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By BOB TEDESCHI
Published: April 28, 2010
HOMEOWNERS with secure jobs and no immediate plans to move will often watch mortgage rates anyway, just in case they have the opportunity to refinance their loans. But few of them will regularly bother to check housing sales or foreclosures, which could also affect their ability to refinance.
The market downturn has greatly reduced home values in many parts of the country, leaving homeowners with significantly less equity in their properties. According to Cameron Findlay, the chief economist at LendingTree, home prices nationally have slipped to 2003 levels.
If a borrower’s home equity falls below 20 percent, he or she must buy private mortgage insurance for a new mortgage, which adds to the loan cost, at least until the equity reaches the level where the insurance is no longer needed. So, depending on when a home was bought, refinancing now may not be a viable option.
“Compared to a year ago, many more people are calling me now and I just can’t do anything for them,” said Tom Vanderwell, a loan officer with a large regional bank, about homeowners looking to refinance. (Mr. Vanderwell also writes a blog, Straight Talk About Mortgages.)
Those seeking government-insured loans, like those through the Federal Housing Administration, will face similar insurance premium costs.
Meanwhile, those wanting a second mortgage, or home equity credit lines, and even people who already have them, can also run aground if they near the 20 percent equity threshold. This is known as the 80 percent loan-to-value ratio, or L.T.V. for short.
If a borrower’s first and second mortgages would reach a combined loan-to-value ratio of 85 percent, most lenders would reject the application for a second mortgage, Mr. Vanderwell said. And if a borrower’s home equity shrank to the point where his equity credit line neared that level, a lender might, as they have in recent years, stop him from taking out more money.
In the New York City area in March, average resale prices of homes rose by 3.4 percent compared with a year ago, according to a report last month by the National Association of Realtors. Nationally, prices rose by 0.6 percent, the report indicated. Some economists expressed concern that those increases could end with the expiration of the federal housing tax credit for home buyers on April 30.
There is no precise way to determine one’s home value, aside from applying for a loan and paying for an appraisal. But there are some tools that borrowers can use to obtain quick estimates.
Zillow.com, for instance, relies on publicly recorded sales and mortgage documents from nearby and similar homes, among other things, to determine value.
Mortgage brokers and others emphasize that Zillow should be used only as a rough guide, because it does not consider the condition of properties that have been sold, among other factors.
Meanwhile, Trulia.com offers broader information on real estate value trends, as well as local foreclosure figures. Foreclosures can suppress selling prices and, if a property falls into disrepair, even reduce the value of surrounding homes.
Mr. Vanderwell of Straight Talk About Mortgages says homeowners considering a new loan, who want to avoid the time and expense of making a formal mortgage application to determine whether they qualify, should try another route.
“Find a real estate agent who really knows the area, and ask them to come out and take a look at the house,” he said. “Tell them they’re not thinking of selling it, but want an idea of what it would appraise at.”
If the agent’s informal appraisal is close enough to the figure you would need to qualify for a refinanced loan or a second mortgage, Mr. Vanderwell said, it is worth applying. If it is significantly below, you are better off waiting for conditions to improve
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Suit Takes Aim at Recording Tax
BORROWERS in New York may not be aware of this: They pay some of the highest closing costs in the country, because of a mortgage-recording tax that few other states levy.
But depending on the outcome of a lawsuit now being argued in New York Supreme Court, those who obtain mortgages through federal credit unions in the state may be able to avoid that tax, and save thousands of dollars on a purchase or refinancing.
In the suit filed last year, the Hudson Valley Federal Credit Union (formerly the IBM Employees FCU), in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., contends that New York State is compelling the credit union to collect the recording tax, despite the credit union’s federal tax-exempt status.
Arguments are set to be heard on Tuesday before Justice Judith Gische in Manhattan; a decision could come within six weeks.
Besides New York, 10 other states charge a recording fee, including Florida and Georgia, according to Dale Lois, a lawyer representing Hudson Valley.
The state maintains that it has not violated the tenets of the Federal Credit Union Act of 1934, which stipulates that credit unions “shall be exempt from all taxation,” except on real and tangible personal property. The tax, the state says, is not on the credit union or on mortgages but for the privilege of recording a mortgage.
Further, the state says that Hudson Valley, in its initial challenge of the tax in 2008, did not exhaust its administrative options in seeking a refund of the roughly $1.8 million in recording taxes it had paid for borrowers on about 3,700 mortgages and home-equity loans, advertised as “no cost,” from 2006 to 2008.
The credit union’s advocate in the case is the Justice Department, which filed a brief in October, stating, “Because the United States has not waived immunity to the type of tax imposed, the Court should determine New York’s system unconstitutional.”
New York’s taxpayers stand to lose a considerable amount of revenue if the court agrees with the federal government. According to Richard Bamberger, a spokesman for Andrew M. Cuomo, the state attorney general, federal credit union mortgages yielded the state tens of millions of dollars in recording taxes last year.
The state could see revenue drop further if it lost the suit, because more borrowers would be likely to seek credit union loans and thereby avoid the tax.
But Michele Raab-Francis, the chief executive of the Safe Harbor Capital Group in Bellport, N.Y., and a director of the New York Association of Mortgage Brokers, said that if the credit unions prevailed, “it would be an extremely huge benefit to the consumer.”
The mortgage-recording tax in New York City is 2.05 percent of the total loan amount, up to $500,000, and 2.175 percent on loans of $500,000 or more. On a $500,000 loan, that would add $10,875 to the closing costs. In Westchester, by contrast, the rate is 1.3 percent for a single-family home; in Nassau and Suffolk County, the rate is 1.05 percent. (Refinance borrowers can sometimes avoid the recording tax, if the lender agrees to waive it.)
Ms. Raab-Francis, who brokers loans on behalf of both banks and credit unions, says that obtaining loans through a credit union “is a much more pleasant experience for the consumer,” and that the loan terms are often competitive with those of larger banks.
In the greater New York City area last week, the Bethpage Federal Credit Union of Long Island was offering 30-year fixed-rate loans at 5.125 percent. The Polish and Slavic Federal Credit Union, which makes mortgages in New York and New Jersey, offered 5.25 percent.
The average rate at the time, according to Freddie Mac, was 5.21 percent.
Credit unions usually charge only a nominal fee but require an affiliation of some kind. Bethpage Federal, for instance, is generally open to anyone who lives, works, worships or conducts business on Long Island, and to members’ immediate relatives.
A list of local credit unions can be found at the Credit Union National Association’s Web site, at www.cuna.org.
A version of this article appeared in print on April 11, 2010, on page RE6 of the New York edition.
Court Throws Out Suit Against Moody’s and S.&P.
By REUTERS
Published: April 1, 2010
// A federal judge in Manhattan threw out a class-action lawsuit accusing the ratings agencies, Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s, of defrauding investors about the safety of $63.4 billion of mortgage debt.
Judge Jed Rakoff of Federal District Court also dismissed some claims against the Bank of America Corporation, JPMorgan Chase & Company and the ABN Amro unit of Royal Bank of Scotland Group. And he dismissed the case against Credit-Based Asset Servicing & Securitization, or C-Bass, which packaged debt underwritten by the banks.
Judge Rakoff, in a two-page order late Wednesday, said he would spell out his reasoning in a later opinion.
“It is going to be a major ruling by a prominent jurist about one of the largest securities cases coming out of the subprime crisis,” said Carla Walworth, a partner at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker in New York who represented C-Bass.
Plaintiffs, led by the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi, accused rating agencies and banks of misleading them about the safety of 84 mostly investment-grade offerings of residential mortgage-backed securities.
The plaintiffs said the securities they bought were in fact “not of the ‘best quality,’ or even ‘medium credit quality.’ ” They said that, after being downgraded to junk status, the securities were worth far less than they paid.
Many underlying loans were made by mortgage lenders that later became distressed or defunct, including three of the largest: the Countrywide Financial Corporation, the American Home Mortgage Investment Corporation, and IndyMac Bancorp.
A spokesman for Moody’s, Michael Adler, and one for S.&P., Frank Briamonte, said their agencies were pleased with the ruling. Other spokesmen — Bill Halldin at Bank of America, Brian Marchiony at JPMorgan and Michael Geller at RBS — declined to comment.
David Stickney, a lawyer representing the Mississippi fund, did not immediately return a call.
Another judge in Manhattan federal court, Lewis A. Kaplan, dismissed claims in January against Moody’s and S.&P. over nearly $100 billion of mortgage-backed debt sold by Lehman Brothers Holdings.
A third judge in that court, Shira A. Scheindlin, is considering a separate lawsuit by Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and King County in Washington State over whether Moody’s and S.&.P deserve free speech protection for their ratings.
By BOB TEDESCHI
Published: March 10, 2010
A HIGH credit score won’t necessarily insulate borrowers from the home-foreclosure crisis, according to a new study from FICO, which creates the credit-scoring formula used by most lenders.
In fact, the report, which was released in late February, suggests that these premium borrowers might be more likely to default on their mortgages than their credit card debt should they encounter financial difficulties.
From May through October 2009, the mortgage default rate for borrowers with credit scores of 760 to 850 was 0.32 percent, versus 0.12 percent for credit cards, according to the report. (FICO considers loans 90 days or more past due to be in default.)
Of course, that mortgage-default level is still far lower than the 4.5 percent rate for all mortgage borrowers during this period, according to FICO, which is based in Minneapolis. But the numbers are nonetheless worrisome, said Rachel Bell, a director of analytics in FICO’s global scoring solutions business, because they mark the first time the mortgage default rate for this category of borrowers exceeded credit card defaults.
In 2007, the mortgage default rate for high-scoring borrowers was 0.08 percent, versus 0.10 percent for bank cards.
Housing counselors offer at least one possible explanation for the shift: some people with financial reversals who are in danger of losing their homes anyway might be more likely to pay back their credit cards, because they still need them to buy groceries and other essential items.
Ms. Bell declined to speculate about the motivations of borrowers. Because the FICO analysis did not look at specific households, she said she could not determine whether a particular family carried both a mortgage and credit cards, and defaulted on one before the other.
But she did say that the growing mortgage problem among households with high FICO scores might be linked to two areas of increasing trouble in the mortgage industry — namely, defaults on vacation homes, and so-called strategic defaults, in which owners abandon homes that are worth less than the mortgage.
The Mortgage Bankers Association, which closely tracks foreclosures and defaults, says it does not track such statistics for vacation homes. But Walter Molony, a spokesman for the National Association of Realtors, said that if foreclosures had risen among vacation homes, their owners would most likely have bought the properties recently and for investment purposes.
The more value a home loses, the more likely an owner will be to consider a strategic default. A study in late 2009 by three university researchers — from the European University Institute, Northwestern University and the University of Chicago — found that when the mortgage exceeds the home’s value by less than 10 percent, homeowners rarely consider a strategic default. But if the value was just half the mortgage amount, 17 percent would abandon the house, and the loan.
FICO did not break out its recent data by state, but its regional data suggest that those with high credit scores in the Northeast were faring better than such people elsewhere. In the Northeast, borrowers with high FICO scores were still twice as likely to default on their credit cards as their mortgages. In 2005, they were four times as likely to default on their credit cards as their mortgages.
Borrowers with FICO scores of 760 and higher generally qualify for a bank’s best mortgage rate, as long as the down payment and monthly income also fall within the bank’s limits. A score of 720 is considered “prime,” and is usually the lowest rate that will allow borrowers to secure the most widely advertised mortgage rates.
FICO does not publish an average FICO score, but the company said the median score was about 720. And for the high FICO borrowers who default, even 720 is a dream score. One default drops such people into the mid-600 range, at best.
By DAVID STREITFELD
Published: March 7, 2010
In an effort to end the foreclosure crisis, the Obama administration has been trying to keep defaulting owners in their homes. Now it will take a new approach: paying some of them to leave.
This latest program, which will allow owners to sell for less than they owe and will give them a little cash to speed them on their way, is one of the administration’s most aggressive attempts to grapple with a problem that has defied solutions.
More than five million households are behind on their mortgages and risk foreclosure. The government’s $75 billion mortgage modification plan has helped only a small slice of them. Consumer advocates, economists and even some banking industry representatives say much more needs to be done.
For the administration, there is also the concern that millions of foreclosures could delay or even reverse the economy’s tentative recovery — the last thing it wants in an election year.
Taking effect on April 5, the program could encourage hundreds of thousands of delinquent borrowers who have not been rescued by the loan modification program to shed their houses through a process known as a short sale, in which property is sold for less than the balance of the mortgage. Lenders will be compelled to accept that arrangement, forgiving the difference between the market price of the property and what they are owed.
“We want to streamline and standardize the short sale process to make it much easier on the borrower and much easier on the lender,” said Seth Wheeler, a Treasury senior adviser.
The problem is highlighted by a routine case in Phoenix. Chris Paul, a real estate agent, has a house he is trying to sell on behalf of its owner, who owes $150,000. Mr. Paul has an offer for $48,000, but the bank holding the mortgage says it wants at least $90,000. The frustrated owner is now contemplating foreclosure.
To bring the various parties to the table — the homeowner, the lender that services the loan, the investor that owns the loan, the bank that owns the second mortgage on the property — the government intends to spread its cash around.
Under the new program, the servicing bank, as with all modifications, will get $1,000. Another $1,000 can go toward a second loan, if there is one. And for the first time the government would give money to the distressed homeowners themselves. They will get $1,500 in “relocation assistance.”
Should the incentives prove successful, the short sales program could have multiple benefits. For the investment pools that own many home loans, there is the prospect of getting more money with a sale than with a foreclosure.
For the borrowers, there is the likelihood of suffering less damage to credit ratings. And as part of the transaction, they will get the lender’s assurance that they will not later be sued for an unpaid mortgage balance.
For communities, the plan will mean fewer empty foreclosed houses waiting to be sold by banks. By some estimates, as many as half of all foreclosed properties are ransacked by either the former owners or vandals, which depresses the value of the property further and pulls down the value of neighboring homes.
If short sales are about to have their moment, it has been a long time coming. At the beginning of the foreclosure crisis, lenders shunned short sales. They were not equipped to deal with the labor-intensive process and were suspicious of it.
The lenders’ thinking, said the economist Thomas Lawler, went like this: “I lend someone $200,000 to buy a house. Then he says, ‘Look, I have someone willing to pay $150,000 for it; otherwise I think I’m going to default.’ Do I really believe the borrower can’t pay it back? And is $150,000 a reasonable offer for the property?”
Short sales are “tailor-made for fraud,” said Mr. Lawler, a former executive at the mortgage finance company Fannie Mae.
Last year, short sales started to increase, although they remain relatively uncommon. Fannie Mae said preforeclosure deals on loans in its portfolio more than tripled in 2009, to 36,968. But real estate agents say many lenders still seem to disapprove of short sales.
Under the new federal program, a lender will use real estate agents to determine the value of a home and thus the minimum to accept. This figure will not be shared with the owner, but if an offer comes in that is equal to or higher than this amount, the lender must take it.
Mr. Paul, the Phoenix agent, was skeptical. “In a perfect world, this would work,” he said. “But because estimates of value are inherently subjective, it won’t. The banks don’t want to sell at a discount.”
There are myriad other potential conflicts over short sales that may not be solved by the program, which was announced on Nov. 30 but whose details are still being fine-tuned. Many would-be short sellers have second and even third mortgages on their houses. Banks that own these loans are in a position to block any sale unless they get a piece of the deal.
“You have one loan, it’s no sweat to get a short sale,” said Howard Chase, a Miami Beach agent who says he does around 20 short sales a month. “But the second mortgage often is the obstacle.”
Major lenders seem to be taking a cautious approach to the new initiative. In many cases, big banks do not actually own the mortgages; they simply administer them and collect payments. J. K. Huey, a Wells Fargo vice president, said a short sale, like a loan modification, would have to meet the requirements of the investor who owns the loan.
“This is not an opportunity for the customer to just walk away,” Ms. Huey said. “If someone doesn’t come to us saying, ‘I’ve done everything I can, I used all my savings, I borrowed money and, by the way, I’m losing my job and moving to another city, and have all the documentation,’ we’re not going to do a short sale.”
But even if lenders want to treat short sales as a last resort for desperate borrowers, in reality the standards seem to be looser.
Sree Reddy, a lawyer and commercial real estate investor who lives in Miami Beach, bought a one-bedroom condominium in 2005, spent about $30,000 on improvements and ended up owing $540,000. Three years later, the value had fallen by 40 percent.
Mr. Reddy wanted to get out from under his crushing monthly payments. He lost a lot of money in the crash but was not in default. Nevertheless, his bank let him sell the place for $360,000 last summer.
“A short sale provides peace of mind,” said Mr. Reddy, 32. “If you’re in foreclosure, you don’t know when they’re ultimately going to take the place away from you.”
Mr. Reddy still lives in the apartment complex where he bought that condo, but is now a renter paying about half of his old mortgage payment. Another benefit, he said: “The place I’m in now is nicer and a little bigger.”
By BOB TEDESCHI
Published: March 3, 2010
LOOKING for a fixed-rate mortgage with a competitively low interest rate, but armed with only 3 percent for a down payment, a low credit score and a modest annual income?
Thanks to an infusion of federal support late last year through the economic stimulus package, the State of New York Mortgage Agency, or Sonyma, is now offering 30-year affordable-housing loans at 4.75 percent, down from an average rate of 5.25 to 5.75 percent last year and well below the 5 percent or so being offered by mainstream lenders to their best customers.
The program is for first-time buyers, though buyers who have not owned a home in the last three years would also qualify.
Connecticut, too, has dropped its rates on a similar mortgage program for first-time buyers, while New Jersey plans to lower its rates this spring.
George Leocata, a senior vice president at Sonyma, says demand for the Low Interest Rate Program has been the highest in 12 years, which is hardly surprising given the difficulty in qualifying for conventional loans in recent months.
In sharp contrast to all the mortgages out there with stiff underwriting guidelines, New York’s Low Interest Rate mortgages have no minimum credit score. Borrowers can also qualify for a Sonyma mortgage if their total monthly debt payments reach 45 percent of their monthly income — and sometimes more. That’s about 5 percent higher than the amount allowed by conventional lenders, and higher than the threshold recommended by many financial counselors.
Still, Mr. Leocata maintains that borrowers default on these loans less frequently than those with conventional mortgages. Borrowers must pay monthly mortgage insurance premiums. For a 3 percent down payment, the monthly premium is 0.8 percent of the loan amount; for 5 percent, it’s 0.67 percent; and for 10 percent, 0.42 percent.
Borrowers must also fall within the household income limits — $107,520 in Manhattan, $142,520 in Long Island and $146,420 in Westchester — and the purchase price cannot exceed $637,640.
Few brokers offer the mortgages, because lenders must split New York’s commission payment with brokers, so interested borrowers should contact lenders directly. The major banks and many regional banks participate in the program.
Mr. Leocata says mortgage rates in this program will most likely rise, if interest rates on conventional mortgages rise (as is widely expected). But he also says the program’s rates will probably remain about half a percentage point lower than the rest of the market.
Meanwhile, Jerry Keelen, the director of single-family programs at the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, said that in early April the state would probably begin offering mortgages for first-time buyers in the range of 5 percent, versus the program’s current rates of 5.75 percent.
Most loans in the program with down payments of less than 20 percent are insured by the Federal Housing Administration, and as such, are subject to F.H.A.’s mortgage insurance premiums. Income limits and home-price limits apply. Most borrowers, Mr. Keelen said, also qualify for an average of $7,500 in down payment and closing cost assistance.
The first-time homebuyer program in Connecticut has the lowest rates, at 4.375 percent.
Carol DeRosa, the administrator of residential mortgage programs at Connecticut’s Housing Finance Authority, said that as with the affordable-housing programs of other states, borrowers need not be first-time buyers if the home they want to buy is in federally targeted urban areas like Bridgeport, Stamford and Norwalk.
Even in areas where borrowers must meet the first-time-buyer qualifications, though, Ms. DeRosa says demand for these mortgages has been strong.
She said lower values were “creating good buying opportunities.”
By SEWELL CHAN
Published: February 24, 2010
WASHINGTON — Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, told Congress on Wednesday that the central bank did not intend to start raising short-term interest rates anytime soon, saying the economic recovery would remain halting for many more months.
In presenting the Fed’s semiannual monetary report to Congress, he did not waver from his recent statements on monetary policy. And the reassurance helped lift the stock market, even as a new report showed a drop in sales of new homes.
It was Mr. Bernanke’s first testimony since a grueling confirmation process ended last month, when the Senate gave him a second term as chairman by the narrowest margin in the Fed’s history.
In what appeared to be a deliberate response to the criticisms leveled at the Fed, Mr. Bernanke announced support for two measures to improve oversight of the extraordinary lending programs the Fed started in 2008.
In one of the moves toward openness, Mr. Bernanke said the Fed would back legislation requiring the eventual release of the names of borrowers that used the programs.
He also said the Fed had undertaken “an intensive self-examination” of its regulatory duties, after years in which it had failed to curb some of the most excessive risk-taking by the banks it supervises.
Members of the House Financial Services Committee seemed satisfied with Mr. Bernanke’s message and tone. The hearing was much more placid than the raucous Senate confirmation debate, in which lawmakers assailed Mr. Bernanke for failing to foresee and head off the financial crisis and for aiding the Treasury’s bailout of Wall Street.
The twice-a-year report is intended to draw focus to the central bank’s dual mandate: promoting maximum employment while keeping the inflation rate low and steady.
But many of the questions directed at Mr. Bernanke focused on the federal debt and deficits, or the difficulties small companies have had in obtaining loans and the bleak state of the commercial real estate market, areas over which he has little authority.
In contrast to his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, who frequently offered his thoughts on fiscal policy, Mr. Bernanke tried to deflect efforts to get him to endorse either additional fiscal stimulus or prompt deficit reduction.
“Obviously, unemployment is the biggest problem we have,” he told the committee’s chairman, Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts. “But there are difficult trade-offs that you have to make.”
Mr. Bernanke also agreed with Spencer T. Bachus of Alabama, the senior Republican on the committee, that huge long-term deficits could not be sustained. “In order to maintain a stable ratio of debt-to-G.D.P., you need to have a deficit that’s 2 ½, 3 percent at the most,” he said referring to the gross domestic product.
The current structural deficit, which government agencies estimate at from 4 percent to 7 percent of G.D.P., is unsustainable, Mr. Bernanke said.
He added: “It’s not necessarily just a long-term issue, because it is possible that bond markets will become worried about the sustainability, and we may find ourselves facing higher interest rates even today.”
Three hours passed without any serious effort by lawmakers to get Mr. Bernanke to specify when the Fed might start to tighten credit. Nor did they question the Fed’s decision last week to raise the discount rate on loans it charges to banks, a largely technical but widely noticed step to normalize lending.
“Although the federal funds rate is likely to remain exceptionally low for an extended period, as the expansion matures, the Federal Reserve will at some point need to begin to tighten monetary conditions to prevent the development of inflationary pressures,” Mr. Bernanke said in testimony that accompanied the 53-page monetary report.
Jeffrey A. Frankel, an economist at the Harvard Kennedy School, said the appearance had a reassuring effect. “What he said probably allayed concerns that some segments of the market might have had about premature tightening of monetary policy,” he said.
Catherine L. Mann of the International Business School at Brandeis University said the biggest challenge the Fed faces is navigating the next financial bubble. “Whereas they want to keep interest rates low to stimulate Main Street, the reality is that low interest rates are mostly stimulating Wall Street,” she said.
Moving from monetary to regulatory matters, Mr. Bernanke said he supported greater transparency for the special lending programs the Fed created in 2008 to prop up securities firms, money market funds, and issuers of commercial paper and student, auto and credit card loans.
“While the emergency credit and liquidity facilities were important tools for implementing monetary policy during the crisis, we understand that the unusual nature of those facilities creates a special obligation to assure the Congress and the public of the integrity of their operations,” he said.
He said the Fed would disclose the identities of the borrowers after a “lag that is sufficiently long” to avoid hurting the companies, undermining market confidence or discouraging borrowers.
Mr. Bernanke also said he would support audits by the Government Accountability Office of how the lending programs were conducted.
But he defended the longstanding practice of not disclosing which banks borrow from the central bank’s discount window.
“The reason is that banks will only come to the discount window in a period of crisis or panic, and if they believe that their names will be revealed, that would indeed, in fact, intensify the crisis or panic,” Mr. Bernanke said.
During the financial crisis, the Fed helped arrange the sale of the investment bank Bear Stearns and the rescues of the American International Group and Citigroup. Those interventions are already subject to G.A.O. audits.
9.2 acre equestrian property that went to contract February 2009
Their are five pending sale of homes in Manorville for the month of January 2009 . Of the five, two were condominiums in Greenwood Village, a fifty five and over community, one was a condominium in the Greens, one was a condominium in Silver Ponds and the fifth was a 9.2 acre equestrian property.
What is important to realize from this is that no “traditional” single family homes sold in January last month in Manorville.
The numbers are not very different from the same time last year. In 2008, six properties sold in January in Manorville. Of the six, five were single family homes ranging in price from $425,000 to $625,000 and the sixth was a condo in the high $400,000′s. A far cry from this years spread of $90,00 to $310,000.
In February of 2009 we have nine sales. Three are condos in Greenwood Village from $90,000 to $145,000. One is a condo in Silver Ponds that was asking $309,000, and five are single family homes ranging from $389,000 to $499,000.
- Clancy Road ~ Sold Feb 2009
In February of 2008 we had twelve sales (homes that went to contract in that month). Two were Greenwood Village condos under $100,000 and eight were single family homes ranging in price from $385,000 to $615,000.
What we see from this trend is that the upper end of the market is “missing”. Homes are selling but mostly in the lower price brackets. We will continue to track these sales for the comming months and I will also compare all of 2008 to 2007.
In January of 2009 Center Moriches had five home sales ranging in price (asking) from $225,000 to $549,000 with an average 290 days on the market. In 2008 we had four sales ranging from $300,000 to $560,000 with an average 120 days on the market. February of 2009 showes six sales. Two homes are new construction asking $399,000 and $539,000 and four are resales ranging from $199,000 to $469,000. In February of 2008 we had three sales ranging from $250,000 to $449,000. Center moriches had a very good 2009.
East Moriches had only one sale for the month of January 2009, a $280,000 ranch with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. In 2008 we had five sales ranging in price from $379,000 to $414,000. For February 2009 we had only one sale, a contemporary home in Baywood that had an original price of $699,000 and sold for below $500,000. In February of 2008 we had three sales ranging from $330,000 to $524,000. Check back for a more detailed report on this town in the next week or so.
Lilly Pond Lane Eastport sold February 2008
Eastport had two contracts for the month of January 2009. One was a $499,000 condo in Encore, a fifty five and over community with large luxury homes and a clubhouse. The other was a single family home that was for sale for several years and was asking $599,000 at the time of the sale. In 2008 we had no contracts for January in Eastport. February shows the reverse of January with no contracts in 2009 and only one in 2008 for a single family home asking $699,000 and selling for $560,000 after 144 days on the market.
Changes in the market are the source of many articles and newscasts as well as this blog. I will be compiling a chart to compare 2009 to the last few years. Clearly homes are still selling but changes are evident. It will be interesting to track the months ahead.
Source: Multiple Listing Service of Long Island
