Agents Heaven - Real Estate Blog

Buyer’s Market = Time To Buy That Vacation Home? Forbes.com Tells You Where to Buy.

There are more existing homes sitting on the market than ever, and with home prices likely to dip significantly, it may be just the type of buyers market you’ve been waiting for, before you seriously considered vacation home shopping.

I’ll let Forbes.com fill you in on all the technicals, as they’ve done the leg work on determining the Best Place To Buy A Vacation Home.  If you find statistics and appreciation values boring, HouseHunting 101 links you directly to the lists of the best places to buy vacation homes in each region of the country, in the Forbes.com famous “In Pictures” sections.

Of course if you aren’t filthy rich, that information may not serve as much more than entertainment.  However, a blogger at Move.com noticed a link buried in the middle of the Forbes.com piece that points to something more useful to the rest of us:  In Pictures: 10 Undervalued Vacation-Home Spots.

If you’ve got the resources and the credit, there may never be a better time than now to buy that vacation home you’ve always wanted.

Tags: vacation property, buy vacation home, vacation real estate, second home, vacation homes, cheap real estate, lower home prices, buy real estate, buyer’s market, buyers’ market, home prices

Healthy Northern Virginia Real Estate Market Bucks National Trend

There’s been a lot of doom and gloom in the media over the nation’s current real estate situation, but rarely do you ever hear about those areas of the country who’s real estate markets are telling another story.

Northern Virginia is one of the areas who’s real estate market continues to thrive:

While the real estate market across the national capital region is mixed, according to housing sales and price data released Wednesday, new numbers from a local real estate trade association show the market in Northern Virginia is strong.

Average home prices in Northern Virginia have increased by 3 percent to $554,274, while the number of home sales inched higher by 0.1 percent from July 2006, according to the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors.

The AVERAGE home price is over half a mil? Ouch! But it could be worse.

If you can afford it, Virginia is arguably one of the best places you could choose to live on the east coast. You’ve got mild winters, hot summers (but not insanely hot), and a pretty good all around quality of life. I guess the only important thing to remember is MAKE SURE YOU CAN AFFORD IT…. or else you could wind up looking like this guy:

Tags: northern va real estate, va home listing, northern virginia real estate, virginia real estate market, virginia real estate, va real estate, n virginia real estate, virginia home listing

Forbes Lists the “Least Affordable Real Estate Markets”

Yesterday I told you about Forbes’ list of the “Most Affordable Real Estate Markets”, so I thought it only fair that I also present you with their list of the “Least Affordable”.

Number one on their list isn’t much of a shocker:

Given those numbers, it’s no surprise that Los Angeles tops our list of the nation’s least affordable real estate markets. We determined our ranking by combining the NAHB/Wells-Fargo index with our rating of home price to earnings, which measures how many years of gross income it would take to buy a home at the median sales price. The lower the number, the more affordable a house is for the median home buyer.

The others aren’t exactly a surprise either:

Rounding out the top ten least affordable markets are San Diego, Calif.; New York, Miami, Fla.; Sacramento, Calif.; Las Vegas, Nev.; Seattle, Wash.; Boston and Orlando.

Read the rest for an explanation of how Forbes developed this list…

Tags: affordable real estate, affordable homes, unaffordable real estate, affordable real estate market, real estate market, expensive real estate, hot real estate, expensive homes, real estate, hot real estate market

Does Your City Make Forbes’ “Most Affordable Real Estate Markets” List?

It’s no secret that home prices have seen an out of control surge in places like the northeast and west coast of the United States, making homes virtually unfordable to anyone except the super rich in some cities. But that’s not the case everywhere…

From Forbes.com comes the list of the most affordable real estate markets in the country:

Homeowners in Indianapolis know what that’s like. Its residents don’t have to scrimp and save to afford a home at the median price. There, the bulk of the housing stock is well within reach of the average household. Savings depleted? According to our calculations, it would take just two years of gross salary to become a homeowner there.

Cleveland and Detroit are also reasonably priced. But affordability isn’t limited to the Midwest. Pittsburgh, Atlanta and Greensboro, N.C., made our list as well.

Forbes addresses the critics who scream “rust belt” anytime they’re presented with the fact on the affordability of home ownership in of these many cities. While acknowledging that some cities like Detroit and Cleveland aren’t the healthiest markets, this isn’t always the case:

Other areas on our list, however, such as Dallas and Atlanta, are experiencing growth, yet remain affordable.

Price-to-income affordability in Dallas was seventh best overall, and just under 70% of homes sold in Atlanta in the first quarter of this year were available to the median income-earning household. Prices can remain affordable in fast-growing cities when there are high rates of new-home construction and relaxed growth restrictions.

Additionally, as someone who lives in the northeast, and who grew up with the unaffordability of Boston real estate being common knowledge, I found their comparison to Raleigh, North Carolina’s real estate market extremely interesting:

High demand doesn’t necessarily impede affordability either.

Examine the difference between Boston and Raleigh, N.C.; since 2000, Boston has experienced steady emigration, while Raleigh has welcomed new residents.

But during that time, Boston home prices increased by 16.7%, and median income-earning households can afford about half of what they could seven years ago. In Raleigh, home prices have grown by 37%, but the share of median income earners who can afford homes has only dropped by 3%, all while the city underwent a population boom.

What gives? A high increase in new-home construction and growth policies not overburdened by regulation acted as price reliefs in Raleigh. Boston doesn’t have such policies and hasn’t seen a great deal of new-home construction.

Both Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C., just missed making the list, landing at Nos. 12 and 13, respectively.

Read the rest to find out if you’re in one of these buyer’s markets.

Tags: real estate market, Real Estate, hot real estate markets, hot real estate, affordable cities, median income real estate, city real estate, cheap real estate, affordable real estate, available real estate

Does a Foreclosure-palooza in Some Cities & States Mean a Deal For You?

Just last week CNNmoney.com posted an article listing the top ten cities in the United States facing sharp increases in home foreclosures. This comes only weeks after they published an article focusing on the most “ruthless foreclosure states“, which focuses on the amount of time one can lose there home in various states across the country. You don’t have to look far to find countless articles on this hot news item.

What does this all mean for you? At this point, it’s anyone’s guess. We heard for years, experts tell us that there was a “housing bubble” that was set to “pop”, but it never did did it? The housing market has in fact had a very manageable slowdown, with the primary bumps in the road being folks foreclosing on properties they bought, but couldn’t actually afford, often with adjustable rate mortgages.

These aren’t bad people, and we should certainly all have sympathy for them, but the lesson we learn is a simple one we should have already known - buy within your means… And DON’T get an adjustable rate mortgage!

Now, the question is… does the surge in foreclosure activity provide you with a buying opportunity? Certainly it doesn’t take a genius to recognize that with home sales slowing down, and more homes coming on the market, it has gone from being one of the best sellers markets a year ago, to a buyers market with a lot of further potential today.

Obviously there’s never a guarantee when home prices will go back up, and how quickly, and in what regions, so do your research. If you’ve been on the fence about getting in to the real estate market, this is a great time to look in to it more seriously. But don’t go wild with the buying opportunity unless you’ve got good reason to believe it will provide you with a big pay off in your region. You’d hate to get stuck with properties that have barely increased in value and require a lot of work to sell 5 or 10 years down the road.

Tags: foreclosure, foreclosed, home foreclosing, cheap real estate, cnnmoney, real estate, real estate market, buyers market, foreclosing, foreclosed home, home foreclosure, housing bubble

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