Kiplinger’s Housing Forecast: Positive Signs Offset the Negative

The median home price in the U.S. has plunged nearly 40% in a little over five years, but the worst is definitely over, according to a recent report by Kiplinger: The market has finally wrung out the last excess valuations born of the housing bubble. Before you break out the party hats, note that this doesn't mean prices across the nation are poised to rebound anytime soon. Alex Villacorta, director of research and analytics at Clear Capital, a provider of real estate data and analytics, said the housing market is in a "suspended state," with positive and negative factors offsetting one another. But he doesn't expect another free fall in prices, assuming "things are left to work themselves out and there are no further shocks to the economy

Loan Mortgage Rates Tie Record Low!

The average rate on the 30 year fixed mortgage rate has dropped to 3.94%. These low rates offer historic opportunity for home ownership. The average rate on the fifteen year mortgage rate fell to 3.21%, also a record low.

New Listing In Caribe, Miramar Beach, FL

We have just received a new listing in Caribe. Come see this beautiful home in Miramar Beach, Florida!
MLS # 568614

New Apple iPhone 4S

Without new iPhone, Apple iOS 5 more evolutionary than revolutionary

SEATTLE – Oct. 19, 2011 – Apple’s latest update to its iOS software for iPhones, iPads and other handheld devices is more evolutionary than revolutionary, particularly if you’re not getting it on the new iPhone 4S, which was released Friday.

iOS 5, which Apple made available early this month, has a lot of neat new features. But the most exciting one – the Siri voice-command system – is available only on the new iPhone. Others, such as weather and stock widgets, aren’t available on the iPad.

Many of the other features, meanwhile, don’t break new ground; instead, they represent an effort by Apple to catch up with the competition.

Still, the additions in iOS 5 are welcome and the update is well worth the time needed – about 90 minutes in my case – to download and install it.

One of the big themes of iOS 5 is to cut the cord that has long connected Apple handheld devices to Apple’s iTunes software running on users’ personal computers. With the new software, users can pretty much get by without ever plugging their iPad or iPhone into their PCs.

After installing iOS 5, users no longer have to connect them to a computer to get new operating system updates. They can just download them directly to their device. And should they want to back up their device to their computer, they can configure the iOS device to do so wirelessly whenever it is plugged into an outlet to recharge.

As part of this effort, Apple has added a number of services that link iOS 5 devices to its data servers on the Internet. IPads and iPods can save their backups to Apple’s servers, rather than to a PC. Using a service called Photo Stream, Apple allows users to instantly and wirelessly transfer pictures they’ve taken on an iOS device to other such devices, their computers and to the Apple TV set-top box via its cloud service. Music that users purchase on an iOS device – or on their computer – is similarly synced automatically across devices through the conduit of Apple’s data servers.

REO Sales

When will REO sales finally reach the peak?

NEW YORK – Oct. 19, 2011 – Properties repossessed through foreclosure may not peak until 2013, HousingWire reports, quoting several analysts and recent reports.

Foreclosure sales are expected to reach 1.48 million properties in 2013, according to analysts from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

However, with the surge, “we do not expect to see anywhere near the downward pressure on home prices that we had back in 2008, since the expected percent changes in liquidation volumes are so much smaller,” the analysts said.

The increase in foreclosures is expected to mostly change from private banks’ portfolios – which nearly half are from now – to the government’s backlog of properties, with an increase in foreclosures forecasted from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s portfolios. Overall, they are expected to liquidate about 595,000 properties in 2013.

To handle the expected surge, the government continues to consider ideas, including proposals of turning some of the foreclosures into rentals, and a plan from the Federal Housing Finance Agency to refinance more underwater borrowers so they’ll be less likely to walk away from their property.

But some analysts are skeptical that a surge in foreclosures will come without an intervention from the government.

“Do they really think that the government under any administration would let 500,000 homes hit the mark and crash prices all over again, six years after the first crash?” Scott Sambucci, chief analyst at Altos Research, told HousingWire.

Source: “REO Sales May Not Peak Until 2013,” HousingWire (Oct. 17, 2011)

"Smishing" New Threat For Texts and Email Scam

“For the first five seconds, you’re like, ‘Oh no!’ You’re caught off guard,” he said. “It was an automated computer voice and very well done, very sophisticated.”

Sever experienced a spreading high-tech con known as “smishing.”

Smishing is like phishing, a technique that uses e-mails that look legitimate to trick victims into handing over vital information, but with smishing, identity thieves ply their scam through messages to a mobile phone, not a computer.

With recent attacks in the western U.S., law enforcement and consumer affairs officials have expressed concern that similar large-scale attacks could spread nationally.

FBI spokesman Tim Ryan, supervisor of cyber investigations for the FBI’s Newark division, based in Franklin, N.J., said the message Sever received is part of an open case.

In the recent spate of scams in the West, identity thieves sent text messages en masse to random cellphones that read: “Wells Fargo notice: Your card 4868* has been deactivated.” The message listed a phone number.

People who dialed the number were asked for account information, Social Security numbers and personal identification numbers, officials said.

The crooks cast a broad net. Many people other than Wells Fargo customers got the messages.

Homes for sale declining across South Florida

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Oct. 5, 2011 – The number of homes and condominiums for sale has steadily declined across South Florida in 2011, frustrating buyers and leading to bidding wars in some cases, real estate agents say.

An October update from Chip Rowand of the Keyes Co. in Weston shows that Broward County has 13,480 single-family homes and condos for sale. In Palm Beach County, there are 15,782 homes and condos on the market.

Those figures are less than half of what they were a few years ago, Rowand said.

“We’re seeing multiple showings and multiple offers if the homes are priced right,” he said. “We need more inventory.”

Analysts expect that’ll happen soon enough as a new wave of foreclosures hits the market.

The foreclosure pipeline slowed considerably last year as banks investigated possible paperwork errors as part of the “robo-signer” controversy. Now lenders are starting to process foreclosures more quickly.

Last week, research firm CoreLogic reported that the so-called shadow inventory of homes for sale declined to 1.6 million in July from 1.9 million a year ago.

Shadow inventory is a hidden supply of homes that are likely to come on the market as a result of foreclosures.

“The steady improvement in the shadow inventory is a positive development for the housing market,” Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic, said in a statement. “However, continued price declines, high levels of (underwater mortgages) and a sluggish labor market will keep the shadow supply elevated for an extended period of time.”

© 2011 Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.), Paul Owers. Distributed by MCT Information Services