few over-simplified charts, we will now analyze every single US housing market by looking at sales data in two cities. As [...] Historical Macro DataUS Median Home Price 1965-2009 Gray area is “Inflation” period of 1972-1983, 201% total increase in home prices during that 12 year period, or 10.5% annually. (click image to enlarge) Consumer Price Index 1965-2009 Gray area is “Inflation” period of 1972-1983, 147% total increase in CPI during that 12 year period, or 8.5% annually. (click [...] |