Wednesday, October 30, 2013

August home prices up 1.3% from July

Home price gains likely peaked in April and have been slowing but are still strong as low inventory drives prices and buying remains cheaper than renting.

U.S. home prices were up 1.3% in August from July, but the peak rate of gain in home prices occurred in April, a widely watched index shows.

Data through August show that prices were up 12.8% year over year, according to the Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller 20-city index.

Both the 10- and 20-city indices showed their highest annual increases since February 2006, and all 20 cities reported positive year-over-year returns.

But while home prices continue to rise, it's at a slower pace each month since April. In August, 16 cities reported smaller gains compared with July.

Las Vegas led the cities with a monthly increase of 2.9%, its highest since August 2004. It's seen ramped up buying activity from investors now that more distressed inventory has become available to the market.

Detroit and Los Angeles followed with monthly gains of 2%.

All 20 cities posted monthly gains in August, but most showed deceleration compared with July. Seattle prices were up 0.5% in August. San Francisco has been losing momentum since April, when prices were up 4.9%, vs. 0.9% in August, Case-Shiller says.

Las Vegas also led in the category of one-year gains, at 29.2%, followed by San Francisco at 25.4%. On the other end of the range was New York, with a one-year gain of just 3.6% followed by Cleveland at 3.7%.

Tight inventory conditions likely drove the strong year-over-year home price growth in many of the cities, says economist Ellen Haberle from brokerage Redfin.

While more homes are for sale, the inventory hasn't expanded enough to bring home-price gains back down to near-normal levels, says Jed Kolko, Trulia economist. The for-sale inventory still looks about 15% below normal levels, when adjusted for seasonal factors, he says.

Another reason that home prices are still rising, although more slowly, is that buying is still 35% cheaper than renting in all of the 100 largest metropolitan regions, Kolko says.

Still, sales are likely to drop off in September and October due to seasonal declines and "buyer anxiety" from the U.S. government shutdown, Haberle says.

Other home-price tracking services have shown slowing rates of appreciation amid higher interest rates, more homes for sale and slowing investor purchases.

U.S. home values were up 1.2% in the third quarter from the second, Zillow data show. That's down from a 2.5% jump in the second quarter from the first.

"Home value appreciation is better when it's boring," says Stan Humphries, Zillow economist. "It's good to see the pace of home value appreciation moderate, allowing the market to get back into a more sustainable balance and not topple over."

Pending home sales, too, declined in September for the fourth month in a row, a signal to expect lower home sales this quarter and a flat trend going into next year, the National Association of Realtors said Monday. NAR said price gains will continue, however, given still tight inventories of homes for sale in many markets.

After spiking in May, mortgage interest rates have come back down. Freddie Mac data show them slipping last week to a four-month low at an average of 4.13% for the 30-year fixed rate loan. That's still up from 3.41% a year ago.

Article curated from USA Today

 

 

Friday, October 25, 2013

Is Your Brokerage Ready for Gen Y Buyers?

As a broker, you need to make sure that you, your office, and your agents are ready to serve Millennials. 

Generation Y buyers are entering the home buyer’s market armed with spreadsheets (digital, of course), instant communication, and an affinity for technologically friendly spaces. It’s no surprise that studies are focusing on the Generation Y buyer. They’re gearing up to make their first purchase or looking to put down roots and raise a family.

Sure, some of them are staying put. They’re conservative and hesitant because they’ve been rocked by the economy, are laden with student debt, or lack job stability. But others have been renting and building wealth for 10 years. They’ve been waiting to see an improvement in the market and are anxious to buy a home—often even skipping a “starter home” in favor of more luxurious digs.

 Experts are considering how to reach this important audience. Brokers and agents need to know what these buyers are looking for as well as how (and where) to reach them.

Lure Them With Your Web Presence

Generation Y grew up with iPods, laptops, and mobile phones. They aren’t communicating over e-mail (unless it’s with their bosses) and they’re using the Internet for everything from researching their future home to ordering pizza. You must be ready to communicate in a way that works for this group. Make sure you have a complete, user-friendly, mobile-enabled Web site that allows Generation Y buyers to access information on their own time—as they’re winding down before bed or brushing their teeth, iPad in hand.

Brokers must invest in a user-friendly, aesthetically pleasing, and useful Web site. If the leadership of a brokerage doesn’t see the value, agents might have to step up and show them the facts. This vital tool will make you and your whole team more successful. Brokers should consider this aspect of business to be as important as having a bank account.

Engage Them in the Way They Prefer

If you make it past the first round of cuts with this increasingly important audience, you’ll need to be ready to communicate with your prospective buyers. E-mail ain’t where it’s at. Generation Y buyers are much more interested in texting and Facebook.

As a real estate professional, it behooves you to get interested, too. I’m not promoting these approaches as the first line of contact (a phone call is always your best bet), but you really need to be sufficiently tech-literate to communicate with Generation Y buyers using their preferred channels.

 Brokers should consider providing training and creating contests to increase this type of engagement.

Give Them What They Want

Now we come to what these buyers want in their homes. Generation Y shares some characteristics with the generations before them (a preference for walk-in closets, for example). But according to a study by market research company GfK Roper Reports, they differ in at least one very important way: They’re less interested in state-of-the-art kitchens and more interested in having fun. Generation Y buyers want a high-tech entertainment center, a game room, and a home gym. Swimming pools rank high on their priority list.

Making sure that you and your agents know this when showing a home is incredibly important. Don’t let sales associates get stuck in the kitchen just because it’s been important to buyers in the past. Ask engaging questions to find out what’s important to each buyer and sell them based on their needs and desires (not yours). Because, just like generations before them and the ones that will come after, Generation Y wants to be heard.

Article curated from Realtor Mag

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Make Pinterest Part of a Marketing Plan

While some agents have been lucky enough to land a deal through Pinterest, others say that shouldn't be the focus.

 
 
While Pinterest can be a great place to land a deal, that’s not the primary focus of New York–based firm Houlihan Lawrence Real Estate’s Pinterest page. Instead, the company tries to give users something useful beyond a sales pitch.

Kerry Barger, Houlihan Lawrence’s social engagement manager, uses photos from the company’s active listings to create pinboards highlighting interior design features. On Houlihan Lawrence’s Pinterest page, there are pinboards for bedroom, kitchen, dining room, bathroom, outdoor, and rec room styles, among others. Each photo on the pinboards links back to the original listings on Houlihan Lawrence’s Web site.

Barger says it allows Houlihan Lawrence to represent itself as an expert on more than just buying and selling.

“Agents have to take on all these other responsibilities beyond selling,” she says. “They have to be lifestyle gurus, decor and staging experts — that’s what we try to give people who come to us on Pinterest.

“We try to bring in the fun aspect of [real estate],” Barger continues. “We want to provide any user that comes to our site with something interesting.”

Houlihan Lawrence’s Pinterest approach seems to be paying off: Barger says the company gets about 500 referrals a month to its Web site from its Pinterest page — its second-highest social media source of referrals.

“A lot of the interest is shifting away from Facebook and Twitter to Pinterest because it’s so visually stunning,” she adds. “Clients can use it as an online catalogue to flip through homes.”

Houlihan Lawrence has been placing more importance on Pinterest in its marketing plan, making it a major focus over the last two years, Barger says. “I can only see it getting more popular,” she says. “Pinterest is the next frontier in social selling for us.”

Article curated from Realtor Mag

 

Monday, October 21, 2013

September existing home sales fall 1.9%



Existing home sales slipped in September as higher prices hurt affordability, the National Association of Realtors says.

Limited inventory continues to push up prices in much of the country, the association said Monday.
Home sales dropped 1.9% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.29 million from 5.39 million in August. They were still 10.7% above year ago levels.

The decline was expected, says Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist. With home prices up 12.4% in August from year ago levels, affordability has fallen to a five-year low, especially given mostly flat incomes.

Going forward, higher mortgage interest rates will further cut into affordability, he says. The October numbers are likely to show some home sale delays associated with the government shutdown, Yun says.

While sales fell, the national median existing-home price for all housing types was $199,200 in September, up 11.7% from a year ago. Median prices can vary depending on the type of home sold.
Distressed homes – foreclosures and short sales – accounted for 14% of September sales vs. 24% a year ago. Lower levels in the share of distressed sales account for some of the growth in median price.

The shift away from distressed sales is a sign of recovery, says Trulia economist Jed Kolko.
Total housing inventory at the end of September was unchanged at 2.21 million homes. That represents a 5-month supply vs. 4.9 months in August. In some markets, the inventory of homes for sale is much tighter, which is affecting sales.

The median time on market for all homes was 50 days in September, up from 43 days in August, but much faster than the 70 days on market in September 2012.

The report comes amid other signs of slowing in the housing recovery.

Nationwide, home values were up 1.2% in the third quarter from the second, Zillow data show. That's down from a 2.5% jump in the second quarter from the first.

Higher interest rates, fewer investor buyers and more homes for sale are all contributing to smaller price gains, economists say.

Last week, 30-year fixed rate loans averaged 4.28%, up from 3.37% a year ago, Freddie Mac said.
The government shutdown that ended last week and the related debate over raising the debt ceiling will also likely have an adverse effect on October home sales, says Leslie Appleton-Young, economist for the California Association of Realtors.

The association said last week that California home sales declined in September for the second straight month.

If the housing recovery is in fact slowing as the numbers are beginning to indicate, it's more important than ever to make sure your real estate website stands above the competition as every customer becomes that much more valuable.  Click here to learn how Constellation Web Solutions can help your brokerage with a custom-designed real estate website.

Article curated from USA Today

Friday, October 18, 2013

Make Pinterest Part of a Marketing Plan

While some agents have been lucky enough to land a deal through Pinterest, others say that shouldn't be the focus.

While Pinterest can be a great place to land a deal, that’s not the primary focus of New York–based firm Houlihan Lawrence Real Estate’s Pinterest page. Instead, the company tries to give users something useful beyond a sales pitch.

Kerry Barger, Houlihan Lawrence’s social engagement manager, uses photos from the company’s active listings to create pinboards highlighting interior design features. On Houlihan Lawrence’s Pinterest page, there are pinboards for bedroom, kitchen, dining room, bathroom, outdoor, and rec room styles, among others. Each photo on the pinboards links back to the original listings on Houlihan Lawrence’s Web site.

Barger says it allows Houlihan Lawrence to represent itself as an expert on more than just buying and selling.

“Agents have to take on all these other responsibilities beyond selling,” she says. “They have to be lifestyle gurus, decor and staging experts — that’s what we try to give people who come to us on Pinterest.

“We try to bring in the fun aspect of [real estate],” Barger continues. “We want to provide any user that comes to our site with something interesting.”

Houlihan Lawrence’s Pinterest approach seems to be paying off: Barger says the company gets about 500 referrals a month to its Web site from its Pinterest page — its second-highest social media source of referrals.

“A lot of the interest is shifting away from Facebook and Twitter to Pinterest because it’s so visually stunning,” she adds. “Clients can use it as an online catalogue to flip through homes.”

Houlihan Lawrence has been placing more importance on Pinterest in its marketing plan, making it a major focus over the last two years, Barger says. “I can only see it getting more popular,” she says. “Pinterest is the next frontier in social selling for us.”

Are you using Pinterest to drive consumers to your real estate website?  Our websites feature individual webpages for every listing in your MLS so you can use those URL's in your Pinterest marketing plans.  Click here to learn more.

Article curated from Realtor Mag

Home price gains slowing as market recovers

Experts say slowing gains in home values are a healthy sign for the housing market's continued recovery.

U.S. home values were up 1.2% in the third quarter from the second, Zillow data show. That's down from a 2.5% jump in the second quarter from the first.

In September, values dipped about 1% from August in Los Angeles and San Diego — the first notable month-to-month drop for those markets since the recovery started, Zillow says.

All told, half of 30 major metropolitan areas covered by Zillow saw values fall in September from August, seasonally adjusted numbers show. Earlier this summer, all the same metros were seeing month-to-month gains.

More markets are likely to see declines this month, too, says Svenja Gudell, Zillow chief economist.

Home values were flat or slightly up in September from August in Washington, D.C., Miami and Atlanta, Zillow's data show. But growth has slowed in the metros each month since July.

In Atlanta, for instance, July values were up 3.1% from June. But September saw only a 0.7% bump from August, after being adjusted for seasonal factors.

While down, that's still rapid appreciation. Historically, homes have appreciated an average of 0.3% a month, says Jed Kolko, Trulia economist.

"It's not like prices are falling off a cliff. They're just slowing to a more sustainable pace," Guddell says.

Fewer investor buyers and more inventory are two key factors affecting prices.

The number of existing single-family homes for sale in August was up 5% from January, seasonally adjusted, Kolko says. Meanwhile, higher prices have dampened investor activity, leaving more homes for regular buyers, he says.

While popular homes got 10 to 15 offers several months ago, two to three are more likely now, says Better Homes' Chris.

Slowing price gains should lessen fears of housing bubbles in some markets, including in California, Zillow says. Homes are also taking longer to sell in some California markets.

Homes spent a median of 28 days on the market in Oakland, in September before being sold, up from 14 days earlier this year, reports Realtor.com, which tracks 146 markets.

Rising prices have created more sellers. "The market is still strong," but hitting more of an equilibrium between buyers and sellers, says Errol Samuelson, Realtor.com president.


Curated from USA Today

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Pin it, and They Will Come

Agents and brokerages are finding Pinterest to be a unique tool to grow their businesses — and even sell homes.

You might think your Web site is everything. That’s probably the first place you’d go to advertise a new listing. Not Mike Gardner. From now on, when he wants to showcase a new listing, his Web site comes second — and Pinterest comes first.


The photo-driven social media site, after all, is where he snagged a buyer for a recent listing: an impeccably remodeled 900-square-foot mobile home on the market for $565,000 in Malibu, Calif. Within five days of creating a Pinterest board specifically for the listing (which is free to do, by the way), it went into escrow, says Gardner, an agent with Prudential Malibu Realty East.
 He didn’t even bother posting the listing to his own Web site, the first time he didn’t employ a traditional site to advertise. The Pinterest board, which included dozens of detailed shots of the home, was his primary vehicle, and he shared the board on Facebook.

The reason Pinterest worked so well for this home, Gardner says, was because it allowed him to highlight the home’s details.

“With a traditional Web site, you’re limited to 20 or 30 photos,” he explains. “There’s never been a place on a traditional Web site to add 30 or 40 additional photos that show the details.”

That wouldn’t do for this property, filled with luxury components. From the Kohler stainless steel sink to the custom tile work in the glass-enclosed shower and the mercury glass pendant lamps and chopping-block countertops in the kitchen, Gardner wanted to bring attention to every detail. He wouldn’t have been able to fit all that in on a traditional Web site.

“Homes with a lot of detail are natural for Pinterest,” Gardner says. “The [mobile] home had a lot of interior style details — it looked like a cool California beach house. There was a lot of eye candy. The details help explain the value of the property.”

Pinterest was also the best marketing tool for the mobile home, Gardner says, because the property had no yard — and, thus, no curb appeal. Its real and only selling point was the detailed interior.

“With homes that have appeal inside but not outside, Pinterest will be a winner all day long,” he adds. “Something that was even more appealing was that [the Pinterest board] can be shared a lot.”

The buyer who took interest shared the link to Gardner’s Pinterest board for the property with family and friends, he says. That made it easier for the buyer to settle on a decision after consulting loved ones.

Going forward, Gardner sees himself using Pinterest to promote every listing he has with the eye candy element. “I see it as a huge player in the real estate market in the future,” he says. “Pinterest is just a very sharable link where you can link back to your advertising and to your Web site or to the MLS.”

Article curated from Realtor Mag

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

It’s the Listings, Stupid

Are you giving consumers the online experience they want?


People often ask me, “What’s your business strategy?” In a nutshell: If you build it, they will come. By “they,” I mean everyone—sellers, buyers, brokers, and agents. And by “it,” I mean an online experience that gives consumers exactly what they’re looking for.

Let me back up a bit. I’m the broker-owner of Hawaii Life. We’ve been fortunate to experience growth in one of the worst real estate markets in U.S. history. We went from $4.3 million in sales in 2008 to over $500 million in 2012, and today we have more than 130 brokers and salespeople in 10 offices throughout Hawaii.

But we didn’t start out with our strategy fully formed. Hawai’i Life began as a referral brokerage. You know what that is—the kind of company that calls you randomly and says, “How would you like to receive leads in your market area?”

Awesome, right? Yeah, not really.

When we started, we were just two agents in a 500-square-foot office on the second floor of a building in Kapaa Town, on the island of Kauai. Our office was so hidden from the public that when people wandered in, we’d ask in surprise, “How’d you find us?” Invariably, the answer was online.

That got us thinking seriously about the direction of our online strategy.

What we discovered early on was that if you give consumers a better online search experience, preferably one that’s local and authentic, filled with listings they can browse with ease, they will come—and stay. If you muddy that experience with a real estate professional’s large, airbrushed face or huge corporate banner ads, they bounce.

When we converted the company into a bricks-and-mortar brokerage in 2008, we insisted that marketing listings be the fundamental reason for our existence. We set out to build the best real estate marketing platform available. And we’re still on that journey. So what does “the best real estate marketing platform” really mean? It starts with technology.

Consider this: The typical REALTOR® today is in her mid-50s. A majority of real estate professionals were already working adults before Internet usage became mainstream. If you’re like most practitioners, you remember (and, in some cases, yearn for) the days when the only access to listings was via the MLS book. But today, consumers have access to the virtual equivalent of the MLS book. And practically every real estate professional has to be in the online publishing business.

However, even though everyone’s a publisher, we’re all putting out the same—or at least similar—stuff. In this case, that content is listing content. So how do you compete? Simple: Focus on the experience and give consumers exactly what they want, when they want it, and how they want it. What do they want? What we know for sure is that they want to search listings. Not just your listings. All the listings. And they want the easiest, most user-friendly experience possible.

What we did was deliver on that desire. For hawaiilife.com, we built a search tool that shows every listing in Hawaii, broken down by island. We also created a blog where our agents can share their opinions about the communities they work in and the current market.

We spent a lot of time asking questions and seeing how our Web site performed. How long were our customers spending on it? How could we use it to promote the listings we were hired to sell without alienating the visitors?

Once we built up our Web presence, we were able to lure some of the top salespeople in the state. They understood what we could provide: exposure. They seek to promote their listings and themselves. For the most part, we didn’t even have to “recruit” them. They joined our company because the benefits were obvious.

Real estate is a fascinating hybrid of relationships and meritocracy. When you get results, people notice. And success breeds success. That’s been the case for us, and it can be for you.

Article by Matthew Beall who is principal broker and co-owner of Hawaii Life based in Kauai.  

Article curated from Realtor Mag

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Make a Marketing Triple Play

Take your online marketing to another level by understanding how media work together in a highly connected and digital world.

You are empowered today with marketing opportunities that are truly unprecedented. Billions of people are on Facebook and YouTube every month. 

Smartphones and tablets now allow you to market from anywhere to anyone, anywhere. Savvy online marketers in real estate have mastered things like PPC and SEO (pay-per-click advertising and search-engine optimization).

Integrating these efforts will make them all more successful. That starts with understanding the three kinds of media—paid, owned, and earned—and working them.

Paid media is advertising. You can run a paid ad in the newspaper, but you don’t own the newspaper and you didn’t earn the write up. Other paid advertising in real estate includes buying enhanced placement on realtor.com, Zillow, or Trulia—or buying PPC in Google. When you stop paying, it stops working.

Owned media is where you have the most control. You own your Web site. You also “own” your YouTube channel, blog, Facebook page, and Twitter accounts in the sense that you determine the messaging. Unlike paid and earned media, owned media gives you 100 percent flexibility and control.

Earned media matters the most to increasing your conversions. Being featured in your local newspaper or on a local TV station was once the extent to which most real estate professionals “earned” media. Today, there are more options. When you write an original blog post (owned) and someone reads it and hits “Like” or “Tweet,” you have created earned media. Online reviews also are considered earned media because you can’t publish them yourself (owned) and you can’t buy them (paid).

Are you beginning to see how you might combine the three efforts? One boutique brokerage that’s pioneering integration is The Good Life Team in Austin, Texas. The team has a laser focus on one thing: the five-star consumer experience. The results have been tremendous financial growth and raving online reviews from clients on Google+, Yelp, and virtually anywhere else a review is possible. The reviews are genuine, compelling, and plentiful—and they convert.

As The Good Life Team CTO Jack Miller told me, “Our reviews are our best converting content on the Web—period. When people come through an online review, more often than not, they are pre-sold and ready to get started.”     

Most companies would stop there, but Jack and CEO Krisstina Wise wanted more. If reviews work the best, how do we make them more visible? One answer was running Google PPC ads specifically for their online reviews. They’ve even sponsored an ad that appeared above their own Web site in search results.

Why pay for an ad when your Web site organically ranks first? When you pay for an ad that’s specifically for a Google+ Business Page, it surfaces your stars and reviews first. Bingo! If people click the ad rather than the organic result, they are more likely to get to the bottom of the online funnel—calling or e-mailing for an appointment.

So The Good Life Team uses earned media (a Google review) on its owned media (Google+ business page), and then employed paid media (PPC ad) to bring additional awareness.
Brilliant.

I’ve also seen examples of banner ads on realtor.com advertising five-star Yelp reviews.
If you have great online reviews, why not pay to advertise them on sites like Facebook, Google, and Yelp—and anywhere else you are already spending money—even traditional advertising like billboards, direct mail, business cards, and park benches.

The convergence of social, mobile, search, and—most important—people always being connected to people has created a new opportunity for marketers who find the right mix of paid, owned and earned media.

Article curated from Realtor Mag

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Home price gains slow with summer's passing


Home prices rose more slowly in August, reflecting the end of the summer selling season and higher mortgage rates, based on new data from market researcher CoreLogic.

Home prices in August were up 0.9% from July and 12.4% year over year, CoreLogic says.
"In addition to normal seasonality, the recent sharp rise in mortgage rates off their historic lows was a clear driver behind the slowdown," says Anand Nallathambi, CoreLogic CEO.

It anticipates "moderate gains" in home prices over the rest of the year, helped by the continued tight supply of homes for sale in many markets and the recent downward trend in interest rates, Nallathambi says.

In August, the states with the highest home price appreciation were: Nevada, up 25.9% year over year; California, 23.1%; Arizona, 16.4%; Wyoming, up 15%; and Georgia, up 14.8%.

Interest rates spiked sharply in May but have trended down since the Federal Reserve said on Sept. 18 that it would not yet reduce its monthly purchases of government mortgage-backed securities and Treasury bonds, which have kept long-term interest rates low.

As of Thursday, the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage was at its lowest level since late July, averaging 4.32%, down from 4.5% the week before. A year earlier, it averaged 3.4%, Freddie Mac says.

Other home price watchers have also documented slowing home price appreciation.
When adjusted for seasonal factors, July home prices were up 0.6% from June, the smallest month to month increase since September 2012, Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller index showed last week.

Article curated from USA Today