Monday, November 15, 2010

The End is Nigh


The end of great deals on homes in New York City, that is. How can this be? Are we not still stuck in a shocked and awed economy?

Unlike many other major metropolitan centers in America, New York City, along with a handful of other cities, have actually seen house prices rise steadily in the last 4 months, as reported in this Forbes article. According to the article, New York City has seen four months of home price improvements, going up 1.2% in July and 0.2% in August.

New York City's housing was always in demand, since it was in short supply even before the crash. That demand insulated New York from the plunge in prices seen in the most overheated markets like Las Vegas and Phoenix.

Those that have been waiting to buy a home because they wanted to find the bottom of the market, you have already missed the boat. The good news however, is that the return of upward movement in house prices is a slow and steady one, that reflects more rational thought about the value of property. That means that there is still time to get in on what is possibly the best "system reset" of housing prices we will see in our lifetime. Combined with the incredibly favorable mortgage lending rates, this is still likely to be the best time to buy real estate in the next several decades.

The signals are clear: Slowly but surely, people will find fewer and fewer great deals on a home.

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Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The Tools You Really Need to Maintain Your Home


What tools do you really need to maintain your home?

A hammer, a multi-bit screwdriver, a cordless compact hammer drill, a jigsaw, and a pull saw, according to this NY Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/garden/14pragmatist.html

The article goes into the reasons why and also explores a bit more into which ones to get and why.


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Monday, November 8, 2010

The American Dream is Alive and Well with Gen Y

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) just released a study that suggests that the echo boomer generation, or Gen Y, holds a high view of the American Dream – despite the housing market collapse -- with the majority of respondents expecting to own homes within five years.

While the largest percentage of Gen Yers currently rent, live with their families, or live in student housing, more than 70 percent expect to own a home by the time they reach their early thirties. Sixty-seven percent of all the respondents expect to own homes by 2015.

The sheer size of the Gen Y generation, nearly 25 percent of the population of the US, means it will have enormous influence on the real estate industry and the economy in general – an impact likely to be as striking and long-lasting as that of the baby boomers.

Eighty-two percent of the survey respondents who said they anticipate owning by 2015 expect to be living in a single-family home, far outstripping the percentage who expect to own a condominium, duplex or townhome. The price of housing – in terms of monthly mortgage payments or lease payments -- ranked as the most important feature, outweighing other features such as green building.

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Friday, November 5, 2010

National Grid's Enhanced Home Sealing Incentive Program (EHSIP)


With the winter chill coming, here is an interesting homeowner program from National Grid: The Enhanced Home Sealing Incentive Program (EHSIP). This program helps you keep out the cold by identifying and curing drafts in your home. The program provides for a Building Performance Institute (BPI) certified Energy Specialist to come and assess your home from top to bottom. The specialist will also identify and seal air leaks for up two hours. Lastly, National Grid provides $3,000 in attic insulation incentives. To qualify, your home must have been built before 1980. For more details, visit http://members.questline.com/Article.aspx?articleID=17299

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Wednesday, November 3, 2010

If only...

The great lament among people is that they would be rich or better off "If only I had bought when..." Yet the very same people who make this claim also fail to recognize opportunity when it faces them. What if some one said, at the height of the housing boom, that they could roll back time to let you get in on the ground floor? That you could invest in a home for your family for the future at prices that were still reasonable?

While many don't realize it, that is exactly what the latest correction in housing prices means. Depending on the market you are in, the market has corrected housing prices back to as far as 2001 according to this article from the Calculated Risk Blog, citing housing consultant John Burns.


Case-Shiller: House Prices have corrected to what year?

















In New York, where the housing boom was not in as big a bubble, housing prices have returned to 2005 levels. If ever opportunity were ever so clear, this would be the gilded envelope the invitation comes in. Buy in 2010 at 2005 prices and be one of the people who can proudly say "The best decision I ever made was having bought when..."

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Monday, November 1, 2010

The Disaster Lab



Nothing like a mini disaster movie to start of your work week, right? The video above shows two homes, one that has been fortified to withstand a tornado or hurricane. As you can see the results are rather dramatic. Amazingly, the fortified home only cost $5,000 more to build... a small price when you consider the alternative.

This test was conducted in the Institute for Business & Home Safety's $40 million, 2,300-square-foot disaster lab in South Carolina, which can simulate entire homes being put against tornado-strength winds or Category 3 hurricanes.

One wall of the lab contains 105 giant fans that can simulate extreme winds, and a 750,000-gallon water tank can introduce water to that mix, simulating tropical storm and hurricane conditions. A large hurricane simulation costs about $100,000 to conduct.

Learn more about the lab at: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-10/video-insurance-industrys-new-disaster-lab-destroys-its-inaugural-home

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