News

VAR's Agency Center is now online
Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Agency: It’s a simple word that describes a complex set of relationships that Realtors® engage in every day. Its complexity is evidenced by the volumes of books written about it, the fact that it is taught as a semester course in law school and, most importantly, the way it is misunderstood in everyday real estate practice.

The Virginia Association of Realtors® worked to help develop legislation to enhance the agency relationship disclosure requirements between licensees and those they represent. This means there are a number of changes to the existing agency laws in Virginia, and VAR wants to make sure that all members are up to speed on what they need to know to serve their client and customers and stay in compliance with Virginia laws.

Q1 2012 home sales report is now available
Tuesday, April 24, 2012

The First Quarter 2012 Virginia Home Sales Report has been released and brings good news for the Commonwealth! Several long-term trends indicate that Virginia’s housing market is continuing to stabilize.

As shown above, the pace of home sales in the first quarter of 2012 marked an improvement over both the first quarter of 2011 and 2010.

Commercial sentiment is metza-metz
Monday, May 14, 2012

While consumers are seeing a half-full glass, commercial real estate investors and execs are less willing to say they’re confident in their slice of the economy.

According to the latest quarterly Sentiment Survey from the Real Estate Roundtable, while commercial real estate pros say things improved in the first quarter, they’re still nervous about some of the commercial mortgages that will mature in the coming year.

The confidence index — it’s now at 70 — means that there’s more positive feeling than negative, but that number is down from last year (although up from Q4 of 2011).

An in

Consumer sentiment hits (another) high
Monday, May 14, 2012

The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index (basically, the one everyone uses) not only beat the predictions for early May, but hit its highest level since January 2008.

“Analysts” had predicted that the index would drop from 76.4 (April) to 76.2. Instead, it climbed to 77.8.

What do those numbers mean? Essentially, in 1964 researchers asked consumers if they were positive or negative about the economy. They set that level as “100.” Everything else is compared to that. In short, it’s simply a relative measure — are consumers more or less positive than they were last time we asked?

This latest survey was the ninth straight month of increases — something that hasn’t happened since 1978.

As Bloomberg explained:

LPS reports first home-price increase since 2010
Friday, May 11, 2012

There are a lot of small indicators of a market turnaround, and LPS (that’s Lender Processing Services) has a new one: It’s Home Price Index — which is based on actual closings — was up 0.2 percent in February, and the company expects it to rise again in March by another 0.3 percent.

Small changes, to be sure, but as LPS VP Raj Dosaj points out, prices increased “for the first time since March 2010, and for only the third time in five years.”

He points out that in other years a spring increase is erased by a summer drop, so any optimism needs to be cautious. But it’s still another small point of light.

Distressed sales plummet in MRIS territory
Friday, May 11, 2012

We’ve now got MRIS’s April numbers for foreclosures and short sales. Short sales are slightly up, but foreclosures are waaaay down.

  • Short sales: 12.2% of the market, up about 3% from last April
  • Foreclosure sales: 11.0% of the market, down 47% from last April
  • Total distressed sales: 23.2% of the market, down 29% from last April

Granted, having a market where almost a quarter of the sales are distressed isn’t a Good Thing, but there’s a sense to it. People bought near the top of the bubble and have to sell (for whatever reason — job, life change, etc.). So they either take the hit or work out a short sale with their lenders.

Mortgage rates hit all-time low again
Thursday, May 10, 2012

30-year fixed-rate averages 3.83 percent.

That is all.

TransUnion: Mortgage delinquencies at lowest point since early 2009
Thursday, May 10, 2012

According to credit giant TransUnion, after six months of increases, mortgage delinquencies were down in the first quarter of the year. (They had been going down for 18 months, until the Q3 of 2011, when they started to rise again.)

The national mortgage delinquency rate (“delinquent” = 60 or more days past due) was 5.8 percent — its lowest point since Q1 2009.

Home prices rise in most (much?) of US
Thursday, May 10, 2012

Quoth the Wall Street Journal:

Home prices rose in more than half of U.S. metropolitan areas in the first quarter of 2012 as the residential market continued to show signs of stabilizing after nearly six years of price declines.

That is all.

DC on Realtor.com’s list of "turnaround towns"
Thursday, May 10, 2012

image The May 2012 Top Turnaround Town Report from Move.com’s Realtor.com includes one quasi-Virginia location: Washington, D.C., which makes its first appearance on the list since Q1 of 2011.